awsome story!
cant wait for more!
007
Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate.The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose vis-à-vis an introduction, and so it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.
V from V for Vendetta
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Rise of the Phoenix, Last chapter posted 10/june/06
Read, add and comment on excellent written stories by fans, set within the Freelancer universe
35 posts
• Page 2 of 3 • 1, 2, 3
Sun Apr 30, 2006 8:27 pm
Thanks for the replies peeps, I have just moved interstate and most of my stuff, Including my PC is in storage for at least a month till i move into my new house, so it'll have to wait a little bit, but i'll get back onto it as soon as im set up.
think of this break as a 4 week jouney back to Sirius space
Bloody Bretonians! Almost as bad as the French!
think of this break as a 4 week jouney back to Sirius space
Bloody Bretonians! Almost as bad as the French!
Sun Jun 04, 2006 12:33 am
Actually, I got my PC back last week, but i only got a new internet connection this morning. 
Here you go Nutty, Ask and ye shall receive.
Chapter 8
Just over 4 weeks had passed since Markez had resurrected the Phoenix from the nebula, It had been an un eventful flight back, with Markez spending the majority of his time repairing various systems on the ship, There seemed to be a lot of damage to power systems, like there had been a massive overload.
He managed to get partial weapons online, there were 4 working turrets on the front of the ship, and one of the main cannons, All the rest of the weapon power couplings were too badly damaged.
The sensor system was a total write off, Markez had to resort to using the Rhino sensors but the biggest problem is that the Rhino sensors wouldn’t penetrate much further than about 100 meters out of the ships hull.
The only other major system he was able to repair was the internal stabilizers, which made for a much smoother ride.
In the crew quarters he had found a fighter simulator, a replica of the cabin of one of the small fighters within the hangar.
Markez spent a fair bit of time messing around in it, getting a feel for flying the fighters and just generally having fun, In the simulator the fighters felt very fast and highly maneuverable, he was itching for a chance to get out in a real one.
Before long he saw the glow of the medium yellow star that lit the Dublin system in the distance, It would only be a day before he was in the system.
As Markez approached the system he made some slight navigational maneuvers, there were a few asteroid fields he wanted to avoid, not only because of the damage, but because they were often full of Mollys.
The Phoenix cruised slowly past the Molly field, Markez sitting in the bridge peering out the front window, With no real sensors he was stuck with visuals only, any attack would never be seen until the rounds hit the hull plating.
Suddenly the communications crackled into life, a Bloodhound pulled into view in front of the ship, It was a Molly.
“Wots dat Guv?, wot you doin around our turf huh?”
Markez had always wondered about the Mollys accent. It was something they had created all for themselves, Apparently the original Mollys found a few recordings in some old history files and had taken to it as their own.
Markez turned on the communicator.
“This is the freelancer cruiser Phoenix, Im just passing through, I don’t want any trouble”
The radio crackled back, “well guv, dats a big ship you got dere, surely you’d have some good treasures on it for me huh? Or maybe I’ll have come on board and take em by force?”
Markez smiled to himself and replied,
“your game. I count one of you and my ship with ten times as many guns. Trust me, its not worth it.”
Markez was trying to bluff his way though, but definitely had some appreciation for the Molly and his brazen efforts.
“Well guv, See I scanned your ship, and it says dat you got no sensors, no shields and most of ya guns are offline. And you miscounted guv, there’s six of us.”
Markez knew there was no way out of this mess, so he throttled the engines all the way up and began charging all the weapons, The turrets were set to auto tracking and firing, and began firing off volleys immediately.
One of the volleys found a target with the original Molly’s ship and tore through his shields, tearing the wing of the bloodhound clean off the hull.
Within moments Markez felt the shuddering through the deck plating as the Molly guns burned against the hull, the Phoenix turrets continued firing and found another target, obliterating a ship with one round.
Markez was amazed at the power of the turrets as he noticed on the main weapons screen that one of the Molly’s had flown directly at the front of the ship, he was playing Chicken and firing all his guns. The Rhino shield on the front was dropping very quickly and wouldn’t last long.
What the Molly didn’t realize is that he was also lined up directly with the main cannon that was fully charged and ready to fire, Markez pushed a button and the Molly ship disappeared in a brilliant flash of light and plasma. As the charge dissipated, Markez was in total awe, there was absolutely no debris left, the ship had been completely vaporized from existence.
Then there was another flash as the turrets landed another fatal shot on a bloodhound.
The remaining three ships decided that they were heavily outclassed and a tactical retreat was definitely in order, they all scattered and flew away as the turrets let of a final round, scoring a direct hit on a fleeing bloodhound, demolishing it into little fragments of space wreckage.
Markez sat down in shock, He was blown away by the power of this ship, especially considering there were only 4 working turrets.
He continued on his course towards the jump gate, completely unaware of the Centurion fighter that had watched the entire event unfold from the safety of the asteroid field.
The centurion fighter moved quietly away through the asteroid field, heading towards an unknown jumphole.
Within minutes Markez had reached the jump gate, the Phoenix getting a lot of looks from the few ships around, including the Battleship Essex. They panicked when it appeared on its screens, and dispatched a fighter wing to intercept.
Once they realized it was a friendly freelancer they let it pass and continue towards the jump gate.
It was going to be a tight fit though the gate, the Phoenix hull only just squeezing through.
In the New London system there was the usual questions by various military craft, all wondering whether it was a hostile and where it had appeared from.
Markez maneuvered towards the trade lane, again only just fitting through the rings and setting course for Trafalgar base.
Sparks was going to be blown away when he saw the Phoenix.
Chapter 9
Markez received clearance to dock with Trafalgar base and maneuvered the Phoenix up against it, he had already told them that the airlock was damaged, and he would remain on board while it was repaired. Sparks was sent out as part of the repair team, he had no idea about who was onboard the ship.
As the repair crew walked along the docking arm in their vac suits they looked out the small windows in awe at the massive hulk looming before them. Within a few hours the airlock was repaired and Markez was able to begin opening a few of the bulkheads.
With a hiss the airlock section pressurized and the blast door opened. Markez stepped from around the corner and saw Sparks standing in the docking arm, removing his vac suit helmet.
Sparks hadn’t noticed him yet so he piped up, “guess what I found?”
Sparks looked up at the sound of a very familiar voice, “No way, your kidding right?”
“Nope, she was floating by a moon, just waiting for me. I know you want to look around, but im starving and really need a sonic shower. Let me get cleaned up and I’ll tell you about the whole trip over a meal.”
An hour later Markez and Sparks sat in the bar, Markez describing the entire trip while stuffing his face with food, Ration packs were ok, but nothing like a fresh cooked meal.
Markez told Sparks about the planet of people, the discovery in the nebula, the repairs he had to make, the flight simulator and the fighters in the bay, the skirmish with the Mollys and finally the frozen passenger in the cryo pod.
Sparks didn’t know where to start.
“So tell me about these repairs you did huh? Im going to have to see this for myself”
Markez laughed “Yea ok, lets go look at it”
Markez and sparks walked down towards the ship and into the reactor room, Markez showed Sparks the reactor coupling he salvaged from the rhino.
Sparks looked briefly at it and then began looking very closely at the reactor core and assemblies.
“So how did you start this engine?” Said Sparks
“Its just like the engine in the Rhino, I just pushed some buttons and started it.” Replied Markez
“Well, that’s where you are wrong. This is an Anti matter reactor, this is technology we have never seen in Sirius space, at the moment the only info I have ever seen was theoretical. This reactor even compresses the anti matter stream before mixing it into the reactor. The closest technology to this is a small reactor on New Berlin at the Reichstatd research facility, but they don’t compress the anti mater stream, the reactor is 20 times the size and it has taken them 40 years to come up with a working model. Im surprised you didn’t blow yourself into a million pieces.”
“So that’s good then?” Queried Markez.
“This reactor would probably provide enough power for all of the Bretonian navy capital ships combined. This ship would be invincible once its fully functional” Said Sparks
“Wow” was all that Markez could manage.
“Yea, wow. But it’s going to cost a fortune to fix it. We could always sell the reactor technology to Rheinland to fund it” said Sparks
“That would give them a massive advantage over all the other houses, the Rheinland ships are tough enough already, It could lead to war. We should sell it to all the houses at once, we could make 4 times as much money too. Then we can get to repairing all of the ship.” Said Markez
He paused for a few minutes as the all familiar ache ran though his shoulder and down his arm, causing him to wince slightly at the pain. It was getting worse lately.
Within a few days the rumors had spread throughout the colonies, everything from a ghost ship to an alien battle cruiser that could vaporize entire fleets in a single shot.
Sparks had called a few of his friends amongst the houses and invited then to inspect the technology, within a day they had scientists from all the houses as well as from Samura industries, Kishiro technologies and Ageria technologies all wanting to buy the technology. A friend of Sparks was handling the bargaining, he was one of the toughest commodity dealers of all of the Junkers, He could sell Cardamine to outcasts and make a killing doing it.
He set the entry price at 2 million credits, and the plans at 25 million per buyer.
All up that equated to a potential of 189 million credits.
Minus his cut of 9 million credits, Markez and Sparks walked away with a very health sum.
They immediately set to getting the ship repaired, All systems were analyzed and rebuilt.
The Ship logs were downloaded and analyzed. Markez had been working on the logs when he came across the captains log.
It described the mission to find the Alliance sleeper ships and where they had landed 100 years after they had left, then to report that info back to the coalition, It was updated daily for 4 days before the crew went into cryo sleep and made a hyperjump.
Markez then found the ships computer data log for the entire journey, He read through it from the start of the mission, All the usual procedure and system checks were detailed by the computer. He followed the log through the flight over 2 years and discovered some sensor readings of a massively charged plasma field that the ship flew through, the resulting discharge through the shields had caused a massive feedback, the feedback traveled through the reactor and into the engines, causing the ship to veer offcourse. The overload also fried most of the weapons and sensor systems, destroyed the shield generator power couplings, and ruptured a power conduit near the side of the ship causing an explosion. After the explosion the reactor power coupling burned out.
The computer revived the chief engineer in order to repair the damage, and shortly after registered a massive radiation leak in the reactor room.
The ship drifted for 90 years before being caught in the gravitational pull of the volcanic moon within the nebula.
The data log went on for another 20 years before the power levels dropped to a critical level and all the remaining systems began to shut down, with only the cryo pods remaining active, each one dropping off as the power failed.
The remaining cryo pod had been taken by the Bretonian government, and the occupant would be thawed out and interrogated. Markez didn’t worry himself about those details.
It seemed like it had been weeks of sifting through computer info, when in reality it had been about 5 days, Markez was exhausted and took a well deserved break.
He strolled out of his quarters, now located on his new ship and walked around the decks. There was work going on everywhere, repair crews were being paid to repair all the facets of the ship. Teams of engineers and scientists were also working on the ship, studying the technologies and repairing it. They were being paid a handsome sum to keep the knowledge learned on the ship, and not throughout the houses.
Sparks was working hard on the shield generator and was just about to bring it online when Markez walked up to him. “what’s happening? Broken anything yet.”
Sparks smirked “I’m just about to bring the shields online, then onto the hyperdrive engine. I’ve got crews working on all the weapon systems, and they are reporting that it will all be operational soon. Other than that, 85% of all systems are operational, there is just all the hull damage left to repair. That’ll take some time to fix. There are a few bulkheads that need to be completely rebuilt. I’ve already got a crew grafting that first piece of hull you found back on. How are the computer logs going?”
“Almost done” Markez replied “I’m just taking a breather”
Sparks moved over to a control panel and began pushing buttons, the shield generator hummed quietly as it built up a charge.
There was a screen on the wall that showed a 3d outline of the ship, a field began to grow around it and formed into a protective shell. The shield was fully operational
“Well, we have shields, now for the Hyperdrive” Said Sparks
“Yea, Id better get back to the logs” Replied Markez as he walked away, leaving Sparks to pack up his tools and move onto repairing the hyperdrive.
Markez wandered back towards his quarters via the crew kitchen. There was a temporary cook on board, catering to all the repair crews.
Markez grabbed a tube of Synthpaste and a hot black coffee and headed back to the logs.
He sat down and continued trawling through all the information, suddenly he noticed a log of a transmission, It stood out because the timestamp was only 6 weeks old.
Markez looked closely at it. It was an automated signal reporting the position of the ship back to the coalition, It had been activated when the reactor was powered up.
Markez sat frozen in his seat. It would have only taken a few days for a subspace message to get to earth, only 120 thousand light years away, Markez had learned its location from the star maps contained within the ships computer.
Markez stood upright suddenly, spilling his coffee in the process and bolted out the door, he ran through the bowels of the ship, heading towards the hyperdrive and Sparks, He burst through the door, almost knocking Sparks off his feet
“We have a huge problem” Said Markez, almost yelling.
“Slow down” replied Sparks “What’s the problem?”
“There was a message, Sent to Earth, to the Coalition, from this ship”
“What!?” replied Sparks
“It was an automated message sending the ships co-ordinates, it was sent when I reactivated the reactor, I had no idea. What happens if they come looking?” said Markez
“With this hyperdrive system it would take them 2 years to get here, but if they have improved their technology in the last 500 years they could be here sooner” replied Sparks.
“We have to warn the houses” said Markez.
“Well I need to test the Hyperdrive, so why don’t we do it in person” Sparks closed a panel and moved towards the door.
Sparks and Markez moved up to the bridge, Markez sat in the captains chair and announced over the ship intercom that they were going to test the hyperdrive engines, He contacted the base and cleared for launch.
The Phoenix moved slowly away from the docking arm and began to clear its way through the junk field around Trafalgar base. With its shield fully operational it pushed everything out of its way and left a clear path behind it.
Sparks set course for New London. It would only require a split second burst of the hyperdrive engine to arrive close to the planet.
Sparks pressed a few buttons and there was a flash of light that lasted only a split second, the view screen was now filled with the view of New London.
“Well, that was quick. I guess we could say that was a success?” Said Markez.
