Give me a thermos of
coffee, a chocolate biscuit
and let me take a break.
Rendezvous Zone - Muwani outpost - Gorean Territory
~~*~~
The crew of the T'zaht crouched behind the limited cover of their perimeter, completely surrounded for the second time. The Marines changed their clips, realizing the desperate situation of being trapped on a deserted planetoid without any hope of escape. Literally cornered.
Katz sucked on his teeth as he looked around him at the tundra, looking for any way out, any route of escape the ring of Lessar Gorean that had formed around them. It was no good, and he looked at Rikard who had shed his black coat, standing in the middle of the perimeter, clutching his ribs, a trickle of blood seeping from the corner of his mouth, watching the Gorean dropship as he readied himself for battle.
"Can we survive this?" Katz called across to the former Chancellor.
"Me, yes," Rikard said simply. "You? No."
"I thought we were all in this together?" Katz asked, shaking his head.
"If you mean in the same cook pot, I'm afraid that isn't likely," Rikard stated. "Even without the ring device, I don't know if I can kill all of them, if there is a High Gorean, then I am afraid that you are completely out of luck. I'm powerful, but hardly that powerful."
"The god has limits…" Katz looked surprised.
Rikard sighed, "Demi-god… semi-phenomenal… God-light if you want to compare me to Denver-Cola, nê?"
"I always hated that brand," Katz answered. "Too sweet, you think they're hungry?" he nodded towards the snarling ring of saurian flesh.
Rikard shrugged, "Don't laugh, you're the quarter-ponder round here, which reminds me… I have to change the clown burger recipe when we get back to civilization."
"Doctor Kyr?" a booming voice called across the plain.
Rikard and Katz stared at each other, before they both turned to the small Kaynin, who was looking as equally surprised where he crouched.
"I don't do house calls," Kyr called back.
"I know you are there, Doctor Kyr, the Muwani informed us that you had been captured," There was a pause. "I am coming out of the dropship; I would rather that you not shoot me."
"The Gorean want to parlay?" Rikard hissed over at Katz. "What is wrong with today, I know my morning horoscope said 'today will be a day of surprises' but this is ridiculous…"
"What do you think?" Kyr asked Katz.
Katz shrugged, "I don't know…"
"Doctor Kyr?" The loud voice boomed again.
"Okay," Kyr shouted back, getting up from his hidey hole, tentatively moving out into the open facing the dropship as the bulky shape slithered into the doorway, a large muzzle and burnished bronze scales slid forward, as large claws hauled the scarred High Gorean forward into the light.
"Oh my God!" Kyr smiled.
"Oh my God!" Rikard sighed in dismay.
The Gorean Ambassador, Xanatos, made his way slowly forward. The wounds that had been inflicted upon him at the hands of the former Chancellor had left vicious scars over his body. But there was no doubting the face that smiled warmly at the small Doctor.
"I cannot believe it," Xanatos stated, his fan shaped hood flexing as he settled onto his forearms, the drooping whiskers twitching fondly as he stared through large eyes at Kyr.
"You can't believe it?" Kyr said shaking his head in amazement. "I can't believe you are walking… let alone out here on the frontier."
"We Gorean are quite resilient, and our medical technology is quite advanced," he bared his teeth as he stared past Kyr at Rikard. "Mister Denver…"
"Now Ambassador Xanatos, let's not lose our heads…" Rikard warned, backing up a step visibly worried.
"Indeed," Xanatos said his head rising and his claws flexing, "I was quite attached to mine, at least before you severed it and stuck it in a jar…"
"You got better," Rikard observed with a casual toss of his hand.
Xanatos looked down at Kyr, "well you are fortunate that I ordered my Lessers to watch the data-nets for your name. I had hoped for news of my angel of mercy… now I can arrange comfortable quarters for you aboard my ship…"
"And my companions?" Kyr asked hopefully.
"Of course," Xanatos replied. "However there is a condition, Mister Denver isn't among them."
"Oh we totally agree to that," Katz stated as he stood from where he crouched.
"Et tu, china?" Rikard pressed a hand over his heart and gave his best imitation of a hurt look, which quickly faded into disgust, "now that isn't a surprise."
HMS T'zaht - Arcanis System - former Polian Alliance
~~*~~
Chuck stared helplessly at the controls of the T'zaht, shocked as the vessel materialized on a ruined sentinel station. He stared in shock at Hartley, who was equally as surprised at their sudden departure.
The sky burned, meteors streaking through the ruined atmosphere created by the structure crashing to the ground in the distance, throwing up plumes of dust as they erupted with the force of nuclear explosions.
"Propylons," Hartley said, "had to be…"
"Where are we?" Chuck asked leaning down to glance at the ships instruments on the helm.
