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Vexan Imperial Space - Year of Emperor Nimar, 131
An explosion rocked the ship, knocking the entire crew off of their feet. As the Commander struggled back to her feet, she yelled for a status report.
"Impact on starboard, decks 8, 9 and 10!"
"Starboard engine offline!"
"No fatalities, seven wounded!"
"Shields are holding. Repair teams on their way."
The young Commander nodded as she collapsed into the nearest chair. The war between her people and the Hrrrrunai had been raging for decades, each claiming the planet below as their own, though neither knew what had happened to it's former inhabitants. "Withdraw to the moon, we cannot stay and fight. This battle is theirs."
The crew nodded as they used the power from their only remaining engine to fly to the nearest of the planet's two moons. Their main fleet was hiding behind the other one, but they didn't have enough fuel to reach them and if they had tried, they would be leading their enemies straight to them. Something any good spacer knew was a bad thing.
"Commander! The fleet is hailing us!"
Or maybe not. "Don't they know that these idiots can trace the signal? Ignore them."
"But Commander, the fleet will think..."
"Let them think it. Maybe our enemies will too and leave us alone long enough to do the repairs we need." She stood from the chair and started toward the exit from the bridge. "I want all non-essential power routed to life support. We don't know how long we're going to have to sit here and wait, nor do we know if we'll get a chance to refuel soon. I want the Hrrrrunai to think that we are nothing more than a floating coffin!"
The bridge crew nodded and lights began flickering off all over the ship. As the Commander made her way through the ship, she relayed the order to the remaining various crew members. They were not to venture outside the ship unless sensors showed nothing there, no using anything that could be detected by the Hrrrrunai. In other words, this was going to be one hell of a long day.
December 1, 2009
Kageshirou teleported into the house he knew his mother was in. He wasn't expecting, however, for there to be people standing in the front hall. He smirked at the suddenly tense women when he felt the presence he was looking for in the very next room. Ignoring the cries of shock, he walked into the living room. He found his mother, Uncles Seiya and Yaten and one woman he knew to be Chiba Usagi all sitting with another woman he did not recognize. "Dema, crishtai ima m'kek."
Seiya and Yaten jumped to their feet, then glanced at Kakyuu. The ousted princess excused herself from her guests for a moment, then moved to speak with her son. "What do you mean, a problem?" she asked, in Kinmokunai so that only her guards could understand. She could tell by Usagi's expression that she had picked up on what was going on.
Kageshirou frowned, trying to think of the best way to phrase it. "There is ... something following us. It's not one of the Hrrrrunai vessels as far as we can tell, but we don't know for sure what it is or how many ... we left a tracer in the portal and the signal was just relayed to the Av'Nai. I didn't want to do anything without consulting you."
Kakyuu frowned, motioning for Seiya and Yaten to join them. "Seiya, I need to ask a favor of you."
Seiya nodded, already guessing what the queen wanted. "I can be ready in an hour."
"No, Seiya, Rei-chan needs you here. Yaten needs to stay with his children. As does Taiki." Kakyuu paused for several moments as she glanced over at Usagi then back to her friends. "Kaish is still too far away ... I need the twins. They are the best trained warriors, aside from the three of you that I have on this planet."
Seiya looked like he wanted to protest, but Yaten's hand on his arm stopped him. He nodded, turning his gaze to the floor. "Very well, Princess."
Kakyuu smiled sadly at her long-time friend, then looked at her son. "Take the twins, your ship and only those of your crew you know you can trust. I do not want any of this getting back to Meiya, just in case is it Hrrrrunai, is that clear?"
Kageshirou nodded. He had been watching his step-father from the beginning, from the various cameras he had set up on his 'Kara's' ship. "I understand." He bowed to the three adults, then slipped out of the room to find the two younger warriors.
Kakyuu walked back over to her guests and smiled. "My son ... he thinks that one of our ships may have been damaged in the crossing."
"Oh," the President's aide replied. "I hope that your people are alright."
Seiya stood at the door for several long moments, until he felt the hand on his arm pull him back to the meeting. He smiled slightly at Usagi as he resumed his seat, then looked back to the aide. "We were discussing the possible trade of technology ..."
Usagi wondered for a moment why Seiya was suddenly hard to read again, but dismissed it as something to ask about later as she turned her attention back to the discussion at hand.
The Commander sighed as she entered the medical bay. "Why did I ever decide that I wanted to be a spacer?"
