Vault of the Last Autarch

**Wired** · 08-16-2017, 06:14 AM

My entry for the July/August Lite Challenge (vote for the entries here):

For six decades Autarch Primsen Whittaker had ruled Epsilon Eridani with an iron fist, backed by Earther corporations and with the tacit approval of the United Nation's Star Council. When his people rose up in revolt in 2636 and much of his Forces deserted, Whittaker still fought tooth and nail, scorching the soil wherever he could not hold onto it, until only his most stalwart cadre remained and he was forced to flee on his personal yacht, the "Heart's Desire". Only a duo of rebel cruisers managed to latch onto its drive signature and track it through hyperspace, all the way to Whittaker's secret base. There, in a rain of nuclear detonations, graser fire and burning neutron radiation did the reign of the Autarch end in mutual destruction. Even today, half a century after his disappearance and demise, do soldiers of fortune from all corners of known space search for his whereabouts, for rumor has it that Whittaker had hid away much of Eridani's state treasury in gold and rare elements in his secret base...