Nice job!
I like this one better than the first!

That was quick, wasn't it? Here's Chapter 2.

Chapter 2: Friendships Renewed

It was a fairly uneventful trip to New Berlin, the boredom having been broken by an attack wing of Red Hessians. He had dispatched them easily, and had salvaged a couple of guns from the fighters that he could not identify. That must mean they're pretty good, he thought to himself.

New Berlin was exactly as he remembered it: Cold. The side of the planet housing the primary spaceport was emerging from its yearlong winter, and the celebrations to mark the occasion were getting under way. He was annoyed to find that because of the celebrations, the spaceports were filling up fast and the planet was charging an extra 1000 credits just to land. Damn Rheinlanders, Trent thought to himself as he slid through the docking ring and headed for the planet below.

He set his ship down on the landing pad, secured the ship and headed for the bar. He'd stop by the equipment dealer later to check on the guns he had salvaged. He walked into the bar and sat down. He looked around to see if he recognized anyone, but to no avail. The bar was full of people celebrating the return to daylight, and the noise was becoming close to unbearable. The hangover pill had done well, but not well enough. Trent closed his eyes and tried to block out the attack on his already battered senses.

"Mr. Trent?"

Trent opened his eyes to see a tall Rheinlander standing in front of him.

"My name is Gunter. I am here to escort you to my employer."

So, there really was someone to meet him here, Trent thought. He wondered if this might be some sort of trap, but at this point he really didn't care. If they want to mug me, fine. What the hell do I care?

"Let's go then," Trent replied. He followed the man out of the bar and down a brightly lit alley. There were many clubs here, and Trent had no doubt there was more drugs on this street than on a good Outcast cardamine plantation. The man turned abruptly down a side alley that was completely dark, and led him through a doorway into a dimly lit room. A man was waiting for him in the shadows.

"Mr. Trent, I presume?" the voice asked. It sounded very familiar.

"Yeah?"

The figure emerged from the shadows, revealing the face of Herr Von Claussen.

"Von Claussen?"

"It's good to see you again, Mr. Trent. I will say you have looked a lot better, however." The two men shook hands. Von Claussen turned to the other man. "Thank you Gunter. Would you please keep an eye on things outside for me?" Gunter nodded and left the room.

"So why did you want to see me? And why all the hiding?"

"You know that I am still considered a traitor in Rheinland, so by nature I must be careful. Secondly, I asked you to come here because we have much to talk about. I have a proposition for you."

"You mean like a job?"

"You may call it that if you wish. There is much happening in the colonies. Surely you are aware of it."

"Aware of what?"

Von Claussen was silent for a moment. "Do you not know?"

"Know what?" Trent asked.

"That the planet Crete was completely destroyed?"

"What? you mean the Corsair planet Crete?"

"The same."

"What happened?"

"We do not know. All we know is that Corsair activity has been reduced to nearly nothing throughout the colonies. A group of Corsairs showed up one day at Freeport 5, talking about a great disaster that happened to their world. They were drunk at the time, but one of our operatives overheard them and decided to check it out."

"Wait a second. 'Our operatives?'"

"The Order, Mr. Trent. I still work for them, even though you do not. Our agent flew to Omicron Gamma and confirmed the information. The planet was completely destroyed. As to what destroyed the planet we still do not know.

"Trent, I have been asked by Orillion to bring you back. He feels this development is something the Order needs to be involved with. He knew you would ignore his summons, so he asked me to find you and solicit your help."

"Sorry, Von Claussen, but I'm not in the 'saving the galaxy' business anymore."

"I understand. I had to try." Von Claussen looked at Trent. "Were you able to keep your ship?"

"Yeah, somebody...wait a second, how did you know that?"

Von Claussen stood there, a smile slowly spreading across his face.

"That was you?" Trent asked in awe.

"I've been keeping an eye on you ever since you left, Mr. Trent. You might say I was watching over a friend."

Trent wasn't sure whether to be grateful or to knock Von Claussen's teeth out. He knew what Von Claussen was trying to pull, but he knew he owed this man a lot. He finally settled on a compromise.

"I guess I kind of owe you for that. It's a lousy trick to pull on me, but I have little choice. Count me in. Just don't try to help me again."

"I'll try to remember that. We will be leaving shortly for the Osiris. She's awaiting us in the Badlands of New York. I will meet you in space in ten minutes."