“Yep, but I have to make some adjustments to it before we can try that again, It’ll take about an hour. It should be long enough for you to get down to the surface and back”
Markez stood and left the bridge, he headed down to the surface and told the Bretonian government about the message and the possible impending doom.
Im almost finished chapter 13 in word, its upto 35 pages and 20,000 words. have another chapter or two till i wrap it up, and in my time dreaming about the story (while supposed to be working) i have thought of an alternate ending, so i'll post them both up.
Bloody Bretonians! Almost as bad as the French!
Here you go Nutty, Ask and ye shall receive.
Chapter 8
Just over 4 weeks had passed since Markez had resurrected the Phoenix from the nebula, It had been an un eventful flight back, with Markez spending the majority of his time repairing various systems on the ship, There seemed to be a lot of damage to power systems, like there had been a massive overload.
He managed to get partial weapons online, there were 4 working turrets on the front of the ship, and one of the main cannons, All the rest of the weapon power couplings were too badly damaged.
The sensor system was a total write off, Markez had to resort to using the Rhino sensors but the biggest problem is that the Rhino sensors wouldn’t penetrate much further than about 100 meters out of the ships hull.
The only other major system he was able to repair was the internal stabilizers, which made for a much smoother ride.
In the crew quarters he had found a fighter simulator, a replica of the cabin of one of the small fighters within the hangar.
Markez spent a fair bit of time messing around in it, getting a feel for flying the fighters and just generally having fun, In the simulator the fighters felt very fast and highly maneuverable, he was itching for a chance to get out in a real one.
Before long he saw the glow of the medium yellow star that lit the Dublin system in the distance, It would only be a day before he was in the system.
As Markez approached the system he made some slight navigational maneuvers, there were a few asteroid fields he wanted to avoid, not only because of the damage, but because they were often full of Mollys.
The Phoenix cruised slowly past the Molly field, Markez sitting in the bridge peering out the front window, With no real sensors he was stuck with visuals only, any attack would never be seen until the rounds hit the hull plating.
Suddenly the communications crackled into life, a Bloodhound pulled into view in front of the ship, It was a Molly.
“Wots dat Guv?, wot you doin around our turf huh?”
Markez had always wondered about the Mollys accent. It was something they had created all for themselves, Apparently the original Mollys found a few recordings in some old history files and had taken to it as their own.
Markez turned on the communicator.
“This is the freelancer cruiser Phoenix, Im just passing through, I don’t want any trouble”
The radio crackled back, “well guv, dats a big ship you got dere, surely you’d have some good treasures on it for me huh? Or maybe I’ll have come on board and take em by force?”
Markez smiled to himself and replied,
“your game. I count one of you and my ship with ten times as many guns. Trust me, its not worth it.”
Markez was trying to bluff his way though, but definitely had some appreciation for the Molly and his brazen efforts.
“Well guv, See I scanned your ship, and it says dat you got no sensors, no shields and most of ya guns are offline. And you miscounted guv, there’s six of us.”
Markez knew there was no way out of this mess, so he throttled the engines all the way up and began charging all the weapons, The turrets were set to auto tracking and firing, and began firing off volleys immediately.
One of the volleys found a target with the original Molly’s ship and tore through his shields, tearing the wing of the bloodhound clean off the hull.
Within moments Markez felt the shuddering through the deck plating as the Molly guns burned against the hull, the Phoenix turrets continued firing and found another target, obliterating a ship with one round.
Markez was amazed at the power of the turrets as he noticed on the main weapons screen that one of the Molly’s had flown directly at the front of the ship, he was playing Chicken and firing all his guns. The Rhino shield on the front was dropping very quickly and wouldn’t last long.
What the Molly didn’t realize is that he was also lined up directly with the main cannon that was fully charged and ready to fire, Markez pushed a button and the Molly ship disappeared in a brilliant flash of light and plasma. As the charge dissipated, Markez was in total awe, there was absolutely no debris left, the ship had been completely vaporized from existence.
Then there was another flash as the turrets landed another fatal shot on a bloodhound.
The remaining three ships decided that they were heavily outclassed and a tactical retreat was definitely in order, they all scattered and flew away as the turrets let of a final round, scoring a direct hit on a fleeing bloodhound, demolishing it into little fragments of space wreckage.
Markez sat down in shock, He was blown away by the power of this ship, especially considering there were only 4 working turrets.
He continued on his course towards the jump gate, completely unaware of the Centurion fighter that had watched the entire event unfold from the safety of the asteroid field.
The centurion fighter moved quietly away through the asteroid field, heading towards an unknown jumphole.
Within minutes Markez had reached the jump gate, the Phoenix getting a lot of looks from the few ships around, including the Battleship Essex. They panicked when it appeared on its screens, and dispatched a fighter wing to intercept.
Once they realized it was a friendly freelancer they let it pass and continue towards the jump gate.
It was going to be a tight fit though the gate, the Phoenix hull only just squeezing through.
In the New London system there was the usual questions by various military craft, all wondering whether it was a hostile and where it had appeared from.
Markez maneuvered towards the trade lane, again only just fitting through the rings and setting course for Trafalgar base.
Sparks was going to be blown away when he saw the Phoenix.
Chapter 9
Markez received clearance to dock with Trafalgar base and maneuvered the Phoenix up against it, he had already told them that the airlock was damaged, and he would remain on board while it was repaired. Sparks was sent out as part of the repair team, he had no idea about who was onboard the ship.
As the repair crew walked along the docking arm in their vac suits they looked out the small windows in awe at the massive hulk looming before them. Within a few hours the airlock was repaired and Markez was able to begin opening a few of the bulkheads.
With a hiss the airlock section pressurized and the blast door opened. Markez stepped from around the corner and saw Sparks standing in the docking arm, removing his vac suit helmet.
Sparks hadn’t noticed him yet so he piped up, “guess what I found?”
Sparks looked up at the sound of a very familiar voice, “No way, your kidding right?”
“Nope, she was floating by a moon, just waiting for me. I know you want to look around, but im starving and really need a sonic shower. Let me get cleaned up and I’ll tell you about the whole trip over a meal.”
An hour later Markez and Sparks sat in the bar, Markez describing the entire trip while stuffing his face with food, Ration packs were ok, but nothing like a fresh cooked meal.
Markez told Sparks about the planet of people, the discovery in the nebula, the repairs he had to make, the flight simulator and the fighters in the bay, the skirmish with the Mollys and finally the frozen passenger in the cryo pod.
Sparks didn’t know where to start.
“So tell me about these repairs you did huh? Im going to have to see this for myself”
Markez laughed “Yea ok, lets go look at it”
Markez and sparks walked down towards the ship and into the reactor room, Markez showed Sparks the reactor coupling he salvaged from the rhino.
Sparks looked briefly at it and then began looking very closely at the reactor core and assemblies.
“So how did you start this engine?” Said Sparks
“Its just like the engine in the Rhino, I just pushed some buttons and started it.” Replied Markez
“Well, that’s where you are wrong. This is an Anti matter reactor, this is technology we have never seen in Sirius space, at the moment the only info I have ever seen was theoretical. This reactor even compresses the anti matter stream before mixing it into the reactor. The closest technology to this is a small reactor on New Berlin at the Reichstatd research facility, but they don’t compress the anti mater stream, the reactor is 20 times the size and it has taken them 40 years to come up with a working model. Im surprised you didn’t blow yourself into a million pieces.”
“So that’s good then?” Queried Markez.
“This reactor would probably provide enough power for all of the Bretonian navy capital ships combined. This ship would be invincible once its fully functional” Said Sparks
“Wow” was all that Markez could manage.
“Yea, wow. But it’s going to cost a fortune to fix it. We could always sell the reactor technology to Rheinland to fund it” said Sparks
“That would give them a massive advantage over all the other houses, the Rheinland ships are tough enough already, It could lead to war. We should sell it to all the houses at once, we could make 4 times as much money too. Then we can get to repairing all of the ship.” Said Markez
He paused for a few minutes as the all familiar ache ran though his shoulder and down his arm, causing him to wince slightly at the pain. It was getting worse lately.
Within a few days the rumors had spread throughout the colonies, everything from a ghost ship to an alien battle cruiser that could vaporize entire fleets in a single shot.
Sparks had called a few of his friends amongst the houses and invited then to inspect the technology, within a day they had scientists from all the houses as well as from Samura industries, Kishiro technologies and Ageria technologies all wanting to buy the technology. A friend of Sparks was handling the bargaining, he was one of the toughest commodity dealers of all of the Junkers, He could sell Cardamine to outcasts and make a killing doing it.
He set the entry price at 2 million credits, and the plans at 25 million per buyer.
All up that equated to a potential of 189 million credits.
Minus his cut of 9 million credits, Markez and Sparks walked away with a very health sum.
They immediately set to getting the ship repaired, All systems were analyzed and rebuilt.
The Ship logs were downloaded and analyzed. Markez had been working on the logs when he came across the captains log.
It described the mission to find the Alliance sleeper ships and where they had landed 100 years after they had left, then to report that info back to the coalition, It was updated daily for 4 days before the crew went into cryo sleep and made a hyperjump.
Markez then found the ships computer data log for the entire journey, He read through it from the start of the mission, All the usual procedure and system checks were detailed by the computer. He followed the log through the flight over 2 years and discovered some sensor readings of a massively charged plasma field that the ship flew through, the resulting discharge through the shields had caused a massive feedback, the feedback traveled through the reactor and into the engines, causing the ship to veer offcourse. The overload also fried most of the weapons and sensor systems, destroyed the shield generator power couplings, and ruptured a power conduit near the side of the ship causing an explosion. After the explosion the reactor power coupling burned out.
The computer revived the chief engineer in order to repair the damage, and shortly after registered a massive radiation leak in the reactor room.
The ship drifted for 90 years before being caught in the gravitational pull of the volcanic moon within the nebula.
The data log went on for another 20 years before the power levels dropped to a critical level and all the remaining systems began to shut down, with only the cryo pods remaining active, each one dropping off as the power failed.
The remaining cryo pod had been taken by the Bretonian government, and the occupant would be thawed out and interrogated. Markez didn’t worry himself about those details.
It seemed like it had been weeks of sifting through computer info, when in reality it had been about 5 days, Markez was exhausted and took a well deserved break.
He strolled out of his quarters, now located on his new ship and walked around the decks. There was work going on everywhere, repair crews were being paid to repair all the facets of the ship. Teams of engineers and scientists were also working on the ship, studying the technologies and repairing it. They were being paid a handsome sum to keep the knowledge learned on the ship, and not throughout the houses.
Sparks was working hard on the shield generator and was just about to bring it online when Markez walked up to him. “what’s happening? Broken anything yet.”
Sparks smirked “I’m just about to bring the shields online, then onto the hyperdrive engine. I’ve got crews working on all the weapon systems, and they are reporting that it will all be operational soon. Other than that, 85% of all systems are operational, there is just all the hull damage left to repair. That’ll take some time to fix. There are a few bulkheads that need to be completely rebuilt. I’ve already got a crew grafting that first piece of hull you found back on. How are the computer logs going?”
“Almost done” Markez replied “I’m just taking a breather”
Sparks moved over to a control panel and began pushing buttons, the shield generator hummed quietly as it built up a charge.
There was a screen on the wall that showed a 3d outline of the ship, a field began to grow around it and formed into a protective shell. The shield was fully operational
“Well, we have shields, now for the Hyperdrive” Said Sparks
“Yea, Id better get back to the logs” Replied Markez as he walked away, leaving Sparks to pack up his tools and move onto repairing the hyperdrive.
Markez wandered back towards his quarters via the crew kitchen. There was a temporary cook on board, catering to all the repair crews.
Markez grabbed a tube of Synthpaste and a hot black coffee and headed back to the logs.
He sat down and continued trawling through all the information, suddenly he noticed a log of a transmission, It stood out because the timestamp was only 6 weeks old.
Markez looked closely at it. It was an automated signal reporting the position of the ship back to the coalition, It had been activated when the reactor was powered up.
Markez sat frozen in his seat. It would have only taken a few days for a subspace message to get to earth, only 120 thousand light years away, Markez had learned its location from the star maps contained within the ships computer.
Markez stood upright suddenly, spilling his coffee in the process and bolted out the door, he ran through the bowels of the ship, heading towards the hyperdrive and Sparks, He burst through the door, almost knocking Sparks off his feet
“We have a huge problem” Said Markez, almost yelling.
“Slow down” replied Sparks “What’s the problem?”
“There was a message, Sent to Earth, to the Coalition, from this ship”
“What!?” replied Sparks
“It was an automated message sending the ships co-ordinates, it was sent when I reactivated the reactor, I had no idea. What happens if they come looking?” said Markez
“With this hyperdrive system it would take them 2 years to get here, but if they have improved their technology in the last 500 years they could be here sooner” replied Sparks.
“We have to warn the houses” said Markez.
“Well I need to test the Hyperdrive, so why don’t we do it in person” Sparks closed a panel and moved towards the door.
Sparks and Markez moved up to the bridge, Markez sat in the captains chair and announced over the ship intercom that they were going to test the hyperdrive engines, He contacted the base and cleared for launch.
The Phoenix moved slowly away from the docking arm and began to clear its way through the junk field around Trafalgar base. With its shield fully operational it pushed everything out of its way and left a clear path behind it.
Sparks set course for New London. It would only require a split second burst of the hyperdrive engine to arrive close to the planet.
Sparks pressed a few buttons and there was a flash of light that lasted only a split second, the view screen was now filled with the view of New London.
“Well, that was quick. I guess we could say that was a success?” Said Markez.
“Yep, but I have to make some adjustments to it before we can try that again, It’ll take about an hour. It should be long enough for you to get down to the surface and back”
Markez stood and left the bridge, he headed down to the surface and told the Bretonian government about the message and the possible impending doom.
Im almost finished chapter 13 in word, its upto 35 pages and 20,000 words. have another chapter or two till i wrap it up, and in my time dreaming about the story (while supposed to be working) i have thought of an alternate ending, so i'll post them both up.