"Step away from the controls Chuck," Galadriel commanded, the Pulse Rifle in her hands indicated she meant business.
"What the hell are you doing Lieutenant?" Chuck demanded as he straightened up.
"I didn't anticipate having to bring you both along," Galadriel murmured, a wild look in her eyes as if she were really talking to herself. "But I can't afford you disrupting my plans… but if I kill you then…"
Hartley reached across and flipped some controls.
"What are you doing?" Galadriel screamed, the Pulse Rifle swinging to cover him.
"Activating the Muwani shield system," Hartley said, trying to keep calm despite the fact that the mad woman was pointing a gun at him. "If one of those meteors hits us without them we'd all be dead."
"Get up!" she barked, gesturing for him to stand, swinging the rifle back to cover Chuck. "You too, move, back to the conference room."
The two crewmen did as they were told, walking back to the conference room, as the wild eyed Kardiac lieutenant hit the controls for the blast doors sealing them inside.
"What the hell was that?" Chuck asked walking forward to try the door controls. Frustrated as they locked him out.
Hartley shook his head as he stared out of the observation port, on the burning sky beyond. "We're on Arcanis… we have to be look at the sky."
Chuck turned to the window, "Warlord Taine destroyed this world years ago…"
"No, no Wing Commander Kendrick destroyed the moon," Hartley struggled to remember. "Blew it apart and caused a complete ecological collapse of the world. The meteors are pieces of the moon burning up in an atmosphere, so many of them…"
"What does Lieutenant Galadriel want with Arcanis, and why the hell did she bring us here without the Captain?" Chuck asked turning back to the door.
Hartley fished through the pockets of his overalls, pulling out some of his tools, "give me a few and I can pop that blast door for you XO."
Chuck grinned, "bless you Chief, you're a godsend some times."
Gorean Destroyer - in transit - Gorean Territory
~~*~~
It was definitely a cell, comfortable though it was. There was no doubt that they had been disarmed and locked up.
Katz slammed the flat of his palm against the door as he cursed.
His crew and the marines were standing up to their waists in water, looking up towards the metal grill over their heads, where Lesser Gorean stared down, salivating over the fresh meat that was sitting in something all too reminiscent of a stew pot.
"What's wrong with that Gorean?" Wheeler asked shivering in the wet cold.
Killborne looped an arm protectively over the kid, drawing him close to help keep him warm, shaking her head. "Looks like it got into a fight with a blender and lost… I heard something about a Gorean that had been chopped up during the Ordessus mission. The Doc sewed him back together or something…"
"The Gorean on Karin were bigger," another marine said, joining Katz at the door to try and help him budge it.
"Juvenile," Katz stated flatly as he gave up trying to lift the door. Sitting on the narrow ledge that acted like a step up to the door. "Xanatos was only a small Gorean, the full grown adults were too large to fit on our ships, and couldn't act as an ambassador, at least that is what Darien explained to me when I asked him about Xanatos the first time."
"Are we going to get out of this Skipper?" Wheeler asked nervously.
"This one's squarely up to Kyr," Katz admitted.
Gorean Destroyer - in transit - Gorean Territory
~~*~~
Kyr's eyes snapped open as he gasped for breath, struggling out from underneath the thin mesh shroud that was covering him, scrambling to his feet, despite the wave of dizziness that caused him to stagger.
"Wh-what?" he gasped, realizing he was alone standing beside a solid golden dais that he had been laying upon.
The robes he was wearing were of a fine quality, cut from alien silks and skins sewn together in a bizarre pattern that was surprisingly comfortable and airy. He moved across the small chamber, staring up at the vaulted windows spilling a golden sunlight across him, relishing the warmth.
Beyond the arch was a great chamber. Massive marble columns supporting the ceiling, as on either side similar great windows caught the light of a massive star that warmed the whole chamber. The black marble was offset with red paint and gilt working, giving a rich lavishness to the main chamber of the ship. Glowing crystals dominated four golden stands at each corner of a deep recess in the floor, where the juvenile High Gorean Xanatos slumbered, basking in the sunlight.
Kyr moved forward nervously, watching as alien serving maids dressed in white swept in and out of the columns bringing plates piled high with food and setting them down before their lord.
"It is all right doctor," Xanatos rumbled, leaning up onto his forelegs and opening his scarred eyelids. "You can approach."
"How long have I been asleep?" Kyr inquired walking to the edge of the recessed floor.
"Hours," Xanatos replied. "A necessary precaution I fear."
Kyr sat cross-legged in front of the Gorean, staring in wonder up at the creature that he had tended for so long in the veterinary clinic on Karin before the invasion.
"Precaution against what?" Kyr asked.