The doctor, a civilian named Mahret, smiled slightly. "Because you followed in the footsteps of countless generations before you." She turned to face the Commander and frowned when she saw the dark stain on the other woman's abdomen. "You should have let me come to you."
"Doesn't really matter. We'll all be dead soon, anyway. What does it matter if it's from these wounds or the ship's destruction?" The Commander, now safely away from prying eyes, dropped the warrior mask and allowed her own bitterness over the war to show through. "Why couldn't the Imperials be satisfied with the Empire the way it was? There was more than enough room for twice our population."
Mahret helped the other woman to one of the beds and removed the top part of her uniform. "Because 'The Key to survival in space is attack or be attacked'? Isn't that the motto of any good spacer?" She gave the Commander pain meds then started cleaning the wound. "How did you get this, anyway?"
"That damned statue of the Emperor. He would have to insist that the sword on it actually be sharp." Commander Mex, widow of the late count Proten, told the doctor that during the first round of explosions, the statue had shattered and the outstretched arm of the Emperor had fallen onto the Command chair. "I didn't even realize it until I left the bridge."
"Liar." The doctor had known the Commander since the two were children and was the only person that ever dared speak back to her. "You know, you had better be glad that this is only a Razr-class ship. If it had been any bigger, you'd probably be dead by now."
Mex smiled a little as the other woman finished bandaging her wounds. She knew that by the time they would be rescued, the wounds would be healed, thanks to the advancement of tissue-regeneration.
For nearly four centuries, the Vexans had had bio-mechanical nano-bots running through their bodies, fixing everything from life-threatening wounds to simple cuts and bruises. The need for complicated life-saving surgeries had been greatly reduced and the life-span of the average Vexan drastically increased. As a trade-off, however, the race had given up the ability to bear their own children. It seemed that whenever a female Vexan became pregnant, the 'ReGeneration Factor', or 'RGF', as it had come to be known, would assume the baby was a tumorous growth and attack it. The problem did not become noticeable until nearly a century after the practice of implanting the 'RGF' into all Imperial and Noble newborns, most born via artificial surrogate, had become common and irreversible.
Since most Vexans of Noble birth had long-since taken to the lives of spacers, they had no time for families of their own and could leave their DNA frozen in genetic labs until they reached mandatory retirement, when a clone would be created to take the place of it's parent. Very few Vexans seemed to mind the fact not only were their numbers slowly dwindling, but that nearly every Noble alive today was at least a second, third, fourth or later generation clone. And with each new generation, came problems.
Mex herself was a third generation while Mahret, whose great-great-great-great-'grandmother' was a pioneer in the cloning industry, was a seventh generation. As Mex watched the other woman move around the med-deck, she frowned. Grabbing Mahret's arm as she walked past, she pulled her sleeve up to reveal several deep, long needle marks. "'Ret? What's going on?"
Mahret stopped what she was doing and turned her gaze to the floor. "It doesn't work anymore. The 'RGF' in my line goes back to the very beginnings of the technology, as you know. It would seem that ... they are outdated." She pulled her arm free from the other woman's grasp and moved to her lab table. "I've tried re-implantation, but ... it failed."
"Failed? How can it fail? I thought they were supposed to work no matter what. How do you know it failed?"
"I'm pregnant, Mex."
Miyo and Shi weren't very excited about the idea of going out into space to face a possible unknown, but given the situation on Earth, they both agreed that they were the best choices. Taiki had been kept from his daughter for over a year and was now being carefully watched by the government. Tanetomi was having problems adjusting to American-style school. Usami and Tsuki could not be endangered. Mi-ko was still recovering and she and Kai were still dealing with the deaths of their mother and younger brother. The others were all still too young to fight and the humans had no idea of what space travel was really like. If they were going to be facing the Hrrrrunai already, none of them wanted an inexperienced human watching their back.
Kageshirou, being a Prince of the Empire, had been able to hand-select his crew from day one and would trust them all with his life. He made no changes now, save adding the twins and leaving any civilians they had acquired on Kakyuu's flagship. He would have preferred to stay on Earth with his family, but he knew his duty was first to protect his mother and sisters. Anything else ... simply had to wait.
They had left the solar system and were almost to the entrance to the jump-point when their computers indicated that the portal was opening. The ship moved a safe distance away from the portal and Kageshirou used his powers to cloak the ship from any radar.
"Who could it be? The only ships we're missing are two merchant freighters and Aunt Kaish's guard ship. And they haven't had time to pass through yet." Shi watched as the portal opened, one hand already hovering over the weapons systems.