Bloody Bretonians! Almost as bad as the French!
Sun Jun 04, 2006 4:25 am
Chapter 10
Markez had recently arrived back on board the phoenix, it had taken over 4 hours to get the message to the Bretonian authorities and Markez was eager to keep moving, while he was on New London he had heard a rumor that the Corsairs were planning on boarding and stealing the Phoenix.
Sparks punched in a course towards the Cambridge system, He was only going to make a relatively small jump, he wanted to test the system in a controlled and safe area, incase there were more problems.
He engaged the Hyperdrive engine and the view screen showed the stars speed up and blur past in long streaks, it lasted for a few seconds before slowing down again to normal.
The view screen was now filled with the Keswick ice cloud, just before the jump gate to the omega 3 sector.
The scanners suddenly picked up 5 ships off to the starboard side, It was a corsair raiding party hidden in the cloud. The corsair ships turned and headed towards the Phoenix, They showed up on the scanner as heavily armed titans, they had been using the cloud as a staging point before raiding Trafalgar base.
The lead corsair came over on the comm. channel “Surrender and we won’t kill you”
They barely waited a second before opening fire with everything they had.
The shields didn’t even flicker as all the shots glanced off. The weapons officer, a Junker by the name of Roland Willis, targeted 3 of the titans and opened fire. With a flash the titans where annihilated, he then targeted the remaining two and destroyed them.
It was over before anyone even realized what happened.
Markez decided that there would be time to teach the Corsairs a lesson in respect. He directed Sparks to set course for Cadiz Base in the Omega 5 sector.
Sparks laid in a course for the outer edge of the Omega 5 system, the system was filled with asteroids and it wouldn’t be safe to jump too close to them. They would have to make a path through them all the way to Cadiz base.
Once again the hyperdrive engine rumbled and the stars blurred past on the view screen, within moments they were before the massive asteroid field that hid Corsair and Red Hessian bases.
Sparks punched in a course to push through the asteroids and moved the Phoenix in, He still needed to avoid the larger rocks, but the smaller ones were brushed aside the ships hull as it passed through.
Within a few minutes they had come within sensor range of the Corsair base. The Corsairs had detected them too, and were scrambling fighters to engage, their shots barely registering on the shields of the Phoenix.
The weapons officer brought all the guns online and targeted the base, all 3 main cannons were fully charged and ready to fire.
Markez moved over to the comm. panel and keyed in a general frequency, “To all Corsairs, Do not ever attempt to attack the Phoenix again, or I will lay waste to all of you”
He then looked towards weapons officer Willis “All guns, open fire”
There was a massive flash as all the guns fired at once, the three main cannons glowed and belched a brilliant plasma charge towards the base. As it slammed into the side of the asteroid that housed the Corsairs it turned the hard shell into molten rock, chunks of debris flew in all directions as the plasma charge exited the other side of the asteroid.
All of the base turrets became lifeless as smaller explosions rattled around the base, the remaining atmosphere rushed out of gaping holes, taking bodies with it into a cold and icy death.
The remaining few Corsair ships that hadn’t been destroyed by the ships turrets fled deep into the field.
Markez sat back down in the captains chair, he never liked Corsairs much anyway, they only ever looked out for themselves, and had no respect for anyone else.
“Set course for New Berlin and engage the engines, go to hyperdrive when we are clear”
Sparks maneuvered the Phoenix clear of the asteroid field and engaged the hyperdrive engines. They arrived at New Berlin shortly later where Markez met with the Chancellor, Next stop was Kusari space and then to the President in Liberty space.
After over a day of flying between the houses Markez had warned everyone of the Coalition threat, a top level meeting had been organized for a few days later, All the representatives would meet aboard the Phoenix. The obliteration of Cadiz base was also big news all throughout the colonies.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A large group of people sat around a table aboard the Phoenix, Markez and Sparks both sitting at one end. The meeting had only been going for half an hour and already parties were arguing.
“You must let the Rheinland scientists study this ship!” the Chancellor yelled, “We will defend the colonies from the Coalition”
The Edo responded aggressively “That is nonsense! You cannot even control your own people, What makes you think you can organize an effective battle fleet. The technology should be in Kusari control, we will incorporate it efficiently into our battle ships.”
The Queens representative sat quietly and watched the arguing men, “you seem to forget who has the Coalition prisoner from the cryo pod, and we have already had much success interrogating him.”
“Yes, but his information is over 700 years old, how accurate do you think it is?” President Jacobi was getting annoyed with the bickering and just wanted to make some progress. “Surely we can come to some sort of arrangement that satisfies all parties here”
Markez interrupted the arguing “Nobody is pulling this ship apart, It belongs to me, I salvaged it and I’m keeping it. The reason we are all here is to prepare for a possible invasion by Coalition forces. You already have access to the Anti matter reactor technology, and im willing to let you study the weapons for your capital ships. We still don’t know if, or even when they will arrive. All I’m asking in return is your facilities to repair the remainder of the ship and a crew if the Coalition decides to attack.”
The Chancellor was the first to respond “We will repair and crew your ship for you, Rheinlands finest officers will serve you.”
President Jacobi practically cut him off “We won’t let the Phoenix be controlled by Rheinland officers. I propose we use officers from all of the houses.”
“Agreed, that is an excellent idea and Bretonia supports you” replied the Queens representative.
The meeting continued for another hour before agreements were met. The Phoenix was flown to Alster shipyard where all the repairs were completed. Scientists spent weeks analyzing and replicating the weapons systems, as well as retrofitting all the capital ships of the houses with anti matter reactors.
Bloody Bretonians! Almost as bad as the French!
Markez had recently arrived back on board the phoenix, it had taken over 4 hours to get the message to the Bretonian authorities and Markez was eager to keep moving, while he was on New London he had heard a rumor that the Corsairs were planning on boarding and stealing the Phoenix.
Sparks punched in a course towards the Cambridge system, He was only going to make a relatively small jump, he wanted to test the system in a controlled and safe area, incase there were more problems.
He engaged the Hyperdrive engine and the view screen showed the stars speed up and blur past in long streaks, it lasted for a few seconds before slowing down again to normal.
The view screen was now filled with the Keswick ice cloud, just before the jump gate to the omega 3 sector.
The scanners suddenly picked up 5 ships off to the starboard side, It was a corsair raiding party hidden in the cloud. The corsair ships turned and headed towards the Phoenix, They showed up on the scanner as heavily armed titans, they had been using the cloud as a staging point before raiding Trafalgar base.
The lead corsair came over on the comm. channel “Surrender and we won’t kill you”
They barely waited a second before opening fire with everything they had.
The shields didn’t even flicker as all the shots glanced off. The weapons officer, a Junker by the name of Roland Willis, targeted 3 of the titans and opened fire. With a flash the titans where annihilated, he then targeted the remaining two and destroyed them.
It was over before anyone even realized what happened.
Markez decided that there would be time to teach the Corsairs a lesson in respect. He directed Sparks to set course for Cadiz Base in the Omega 5 sector.
Sparks laid in a course for the outer edge of the Omega 5 system, the system was filled with asteroids and it wouldn’t be safe to jump too close to them. They would have to make a path through them all the way to Cadiz base.
Once again the hyperdrive engine rumbled and the stars blurred past on the view screen, within moments they were before the massive asteroid field that hid Corsair and Red Hessian bases.
Sparks punched in a course to push through the asteroids and moved the Phoenix in, He still needed to avoid the larger rocks, but the smaller ones were brushed aside the ships hull as it passed through.
Within a few minutes they had come within sensor range of the Corsair base. The Corsairs had detected them too, and were scrambling fighters to engage, their shots barely registering on the shields of the Phoenix.
The weapons officer brought all the guns online and targeted the base, all 3 main cannons were fully charged and ready to fire.
Markez moved over to the comm. panel and keyed in a general frequency, “To all Corsairs, Do not ever attempt to attack the Phoenix again, or I will lay waste to all of you”
He then looked towards weapons officer Willis “All guns, open fire”
There was a massive flash as all the guns fired at once, the three main cannons glowed and belched a brilliant plasma charge towards the base. As it slammed into the side of the asteroid that housed the Corsairs it turned the hard shell into molten rock, chunks of debris flew in all directions as the plasma charge exited the other side of the asteroid.
All of the base turrets became lifeless as smaller explosions rattled around the base, the remaining atmosphere rushed out of gaping holes, taking bodies with it into a cold and icy death.
The remaining few Corsair ships that hadn’t been destroyed by the ships turrets fled deep into the field.
Markez sat back down in the captains chair, he never liked Corsairs much anyway, they only ever looked out for themselves, and had no respect for anyone else.
“Set course for New Berlin and engage the engines, go to hyperdrive when we are clear”
Sparks maneuvered the Phoenix clear of the asteroid field and engaged the hyperdrive engines. They arrived at New Berlin shortly later where Markez met with the Chancellor, Next stop was Kusari space and then to the President in Liberty space.
After over a day of flying between the houses Markez had warned everyone of the Coalition threat, a top level meeting had been organized for a few days later, All the representatives would meet aboard the Phoenix. The obliteration of Cadiz base was also big news all throughout the colonies.
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A large group of people sat around a table aboard the Phoenix, Markez and Sparks both sitting at one end. The meeting had only been going for half an hour and already parties were arguing.
“You must let the Rheinland scientists study this ship!” the Chancellor yelled, “We will defend the colonies from the Coalition”
The Edo responded aggressively “That is nonsense! You cannot even control your own people, What makes you think you can organize an effective battle fleet. The technology should be in Kusari control, we will incorporate it efficiently into our battle ships.”
The Queens representative sat quietly and watched the arguing men, “you seem to forget who has the Coalition prisoner from the cryo pod, and we have already had much success interrogating him.”
“Yes, but his information is over 700 years old, how accurate do you think it is?” President Jacobi was getting annoyed with the bickering and just wanted to make some progress. “Surely we can come to some sort of arrangement that satisfies all parties here”
Markez interrupted the arguing “Nobody is pulling this ship apart, It belongs to me, I salvaged it and I’m keeping it. The reason we are all here is to prepare for a possible invasion by Coalition forces. You already have access to the Anti matter reactor technology, and im willing to let you study the weapons for your capital ships. We still don’t know if, or even when they will arrive. All I’m asking in return is your facilities to repair the remainder of the ship and a crew if the Coalition decides to attack.”
The Chancellor was the first to respond “We will repair and crew your ship for you, Rheinlands finest officers will serve you.”
President Jacobi practically cut him off “We won’t let the Phoenix be controlled by Rheinland officers. I propose we use officers from all of the houses.”
“Agreed, that is an excellent idea and Bretonia supports you” replied the Queens representative.
The meeting continued for another hour before agreements were met. The Phoenix was flown to Alster shipyard where all the repairs were completed. Scientists spent weeks analyzing and replicating the weapons systems, as well as retrofitting all the capital ships of the houses with anti matter reactors.
Bloody Bretonians! Almost as bad as the French!
Thu Jun 08, 2006 4:52 am
Chapter 11
It had been over 3 months since the Phoenix had birthed at Oder Shipyard for repairs. Markez was just outside the Omega sectors, performing maneuvers with his new crew.
Weapons officer Willis was still on board, and Sparks had moved down to the engineering section. He was replaced on the con by a Rheinland navigation officer, a Frederic Muller who had been posted on the Donau but was on shore leave when it was destroyed.
His new Communications officer, Beverly Simms, A Bretonian, sat quietly at her post, monitoring all the subspace communications and general space noise.
Markez looked to his right. A tall Kusari man was observing the crew aboard the bridge.
He was the new second in command. General Sakuru Tagashi was one of the finest officers in the Kusari fleet, and a brilliant tactician. He was extremely disciplined and regimental in his behavior, The Edo had recommended him personally and guaranteed that he would follow all orders to the letter with absolute dedication and honor, Markez knew he would depend on him later.
Simms turned to Markez “Captain, we have an incoming transmission, Its not from the houses”
Markez looked slightly puzzled “Put it up on the screen, lets see who it is”
Simms routed the message to the main view screen, It flickered and then sprung to life.
A picture of a large, heavy built man in a black and red uniform appeared on the screen, behind him was the bridge of a very large ship and people moving about everywhere.
Markez looked directly at him “This is captain Markez of the Phoenix, What can I help you with?”
The uniformed man cut Markez off “This is Supreme Commander Rostov of the Coalition destroyer Steel Fang, you are in possession of Coalition property. Surrender immediately or you will be destroyed”
Markez Replied “This ship belongs to me under interspace salvage laws, I found it floating as a derelict and repaired it. I am not surrendering it to anyone.”
“Very well, you have made your decision. Now live by the consequences” The uniformed man cut off communications.
Markez turned to Simms, “where did that comm. originate from?”
“About 700 light years away, In the direction of the Sol sector”
Markez turned to his second in command “General Tagashi, Can you join me in the tactical room.”
Markez and Tagashi walked into the tactical room, Markez moved over to a console and began entering some figures, He was making some rough calculations on the distance the Coalition had traveled. Within moments he had some basic figures.
“Ok, lets see” Markez began “So the message was sent about 5 months ago and took a few days to arrive, The distance is 120 thousand light years, so if they set out roughly just after getting the message and sent this new transmission just then from 700 light years away, they could be here in, 1 day.”
General Tagashi’s facial expression changed ever so slightly, It almost seemed like he frowned “It seems that they have improved their hyperdrive technology vastly in the last several centuries to make the trip in such short time, I would not doubt that they have improved their weapons technology too. This could be devastating against us. We must relay this information to the houses immediately”
General Tagashi turned and moved briskly from the room, He proceeded directly to his quarters to make a secure transmission, the leaders of the houses were not going to enjoy this new information.
Markez returned to the bridge and ordered an immediate course change and hyperjump back into the Manhattan system, he knew full well that it was time to assemble all of the fleets together.
