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King
Local Time: 14:21
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: A bleak and barren rock
Posts: 2,743
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The two dark figures were round in color, and they swam through the sky, leaving in their wake a purplish trail. They were both evenly sized, they were only scout ships after all, and both were badly wounded. Holes appeared in the skin of the ships, revealing their skeletons. They were both very similar in appearance, roundish, with claw-like bows. The only noticeable difference was that one was red in color and the other was blue. The two ships shot forward and were nearly close enough to lock onto each other, so as one ship could board it’s opponent’s ship. This was the plan of the Commander in the blue ship. He was, after all, a Usurper, a conqueror, part of the elite of either Progenitor army. His many battle wounds were like military decorations for him. He had known war and the glories of battle long before anyone else in either ship. This Progenitor was a Conqueror in the Succession Wars, long before the Usurper-Caretaker schism. He was not going to let his enemies escape, he was going to get these damned Caretakers and kill them all.
Judaa Marr was one of the best commanders in the Usurper Manifold Fleet. His wounds were as numerous as his many military decorations, and ever since the discoveries of the past years he’d been ordered to find the Sixth Manifold, and to destroy the Caretakers searching for the same planet. Marr had grown up on the legends of the manifolds, of the Tau Ceti Flowering, and especially on the Great Molding aeons ago, when the Sixth Manifold formed, and the Great Experiment began. Of course, after the horrendous Civil Wars, after the Purge of the Monarchy and the start of the Republic, and finally the Great Schism, all information was lost on the Great Experiment of Manifold Six, and thus it’s story became legend, fable, existing only in the great sagas of ancient times. However, as of the last twelve years, the information resurfaced, the maps were found, the charts rediscovered, the secrets of the Manifold were unfolded, and it seemed as if the Great Experiment was nearing it’s fruition, and thus it must be found. The Usurpers obviously thought so, as they sent such a warmale as Thrall Commander Judaa Marr of the Rim Systems to find it. Now his Scout Ship 427_s was closing in on the Caretaker scout ship from Ursa Prime’s Core Systems, and victory would be his.
Judaa Marr longed for the ancient times, for the heroic period of the great sagas, so many aeons ago, when Conqueror Suul in his mighty battle armor fought a long, hard campaign against all the countless other Progenitor tribes inhabiting the Manifold, smiting his enemies with his fabled sword, and in his final decade conquered the whole of the First Manifold, proclaiming himself High King. And his son would begin the glorious (al beit bloody) Tau Ceti Flowering, and the conquest of the four other manifolds, and the molding of the Sixth. And now with that Manifold so close, Judaa Marr could not afford to lose. Let this small Caretaker vessel take the Sixth Manifold and the powers of Transcendence only achievable there, for which the Experiment had been started.
These Caretakers were here to enforce the exact opposite, to stop the Experiment, to keep it from achieving the fruition for which it had been started, to allow this Manifold to exist on it’s own, to keep it out of the hands of the Usurpers. The Caretakers knew that with the Sixth Manifold under Usurper control, nothing could stand against Marr and his superiors. Sadly for both sides, the Sixth Manifold was proving very hard to find. This space fight had started far away, when the Usurpers first found the Caretaker ship, snooping about the Fifth Manifold, preparing to go in towards the patch of space from which the Usurper ship suddenly emerged. The Caretakers immediately turned their vessel about and fled in the totally opposite direction towards uncharted space. At least the Usurpers had stopped the Caretakers from heading towards their original direction. Marr made a mental note to himself that as soon as these Caretakers were destroyed, he would follow the Caretaker’s original course and see for himself whether or not the Manifold was in that area.
The fiery ships roared forth, and in the distance some new, huge Manifold emerged from the darkness of space. For one brief second both ships stopped, hanging in space beside one another, and then they were off again, continuing to exchange shots with one another, each ship having as many wounds as the other one. Inside his vessel, Commander Judaa Marr clenched his talons into a fist, and pointed at the screen at the center of the darkened command nexus. “Call up the chart of Manifold Six!” he resonated to the shipboard computer. Immediately, alongside the view of the approaching Manifold and the enemy warship, an old map shot up. The blue light from the map showed upon the huge oblong face of Judaa Marr. His rough, leathery gray skin, his long head, the tattoo on his forehead, his flappers, his curled yellow tusks, and the long battle scar across his face were all perfectly visible bathed in the blue glow. The image of the map and the image of the Manifold in the distance were nearly identical. The binary suns, land masses, the colors, the seas, all of them were the same. An officer put on the Energy Grid overlay, and the matches were perfect. “Then this is it, for the past twelve years we have searched in the wrong corners of space, but I have located the lost nexus of energy for the Usurper Empire! I have found the Sixth Manifold!”
2nd Commander K’tec nodded in agreement, “It is most definantly the Sixth Manifold, Commander. Shall I report it to High Command immediately?”
“No, K’tec, not immediately. First we shall destroy these Caretaker scum, then we shall put in the message. Send those qualified (those who are not engaged in this battle) to record the images of this Manifold,” altered Marr, stroking his flappers.
“Yes, Commander,” resonated K’tec, as he hurried away to find some qualified officers to accomplish this task.
“With this Manifold, no doubt, we shall bring about the destruction of our hated Caretaker foe,” altered Officer Serod, who was standing directly behind the Commander. It was true, of course. The Caretakers could not hope to survive. Marr knew that he would go down now in the great sagas and ballads of the Progenitor bards, as did High Kings of aeons before. Perhaps even Marr would come to be deified, like High King Suul, but who could say for certain? But one thing was certain, Marr and his ship Sword of the Manifolds had achieved great victory already.