Miyo glanced up at the main screen and gasped. A ship had just appeared at the edge of the portal, but it was obvious that the ship was dead in space. Large pieces of the hull were missing and there were no energy readings coming from it at all. "Wreckage? It must have gotten caught up in the wake of one of our ships," she replied. "That must have been the 'ghost' you detected."
One of the techs was cross-referencing the ship with their database. "There are no matching ships in our records of that design or size. Could it be a Sol vessel?"
"Impossible. They're not capable of making anything like this," Shi replied, staring at the image. She magnified the image on one of the holes and pointed to the edges of the mark. "See the way the hull has literally melted? Something powerful had to do that. There isn't anything in this System capable of that kind of power."
Kageshirou agreed. Being, by far, the most versed in ships and weapons of the 'Noble' children, he had immediately recognized the burn pattern on the hull. "Those were made by Hrrrrunai Class III disruptors. But they haven't used those in ... 300 years."
Miyo walked toward the viewscreen and pointed at a painted image on the edge of the ship. "What's that?"
The image was mulitplied and cleaned up several times, revealing a large blue and white field of stars with a stylistic silver bird in front of it. One of the bridge crew, a descendant of a race once known as Vex, stood and saluted. "That is the symbol of the Imperial Family. They were killed centuries ago in a battle against the Hrrrrunai. It was rumored that one Imperial Cruiser was lost, status unknown, but ... it had become little more than legend."
Kageshirou nodded slightly. "Then I think we need to find out what really happened to that ship, for all of our sakes. Somehow, some time, it got pulled in to the portal. We need to know if it was there before we opened it or if we pulled it in after us." He glanced at his cousins then to the man that stood. "You three will accompany me. The rest of you ... wait one hour. If you don't hear from us by then, get the hell out of here."
The Commander sighed as she glanced over the reports they had managed to intercept then up to the remaining crew. It seemed that the Vex had been defeated in battle. Her ship now held what few members of the Imperial Family still lived and it was her duty to make sure they survived. "I'm sorry my friends, but there is no other way. Doctor Mahret has told me that there are enough stasis pods to hold only half the crew. The rest were destroyed in battle. I'm afraid ... I'm going to have to ask you to leave the ship."
The crew members in front of her showed varying reactions, shock, fear, relief, before they each schooled their expressions into the masks they had been trained to wear. The ship had only had 20 crew members when she left the Vexan homeworld, now they numbered only 12: six civilians (two with RGF, four without), five descendants of the Imperial Family and Countess/Commander Mex (all with RGF). For all they knew, they were the last of the Imperials, the Nobles ... and maybe even the last of the Vexans all together.
Commander Mex pointed at a holo-image of the moon's surface. "You will have to use the escape pods and evacuate before we get pulled any closer to the moon. We are going to crash. Enough of the ship should survive to ensure that the stasis pods reach the lunar surface safely. Your mission will be to reach the planet, search for survivors ... and if possible, launch a rescue. However, if that is not possible, your mission is then to survive. Make homes and lives for yourselves on the planet surface. Ensure that the Vexan race survives."
The civilian crew saluted, then left the room to prepare for departure from the ship. The Commander sighed as she collapsed into her chair. She grabbed her side as the injuries she had sustained in battle began hurting again, something that after her talk with Mahret, had her worried. She would never admit it to the civilians, but she was doing them a favor, sending them out to die swiftly at the hands of their enemies.
Only the doctor and she knew the secrets about the stasis pods. Any one that had ever come out of them, went mad. She respected the Imperials, but they had no use as survivors. Sure, like all other Vex, they had been trained in basic skills, but their talents were more suited to diplomacy and politics than hunting and gathering. A knock at her door interrupted her thoughts and she motioned for the young girl, an Imperial Princess that had been assigned to the ship as an ensign, to come into the room.
"You wanted to see me, Commander?" the Princess asked. Zaxi had at first balked at doing anything at the request of another until one of her elder brothers had called her a ... rather unflattering name for any lady of noble birth. She had complained to their father and was told in very few words that it was time she grew up. This ship had been the next one leaving the homeworld.
"Yes, Princess. I wanted to ... ask a favor of you." Mex smiled at the young girl. "The ship is in a decaying orbit around the moon and we don't have enough fuel to pull it out. Most of the escape pods were destroyed in the attack, as well as several of the stasis pods. Not all of us can stay and not all of us can leave. I've already arranged for the civilians to use the escape pods and try and reach help on the planet surface, where reports from the probes indicate life where there was none just two weeks ago ... I need the Imperials to enter the stasis pods to wait for help to arrive."