The Phoenix was in orbit around Manhattan, Markez had been there for 2 days in exhausting meetings with military commanders and political leaders, finally all the houses were willing to co-operate in a joint defense effort. Markez had only just got back aboard and was sitting in his quarters, he hadn’t slept properly since the comm. transmission. He lay down on his bed, he could feel his eyelids getting heavy, slowly he dozed off, finally relaxing enough to get some rest.
Suddenly there was a loud siren screaming from down a hallway, red lights flashed in every room, Markez sat bolt upright at the shock of the noise. Within moments he realized it was a red alert. He jumped up and rushed towards the bridge, arriving within seconds. “Status report General Tagashi! What’s going on?”
General Tagashi looked at Markez, His face showing both anger and sadness, “New London is gone, the Thames outpost and Waterloo station have been destroyed too. The battleship Suffolk tried to protect them, but it was wiped out too. There were over 6 million people on New London, they are all dead.”
Markez looked in horror at his bridge crew. They were all in a state of shock, Comm. officer Simms was pale with shock, suddenly she toppled over and vomited as the realization that all her family was gone struck home.
Markez broke the silence “How? How did it happen? Were we attacked?”
As he spoke a message flickered on the comm. screen, Simms picked herself up and weakly said “Incoming transmission sir, From President Jacobi” she then stood and left the bridge silently.
Markez moved over to the comm. panel and routed the message to the main viewscreen.
The president’s picture appeared on the screen, she was noticeably shaken by the sudden events. She spoke up, shakily at first, but soon becoming very determined in her manner “Captain, as I’m sure you have heard, New London has been destroyed. As we feared the Coalition have attacked us. The report was that a large ship appeared from nowhere and launched a device into the planets atmosphere, at the same time opening fire on the nearby stations and ships, everything was obliterated. The device that was launched into orbit detonated and caused a chain reaction in the atmosphere, causing the entire sky to turn into superheated plasma. Nothing could have survived it. The battleship Suffolk moved quickly to help, but was attacked straightaway, it did however, manage to send off a video recording right up until its destruction. Here it is now, I’ll warn you now, you will need to brace yourself for this.”
The picture of Jacobi disappeared and was replaced by the view of New London from a distance. A Large ship orbited the planet, it was 3 times the size of Waterloo station. Streams of brilliant plasma could be seen emanating from all directions into the surrounding stations, The Thames outpost buckled and ripped apart within seconds, followed shortly by Waterloo station. The large ship turned slowly to face towards the Suffolk as the planet below began to erupt into fire. The plasma spread across the surface, engulfing the entire planet and liquefying anything in its path, the planet glowed like a small sun and then died away, leaving a dull reddish glow.
The Suffolk was getting a lot closer to the large ship, details were becoming clearer when there was a bright flash from the front of the ship. A large, brilliantly glowing ball came directly at the Suffolk. The ball grew larger until it filled the entire viewscreen, then suddenly there was no picture.
Jacobi’s picture returned to the screen. “All the houses are scrambling every ship and pilot they can muster and heading to the Manchester system, Even pirate clans are joining the fight. I want the Phoenix there immediately, Several Bretonian battleships are there and the Liberty fleet will be there shortly. The Kusari fleet will be right behind them and the Rheinland fleet is going to come from the Omega systems, the current plan is they will come from the side to attack and hopefully give us a strategic advantage.”
A junior officer had come to the bridge and replaced Simms on her post “Sir, we have another transmission coming in, from New London”
Markez nodded in acknowledgement, “I have another message coming in, I’ll get back to you shortly.”
He then turned to the Comm. officer and directed him to open a channel.
The viewscreen flickered and came to life, there was the same uniformed man from before.
“Supreme Commander Rostov.” Markez began “I assume you are responsible for the attack on New London? I hope you realize that we will not tolerate any act of aggression and we are taking this as an open act of war”
A smile formed over the Commanders face, His lips forming into a tight smirk “Do you really believe that you are any match against us? We destroyed an entire planet with one ship as a demonstration of power and you think I am going to be scared of a 700 year old cruiser? This is your last chance to surrender, all of you. If you defy us we will systematically wipe every single one of you out like the vermin you are, you will have no chances to flee like your coward forefathers.”
Supreme Commander Rostov gestured to someone off screen, within seconds a general broadcast channel was opened to all of the Sirius sector.
“To all inhabitants of this sector, By order of the Coalition this sector is now Coalition territory, you will all surrender immediately or be destroyed. Proceed to the dead planet in the system you call New London for processing. If you resist you will be destroyed.”
The screen went blank as Supreme Commander Rostov cut of all transmissions.
Markez turned to nav officer Muller “Set course for the Manchester system and hyperjump when ready, we have a fleet to muster”
Markez sat quietly at his chair, wondering on the fate of the Sirius sector, would this be the end, or would they manage to survive against insurmountable odds.
Bloody Bretonians! Almost as bad as the French!
It had been over 3 months since the Phoenix had birthed at Oder Shipyard for repairs. Markez was just outside the Omega sectors, performing maneuvers with his new crew.
Weapons officer Willis was still on board, and Sparks had moved down to the engineering section. He was replaced on the con by a Rheinland navigation officer, a Frederic Muller who had been posted on the Donau but was on shore leave when it was destroyed.
His new Communications officer, Beverly Simms, A Bretonian, sat quietly at her post, monitoring all the subspace communications and general space noise.
Markez looked to his right. A tall Kusari man was observing the crew aboard the bridge.
He was the new second in command. General Sakuru Tagashi was one of the finest officers in the Kusari fleet, and a brilliant tactician. He was extremely disciplined and regimental in his behavior, The Edo had recommended him personally and guaranteed that he would follow all orders to the letter with absolute dedication and honor, Markez knew he would depend on him later.
Simms turned to Markez “Captain, we have an incoming transmission, Its not from the houses”
Markez looked slightly puzzled “Put it up on the screen, lets see who it is”
Simms routed the message to the main view screen, It flickered and then sprung to life.
A picture of a large, heavy built man in a black and red uniform appeared on the screen, behind him was the bridge of a very large ship and people moving about everywhere.
Markez looked directly at him “This is captain Markez of the Phoenix, What can I help you with?”
The uniformed man cut Markez off “This is Supreme Commander Rostov of the Coalition destroyer Steel Fang, you are in possession of Coalition property. Surrender immediately or you will be destroyed”
Markez Replied “This ship belongs to me under interspace salvage laws, I found it floating as a derelict and repaired it. I am not surrendering it to anyone.”
“Very well, you have made your decision. Now live by the consequences” The uniformed man cut off communications.
Markez turned to Simms, “where did that comm. originate from?”
“About 700 light years away, In the direction of the Sol sector”
Markez turned to his second in command “General Tagashi, Can you join me in the tactical room.”
Markez and Tagashi walked into the tactical room, Markez moved over to a console and began entering some figures, He was making some rough calculations on the distance the Coalition had traveled. Within moments he had some basic figures.
“Ok, lets see” Markez began “So the message was sent about 5 months ago and took a few days to arrive, The distance is 120 thousand light years, so if they set out roughly just after getting the message and sent this new transmission just then from 700 light years away, they could be here in, 1 day.”
General Tagashi’s facial expression changed ever so slightly, It almost seemed like he frowned “It seems that they have improved their hyperdrive technology vastly in the last several centuries to make the trip in such short time, I would not doubt that they have improved their weapons technology too. This could be devastating against us. We must relay this information to the houses immediately”
General Tagashi turned and moved briskly from the room, He proceeded directly to his quarters to make a secure transmission, the leaders of the houses were not going to enjoy this new information.
Markez returned to the bridge and ordered an immediate course change and hyperjump back into the Manhattan system, he knew full well that it was time to assemble all of the fleets together.
The Phoenix was in orbit around Manhattan, Markez had been there for 2 days in exhausting meetings with military commanders and political leaders, finally all the houses were willing to co-operate in a joint defense effort. Markez had only just got back aboard and was sitting in his quarters, he hadn’t slept properly since the comm. transmission. He lay down on his bed, he could feel his eyelids getting heavy, slowly he dozed off, finally relaxing enough to get some rest.
Suddenly there was a loud siren screaming from down a hallway, red lights flashed in every room, Markez sat bolt upright at the shock of the noise. Within moments he realized it was a red alert. He jumped up and rushed towards the bridge, arriving within seconds. “Status report General Tagashi! What’s going on?”
General Tagashi looked at Markez, His face showing both anger and sadness, “New London is gone, the Thames outpost and Waterloo station have been destroyed too. The battleship Suffolk tried to protect them, but it was wiped out too. There were over 6 million people on New London, they are all dead.”
Markez looked in horror at his bridge crew. They were all in a state of shock, Comm. officer Simms was pale with shock, suddenly she toppled over and vomited as the realization that all her family was gone struck home.
Markez broke the silence “How? How did it happen? Were we attacked?”
As he spoke a message flickered on the comm. screen, Simms picked herself up and weakly said “Incoming transmission sir, From President Jacobi” she then stood and left the bridge silently.
Markez moved over to the comm. panel and routed the message to the main viewscreen.
The president’s picture appeared on the screen, she was noticeably shaken by the sudden events. She spoke up, shakily at first, but soon becoming very determined in her manner “Captain, as I’m sure you have heard, New London has been destroyed. As we feared the Coalition have attacked us. The report was that a large ship appeared from nowhere and launched a device into the planets atmosphere, at the same time opening fire on the nearby stations and ships, everything was obliterated. The device that was launched into orbit detonated and caused a chain reaction in the atmosphere, causing the entire sky to turn into superheated plasma. Nothing could have survived it. The battleship Suffolk moved quickly to help, but was attacked straightaway, it did however, manage to send off a video recording right up until its destruction. Here it is now, I’ll warn you now, you will need to brace yourself for this.”
The picture of Jacobi disappeared and was replaced by the view of New London from a distance. A Large ship orbited the planet, it was 3 times the size of Waterloo station. Streams of brilliant plasma could be seen emanating from all directions into the surrounding stations, The Thames outpost buckled and ripped apart within seconds, followed shortly by Waterloo station. The large ship turned slowly to face towards the Suffolk as the planet below began to erupt into fire. The plasma spread across the surface, engulfing the entire planet and liquefying anything in its path, the planet glowed like a small sun and then died away, leaving a dull reddish glow.
The Suffolk was getting a lot closer to the large ship, details were becoming clearer when there was a bright flash from the front of the ship. A large, brilliantly glowing ball came directly at the Suffolk. The ball grew larger until it filled the entire viewscreen, then suddenly there was no picture.
Jacobi’s picture returned to the screen. “All the houses are scrambling every ship and pilot they can muster and heading to the Manchester system, Even pirate clans are joining the fight. I want the Phoenix there immediately, Several Bretonian battleships are there and the Liberty fleet will be there shortly. The Kusari fleet will be right behind them and the Rheinland fleet is going to come from the Omega systems, the current plan is they will come from the side to attack and hopefully give us a strategic advantage.”
A junior officer had come to the bridge and replaced Simms on her post “Sir, we have another transmission coming in, from New London”
Markez nodded in acknowledgement, “I have another message coming in, I’ll get back to you shortly.”
He then turned to the Comm. officer and directed him to open a channel.
The viewscreen flickered and came to life, there was the same uniformed man from before.
“Supreme Commander Rostov.” Markez began “I assume you are responsible for the attack on New London? I hope you realize that we will not tolerate any act of aggression and we are taking this as an open act of war”
A smile formed over the Commanders face, His lips forming into a tight smirk “Do you really believe that you are any match against us? We destroyed an entire planet with one ship as a demonstration of power and you think I am going to be scared of a 700 year old cruiser? This is your last chance to surrender, all of you. If you defy us we will systematically wipe every single one of you out like the vermin you are, you will have no chances to flee like your coward forefathers.”
Supreme Commander Rostov gestured to someone off screen, within seconds a general broadcast channel was opened to all of the Sirius sector.
“To all inhabitants of this sector, By order of the Coalition this sector is now Coalition territory, you will all surrender immediately or be destroyed. Proceed to the dead planet in the system you call New London for processing. If you resist you will be destroyed.”
The screen went blank as Supreme Commander Rostov cut of all transmissions.
Markez turned to nav officer Muller “Set course for the Manchester system and hyperjump when ready, we have a fleet to muster”
Markez sat quietly at his chair, wondering on the fate of the Sirius sector, would this be the end, or would they manage to survive against insurmountable odds.
Bloody Bretonians! Almost as bad as the French!
Thu Jun 08, 2006 4:53 am
Chapter 12.
The Phoenix sat amongst some of the most powerful ships in the Sirius sector. There were several Bretonian battleships to one side, with cruisers and gunboats floating close by, several fighter wings were patrolling the area.
To the other side was the Liberty fleet, with cruisers spread between the battle ships, the fabled battleship Osiris sitting as the flagship to the Liberty fleet.
Kusari forces were filtering through the jump gates and arriving in large packs, Groups of Blood Dragons flying side by side with Hogosha and Kusari police, the Military wings were escorting the Kusari battle ships and cruisers.
Close by were the Freelancers, bounty hunters and pirates, all had put aside their differences and had joined the fleet, their combined group of small ships amassed in a huge group on its own.
All of the capital ships of the houses had Anti matter reactor retrofits, and most of them also boasted weapons systems copied from the Phoenix.
Markez stood at a window and looked across the fleet. He had never in his life dreamed of seeing this many ships in one spot, there would have easily been about 70 capital ships, and over 2000 small fighter craft. There was still the Rheinland fleet to meet up with and all the pilots that flew with them.
Markez had recently received a message from the Chancellor, Indicating that the fleet was in position and ready to move. Now all he was waiting for was his recon pilot. One pilot, an old drinking buddy of Markez and Sparks had been daring enough to make a run through the New London sector, to assess the enemy strength, he was due here soon.
About an hour later a hawk fighter flew towards the Phoenix, It was in a bad shape, it had a wing missing and was leaking atmosphere. Simms hailed the Hawk but there was no response. It was most likely that the comm. system was damaged.
“Open the hangar doors for him, he’ll need to dock” Said Markez.