"Right." Trent turned around to leave.

"Mr Trent? Welcome back, my friend."

Trent smiled and left the room.

--------

Charter member of the Foundation for the Legalization of Medicinal Cardamine

Top quality writing, neuro. I evidently your hiatus hasn't affected your abilities.

That said I do have one small criticism...

---

The Corsair strike group was en route to Crete after a successful raid. The wing commander, a battle-scarred and seasoned pilot, was pleased with the way things had gone. The raid had intercepted a convoy carrying H-fuel into the Omega systems, and had even managed to hijack two of the large transport vessels as well as salvage a great deal of the fuel cannisters from the remaining transports that were destroyed. The raid had gone even better than the commander could have hoped, and he could envision a promotion in his future as the strike would go a long way in alleviating the fuel shortages the Corsairs were experiencing.

---

Whoa! Every single sentence in that paragraph starts with "the"! Obviously there's nothing wrong with that from a grammatical perspective, but it doesn't read particularly well. The last two sentences run on a bit as well. I've done some fiddling and I came up with this:

---

The Corsair strike group was en route to Crete after a successful raid. *Insert name here*, the wing commander, was more than pleased with the way things had gone. In fact, he could practically smell his promotion. The raid had intercepted a convoy carrying H-fuel, a commodity always in short supply, into the Omega systems. Not only did the raiding party salvage a great deal of the fuel canisters from the transports that were destroyed, they even managed to hijack two of the large vessels. Commander *Whoever* knew that the raid’s unexpected success would go a long way to help the Corsairs deal with their chronic fuel shortages.

---

If you want you can drop the "a commodity always in short supply" bit as it is somewhat redundant.

On a similar note, in your descriptions of Trent's current situation you tend you use "He" and "His" a lot to start your sentences. For some reason it isn't quite as jarring but you may want to consider messing around with the word order.

Otherwise it's great, as I said before. I'm very interested to see where it's heading.

@Codename:

Thanks for your comments. They make a lot of sense.

As far as the Corsair wing commander goes, I plan on keeping his name unknown for now. I do plan on making him a major part of the story in a later chapter.

Man it's good to be writing this stuff again!


Charter member of the Foundation for the Legalization of Medicinal Cardamine

Here's chapter 3, hot off the grill. Yum!

---------------------

Chapter 3: Encounter

Trent emerged from the docking ring of New Berlin into open space. Von Claussen was orbiting not far away.

"Ahh, there you are. What was the delay?"

"Sorry, I had some business I needed to take care of," Trent said, smiling to himself. The guns he had salvaged from the Red Hessian fighters turned out to be quite a find. The analysis droids in the equipment dealer had not been able to identify them, but had said that the guns had a very high damage potential and a refire rate that was nearly as good as a standard laser. Trent had them immediately mounted on his ship.

"We've had a small change in plans. The Osiris is going to rendezvous with us in Honshu. Orillion has received a report of strange activity in the Sigma systems. He requested that we investigate on the way to the rendezvous."

"'Strange activity?' What does that mean?"

"I do not know, but it would seem that Orillion is concerned enough to investigate. There is a jump hole to Sigma-13 not far from here. We will travel that route to Sigma-13 and see if we can find what is concerning Orillion so much."

------

Trent and Von Claussen emerged from the jump hole.

"Hmm. Orillion was right. I am receiving very strange readings on all sensors. It could be a ship, but I cannot identify it. This might be our anomaly."

"I'll take point," said Trent, surprising himself. "Tramsmit the coordinates to me." Trent took the lead and engaged his cruise engines.

"Twelve klicks to target. I'm not picking up anything else," said Trent. "Whatever it is, if we can see it, then they know we're coming. Charging weapons." Maybe this would be the chance to test out his new guns.

"Be careful, my friend. If they are hostile, we may not be able to handle them."

"Eleven klicks. Looks like the dust is clearing up a bit."

The gas and dust that made up the majority of Sigma-13 began to clear a little, enabling Trent and Von Claussen to get their first glimpse of the anomalous contact.

"Gott in Himmel," Von Claussen breathed.

It was a ship, there could be no doubt. It was shaped almost like an egg, with several angled protrusions emerging from one end, almost like claws. What made it unbelievable was its size. Even from this distance, the ship filled most of their field of view. Trent did some quick calculations in his head and determined the ship had to be at least ten kilometers long, possibly more. It was undoubtedly of alien origin.

