Logistical Mandate [GRIMDARK] [POLITICAL SCIFI] [HARD SCIFI]

One act of survival. An endless cascade of consequences. Over millennia of sublight expansion, the Human Directorate united much of humanity using a simple formula: identify and eliminate social entropy. Its favored tool? The interstellar fleet. Liu Yang is a sensor officer on the battlecruiser Peacekeeper. He gave up his old life for a meaningless rank, a depreciating payout and a fading sense of duty. The ship and his crew are all he has left. Then someone arrives to take away even that. To survive, Liu and the crew do something unforgivable. They think they've gotten away with it. They are wrong. The cost does not stop compounding. The lies and killing cannot stop. There is no escape, only a choice in the nature of your cage. Novella:  Decades after being abandoned by her father, Liu Yang's estranged daughter Luo Xixi is suffocating. Trapped in a make-work welfare job and living off her father’s service payout, she sees only 1 hope for her future: the colonial frontier. But the frontier is not freedom. As Directorate rule fades with distance, tyranny is replaced not by freedom but by barbarism and cruelty. And she will witness some of the worst horrors the galaxy has to offer. Survival demands compromise. Every step towards salvation leads deeper into the darkness. There is no escape, only a change in the nature of your cage. If you want to support this work (or check out some art): https://ko-fi.com/jianzheng