A few minutes later the pilot had docked his badly damaged fighter in the hull of the Phoenix and had headed up to the tactical room. The pilot stood quietly, his old flight jacket worn and torn from many different skirmishes.
Markez walked into the room “Tanner, Good to see you made it, how bad is it out there?”
“Nasty, I nearly didn’t make it back. I jumped in from the Omega systems and kept my distance. A scout came from nowhere and blitzed me. He only had one gun and I didn’t stand a chance. I don’t know how we are going to go against the real ships. Other than that, there is only the one large ship in orbit around New London, I didn’t see any support ships or fighter patrols. If we storm them quickly we should be able to take them.”
“Thanks” Replied Markez “As a sign of gratitude you can have one of the fighters in the hangar, you’ll need it.”
Markez reported the tactical info to the houses and prepared for attack, they agreed that the best time to strike was immediately.
The word went about to all ship commanders, flight wings were formed and tactical plans were passed along, in a large group all the ships moved towards the jumpgate. There were several Ageria technicians who had wired the jump gate to stay open in one direction, allowing all ships to fly straight through without the time consuming docking procedures.
It was a magnificent site, watching thousands of ships fly as a group, all eager for some retribution on the attack against New London.
It had been about an hour of flight when the fleet emerged in the New London system, Markez had just received a coded message from the Rheinland fleet, they would arrive and engage in minutes. Markez opened a comm. channel and said only three words, “All ships, Attack”
The fighters surged forwards and broke into smaller groups, the Liberty military wings flew through the centre, racing ahead of the cruisers and battleships, the Bretonians came around to the left flank and towards the enemy destroyer, the Kusari forces flanked to the right, Pirates and civilians headed from upper and lower directions, The Phoenix plowed through the centre of the fleet, already the main cannons were glowing and firing superheated balls of deadly plasma. In the distance the Rheinland fleet could be seen attacking from behind.
The massive shield around the enemy destroyer glowed as hundreds of thousands of rounds impacted against it. The enemy destroyers main cannons were targeting the larger battleships and cruisers, and tearing them apart, Almost like they had no shielding at all. Its turrets were firing non stop, trying to track the fast moving fighters, Gunships and cruisers were firing into the shield, trying like mad to weaken it. Suddenly from nowhere enemy fighters appeared, Like they had come from thin air, they engaged the colony fighters and cut through them like butter, the enemy fighters were outnumbered by about 200 to 1 but still had no dramas at all. A small group of 4 peeled away and began strafing runs on the heavier ships, their weapons making mince meat of the recently upgraded shield systems. Cruisers buckled, explosions ripping through the hulls, leaving a scattering field of debris.
Markez watched in horror as ship after ship exploded in a fiery ball, to his left, a Bretonian battleship blistered and exploded, a pair of enemy fighters peeling away from the carnage and beginning an attack run on a nearby Kusari battleship. More flashes emitted from the front of the enemy ships, the Kusari battleship’s hull tore open, Atmosphere spewing into the void, bodies and debris being taken with it and thrown around like limp ragdolls. Somehow the ship managed to stay in one piece, the engines still functioning, the remaining crew powered the engines and ran at full speed towards the enemy destroyer, within seconds it had built up enough speed to be unstoppable, the Kusari battleship slammed directly into the side of the enemy destroyer, the sheer size of the ship was too large for the shields to protect from, they buckled and gave way, the remaining wreckage of the Kusari ship slamming into the destroyer.
There was a blinding flash as the new anti matter reactor blew, the explosion at point blank range peeling away sections of the destroyers hull, several small explosions rattled through the destroyer.
Markez smiled at the Kusari ship, its crew were valiant to the end, preferring to take their own lives in a last ditch attack than to be sucked into the vacuum of space.
Markez ordered all weapons to be aimed at the hole in the shield, other ship commanders had the same idea and were directing fire at it, It was a possible weak point, and they were going to exploit it at all costs. A Rheinland gunship took the same course of action, fire spewing from holes in the hull, engine plasma leaking profusely and headed at full speed into the hull, exploding in a fiery ball of destruction.
Markez was watching the exploding ships around him, unable to do anything, The fleet was being decimated within minutes. Fighters were being vaporized and capital ships torn apart by the volley of gunfire from the enemy ship. Again, another Battleship buckled and exploded off to the side of the Phoenix.
The Phoenix was firing as fast as it could so Markez didn’t even notice that most of the fighters had either been destroyed, or had fled, realizing the battle was going very badly.
Suddenly a bridge officer yelled, “Sir! Another contact behind us!”
Markez turned to look at his screens as the Phoenix rocked violently, A large energy weapon impacting the hull, He saw a smaller ship firing directly at them, at the same time the space next to it began to shimmer and take on the outline of a large ship, within seconds a third ship had de-cloaked and began firing towards the remnants of the fleet, the Phoenix rocked again violently, An explosion rattled through the Phoenix, the comm. panel overloaded and exploded in a ball of sparks, Simms was blown backwards out of her chair, a large piece of steel lodged in her skull, Her lifeless body landed on the floor with a thud.
Markez turned and looked in horror at her dead body as another volley hit the Phoenix, the resulting explosion tearing through the ship, computer panels overloaded and exploded, killing crew members, General Tagashi was standing in front of one as it exploded, the force of it hurling him across the room into a torn bulkhead, his body being impaled on a loose section and hanging lifelessly. All Markez could think was that he was about to die, Suddenly he snapped back to reality as he heard Weapons officer Willis screaming “Shields are gone! The hull is breached! Weapons are failing! Captain, What do we do!”
Markez stood shakily and yelled “Abandon ship, All hands, Abandon ship!”
He turned and ran towards the hangar bay, his fighter would still be docked there, the rest of the crew were heading for the escape pods. As he ran through the corridors he passed dead crew lying on the floor, there were burn marks and explosion damage everywhere.
Finally he made it to the hangar, he jumped into his fighter ship and began opening the hangar doors, he hadn’t had much of a chance to fly this ship other than in the simulator, and a few hours around the shipyard while the Phoenix was docked.
Before he knew it the fighter was clear of the hull, he throttled up and moved away. He could see the escape pods launching away from the Phoenix, Its hull beginning to buckle and explode. The Phoenix burst into flames and detonated behind Markez’s fighter, the shockwave knocking the small craft around. As he pulled up and regained control of the fighter he realized that there were no other colony ships around, only debris and the occasional enemy fighter, mopping up anything they could find.
One of the enemy fighters turned and headed directly for Markez, His onboard computer chimed, indicating a missile lock but the enemy fighter didn’t fire, He didn’t even shoot his guns. Markez was slightly confused and thought maybe they were mistaking his ship for one of theirs, He decided that if any chance was good it was now, so he turned and aimed for open space, he was trying to make a run for the jumpgates.
As he began to head away his ship suddenly stopped, an eerie purple glow enveloped it. A tractor beam had locked on and was dragging him towards one of the smaller cruisers, there was nothing he could do but sit there and await his fate.
His shoulder was aching, the pain was becoming quite bad, It was going all the way down his arm and making his fingers tingle, His neck was tight and sore and he could feel the throb of pain spreading through his chest, He gripped his shoulder with his spare hand and sat back in the cockpit, staring into the black emptiness of space. Every now and again a piece of wreckage would drift by, A lot of it was familiar. A piece of wing from a hawk fighter, a section of hull plating with the partial insignia of the Rheinland fleet and scorched around the edges, A body drifted past, still wearing a flightsuit and strapped into a cockpit seat.
The cockpit went dark as the ship moved into the shadow of the enemy cruiser, disappearing quickly into an opening in the hull. The doors closed behind him and he was bathed in total darkness. With a thud the ship was contained by some large clamps.
Markez looked around, trying desperately to see anything, even the glow from the console had died away, obviously there was an energy dampening field active too.
He heard the thumping steps of large boots approaching and then the cockpit was pried open, Heavy gloved hands grabbed onto him and dragged him clear of the ship. He felt the gloved hands hold him down as a hypo needle pressed against his neck, Everything went black.
Bloody Bretonians! Almost as bad as the French!
The Phoenix sat amongst some of the most powerful ships in the Sirius sector. There were several Bretonian battleships to one side, with cruisers and gunboats floating close by, several fighter wings were patrolling the area.
To the other side was the Liberty fleet, with cruisers spread between the battle ships, the fabled battleship Osiris sitting as the flagship to the Liberty fleet.
Kusari forces were filtering through the jump gates and arriving in large packs, Groups of Blood Dragons flying side by side with Hogosha and Kusari police, the Military wings were escorting the Kusari battle ships and cruisers.
Close by were the Freelancers, bounty hunters and pirates, all had put aside their differences and had joined the fleet, their combined group of small ships amassed in a huge group on its own.
All of the capital ships of the houses had Anti matter reactor retrofits, and most of them also boasted weapons systems copied from the Phoenix.
Markez stood at a window and looked across the fleet. He had never in his life dreamed of seeing this many ships in one spot, there would have easily been about 70 capital ships, and over 2000 small fighter craft. There was still the Rheinland fleet to meet up with and all the pilots that flew with them.
Markez had recently received a message from the Chancellor, Indicating that the fleet was in position and ready to move. Now all he was waiting for was his recon pilot. One pilot, an old drinking buddy of Markez and Sparks had been daring enough to make a run through the New London sector, to assess the enemy strength, he was due here soon.
About an hour later a hawk fighter flew towards the Phoenix, It was in a bad shape, it had a wing missing and was leaking atmosphere. Simms hailed the Hawk but there was no response. It was most likely that the comm. system was damaged.
“Open the hangar doors for him, he’ll need to dock” Said Markez.
A few minutes later the pilot had docked his badly damaged fighter in the hull of the Phoenix and had headed up to the tactical room. The pilot stood quietly, his old flight jacket worn and torn from many different skirmishes.
Markez walked into the room “Tanner, Good to see you made it, how bad is it out there?”
“Nasty, I nearly didn’t make it back. I jumped in from the Omega systems and kept my distance. A scout came from nowhere and blitzed me. He only had one gun and I didn’t stand a chance. I don’t know how we are going to go against the real ships. Other than that, there is only the one large ship in orbit around New London, I didn’t see any support ships or fighter patrols. If we storm them quickly we should be able to take them.”
“Thanks” Replied Markez “As a sign of gratitude you can have one of the fighters in the hangar, you’ll need it.”
Markez reported the tactical info to the houses and prepared for attack, they agreed that the best time to strike was immediately.
The word went about to all ship commanders, flight wings were formed and tactical plans were passed along, in a large group all the ships moved towards the jumpgate. There were several Ageria technicians who had wired the jump gate to stay open in one direction, allowing all ships to fly straight through without the time consuming docking procedures.
It was a magnificent site, watching thousands of ships fly as a group, all eager for some retribution on the attack against New London.
It had been about an hour of flight when the fleet emerged in the New London system, Markez had just received a coded message from the Rheinland fleet, they would arrive and engage in minutes. Markez opened a comm. channel and said only three words, “All ships, Attack”
The fighters surged forwards and broke into smaller groups, the Liberty military wings flew through the centre, racing ahead of the cruisers and battleships, the Bretonians came around to the left flank and towards the enemy destroyer, the Kusari forces flanked to the right, Pirates and civilians headed from upper and lower directions, The Phoenix plowed through the centre of the fleet, already the main cannons were glowing and firing superheated balls of deadly plasma. In the distance the Rheinland fleet could be seen attacking from behind.
The massive shield around the enemy destroyer glowed as hundreds of thousands of rounds impacted against it. The enemy destroyers main cannons were targeting the larger battleships and cruisers, and tearing them apart, Almost like they had no shielding at all. Its turrets were firing non stop, trying to track the fast moving fighters, Gunships and cruisers were firing into the shield, trying like mad to weaken it. Suddenly from nowhere enemy fighters appeared, Like they had come from thin air, they engaged the colony fighters and cut through them like butter, the enemy fighters were outnumbered by about 200 to 1 but still had no dramas at all. A small group of 4 peeled away and began strafing runs on the heavier ships, their weapons making mince meat of the recently upgraded shield systems. Cruisers buckled, explosions ripping through the hulls, leaving a scattering field of debris.
Markez watched in horror as ship after ship exploded in a fiery ball, to his left, a Bretonian battleship blistered and exploded, a pair of enemy fighters peeling away from the carnage and beginning an attack run on a nearby Kusari battleship. More flashes emitted from the front of the enemy ships, the Kusari battleship’s hull tore open, Atmosphere spewing into the void, bodies and debris being taken with it and thrown around like limp ragdolls. Somehow the ship managed to stay in one piece, the engines still functioning, the remaining crew powered the engines and ran at full speed towards the enemy destroyer, within seconds it had built up enough speed to be unstoppable, the Kusari battleship slammed directly into the side of the enemy destroyer, the sheer size of the ship was too large for the shields to protect from, they buckled and gave way, the remaining wreckage of the Kusari ship slamming into the destroyer.
There was a blinding flash as the new anti matter reactor blew, the explosion at point blank range peeling away sections of the destroyers hull, several small explosions rattled through the destroyer.
Markez smiled at the Kusari ship, its crew were valiant to the end, preferring to take their own lives in a last ditch attack than to be sucked into the vacuum of space.
Markez ordered all weapons to be aimed at the hole in the shield, other ship commanders had the same idea and were directing fire at it, It was a possible weak point, and they were going to exploit it at all costs. A Rheinland gunship took the same course of action, fire spewing from holes in the hull, engine plasma leaking profusely and headed at full speed into the hull, exploding in a fiery ball of destruction.
Markez was watching the exploding ships around him, unable to do anything, The fleet was being decimated within minutes. Fighters were being vaporized and capital ships torn apart by the volley of gunfire from the enemy ship. Again, another Battleship buckled and exploded off to the side of the Phoenix.
The Phoenix was firing as fast as it could so Markez didn’t even notice that most of the fighters had either been destroyed, or had fled, realizing the battle was going very badly.
Suddenly a bridge officer yelled, “Sir! Another contact behind us!”