"I think we should get out of here now and report this," said Trent quietly.

"I am in agreement, my friend."

The two ships turned and flew back into the dust cloud. Hopefully, whatever it was would consider them insignificant and let them be. Luckily, it did.

"I have located the Honshu jump hole, Trent. It's not too far. We had better move quickly."

"Hold on, my scanner just picked up several new contacts coming this way." Trent checked his heads-up display to see if he could identify them.

Three electric-blue spacecraft emerged from a bank of dust and gas and flew toward them.

"Nomads! Powering up weapons! Tallyho!" Trent called out as Von Claussen broke formation to engage.

The Nomads broke their formation and engaged. Trent drew two of the fighters. He targeted the nearest and fired. The Nomad vessel took a hit in the nose of the ship and was destroyed. Trent couldn't believe it. He had little time to admire the powerful new guns on his ship as the second Nomad came in behind him, firing its own cannons. The Eagle's shields buckled under the barrage, and Trent remembered that he was no longer flying his Anubis with the fabulous Order-designed shields, but had standard-issue civilian shields. The Nomad cannon fire battered his shields and nearly drained them before Trent could react. He threw his Eagle into a savage loop, chopping power to the engines in an attempt to get the Nomad in front of him. It worked, sort of. The Nomad anticipated the maneuver, but a little too late. Most of Trent's shots missed, but a shot from one of the new guns clipped the back of the Nomad, spining him out of control. Trent finished it off with a second burst.

Von Claussen had his hands full with the remaining Nomad. He was able to get in some good shots, but the Nomad was extremely maneuverable and difficult to lock on to. Von Claussen was patient, waiting for the right moment to fire. He fired several bursts, striking the Nomad. The Nomad disappeared in a ball of light.

"I show all clear, Von Claussen. I suggest we get out of here in a hurry."

"No arguments here. Lead on."

-------------------

The Osiris was waiting for them, obscured in one of the thick dust clouds that dotted the Honshu system. Von Claussen had already landed and Trent waited for clearance.

"Osiris, this is Trent, requesting permission to dock."

"Trent, this is Orillion. Welcome back, You're cleared to land. I'll meet you on the flight deck."

"Acknowledged, Osiris. Trent out." Trent couldn't help but smile at the sight of the Osiris as he guided his Eagle through the docking bay doors. He set the ship down and climbed out. Orillion and Von Claussen were waiting.

"Good to see you again, Trent," Orilliion said as they shook hands.

"I never thought I'd say this, but it's good to be back."

"Did you find anything on your way here?"

"Yes. I've got it on my flight recorder if you want to see it. In short, I think things are going to get really interesting again."

"What do you mean?" Orillion asked as they walked into the debriefing room. The three men sat down at a table.

"Take a look," Trent said as he punched some buttons on the table. A holo-image appeared, showing the alien spacecraft they had encountered. Orillion leaned forward.

"This is what we saw out there. My guess is that it's about ten kilometers long, and definitely not human. Could be Nomad, the archtitecture between the two is somewhat similar. It's hard to tell from these images, though."

"We also encountered a wing of Nomad fighters shortly thereafter," interjected Von Claussen.

"In Sigma-13? They have never been sighted that close to the colonies before, except in human form flying human ships," Orillion pointed out. "This is rather disturbing news. It's possible the Nomads are planning yet another takeover of the colonies, and are willing to do it out in the open again." There was silence in the room.

"Wonderful," Trent muttered.

"I have a survey team in Omicron Gamma, investigating the disaster there. They might be able to shed some additional light on this. In the meantime, why don't you get some rest. The next few days may be long ones for all of us." With that, the three men got up. Trent went straight for the pilot's quarters. He found his bunk still there, untouched. He collapsed into it and was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

--------------------



Charter member of the Foundation for the Legalization of Medicinal Cardamine

Edited by - neuromancer on 10/28/2004 8:22:26 AM

Edited by - neuromancer on 10/28/2004 8:36:22 AM

Its looking beutiful

Very good.

Nice to have a plesant suprise when I came back.

____________________________________________________
Member of the UTF clan.
Member of the ~{Liberator[}~ clan.
Creator of the Freelancer Fan Fiction Collection.
Author of Various Freelancer Stories.
Associate Judge and Master of the BHG in the CYOF RPG.