"A Gorean destroyer is not exactly accommodating for species such as yours," Xanatos said. "And I feared to cause you stress upon your boarding. But you are well rested now, are you not?"
"My companions?" Kyr looked about him for any sign of Katz and his crew.
"In safe quarters, where they will not get accidentally eaten by elements of my entourage that feel humans are… well… cattle." Xanatos reached out a claw to scoop up a squirming creature that had been swimming in a pot of sauce, looping his long neck down as he swallowed the creature in a single gulp.
Kyr paled a little. "What now?"
Xanatos leaned down to rest his great head on his fore-claws, "that, my little friend, is for you to decide."
"We need to contact Karin…" Kyr said, "and work out where Z'ræl took the T'zaht…"
Xanatos nodded, "the alliance treaty with the Empire will allow for this."
"Alliance treaty?" Kyr asked in surprise.
Xanatos smiled fondly, "I forgot that you have probably not heard the news, but the God Emperor of Man has arisen, and the Gorean Warlord Sal-zÿr has agreed to the 100 year Treaty. Which has placed our two great Empires as friends."
"Friends," Kyr said sounding incredulous. "Does this mean you're going to fight the Amsus?"
Xanatos laughed. "Heaven's no, that is your war. We merely are no longer at war… if the Amsus are our enemies, that is for Sal-zÿr to decide."
"I don't understand," Kyr said lightly as he reached out to pick up some charred meat that he didn't want to think about, chewing on it lightly. Hoping that it wasn't one of his T'zaht crewmates. "How can one Gorean decide for all of you?"
"He doesn't," Xanatos chuckled again, his laugh a muted rumble. "He is merely in command of his armies, and they were the ones who seized the Apilon Rift. There are many such factions in the Imperium… like your own High Houses. Each having separate politics."
"But you said our Empires were allies," Kyr looked confused.
"We are," Xanatos answered patiently. "Our politics are complicated, perhaps beyond your reasoning capabilities; I forget how small your brains are…" he paused grimacing. "I meant no disrespect or offence to you."
Kyr waved it off, "no worries, but about the communication?"
Xanatos extended a claw to one of the waiting handmaidens, who gracefully glided forward, her vertical black eyes fluttering open and closed as she set a delicately crafted box before him.
Working with fine precision with the points of his claws, Xanatos manipulated the box, sliding it like a child's puzzle to unfold again and again until it was a flat circle upon the floor before him.
"This is a communicator?" Kyr asked in wonder, realizing the complexity of the Gorean technology meant that it could quite literally be disguised as anything. He glanced around him at the chamber, wondering how much of it could be reconfigured at a moments notice into something completely different.
The surface of the flat circle before them flowed like rippling water disturbed by the Gorean's talon, as he touched it, swirling the liquid about as it revealed displays in Gorean beneath the surface. Configuring it with seemingly effortless precision, Xanatos raised his claw and gestured. "Voila."
Command Centre -Imperial Fortress - Karin - Imperial Territory
~~*~~
Brigadier General Mayfair was waiting for the communication to arrive as the communication device was brought down by the Bashere himself, personally from the Gorean destroyers sitting stoically in orbit over their heads. He stood on the far side of the large Gorean Communication pool that had been set up on one of the holographic situation tables in the chamber that had been devoted to the search for the missing Excalibur.
It was like looking down a hole, up at faces on the far side, looking through it back at him. He smiled warmly when Kyr's face broke into a broad grin.
"I knew you weren't dead Doctor!" Mayfair said cheerfully, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his coat. "We had a bit of a bet on over here."
"We're alive," Kyr confirmed.
"Well I know that," Mayfair responded looking back down with a patient smile. "I'm talking to you aren't I? No it's the others here, they didn't believe His Highness when he said it."
Arch-duke Walker von Karin stepped forward to the circle, shaking his head a little. "Doctor, are you all right?"
"Yes," Kyr responded with a smile through the hole. "Katz and the crew of the T'zaht are too, I think… our host assures me they haven't been eaten yet."
"That's good," Mayfair bobbed, "I'd hate to have to extract Katz from the digestive system of a Gorean, it would be messy."
"Where are you Doctor?" Walker asked.
"That's a bit of a long story," Kyr admitted reluctantly. "We're somewhere in the Gorean Imperium."
The Bashere cleared his throat as he moved forward, "the communication device indicates they are here," he pointed to the holographic galactic map."
Walker blinked in open shock, "that's…"
"A very long way away," Mayfair said in surprise, "that's why we were having such trouble finding you, we weren't looking out there." He looked pleased with himself, "if you wait we'll try to send you a rescue…"
"No," Walker said hurriedly. "they're well beyond our ability to reach them…"
The newly minted Brigadier hesitated and shrugged again, "sure, no problem, we'll find a way."