Markez turned to look at his screens as the Phoenix rocked violently, A large energy weapon impacting the hull, He saw a smaller ship firing directly at them, at the same time the space next to it began to shimmer and take on the outline of a large ship, within seconds a third ship had de-cloaked and began firing towards the remnants of the fleet, the Phoenix rocked again violently, An explosion rattled through the Phoenix, the comm. panel overloaded and exploded in a ball of sparks, Simms was blown backwards out of her chair, a large piece of steel lodged in her skull, Her lifeless body landed on the floor with a thud.
Markez turned and looked in horror at her dead body as another volley hit the Phoenix, the resulting explosion tearing through the ship, computer panels overloaded and exploded, killing crew members, General Tagashi was standing in front of one as it exploded, the force of it hurling him across the room into a torn bulkhead, his body being impaled on a loose section and hanging lifelessly. All Markez could think was that he was about to die, Suddenly he snapped back to reality as he heard Weapons officer Willis screaming “Shields are gone! The hull is breached! Weapons are failing! Captain, What do we do!”
Markez stood shakily and yelled “Abandon ship, All hands, Abandon ship!”
He turned and ran towards the hangar bay, his fighter would still be docked there, the rest of the crew were heading for the escape pods. As he ran through the corridors he passed dead crew lying on the floor, there were burn marks and explosion damage everywhere.
Finally he made it to the hangar, he jumped into his fighter ship and began opening the hangar doors, he hadn’t had much of a chance to fly this ship other than in the simulator, and a few hours around the shipyard while the Phoenix was docked.
Before he knew it the fighter was clear of the hull, he throttled up and moved away. He could see the escape pods launching away from the Phoenix, Its hull beginning to buckle and explode. The Phoenix burst into flames and detonated behind Markez’s fighter, the shockwave knocking the small craft around. As he pulled up and regained control of the fighter he realized that there were no other colony ships around, only debris and the occasional enemy fighter, mopping up anything they could find.
One of the enemy fighters turned and headed directly for Markez, His onboard computer chimed, indicating a missile lock but the enemy fighter didn’t fire, He didn’t even shoot his guns. Markez was slightly confused and thought maybe they were mistaking his ship for one of theirs, He decided that if any chance was good it was now, so he turned and aimed for open space, he was trying to make a run for the jumpgates.
As he began to head away his ship suddenly stopped, an eerie purple glow enveloped it. A tractor beam had locked on and was dragging him towards one of the smaller cruisers, there was nothing he could do but sit there and await his fate.
His shoulder was aching, the pain was becoming quite bad, It was going all the way down his arm and making his fingers tingle, His neck was tight and sore and he could feel the throb of pain spreading through his chest, He gripped his shoulder with his spare hand and sat back in the cockpit, staring into the black emptiness of space. Every now and again a piece of wreckage would drift by, A lot of it was familiar. A piece of wing from a hawk fighter, a section of hull plating with the partial insignia of the Rheinland fleet and scorched around the edges, A body drifted past, still wearing a flightsuit and strapped into a cockpit seat.
The cockpit went dark as the ship moved into the shadow of the enemy cruiser, disappearing quickly into an opening in the hull. The doors closed behind him and he was bathed in total darkness. With a thud the ship was contained by some large clamps.
Markez looked around, trying desperately to see anything, even the glow from the console had died away, obviously there was an energy dampening field active too.
He heard the thumping steps of large boots approaching and then the cockpit was pried open, Heavy gloved hands grabbed onto him and dragged him clear of the ship. He felt the gloved hands hold him down as a hypo needle pressed against his neck, Everything went black.
Bloody Bretonians! Almost as bad as the French!
Fri Jun 09, 2006 2:57 am
one thing tho, it might be a idea to break it up a tad more, more paragraphs would help a touch with readability...
I'll give it a go in the next chapter once i finish it, i Was thinking about that anyway for the sake of format and readability. Thanks everyone for the positive comments, it gives me the strength to keep going with it.
Bloody Bretonians! Almost as bad as the French!
Fri Jun 09, 2006 5:32 am
Chapter 13
Markez regained consciousness and found himself hanging from a roof by chains in almost complete darkness, his toes only just touching the ground, teasing him with the thought of supporting his own weight. He was stripped naked, other than his underwear. His shoulder was aching badly and he could feel wounds to various parts of his body.
He had no idea of the time, day or even what year it was. He didn’t even know how long he had been here.
He tried to speak, but his throat was dry and sore and it hurt to open his mouth.
Suddenly there was a blinding light as a door slid open, a silhouette of a human walked in the door. The door slid quietly shut behind him.
The black figure spoke, his voice sounding like it came from everywhere at once, but nowhere at all, a dry and harsh voice but cool and collected in its manner.
“What is your name?”
Markez tried to speak, but all he could manage was a croak. He cleared his throat and spoke again.
“Daniel, My name is Daniel”
The figure spoke again,
“Where are you from, Daniel?”
“New Manhattan”
The figure produced a small rod and activated a light on the end of it. 3 small glowing lights dimly illuminated the room.
“How many lights do you see, Daniel?”
“Three”
“That’s wrong Daniel. There are 5 lights, can’t you see them?”
“There are only three lights”
Markez was getting confused, he could see three lights, not five. He counted them over and over again, trying to work out why the figure was saying there was five lights.
It all seemed very familiar, like he had been through this before
The figure spoke again
“Why do you persist in lying to me Daniel? There are 5 lights, but you keep saying there are three. I cannot help you if you lie to me.”
Markez struggled to concentrate on the lights
“But there are only three lights”
The figure spoke again, “If you continue lying to me I will have to punish you”
He thrust the three lights at Markez, as they contacted his body he felt a surge of electricity painfully burn through his flesh, he screamed in agony and passed out.
Markez came around again, In total darkness chained to the roof, His chest was aching painfully every time he breathed. Once again the door slid open, a blinding light creating a silhouette of a human. The door slid closed throwing the room into total darkness.
Again the voice filled the room, coming from nowhere in particular.
“This week we are going to try something different Daniel. I’m going to tell you some information that I know, and then you are going to tell me something I want to know.”
The voice moved around Markez and reappeared behind his ear.
“your name Is Daniel Markez, you come from New Manhattan, you are the captain of the Phoenix, you led the failed assault against us, you are also the leader of all the forces. Do you know how long you have been with us?”
“No.” croaked Daniel
“Maybe a few days?”
The voice continued,
“Would you believe me if I said 2 years? Probably not. You won’t even believe me when I tell you there are 5 lights. What I want to know is where are the rest of your forces hiding? Where is the resistance? Why didn’t you just surrender?”
Markez was confused, how did this figure now all this information about him? What was this resistance he spoke of?
“I don’t know what you are talking about, I wasn’t leading anything, I just commanded the Phoenix.”
The tone of the voice changed, it was no longer calm and relaxing, It became aggressive and harsh.
“Why do you continue to lie to me! You will be punished if you keep it up.”
Once again the 3 lights appeared in front of Markez
“How many lights do you see?”
Markez stuttered
“I see three lights”
The Voice roared in anger
“Wrong! There are five lights! Stop lying to me!”
The lights were thrust into Markez’s body, this time into his shoulder.
Markez screamed in agony, thrashing about on his chains. The last thing he heard before passing out was the voice “Hurts, doesn’t it.”
Markez awoke again, he could smell food, the succulent smells of roasted meats, crisp cooked vegetables. The voice spoke again.
“Are you hungry? You haven’t eaten in days”
Markez croaked quietly
“I’m starving”
He felt a piece of warm soft meat against his lips, he opened his mouth and the meat was placed carefully in it. He chewed it and swallowed it quickly, next was a plastic tube, Markez sucked on the tube and his mouth was filled with water, He drunk as much as he could.
His dry throat felt a million times better afterwards, He managed a weak thanks.
The voice began to speak again, between mouthfuls of food,
“Today we will try something different. Tell me you can see five lights and I will turn the room lights on.”
As the voice finished talking the three lights appeared again. As soon as Markez saw them his body flinched, already scared by the pain that they would inflict. He knew he could only see three lights but he wanted to release himself from this prison.
Finally he caved in, “I see five lights”
The lights disappeared. There was a short moment before the voice spoke again, almost like it was expecting Markez to say three lights again.
“Very good. Finally you tell the truth. As I promised, I will turn up the lights now. As you can see, if you give me something, I will give you something.”
The lights in the room began to glow dimly, Markez adjusted to the low light level and looked around the room. It was a small square room, there were no features on any walls, and a door at one end. There was a small table sitting to one side, with a chair next to it.
A shadowy figure was seated at the table with his hand on a long rod.
His face was covered in shadow, and looked like a black empty hole in the front of his skull.
The man began to talk, Only the outline of his jaw visibly moving,
“Now Daniel, We are finally starting to get along, so I will tell you my name. I am called Kiril. I want you to know that I like you, I would like you to be my friend. Do you want a friend? We can be friends if you tell me what I need to know.”
Markez looked at the shadowy figure
“My arms hurt”
“Well” Began Kiril “I could free your arms if you tell me where the resistance is hiding”
Markez thought for a few seconds.
“I think they are in the Omicron systems”
“Very good Daniel.” Kiril pressed a button on the table, the chains were released from the roof. Markez fell to the ground, collapsing in a pile on the floor.
“Now tell me Daniel, where exactly in the omicron system are they hiding?”
Markez slowly pushed himself upwards, His arms were aching and he wasn’t able to support his weight properly, He moved himself into a slumped over sitting position.
“I don’t know where they are, I just think that they are in the Omicron systems. There are pirates there.”
Kiril stood up, “Very good Daniel, that will do for now” he threw a piece of meat on a bone onto the floor next to Markez and walked out the door.
Markez hungrily grabbed the food and stripped the meat from the bone, He then lay down on the hard floor and fell asleep.
Markez had woken from his sleep on the floor, He felt refreshed and stronger, His shoulder was still sore, and his burnt wounds on his chest had stopped bleeding.
He crawled up into a sitting position against a wall and looked around.
On the table he saw a glass of water sitting by itself.
He crawled over to the table and reached up for the water, as his hand touched the glass he pulled it quickly to his mouth and swallowed it in large mouthfuls. He finished the drink and put the glass clumsily back on the table, knocking it over in the process.
Again the door slid open, the shadowy figure moving quietly into the room. Kiril spoke quietly and confidently.
“we had a look in the Omega systems and found a pocket of resistance, your information was most valuable. As a reward I have decided to allow you a short walk out of this room. We could get something to eat, are you interested in that?”
Markez felt his strength growing, “That would be good, I’m hungry”
Markez’s wrists were still bound by the chains from the roof, Kiril reached down and grabbed them firmly. With a strong arm he pulled Markez to his feet.
“I must warn you Daniel, If you misbehave I will have to punish you. You don’t want that now do you?”
Markez moved towards the now open door, the bright light from the corridor streaming in, blinding everything out of the door from view. He moved into the corridor, Kiril’s hand firmly on his chain. Slowly his eyes adjusted to the new view, he stood in a long corridor, with several doors down each side.
There were bright lights running the length of the roof and a guard walking the length of the corridor backwards and forwards on patrol, his rifle slung over his shoulder, one hand resting on the handle.
Markez hadn’t seen another face in what felt like months, he stared at the guard, His heavy built frame bulging out of his red uniform.
His face was rough and chiseled, a scar running along his cheekbone on one side, His eyes glared harshly at Markez, a sneer forming at the corner of his lips.
Markez knew that this soldier wouldn’t hesitate to turn that rifle on him and pull the trigger.
Kiril prodded Markez gently to keep walking, Markez looked at kiril, finally seizing the chance to see the face of his captor. Kiril was a thin man, with narrow eyes, almost black in their appearance and very short dark hair, His physique was that of a lightly built man, with long slender arms and legs.
His eyes held a very evil look to them, occasionally flashing a sadistic glare at anyone who happened to look.
Markez reached the end of the corridor, Kiril entered a code on the panel on the door. With a beep from the panel, the door slid open, revealing another corridor, this one busy with uniformed people walking purposefully in each direction, Kiril continued to move Markez along the corridors, occasional glances coming from the uniformed people, but otherwise Markez felt as if he didn’t even exist.
They came to a door along a passage, Kiril pressed a button on the wall and the door slid open, revealing an empty room with several windows on the far side.
Markez moved to the window, staring out into space. Not too far away was a black planet, burned and charred, with a very large ship on orbit around it.
Nearby was a smaller ship, sitting in space silently, a fighter wing patrolling past the large ships.
Kiril interrupted the silence.
“Do you recognize the planet or the ships Daniel?”
Markez looked at the planet, a look of horror over his face, slowly turning to sadness as he remembered the video footage of the planet burning into oblivion.
He pointed at the large ship in orbit,
“I thought that ship was badly damaged, It was rammed, we rammed it.”
“You are correct” said Kiril “It was rammed, and quite badly damaged, but it was the other side that was hit, you almost succeeded in destroying the Zeus. It is a very powerful ship, one of the strongest in our fleet, a Juggernaught class super destroyer. The Thor and the Steel fang, that you are aboard now, were fortunately very close by, and decloaked in time to destroy the rest of your forces.”
Markez stared in awe at the Juggernaught in orbit around the remains of New London. He momentarily flashed back to the comm. message from President Jacobi and the video of the planets surface burning off.
He wondered about the rest of the colonies, Who had survived and what was this resistance that Kiril spoke of.
Kiril snapped Markez back into reality
“I have someone who wants to see you, they haven’t seen you since this all began. Would you like to see them?”
Markez was puzzled as to who could want to see him, Had someone else survived the onslaught and been captured as well. His first thought was Sparks, he didn’t even know if Sparks had made it off the Phoenix in time or not. Maybe it was a bridge officer, or one of the house leaders.
Kiril gestured Markez over to a nearby table
“they will be here soon, you should sit down”
Markez sat for a few minutes, awaiting his mystery visitor, wondering who it could be.