Click here to download it!

Knowing my luck this'll get posted just after neuro puts Chapter 4 up. Oh well.

As usual this is great stuff. And, also as usual, I do have some suggestions.

I like short sentences. The only problem here is that they all start with the same word. This is doubly inportant given the length. Long sentences, if well written have their own flow and, as such, can often be taken one at a time without too much consideration af what came before and what comes afterwards (this is all from a purely stylistic P.O.V. of course). Short sentences, on the other hand, must have a rhythm that continues from one to the next. Starting each with the same word breaks that rhythm. For example:

---

He set his ship down on the landing pad, secured the ship and headed for the bar. He'd stop by the equipment dealer later to check on the guns he had salvaged. He walked into the bar and sat down. He looked around to see if he recognized anyone, but to no avail.

---

This may be a bit better.

---

Trent set his ship down on the landing pad, secured the ship and headed for the bar. Later he would stop by the equipment dealer to check on the guns he had salvaged. Heading towards a stool at the bar Trent surveyed the crowd for familiar faces. He saw none.

---

I normally don't criticize dialogue but, in this case, I'll make an exception. If I remember correctly Trent generally was economical with his words. The following quote struck me as a bit out of character in that way.

---

"Well, first of all, let me pull up the data on my flight recorder." Trent punched some buttons on the table, and a holo-image appeared above the table, showing the alien spacecraft they had encountered. Orillion leaned forward.

---

I think this may be a bit more faithful to Trent's character.

---

"See for yourself." Trent punched some buttons on the table, and a holo-image appeared above the table, showing the alien spacecraft they had encountered. Orillion leaned forward.

---

Finally, a genral point to ponder. (I'll put it in my General Writing Discussion as well.) You seem to construct most of your sentences the same way. It's almost always "subject, verb, (object) etc." with a few adjectives and such thrown in for good measure. Now, grammatically that's not problematic but since you've shown that you have decent grammar it would be nice to see some variation. Try inversion ie. putting the verb before the noun. It isn't a big change but it can make a world of difference. A perfect example can be found in my first comment. (With your permission I'd like to use it in my GWD post.)

This may seem like a lot of stuff but it's simply a matter of perfecting what is already phenomenal writing. Also, I'm a rank amateur when it comes to offering writing tips so if something doesn't make sense it may be because I'm wrong.

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

My computer had what we call in the business "catastrophic hard drive failure", so I have three (yes, count them, THREE) chapters that will be posted tomorrow. Thanks for your patience, as always.

Charter member of the Foundation for the Legalization of Medicinal Cardamine

Three chapters!? Are you trying to overwhelm me?

I'm looking forward to them.

Fantastic!

I think you capture Trent's persona very well and your story flows smoothly. Looking forward to more.

I would say these boards are lucky to have such a variety and number of engaging authors

ttfn

Yup, here it is. Three chapters.

CHAPTER 4: Discovery

The survey team had nearly completed their scans of the area. Even though he had seen the destruction with his own eyes, Michael King still could not believe it. An entire planet destroyed. Millions of people dead. Granted, they were Corsairs, but they were still human beings, and destruction on this scale was incredible.

King was flying a modified Rhino freighter, sweeping up debris that looked useful They had managed to salvage several Corsair flight recorders, and King hoped that they would be able to piece together what happend here.

"King, this is Juni, you about ready to wrap this up?"

"Affirmative. This place is giving me the creeps."

"Well, don't wet your pants just yet." Juni said. "You'd be an embarrassment to the Order."

"Jeez, you sound just like Trent..." King stopped himself and realized he had gone too far. You idiot, he thought to himself, you know better than to mention Trent in front of her! "I'm sorry, Juni."

"No problem," Juni replied in a voice that indicated it was a problem. "Just recall the other ships so we can get out of here."

"Roger. Hold on, Juni, I've got something else on the scanner. Looks like more debris. The scanner can't identify it. I'm going to check it out."

"King, let it go. We've done our job here."

"It's all right, I've got a visual on it now. Oh..."

"What is it, King?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you. I'm tractoring it in now. You gotta see this to believe it."

"King, I just got a priority message from the Osiris. They mada a discovery that might tie in with what happened here. You gonna wrap that up anytime soon?"

"Yeah, the cargo's secure. All other units are en route to our position."

"Good. So, what exactly did you find?"