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From the Caretaker vessel, 2nd Commander Lular H’minee could see countless holes and dents appearing in the enemy ship, and knew that for every injury on the enemy ship there would be as many on her own vessel. It was now truly her own vessel, she thought as she ran along the center walk to the Command Nexus to take control. She sensed the death of the commander the second it happened, and it was confirmed by a visual message from Officer Canala that he was dead, and that she would succeed him in command. Lular had been down in the engine rooms, guiding the fire of the stern based guns. It seemed the Commander had abandoned his post briefly to assist a dying Caretaker Officer, D’ba, in the forward gun section. Sadly, as he helped his friend in that section of the ship, it was obliterated by a direct hit from the Usurper vessel. Nothing could have survived in that explosion. However, all was not lost if her stern section guns could take out the enemy’s reactors.
As she arrived at the command nexus from the darkened walkway, the light of the view screen nearly blinded her. Squinting, she made out Officer Canala and Officer Tekker watching the space battle unfold. Unlike her enemy, Judaa Marr, Lular H’minee had few dreams of ever becoming a great conqueror, that is until she saw Manifold Six. “It is the Sixth Manifold, Commander!” resonated Canala, slapping her chest in a salute, “And if we can just get these Usurpers off our back we may claim it for the Caretaker Government!”
Saluting also, Tekker voiced his complaint, “I doubt, however, we shall ever be able to get down there unless we take out our enemy’s engines. Our ship appears to be badly wounded, in fact the bow is in very serious danger of imploding…”
“Thank you, Officer Tekker, I appoint you 2nd Commander, and let me inform you that I have personally sighted our guns on the enemy’s reactors. We shall shoot them down, Tekker, never fear,” altered Lular.
“Commander, a Caretaker warrior does not feel fear…”
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Marr felt the vibration rock the ship as the shots pierced the hull, and the flames tore through the body of the ship, through the quantum reactors. He could feel the pain of his fellow Usurpers, of the engineers in the reactor room, as they were engulfed in flame and their huge carapaces exploded. The main power to the ship was gone, but there was still a chance to avenge his comrades. Ship 427_s was thrown off course by the destruction of the reactors, and was about to strike the enemy ship head on. Marr ordered the crew to the survival pods. His ship was doomed, but his people would conquer after all. Enough of his men were dead now, but the rest would survive, his crew of over 900 could find more than enough room in the pods, he was sure, and they would survive on the Sixth Manifold, they would find the Nexus of energy, and they would be saved. As he hurried with his officers to the pods, he saw his dying comrades in the center walkway and saluted them in the old military style. “May your deaths be swift and merciful, may you be carried by the wings of the bird god to the ancestral palace, to join those who have also sacrificed themselves for their comrades.” As he turned around, the carapace of one of the badly wounded junior officers, lying against the wall, suddenly exploded.
Marr hastily made his way to the door of the pod, and was met with the crowd of warmales and warfemales packed inside. Most of them were heavily armed, and all of the officers wore their resonance armor. K’tec patted a case in which all the recorded data of the Sixth Manifold was contained. It was time to break free of the dying ship. With a nod of his head, the door slammed shut, cutting off the gurgles of the dying Usurpers in the main body of the ship. With another nod, the pod tore free of the main body of the ship, which swung away, abandoned. As Marr watched through one of the viewing portals, it burst into flames. There alongside it was the Caretaker vessel, also mortally wounded. He could imagine the shock of horror of the Caretakers as ship 427_s suddenly slammed into the side of their own ship, shattering their own reactors, rupturing the skin of their own vessel. The ships locked onto one another and swung about in circles for about a minute, before the Usurper pod was well away, when the two conjoined ships suddenly jointly imploded, and then exploded. It was magnificent, bringing to mind the legends of the battles on the Third Manifold so long ago.
At this moment, when Marr reveled in his triumph, the unexpected occurred, causing Marr to fluctuate angrily. The Caretaker survival pod suddenly emerged from the explosion of the two ships, and roared forth towards the Sixth Manifold, disappearing into the distance, as the two ships twisted in the skies, and then disintegrated entirely. “Pursue them! We much reach the Manifold before them!” altered Marr furiously.
“The survival pod may have triggered accidentally, Commander, it has happened before in such cases that during explosions abandoned pods will emerge from the ship-lock and make their escape…” Serod resonated.
“We cannot afford to lose them, Officer. Follow them, as fast as we can manage it!”
“Yes, my Commander.”
Marr returned to the portal. The enemy survival pod was now out of sight, disappearing towards the Manifold below. Marr cursed by the gods, and then said a silent prayer asking forgiveness. He watched the steadily approaching Manifold below him, and recognized signs of civilization below. Were these dots not roads? Transit systems? Energy collectors? Farms? Cities even? It definantly appeared so to Marr. What other civilization could have colonized the Sixth Manifold? Had the Caretakers already found and colonized it long before? It mattered little to Marr. He had only 900 soldiers, it was true, but the Progenitors quickly breed, and mature even quicker. He would have a large army in very little time. If there were other civilizations below on the Manifold, they could not be allowed to survive long, the Sixth Manifold would have to be cleared of them and used for it’s original purpose, and anyone caught in the crossfire would simply have to die.
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