The sound of approaching footsteps grew louder as they reached the door, the door slid open and repealed two large soldiers in red uniform, both carrying large rifles.
The soldiers proceeded in the door orderly and took a guard position on either side. The figure behind then walked briskly in the door, His large frame barely fitting through the doorframe. He stopped and stared at Markez intensely, looking at the broken remains of a man who once confronted him defiantly, a smirk growing across his thin lips.
Markez looked at the large man, as his eyes moved upon his face, he felt his heart freeze over, fear gripping his body.
“Supreme commander Rostov” Markez barely whispered the words, the mere sight of this hulking figure in the flesh burned deep into Markez’s mind, As he remembered the fleet falling in battle and the planet being obliterated into non existence.
Rostov stepped towards a seated Markez, towering above him.
“So, We finally meet, Captain Markez, Welcome aboard the Steel fang. I must say, you at least attempted to defend yourselves. Unfortunately your attempt was utterly feeble, But I respect it nonetheless. Now we have the tedious task of hunting out the survivors and eliminating them. Kiril has told me of your recent revelations of information towards the resistance, I am here to offer you a choice.”
Markez spoke hesitantly,
“What is this choice?”
Rostov continued,
“The choice you have is to either rot in a cell and eventually succumb from torture and starvation, when that occurs, we will dump your lifeless body out the nearest airlock like a worthless piece of rubbish. Or, you can declare your allegiance to the Coalition, and we will take you in, You will be taken to a Coalition planet and inserted into our workforce, you will live a reasonable life in reasonable health. You will have the opportunity to work your way up the ranks, and regain your freedom. The only other condition is that you help us in the immediate to find and eradicate all of the resistance left in the Sirius sector. What do you chose? I will give you some time to think about it”
With that Rostov turned and left the room, His guards peeling away from the door frame and following him.
Kiril sat across from Markez at the table,
“So, what are you thinking Daniel? Would you like to join us?”
Markez paused while he thought,
“How can I betray the people I care for, the people I grew up with?”
“They are all dead” Replied Kiril “Nobody you know has survived, you are alone. At least if you join us, you can have a family, and friends. Don’t you want friends again? Or do you want to die in a cell, Lonely for the rest of your existence.”
Markez sat quietly, thinking about the last few days. He realized he didn’t even know if it had been days, or weeks, He had lost all track of time in his cell.
Kiril stood and spoke,
“I will take you back to your cell, you can think about your choices there.”
Kiril took a hold of the chains around Markez’s wrist and pulled him to his feet, Markez followed kiril out the door and back into the busy corridors. He didn’t want to join the people who had destroyed everything he had know, he would rather die.
Markez waited patiently for his opportunity, He remembered that when Kiril led him through these corridors earlier, there was one corridor that opened up onto a balcony, overlooking several floors, On the other side of the balcony were what looked like a crew barracks area and leisure facilities.
Within minutes they had reached the balcony, Kiril was walking next to Markez, his hand on the chains. On the other side was the rail of the balcony, Markez lurched forwards, pretending to trip, as he lurched, he grabbed Kirils wrists firmly and dragged him across the front of his body, he swung all his momentum into it and propelled Kiril towards the railing. Kiril was not expecting anything and was caught completely off guard, his body swung wildly towards the railing, Impacting against it. With a Final shove Markez rammed Kiril over the railing, his face showing a terrified look as he realized he was about to die.
Markez looked into Kiril’s eyes as his body fell away from the balcony, He watched him fall the several floors down to the bottom, at one point clipping a railing on a nother floor, sending his body into a terrifying spin. With a thump Kiril’s body landed heavily against the floor several decks down, His arms and legs contorted in strange directions, a pool of blood forming around his skull. People were already gathering around the dead body.
Markez turned and fled towards a door, he had no idea where he was, or where he was going. The nearby door slid open and Markez rushed inside, He found himself in a long passage, off to either side were crew bunks, he moved swiftly down the passage.
At the far end of the passage, to the right, was a shower block. Markez moved into the shower block and over to some lockers at the far end. Fortunately so far he hadn’t seen or been seen by anyone, He rounded a row of lockers and saw a soldier getting changed into his uniform, He was a fairly small built soldier and looked very young, he was also facing away from Markez.
Markez snuck quietly up behind the soldier and in one quick move reached over his head, he snapped his wrists backwards, locking the chain against his neck, with his hands he held against the back of the young soldiers head, holding pressure against the chain, he also wedged his knee against his back, preventing him from moving.
Markez heard the soldier gasping for air, his arms flailing uselessly in an attempt to get a hold of his attacker, within minutes he felt the soldiers body go limp. He released his grip and the lifeless body fell to the floor.
Markez looked around, The locker next to him was open, a pistol sitting on a shelf.
Markez grabbed the pistol in one hand and flexed his wrist as much as possible, he managed to get the chain across the barrel of the pistol, but it was extremely close to his wrist, and aimed just past his shoulder, he would have to be very careful not to shoot himself in the process.
Markez turned his head and squeezed the trigger, a flash of energy belched from the pistol and melted through the chain, Markez felt the scorching charge flash past his wrist, burning the flesh in the process, fortunately it wasn’t as close to his shoulder, and it shot past him into a locker.
Markez quickly changed into the soldiers uniform, as soon as he was done he changed his old clothes onto the dead soldier, just before leaving he shot 2 rounds into the soldiers lifeless body. hopefully they would think that this was Markez, and had been killed by an off duty soldier, if the plan worked it would give Markez at least half an hour to make some sort of escape.
Bloody Bretonians! Almost as bad as the French!
Edited by - Agent orange on 6/9/2006 6:40:27 AM
Markez regained consciousness and found himself hanging from a roof by chains in almost complete darkness, his toes only just touching the ground, teasing him with the thought of supporting his own weight. He was stripped naked, other than his underwear. His shoulder was aching badly and he could feel wounds to various parts of his body.
He had no idea of the time, day or even what year it was. He didn’t even know how long he had been here.
He tried to speak, but his throat was dry and sore and it hurt to open his mouth.
Suddenly there was a blinding light as a door slid open, a silhouette of a human walked in the door. The door slid quietly shut behind him.
The black figure spoke, his voice sounding like it came from everywhere at once, but nowhere at all, a dry and harsh voice but cool and collected in its manner.
“What is your name?”
Markez tried to speak, but all he could manage was a croak. He cleared his throat and spoke again.
“Daniel, My name is Daniel”
The figure spoke again,
“Where are you from, Daniel?”
“New Manhattan”
The figure produced a small rod and activated a light on the end of it. 3 small glowing lights dimly illuminated the room.
“How many lights do you see, Daniel?”
“Three”
“That’s wrong Daniel. There are 5 lights, can’t you see them?”
“There are only three lights”
Markez was getting confused, he could see three lights, not five. He counted them over and over again, trying to work out why the figure was saying there was five lights.
It all seemed very familiar, like he had been through this before
The figure spoke again
“Why do you persist in lying to me Daniel? There are 5 lights, but you keep saying there are three. I cannot help you if you lie to me.”
Markez struggled to concentrate on the lights
“But there are only three lights”
The figure spoke again, “If you continue lying to me I will have to punish you”
He thrust the three lights at Markez, as they contacted his body he felt a surge of electricity painfully burn through his flesh, he screamed in agony and passed out.
Markez came around again, In total darkness chained to the roof, His chest was aching painfully every time he breathed. Once again the door slid open, a blinding light creating a silhouette of a human. The door slid closed throwing the room into total darkness.
Again the voice filled the room, coming from nowhere in particular.
“This week we are going to try something different Daniel. I’m going to tell you some information that I know, and then you are going to tell me something I want to know.”
The voice moved around Markez and reappeared behind his ear.
“your name Is Daniel Markez, you come from New Manhattan, you are the captain of the Phoenix, you led the failed assault against us, you are also the leader of all the forces. Do you know how long you have been with us?”
“No.” croaked Daniel
“Maybe a few days?”
The voice continued,
“Would you believe me if I said 2 years? Probably not. You won’t even believe me when I tell you there are 5 lights. What I want to know is where are the rest of your forces hiding? Where is the resistance? Why didn’t you just surrender?”
Markez was confused, how did this figure now all this information about him? What was this resistance he spoke of?
“I don’t know what you are talking about, I wasn’t leading anything, I just commanded the Phoenix.”
The tone of the voice changed, it was no longer calm and relaxing, It became aggressive and harsh.
“Why do you continue to lie to me! You will be punished if you keep it up.”
Once again the 3 lights appeared in front of Markez
“How many lights do you see?”
Markez stuttered
“I see three lights”
The Voice roared in anger
“Wrong! There are five lights! Stop lying to me!”
The lights were thrust into Markez’s body, this time into his shoulder.
Markez screamed in agony, thrashing about on his chains. The last thing he heard before passing out was the voice “Hurts, doesn’t it.”
Markez awoke again, he could smell food, the succulent smells of roasted meats, crisp cooked vegetables. The voice spoke again.
“Are you hungry? You haven’t eaten in days”
Markez croaked quietly
“I’m starving”
He felt a piece of warm soft meat against his lips, he opened his mouth and the meat was placed carefully in it. He chewed it and swallowed it quickly, next was a plastic tube, Markez sucked on the tube and his mouth was filled with water, He drunk as much as he could.
His dry throat felt a million times better afterwards, He managed a weak thanks.
The voice began to speak again, between mouthfuls of food,
“Today we will try something different. Tell me you can see five lights and I will turn the room lights on.”
As the voice finished talking the three lights appeared again. As soon as Markez saw them his body flinched, already scared by the pain that they would inflict. He knew he could only see three lights but he wanted to release himself from this prison.
Finally he caved in, “I see five lights”
The lights disappeared. There was a short moment before the voice spoke again, almost like it was expecting Markez to say three lights again.
“Very good. Finally you tell the truth. As I promised, I will turn up the lights now. As you can see, if you give me something, I will give you something.”
The lights in the room began to glow dimly, Markez adjusted to the low light level and looked around the room. It was a small square room, there were no features on any walls, and a door at one end. There was a small table sitting to one side, with a chair next to it.
A shadowy figure was seated at the table with his hand on a long rod.
His face was covered in shadow, and looked like a black empty hole in the front of his skull.
The man began to talk, Only the outline of his jaw visibly moving,
“Now Daniel, We are finally starting to get along, so I will tell you my name. I am called Kiril. I want you to know that I like you, I would like you to be my friend. Do you want a friend? We can be friends if you tell me what I need to know.”
Markez looked at the shadowy figure
“My arms hurt”
“Well” Began Kiril “I could free your arms if you tell me where the resistance is hiding”
Markez thought for a few seconds.
“I think they are in the Omicron systems”
“Very good Daniel.” Kiril pressed a button on the table, the chains were released from the roof. Markez fell to the ground, collapsing in a pile on the floor.
“Now tell me Daniel, where exactly in the omicron system are they hiding?”
Markez slowly pushed himself upwards, His arms were aching and he wasn’t able to support his weight properly, He moved himself into a slumped over sitting position.
“I don’t know where they are, I just think that they are in the Omicron systems. There are pirates there.”
Kiril stood up, “Very good Daniel, that will do for now” he threw a piece of meat on a bone onto the floor next to Markez and walked out the door.
Markez hungrily grabbed the food and stripped the meat from the bone, He then lay down on the hard floor and fell asleep.
Markez had woken from his sleep on the floor, He felt refreshed and stronger, His shoulder was still sore, and his burnt wounds on his chest had stopped bleeding.
He crawled up into a sitting position against a wall and looked around.
On the table he saw a glass of water sitting by itself.
He crawled over to the table and reached up for the water, as his hand touched the glass he pulled it quickly to his mouth and swallowed it in large mouthfuls. He finished the drink and put the glass clumsily back on the table, knocking it over in the process.
Again the door slid open, the shadowy figure moving quietly into the room. Kiril spoke quietly and confidently.
“we had a look in the Omega systems and found a pocket of resistance, your information was most valuable. As a reward I have decided to allow you a short walk out of this room. We could get something to eat, are you interested in that?”
Markez felt his strength growing, “That would be good, I’m hungry”
Markez’s wrists were still bound by the chains from the roof, Kiril reached down and grabbed them firmly. With a strong arm he pulled Markez to his feet.
“I must warn you Daniel, If you misbehave I will have to punish you. You don’t want that now do you?”
Markez moved towards the now open door, the bright light from the corridor streaming in, blinding everything out of the door from view. He moved into the corridor, Kiril’s hand firmly on his chain. Slowly his eyes adjusted to the new view, he stood in a long corridor, with several doors down each side.
There were bright lights running the length of the roof and a guard walking the length of the corridor backwards and forwards on patrol, his rifle slung over his shoulder, one hand resting on the handle.
Markez hadn’t seen another face in what felt like months, he stared at the guard, His heavy built frame bulging out of his red uniform.
His face was rough and chiseled, a scar running along his cheekbone on one side, His eyes glared harshly at Markez, a sneer forming at the corner of his lips.
Markez knew that this soldier wouldn’t hesitate to turn that rifle on him and pull the trigger.
Kiril prodded Markez gently to keep walking, Markez looked at kiril, finally seizing the chance to see the face of his captor. Kiril was a thin man, with narrow eyes, almost black in their appearance and very short dark hair, His physique was that of a lightly built man, with long slender arms and legs.
His eyes held a very evil look to them, occasionally flashing a sadistic glare at anyone who happened to look.
Markez reached the end of the corridor, Kiril entered a code on the panel on the door. With a beep from the panel, the door slid open, revealing another corridor, this one busy with uniformed people walking purposefully in each direction, Kiril continued to move Markez along the corridors, occasional glances coming from the uniformed people, but otherwise Markez felt as if he didn’t even exist.
They came to a door along a passage, Kiril pressed a button on the wall and the door slid open, revealing an empty room with several windows on the far side.
Markez moved to the window, staring out into space. Not too far away was a black planet, burned and charred, with a very large ship on orbit around it.
Nearby was a smaller ship, sitting in space silently, a fighter wing patrolling past the large ships.