"Possibly an answer."

-------------------

The survey team arrived at the Osiris some hours later. King brought his ship into the docking bay and set it down. A flight crew immediately ran over and began to unload the debris that had been salvaged. Orillion came in and met King and Juni by the freighter.

"Welcome back. Your report, please."

"The place is a mess, sir," Juni said. "I've never seen destruction on that kind of scale before. Whatever hit that planet, it's big, powerful and most definitely a threat."

"King?"

"I agree, sir. We managed to salvage several flight recorders from the Corsair derelicts. Maybe they can help us figure out what happened. We also found something else, sir. I think it might be better if I show you." King led them over to the freighter where the crews had nearly completed unloading. Two of them were bringing out a strange-looking piece of debris, about ten feet in length.

"Hold on, let me see that," Orillion ordered.

The piece was metal, but unlike anything they had ever seen. It was covered in strange markings that looked terribly familiar to Juni. Suddently it hit her like a ton of bricks.

"Are those..."

"Dom'Kavash markings." Orillion said.

------------------

"Mr. Trent?"

"Hmm?"

"Wake up. There is a briefing."

Trent opened his eyes. Von Claussen was standing there.

"The survey team has returned, and they brought back something of great interest. Let's go, the briefing starts in a few minutes."

Trent groaned and sat up. He looked at his watch. Four hours of sleep. Oh well, better than nothing. He got up and followed Von Claussen to Orillion's office.

King saw him enter and walked over. "Well well well, the prodigal son returns. How have you been?" King shook his hand.

"I'm good. How about you?"

"Keeping busy."

The two lapsed into talking of old times. Trent stole a quick look around, and saw Juni in a corner of the room talking to another officer. She caught his gaze and shot him an icy look. Trent turned away.

"All right, people, settle down," Orillion said as he entered. Evryone found a seat.

"We've completed our analysis of the flight recorder data we recovered from the Corsair derelicts in Omicron Gamma, and the data does not look like good news."

"When is it ever?" King retorted.

"Shut up, King," snapped Orillion, which drew a smirk from Juni. "From what we've been able to piece together, it would appear that the Corsairs were involved in a large scale battle with a Nomad fleet, and someone else. Who, we can only speculate. Right now, our best guess is the Dom'Kavash."

Everyone in the room gasped.

"I know it is difficult to believe, but it is the best possibility right now. The video from the flight recorders shows numerous battles between Nomad, Corsair and unknown craft." Images from the flight recorders appeared on the holo-projector.

"As you can see, there are countless battles happening here on these images. We believe that the catalyst for this disaster was this." Another image appeared of an alien-looking spacecraft, egg shaped, with several angled protrusions coming from one end. It was the exact same ship Trent and Von Claussen had seen in Sigma-13. Trent leaned forward in openmouthed awe.

"Whatever this thing is, it is immense. It has been estimated at approximately ten kilometers long, possibly more. This...thing fought off several waves of Nomad and Corsair fighters, and this is what happened next."

Another video image appeared of the behemoth ship. Crisp blue energy was sparkling over the odd-looking protrusions. Suddenly an intense blue beam shot away from the ship, toward the planet Crete. Everyone in the room watched in horror as the beam sliced the planet in half as it were nothing more than butter. The image went blank.

"Our best guess is that whatever this thing is, it attracted the attention of the Nomads, and obviously the Corsairs. It assumed that the Corsairs were assisting the Nomads, and annhilated both of them in kind.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this behemoth was sighted several hours ago by Herr Von Claussen and Mr. Trent in the Sigma-13 system." Orillion let that thought permeate around the room. "We have also received numerous reports of Nomad activity throughout the Border Worlds. Whatever we are now facing is a threat unprecedented in human history."

"Excuse me, sir," Trent asked. "Why are we suspecting the Dom'Kavash are involved?"

"One of the pieces we recovered from the area was a fragment that was covered with Dom'Kavash markings. It was heavily battle-damaged. It's the best lead we've had.

"We will be leaving for Toledo shortly to try and determine our next move. It is our hope that Dr. Quintaine can decipher these markings and give us some additional information. That's all for now, people. Dismissed."

-----------

Mmmm...Synth Paste...

CHAPTER 5: On the Osiris

Trent walked into the bar on board the Osiris. It was a Spartan affair, not much in the way of decoration or functionality. One thing it did have, however, was the best Sidewinder Fang this side of Bretonia, which suited Trent just fine. He walked over to the bartender.