"There's something else," Kyr said, "Lex Talionis is destroyed. And a Peligian named Z'ræl has taken control of Lieutenant Galadriel."
"She's in the Arcanis System," the Bashere stated reluctantly. "His Watchful Eye has a way of… tracking the devil Z'ræl…"
Mayfair looked suspiciously over at the Bashere, wondering how much else had been withheld by 'His Watchful Eye'.
"Why would she go there?" Walker asked.
"High seat of the Polian Synod," Mayfair replied. "She's looking for something of theirs, and considering that it is going to take quite a long time since Lex destroyed Arcanis with a type-9 warhead… it should give us time to send ships to round her up."
"We don't have any near there," Walker replied. "With the Autarch… What remains of the 242nd and the Tempus defence fleet are stretched far too thin."
"We can reach Arcanis," Xanatos stated, with a broad smile.
"How?" Walker asked, nervous at the implications of how far the Gorean reach extended.
"It is arrogant to believe that we," Xanatos gestured to himself, "don't have the capacity to reach our enemies at will. You are not the only species in possession of Jump Nexus technology. Only ours are secret. We can reach Arcanis in a few days and deal with Z'ræl, he is a mortal enemy of the Gorean species and we will deal with him."
"I appreciate your help Lord Xanatos," the brigadier bowed his head formally. "Perhaps the Great Gorean network can help me find some others we have… misplaced?"
Xanatos's hood unfurled as he stretched, "General, you have so easily forgotten that there are opportunities now presented by the collapse of the Polian Alliance, the Dakin faction that is seeking its chance to create an empire of its own…"
"The Polian Observatory," Mayfair said, snapping his fingers. "It is the closest thing to omniscient…"
"Be warned," Xanatos said, "the Amsus are searching for it as well, and they are desperate."
Mayfair smiled warmly over at Kyr, "Well if you are going to Arcanis, you might be able to uncover the location of the Observatory and relay it to us here. We'll meet you at the Observatory once you're done."
Kyr smiled back, "I'll see you then."
BCX-001 - Pyrian System - Amsus Hegemony
~~*~~
Brien was continually frustrated by Koenig's notes. It was asinine to think that she could just pick up where he had left off, but Strega had been insistent, get the Zero-Point Reactors online. If the ones on the Zeus platform were operational, then why weren't the starship reactors ready.
Brien, on a number of occasions, wanted to scream at Strega that single-handedly pioneering a completely new power source for Amsus battleships wasn't exactly easy. Picking up the slack after Koenig's death had left her with a mountain of useless data, trying to recreate his designs for the mammoth Zeus reactors was one thing, trying to shrink them down for starships was a whole other thing.
It wasn't as if the Zero-Point Bores were ready for the test bed starship she was currently standing aboard. Everything was too hurried, too rushed, and that meant there were tremendous problems to overcome.
Strega, however, wasn't interested in excuses.
"Turn it on," she commanded.
"You don't just turn on a Zero-point reactor and pray!" Brien snapped looking up from her clipboard the engineer handed her.
"You said that it was ready," Strega snarled over the Comm. Screen.
"No," Brien said trying to regain some of her composure. "I said that the reactors were completed and installed, now we have a battery of tests and simulations to run before we turn it on."
Strega looked angrily past Brien to the inquisitor that stood beside her, "turn it on!" she commanded.
The Inquisitor inclined his head, "as you wish." He said gesturing for the Amsus monitoring the engineering boards to begin the ignition sequence.
Brien shook her head, "are you crazy? Strega, we aren't ready…"
"Your time is up," Strega replied coolly.
The titanic explosion of the experimental Battlecruiser registered light-years away on the scale of a micro-supernova.
OVERLORD - Amsus Hegemony
~~*~~
The explosion and sudden loss of an entire taskforce drew the attention of the primary monitoring sub-routines of his program. He immediately co-ordinated disaster relief, dispatching vessels on Search and Rescue missions to recover any survivors and data-recorders.
His communications network opened up to the fleet marshals, gathering data as he updated their tactical networks as well. Co-ordinating with a select few Inquisitors that were operating under his express orders.
Analysing the threat now posed by the GN-2 leadership of the Amsus Hegemony, Overlord determined that a clear and present danger existed to the carefully prepared plans outlined by the Master in his core programming.
In the absence of the Master, the Amsus were directed follow Sephradon's orders when they did nothing to contradict or contravene his directives. Sephradon's mandate did not, however, extend to the GN-2s and Overlord began to outline a detailed plan to deal with the GN-2 threat.
The great A.I. shifted his thinking, assuming direct logistical control over the Amsus Hegemony, and immediately began to review and overhaul all operating procedures, preparing for the inevitable conflict that would arise between High Command and Sephradon's progeny.