Kiril interrupted the silence.
“Do you recognize the planet or the ships Daniel?”
Markez looked at the planet, a look of horror over his face, slowly turning to sadness as he remembered the video footage of the planet burning into oblivion.
He pointed at the large ship in orbit,
“I thought that ship was badly damaged, It was rammed, we rammed it.”
“You are correct” said Kiril “It was rammed, and quite badly damaged, but it was the other side that was hit, you almost succeeded in destroying the Zeus. It is a very powerful ship, one of the strongest in our fleet, a Juggernaught class super destroyer. The Thor and the Steel fang, that you are aboard now, were fortunately very close by, and decloaked in time to destroy the rest of your forces.”
Markez stared in awe at the Juggernaught in orbit around the remains of New London. He momentarily flashed back to the comm. message from President Jacobi and the video of the planets surface burning off.
He wondered about the rest of the colonies, Who had survived and what was this resistance that Kiril spoke of.
Kiril snapped Markez back into reality
“I have someone who wants to see you, they haven’t seen you since this all began. Would you like to see them?”
Markez was puzzled as to who could want to see him, Had someone else survived the onslaught and been captured as well. His first thought was Sparks, he didn’t even know if Sparks had made it off the Phoenix in time or not. Maybe it was a bridge officer, or one of the house leaders.
Kiril gestured Markez over to a nearby table
“they will be here soon, you should sit down”
Markez sat for a few minutes, awaiting his mystery visitor, wondering who it could be.
The sound of approaching footsteps grew louder as they reached the door, the door slid open and repealed two large soldiers in red uniform, both carrying large rifles.
The soldiers proceeded in the door orderly and took a guard position on either side. The figure behind then walked briskly in the door, His large frame barely fitting through the doorframe. He stopped and stared at Markez intensely, looking at the broken remains of a man who once confronted him defiantly, a smirk growing across his thin lips.
Markez looked at the large man, as his eyes moved upon his face, he felt his heart freeze over, fear gripping his body.
“Supreme commander Rostov” Markez barely whispered the words, the mere sight of this hulking figure in the flesh burned deep into Markez’s mind, As he remembered the fleet falling in battle and the planet being obliterated into non existence.
Rostov stepped towards a seated Markez, towering above him.
“So, We finally meet, Captain Markez, Welcome aboard the Steel fang. I must say, you at least attempted to defend yourselves. Unfortunately your attempt was utterly feeble, But I respect it nonetheless. Now we have the tedious task of hunting out the survivors and eliminating them. Kiril has told me of your recent revelations of information towards the resistance, I am here to offer you a choice.”
Markez spoke hesitantly,
“What is this choice?”
Rostov continued,
“The choice you have is to either rot in a cell and eventually succumb from torture and starvation, when that occurs, we will dump your lifeless body out the nearest airlock like a worthless piece of rubbish. Or, you can declare your allegiance to the Coalition, and we will take you in, You will be taken to a Coalition planet and inserted into our workforce, you will live a reasonable life in reasonable health. You will have the opportunity to work your way up the ranks, and regain your freedom. The only other condition is that you help us in the immediate to find and eradicate all of the resistance left in the Sirius sector. What do you chose? I will give you some time to think about it”
With that Rostov turned and left the room, His guards peeling away from the door frame and following him.
Kiril sat across from Markez at the table,
“So, what are you thinking Daniel? Would you like to join us?”
Markez paused while he thought,
“How can I betray the people I care for, the people I grew up with?”
“They are all dead” Replied Kiril “Nobody you know has survived, you are alone. At least if you join us, you can have a family, and friends. Don’t you want friends again? Or do you want to die in a cell, Lonely for the rest of your existence.”
Markez sat quietly, thinking about the last few days. He realized he didn’t even know if it had been days, or weeks, He had lost all track of time in his cell.
Kiril stood and spoke,
“I will take you back to your cell, you can think about your choices there.”
Kiril took a hold of the chains around Markez’s wrist and pulled him to his feet, Markez followed kiril out the door and back into the busy corridors. He didn’t want to join the people who had destroyed everything he had know, he would rather die.
Markez waited patiently for his opportunity, He remembered that when Kiril led him through these corridors earlier, there was one corridor that opened up onto a balcony, overlooking several floors, On the other side of the balcony were what looked like a crew barracks area and leisure facilities.
Within minutes they had reached the balcony, Kiril was walking next to Markez, his hand on the chains. On the other side was the rail of the balcony, Markez lurched forwards, pretending to trip, as he lurched, he grabbed Kirils wrists firmly and dragged him across the front of his body, he swung all his momentum into it and propelled Kiril towards the railing. Kiril was not expecting anything and was caught completely off guard, his body swung wildly towards the railing, Impacting against it. With a Final shove Markez rammed Kiril over the railing, his face showing a terrified look as he realized he was about to die.
Markez looked into Kiril’s eyes as his body fell away from the balcony, He watched him fall the several floors down to the bottom, at one point clipping a railing on a nother floor, sending his body into a terrifying spin. With a thump Kiril’s body landed heavily against the floor several decks down, His arms and legs contorted in strange directions, a pool of blood forming around his skull. People were already gathering around the dead body.
Markez turned and fled towards a door, he had no idea where he was, or where he was going. The nearby door slid open and Markez rushed inside, He found himself in a long passage, off to either side were crew bunks, he moved swiftly down the passage.
At the far end of the passage, to the right, was a shower block. Markez moved into the shower block and over to some lockers at the far end. Fortunately so far he hadn’t seen or been seen by anyone, He rounded a row of lockers and saw a soldier getting changed into his uniform, He was a fairly small built soldier and looked very young, he was also facing away from Markez.
Markez snuck quietly up behind the soldier and in one quick move reached over his head, he snapped his wrists backwards, locking the chain against his neck, with his hands he held against the back of the young soldiers head, holding pressure against the chain, he also wedged his knee against his back, preventing him from moving.
Markez heard the soldier gasping for air, his arms flailing uselessly in an attempt to get a hold of his attacker, within minutes he felt the soldiers body go limp. He released his grip and the lifeless body fell to the floor.
Markez looked around, The locker next to him was open, a pistol sitting on a shelf.
Markez grabbed the pistol in one hand and flexed his wrist as much as possible, he managed to get the chain across the barrel of the pistol, but it was extremely close to his wrist, and aimed just past his shoulder, he would have to be very careful not to shoot himself in the process.
Markez turned his head and squeezed the trigger, a flash of energy belched from the pistol and melted through the chain, Markez felt the scorching charge flash past his wrist, burning the flesh in the process, fortunately it wasn’t as close to his shoulder, and it shot past him into a locker.
Markez quickly changed into the soldiers uniform, as soon as he was done he changed his old clothes onto the dead soldier, just before leaving he shot 2 rounds into the soldiers lifeless body. hopefully they would think that this was Markez, and had been killed by an off duty soldier, if the plan worked it would give Markez at least half an hour to make some sort of escape.
Bloody Bretonians! Almost as bad as the French!
Edited by - Agent orange on 6/9/2006 6:40:27 AM
Fri Jun 09, 2006 5:35 am
Chapter 14
Markez stepped out into the corridor, He glanced to his left and then to his right. With a tug on his new uniform he turned to the right and began walking along, he would have to find some sort of map or reference to navigate through the ship.
At first he was nervous that someone would recognize him, but nobody seemed to notice or care.
Markez walked along the passages, he was very lost. He turned down random passages, looking for some sort of indication of a hangar bay.
After several dead ends and wrong turns he found a sign pointing towards the flight deck, By pure fluke he managed to find a possible way off the ship.
He walked onto the flight deck, It was a large, long room, filled with a row of deadly looking fighters, adorned with weapons.
At the other end was the hangar door, It was opened and protected from the vacuum of space by a large energy shield, there was a fighter moving slowly through the shield, heading towards an empty bay to the side.
Markez walked towards one of the fighters, its cockpit slid forwards and open.
Suddenly alarms began to ring through the ship, A voice loudly broadcasted into all rooms, “Attention all hands, Prisoner escape, red alert”
Markez looked around frantically, he was definitely going to need a new lower half of a uniform now. He noticed a soldier walking towards him,
“Hey! What are you doing!” the soldier yelled.
Markez thought quickly, “Didn’t you hear the announcement? Im looking for the prisoner, I have bee assigned this area to search, You’d better start looking too, or the CO will be all over you.”
With that the soldier stopped in his tracks, he paused as the words sunk in, then gave Markez a wave, “Ok, Keep looking, I’ll start at the other end of the bay”
He turned and began walking away.
Markez climbed up the short ladder upto the cabin and climbed in, He began powering up the engines. The soldier turned to look and came running back over towards Markez in the fighter ship, its engines now beginning to hum a high pitched whine. Markez couldn’t hear what the soldier was yelling, but saw him go for his pistol on his belt, Markez made the first move and pulled his pistol, With a quick shot, he fired and hit the soldier squarely in the chest, dropping him instantly. The cockpit window slid backwards and sealed over the cockpit, the whole cockpit twisted upwards and locked into place against the hull of the fighter.
The fighter lifted up off its docking clamps and began hover under its own power, Markez gripped the controls firmly and maneuvered towards the hangar door, He aimed the ship squarely at the hangar shield and throttled up to full power.
Everything began to rush past the windows, speeding up faster and faster.
The fighter burst through the shield and into the cold space on the other side, Markez pushed the nose down slightly and began to move away from the Steel Fang, Its turrets already springing into action to try and track the fighter.
Markez jinked and weaved in an attempt to avoid any direct hits, Several shots landed against the fighters shields, draining them slowly. Markez moved out of turret range within seconds, He breathed a heavy sigh of relief, Maybe he was actually going to survive this.
Suddenly the ship rocked as several shots landed against the shields, depleting everything that was left, Markez pulled hard right and then upwards, in an attempt to either evade his new pursuer, or get a clean shot on them. He saw 3 fighters in hot pursuit, all firing rapidly.
The hull on the Fighter was taking a beating, systems began to fail, Life support fell offline, then weapons, then the engines.
The fighter was slowing down, but the weapons volleys continued, Within seconds the hull breached and the remaining atmosphere was sucked into space, Markez began to feel his lungs being sucked from his body, the pain was excruciating, His eyeballs felt like they were being torn from his skull by the vacuum.
The pain didn’t last long as an explosion ripped through the fighter, tearing Markez’s body into small pieces.
Everything went Black.
Don't worry, its not the end!!!!
I have two endings i am thinking of, so i'll put them both up in seperate posts.
Bloody Bretonians! Almost as bad as the French!
Markez stepped out into the corridor, He glanced to his left and then to his right. With a tug on his new uniform he turned to the right and began walking along, he would have to find some sort of map or reference to navigate through the ship.
At first he was nervous that someone would recognize him, but nobody seemed to notice or care.
Markez walked along the passages, he was very lost. He turned down random passages, looking for some sort of indication of a hangar bay.
After several dead ends and wrong turns he found a sign pointing towards the flight deck, By pure fluke he managed to find a possible way off the ship.
He walked onto the flight deck, It was a large, long room, filled with a row of deadly looking fighters, adorned with weapons.
At the other end was the hangar door, It was opened and protected from the vacuum of space by a large energy shield, there was a fighter moving slowly through the shield, heading towards an empty bay to the side.
Markez walked towards one of the fighters, its cockpit slid forwards and open.
Suddenly alarms began to ring through the ship, A voice loudly broadcasted into all rooms, “Attention all hands, Prisoner escape, red alert”
Markez looked around frantically, he was definitely going to need a new lower half of a uniform now. He noticed a soldier walking towards him,
“Hey! What are you doing!” the soldier yelled.
Markez thought quickly, “Didn’t you hear the announcement? Im looking for the prisoner, I have bee assigned this area to search, You’d better start looking too, or the CO will be all over you.”
With that the soldier stopped in his tracks, he paused as the words sunk in, then gave Markez a wave, “Ok, Keep looking, I’ll start at the other end of the bay”
He turned and began walking away.
Markez climbed up the short ladder upto the cabin and climbed in, He began powering up the engines. The soldier turned to look and came running back over towards Markez in the fighter ship, its engines now beginning to hum a high pitched whine. Markez couldn’t hear what the soldier was yelling, but saw him go for his pistol on his belt, Markez made the first move and pulled his pistol, With a quick shot, he fired and hit the soldier squarely in the chest, dropping him instantly. The cockpit window slid backwards and sealed over the cockpit, the whole cockpit twisted upwards and locked into place against the hull of the fighter.
The fighter lifted up off its docking clamps and began hover under its own power, Markez gripped the controls firmly and maneuvered towards the hangar door, He aimed the ship squarely at the hangar shield and throttled up to full power.
Everything began to rush past the windows, speeding up faster and faster.
The fighter burst through the shield and into the cold space on the other side, Markez pushed the nose down slightly and began to move away from the Steel Fang, Its turrets already springing into action to try and track the fighter.
Markez jinked and weaved in an attempt to avoid any direct hits, Several shots landed against the fighters shields, draining them slowly. Markez moved out of turret range within seconds, He breathed a heavy sigh of relief, Maybe he was actually going to survive this.
Suddenly the ship rocked as several shots landed against the shields, depleting everything that was left, Markez pulled hard right and then upwards, in an attempt to either evade his new pursuer, or get a clean shot on them. He saw 3 fighters in hot pursuit, all firing rapidly.
The hull on the Fighter was taking a beating, systems began to fail, Life support fell offline, then weapons, then the engines.
The fighter was slowing down, but the weapons volleys continued, Within seconds the hull breached and the remaining atmosphere was sucked into space, Markez began to feel his lungs being sucked from his body, the pain was excruciating, His eyeballs felt like they were being torn from his skull by the vacuum.
The pain didn’t last long as an explosion ripped through the fighter, tearing Markez’s body into small pieces.
Everything went Black.
Don't worry, its not the end!!!!
I have two endings i am thinking of, so i'll put them both up in seperate posts.
Bloody Bretonians! Almost as bad as the French!
35 posts
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