"Trent! Long time no see!" said the bartender upon noticing Trent.

"How have you been, James?" Trent asked.

James Montgomery had been a pilot for the Order until he had been injured in a skirmish with Nomad fighters several years earlier. His Anubis had been destroyed and his arm mangled as he ejected from the wreckage. The injury had eventually cost him his arm, as well as his flight status. He had stayed on board the Osiris after the incident, first as a tactical advisor. He was also quite a connoisseur when it came to drinks, and it was said often amongst the pilots that if he hadn't joined the Order, he would have been the best bartender in Sirius. It was only a matter of time before he became the unoffical tender of bar on board the Osiris. Not only were his drinks in demand, but also his advice. Even Orillion, the last person in Sirius one would think would need advice, often came to him. James Montgomery was a man you could trust, and a man who had an answer for everything. Trent decided he could use some advice.

"Oh, you know, usual crap. Nomad incubi, conspiracies, that whole thing," Montgomery replied. "Where have you been hiding?"

"Out in the Border Worlds. I needed to get away for awhile."

"So are you back for good then?"

Trent didn't reply. Juni had just walked in and sat down at a table.

"Trent...Hello?"

"What? Oh, sorry. Yeah, looks like I'm here for a bit."

Montgomery looked at him strangely. "Why don't you go talk to her?"

"Who?"

"Colonel Zane. Go talk to her."

"No, I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"It's a very long story. We're not exactly on speaking terms right now."

Montgomery frowned. "Look, you both are part of the same crew and the same cause. Eventually you will have to talk to her. Might as well be now. You're both professionals---you'll be fine."

Trent sighed. "All right, here goes nothing." He downed the rest of his Sidewinder Fang for luck and walked over to Juni.

"Hi, Juni."

Juni looked at him. "Can I help you?" she said sharply.

"Look, what happened is in the past. We're both here, we have to work together, so the least we can do is act like professionals around each other."

"Are you even capable of doing that?" Juni snapped.

"At least I'm trying, dammit!"

"Look, Trent, we may have to work together, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. When we're not on duty, I don't want anything to do with you, got it?" With that, Juni got up and left the bar.

Trent stood there for a moment, then slumped into the bench at the table. He noticed King standing not far off, with a strange look on his face.

"Umm...Trent, what was that all about?"

"Long story."

"I'll buy you a drink," King said, sitting down, "and you can tell your ol' buddy King all about it."

Trent was hesitant to tell King, but he knew that, having been to hell and back with him, King was indeed a friend and could be trusted.

"You might say we've had a bit of a falling out," Trent said.

"I can see that. What happened?"

Trent sighed. Here we go. "I took a job escorting President Jacobi to Bretonia for a conference with Queen Carina. On the way back I was attacked by Liberty Rogues, lots of 'em. I managed to take 'em all down, but they beat up my ship pretty good. So I stopped on Curacao for repairs.

"While I was there I met this girl. You know how those women are on Curacao, right? She was fine, King. Blond hair, icy blue eyes, legs that were impossibly long. Well, she offered to buy me a drink, and I never turn down a drink. Anyway, one thing led to another and..." Trent stopped.

"Damn, Trent, that's low. Even for you."

"Look, I'm not proud of it, okay? Anyway, Juni found out about it, I don't know how. And that was that."

"Well, Trent, all I can say is you screwed up. We all do it every now and then. Best thing you can do is don't do it again. Or at least don't get caught."

Trent managed a smile. "I guess you're right."

"I know I am. How's the Sidewinder Fang?"

"Better than I remember it."

----------------



Mmmm...Synth Paste...

CHAPTER 6: Another Disaster

Trent flew his Eagle over the snowy surface of Toledo. He had not been here since the first Nomad invasion almost two years ago. The home of the Order had been nearly destroyed by orbital bombardment, but the Order had repaired the damage and made the base habitable again.

Trent set his ship down on the docking platform and got out. The icy air bit into his lungs, but it was clean air, probably the cleanest in all the colonies. Trent took a deep breath and felt the rejuvenating effects on his body.

The Order base was built underground, the entrance carved into the side of a mountain. Here was the heart of the Order, their command post for their operations in protecting the colonies. Even though the Nomads had nearly destroyed it, the base remained a secret to the four major Houses, with the exception of President Jacobi. Trent looked around as a strong feeling of nostalgia enveloped him. Here, strangely enough, was where he felt most at home.