"Is that all, Commander?" The young Princess smiled when the older woman nodded, then left the room. Like all other Imperials, her training had been vague and mandatory. She breezed her way through all of her classes and had expected to do the same on a ship, so entering stasis was a definite plus over having to actually work. She had gone to space to show her father she was just as grown up as the rest of his children. She had never expected to be involved in the war, but now that it seemed over, she decided that maybe it wasn't so bad at all.
Shi stepped onto what was left of the bridge and frowned. "No one here, either. Looks like most of the electronics are fried, though. We may not be able to get an answer."
"That's ok. As long as we get the computer up and running, we should be able to establish a link with Kageshirou's ship." Miyo looked over the shoulder of the Vexan, Tactical Officer Noi, as he tried to access the ship's computer. Since the ship had been in the cold depths of space for who knew how long with no power, they had each had to put on thermal suits equipped with breathers. The suits forced them to rely on comm. devices to keep in contact with each other, even though Miyo, Shi and Noi were less than fifteen feet from each other at the current moment.
Kageshirou, meanwhile, had gone in an alternate direction from the other three. He had had to pry open the doors to the crew's quarters and found them surprisingly large and decadent for a ship so small. He thought that the next room in his search, the galley, left a lot to be desired, though, bare walls, just a few tables and chairs that were seemingly bolted into the floor. "Hey, Noi .. I thought you said your family loved cooking. From the looks of this galley, it must be something they picked up on Kinmoku."
"Probably. Grandma always said that the ships were never designed for luxury. At least not for the civilian crew. See anything that might suggest what happened yet?"
"No, nothing here but furniture." He continued on for several minutes and was about to pass up a rather large storage room next to what he had assumed was the medical facility when the doors opened at his approach. "Miyo, did you get the computer online?"
"Yes," Miyo's voice seemed to echo in the large room. "Are the lights on where you're at?"
"No, no lights, but the doors are working. There seems to be a ... storage room of some kind. Looks like it's tied into the med-deck. I'm going to check it out."
"Wait for Shi to join you. There's no telling what's hiding in there."
Kageshirou nodded. "Good point. You and Noi be careful up there. I don't like empty ships."
"Neither do I," Noi replied.
Kageshirou wasn't surprised when Shi appeared next to him in a swirl of what appeared to be flower petals, moments later. They must have been able to at least pull a map from the computer for her to be able to teleport in an unknown vessel. He nodded at her as they moved farther into the room. "Anything from the computer on what attacked them?"
"Nothing. But we have found data that suggests it was a little more than 300 years ago."
"How much more?" Kageshirou spotted a row of containers on the far side of the room and motioned for Shi to follow him. He scraped ice crystals off of the outside of one using a piece of metal he found lying on the floor.
"About 400 years."
Kageshirou stopped when he heard Miyo's reply. "You mean this thing has been floating around in space for 700 years?" He heard Shi gasp and looked up to see what she was looking at. Inside the large container was what appeared to be the body of a young woman, probably no older than the twins. "A coffin?"
"What coffin?"
"There's a body ... encased in ... crystalized ice." Shi sounded rattled, more than any of the others had ever heard.
Miyo immediately teleported to her sister's side and stared at the box in shock. "Cryogenic chambers. I've never actually seen one before."
"That must mean ... grandmother's stories were true, then," Noi replied. He was still on the bridge, trying to establish a link with their ship. "Are any of the pods still intact?"
Kageshirou glanced down the row, counting. "There are about ten that aren't busted, but that doesn't mean they're all working. Can you give us a little more power down here?"
After a couple of moments, Noi replied, "All I can give you is enough power to turn on the lights for about a minute, if we're lucky. Fuel cells are nearly depleted. It's taking everything the ship's got just to power the pods. We'll be lucky to get a link back to our ship at this rate." He was quiet for several moments before sighing. "I can't get any further into the systems. This is going to take a lot longer than this ship has power for."
"Then we tow this thing back to the fleet and try to figure it out there." Kageshirou noticed that Miyo seemed to be shaking and placed a hand on her arm. "Miyo, are you okay?"
Miyo jumped then looked at her cousin. "I'm ... fine. It's just ..."
"... an old nightmare." Shi looked at the stasis pods then shuddered. She vanished in her normal swirl of flowers, followed moments later by Miyo.
Kageshirou shook his head slightly then looked at the figures in the chambers. "Welcome to a whole new world my friends." He turned and left the room, heading back to the bridge.