He noticed King not far away, looking a a strange-looking ship, the likes of which Trent had never seen before. He walked over to have a look.

"What is this thing?" he asked.

King smiled. "Behold our new toy, the Thoth heavy fighter!"

The ship was beautiful. It was shaped like a sleek falcon, and looked like it was armed to the teeth. King confirmed this.

"She's got six gun mounts, two separate missile launchers and a top turret. They put in a new power system that's supposed to be the next great thing. This baby is meant to give a pounding. There's only five of them built, but they were just given operational status by Orillion a few days ago. What do you think?"

"Wow," was all Trent could say.

"Yeah, that's what I thought too. Think they'll let me fly one?"

"If they want to waste their investment," Juni said behind them and walked off.

King waited for Trent to say something, but he didn't. What, Trent thought, was there to say? They looked longingly at the fighter and slowly walked away.

---------------------

Trent shot up in his bed, covered in a cold sweat and breathing heavily. The dream had seemed too real, too vivid. He had been on a strange spacecraft staring at a tall figure as it approached him. As the figure had come closer, he could see that it was vaguely humanoid, with some insectlike characteristics. The head looked not unlike a fly, with large, red eyes that seemed to pierce his very being. He watched as the creature came toward him, making strange clicking and squeaking noises that Trent could only assume was an attempt at communication. Suddenly from out of nowhere several Nomads in their true form appeared and surrounded the figure. The figure let out what sounded like a scream and disappeared in a flash of blue light. The Nomads turned toward Trent, their blue mouths gaping wide, ready for the kill...

Trent slowly got up and walked to the washroom. He splashed cold water on his face to clear his head. What could that mean? He thought about visiting the base infirmary, but decided against it. He'd be damned if he let the doctors rescind his flight status.

A faint beeping came from his neural net. He tapped the metal band on his wrist to silence the alarm.

"Trent here."

"It's King. Get over to Operations, we've got trouble brewing."

"On my way."

-------------------

The Operations center was buzzing with activity. He found Orillion, King, Von Claussen and Juni standing over a holo-projector. He walked over.

"What's up?"

"Planets blowing up, that's what," King replied.

"What?!"

"We just received this report from Sigma-19," Orillion said. "Planet Hiran was destroyed about an hour ago. The report came in from a GMG patrol. They watched as the alien ship came out of nowhere and annhilated the planet."

"Why Hiran? What's there?"

"I don't know. The Orbital Spa and Cruise liner Hawaii managed to get away from the planet just in time. They're in Honshu now. Strangely, the alien dreadnought ignored them completely."

"I bet the Shogun of Kusari is having kittens," Trent said.

"It seems that all of Kusari is in an uproar," Orillion confirmed. "There have been sights of Nomads throughout Kusari and sporadic reports coming from the other Houses. The Nomads are no longer a secret. It's only a matter of time before widespread panic sets in."

"Are the Nomads attacking the colonies?" Juni inquired.

"Strangely, no. They are ignoring every human ship, base and planet they come in contact with. What's really strange is that the Nomad activity is strongest in places near where the alien ship is sighted."

"Are they following it?"

"It would seem so. I can come to no other conclusion."

"So what is our next move?" Von Claussen asked.

"We must find this alien ship. We must find out what it wants, and why the Nomads are so interested in it."

"And how, pray tell, do we do that?" Trent asked.

"We've discovered that the alien ship seems to be leaving a trail, as it were. A very faint stream of unique subatomic particles in its wake. We believe that we can follow this trail to the alien ship. I want you four to fly the new Thoth fighters out and follow the trail. Colonel Kress will be joining you. He is en route now."

The comm system buzzed to life.

"Commander Orillion, this is Dr. Quintaine."

"Orillion here. Go ahead."

"I have confirmed that the piece recovered from Omicron Gamma is Dom'Kavash in origin. The markings match those in the known Dom'Kavash alphabet."

"Do you have a translation?"

"Yes, but it yielded little of value. Labeling an access hatch, or something similar."

"Thank you, Doctor. Orillion out."

"Swell," Trent muttered. "We're now fighting two ancient races with superior technology."

"What more could we want?" King asked rhetorically.

"I don't know, a break maybe?"

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