Ambrosia Software Web Board: "The Conflict" - Ambrosia Software Web Board

The three Salrilian Battleships approached the Hatares Nebula, which had been saturated with the evil presence of The Dark. They swerved and turned untill they were in a long string formation. They approached the nebula one by one.

The first one came into range. It fired a single Magno shot deep into the nebula. It pulsated and flared and disappeared into the clouds. The Battleship's commander watched the pulse die out, having no effect on the nightmare creatures lurking within the nebula. He sighed and a tear fell from his one good eye. He was old, obsolete, useless. Salril often discarded it's toothless dogs on suicide missions "for the glory". He knew the real purpose of his mission along with the three other commanders: Guinea Pigs to test whether The Dark had finally resurrected "the great one".

He watched another magno pulse flar into and dissipate in the nebula. At least Salril had given him the dignity of knowing what exactly was going on. So far, The Dark were masters of the energy realm. They could feed off your ind, mold their shapeless forms into the apparitions, but they couldn't hurt you unless you let them. However, that would all change once they resurrected and merged with the great one. They would mold themselves into your deepest fears, and could physically hurt you. The commander focused, trying to uproot his fears.

He watched as the battleship behind his pulled ahead and approached the nebula bravely. He watched the nebula suddenly come alive as the hundreds of millions of the Nightmare Energy Beings read it's commander's mind. They came together, morphing into their first display as they merged into a giant serpentine creature, millions of scales and ferocious spines and teeth protruding from it's body. It writhed and wriggled. It was the first commander's worst nightmare: St'gmr, a beast from ancient Salrilian mythology. It lashed out, slicing the Battleship cleanly in two with a glint of kilometer-long teeth. The serpentine creature lost it's shape and bubbled back into the origional form the dark naturally stayed in as the battleship was destroyed.

The Second Battleship moved ahead, into the nebula. Passing the wreckage of the first one. The Dark creatures again remolded themselves into the worst nightmare of the second battleship's commander. A gigantic bolt of lightning lanced out and atomized the second Battleship. The lightning too splashed like a puddle as the Dark got ready to shape themselves one final time.

The third and final Battleship moved into position, passing both fields of wreckage; it's commander puffed and sweated as he forced the mental images of inexplicable horror out of his mind. He breathed slow and steady breaths and cleared his mind. No mythological beasts. No unexplaned phenomina. No gods. No dreams. No nightmares. No people. No soldiers. No salt. No bombs. Nothing to be feared.

Unless... he suddenyl realized his mind had slipped. The Dark fed on his fear as they began assembling into that final shape.No! he panicked not that! his one true fear became a reality as The Dark shaped into a perfect recreation of of a huge ship. It's forward section began to glow and it's three disruptor nacelles powered up with Green sparks ans it turned to face the Battleship.

The StarLance fired a single simultaneous barrage, then lost shape as the third Battleship disintegrated. Meanwhile back on Salril, the Oracular Council recieved the result of the suicide mission: The Dark had found and resurrected the great one. They had only to merge and become one with him left.

>>980334 is crafty. it eludes me. Where it may be hiding is unclear. I have found nothing. There are many large disturbances in which to conceal a small vessel like 95309. I shall search them all. I believe it still does not know who has been dispatched to destroy it. I shall search the nearest disturbance and proceed from there.

Satisfied with its plan, 6655321 had its ship, 95309 project an intense gravity well ahead of it, hauling it at great speed towards the intense disturbance that the residents of the galaxy call the Hatares Sector.

Piemur1 had been thinking about spiders since the incident at the bar he was currently running. Spiders. He remembered a time when taking heavily guarded planets in his universe, there were some units called "spiders". Similar to their namesake, they were simple multi-legged robotic creations that were immune to EMP shockwaves. They were programmed to reprogram computer-controlled units taken out by EMP. They were quick, but very fragile. He was also thinking about Darkk's swarmer space units. Intoduction of the swarmer design with spider-type tactics, they would cause absolute havoc in between computer-controlled units. It didn't matter if it had a human...or whatever...pilot. If computer programs controlled the engines and weapons functions, the spiders would simply reprogam it and the craft/ship would would be under the spiders' control. And whoever controls the spiders, controls the ships. He saw that most of the ships here, not to mention that almost everything here, were controlled mainly by computers. Same as in his universe. The 10 frigates he got from the pirate battle would be useful for carriers of the "spiders". Arm some of the "spider" units with EMP shockwave cannons, Piemur1 would soon have a huge fleet of his own...Piemur1 didn't want to annoy anyone here too quickly, and he was peaceful by nature, so he would start his enterprise on pirates. After all, they deserved it.

He called up his engineering team and told them of his ideas. He then contacted Darkk to ask for the swarmer design specs, not giving away any of his plans. Since the swarmer designs were so simple, Darkk saw no problems for selling the plans. Piemur1's alcohol industry was giving him ample funding, and he bought the plans for a much higher price than they were worth. Darkk was a hard bargainer. But he got the plans, and implemented the "spider" technology. EMP shockwave cannons were harder to come by, and retrofitting them to the small swarmers was a painstaking task. Next the hardest task was programming the spiders to reprogram all the different types of ships there was in this universe. They had to compensate for any possible safeguards they might encounter, and the possibility that the ship's pilot may have a backup system which could ruin any chance of capturing the ship. This took several days of work, but since the program could be duplicated, he only needed one functioning program. He tested it out on some willing pilots, paid of course, and had them re-reprogrammed back to the original status. So far so good...

The EMP part of the swarmers was very bulky, but functionable. The spiders were also working well. He set the engineering team into an assembly-line like production status, and soon the 10 frigates were filled with the swarmer-spiders. Now to set a course to that big nebula nearby...surely there were some pirates there...

------------------
Your Horoscope for Today (Wierd Al):
Aries
All Virgos are extremely friendly and intelligent - except for you
Expect a big surprise today, when you wind up with your head impaled upon a stick

[This message has been edited by Piemur1 (edited 12-16-2000).]

Garrion Retoe stood in the corridor as several dozen prisoners were lead to the brig. They would be questioned upon their return to Dominus. As he oversaw the work, his comm unit beeped. "Yes?"
"Bridge, sir. You'd better come see this."
"I'll be right up." He ran to the lift tube and was whisked up to the bridge. "What's going on?" The sensor officer beckoned Garrion over to his console, where a massive power reading from only a few parsecs away glowed like a lighthouse in a midnight desert. "What is that?"
"I don't know, sir, but it's near a trio of Vindictives, in a nebula. Kadt..." The reading grew in magnitude fivefold once, subsided, then again, then again. "The battleships are gone." Garrion stared for a few seconds, then stood up.
"Bring our formation together. Power up all shields and charge all weapons. Let's get out of here!" The elite force started to pull away from the station as the three transports took off and entered the Silent Blade's docking bay. "Wait! We may well not have captured all of them, and a few of the filth may still be able to get the station back online. As long as any of these rebels remain, the Imperium is not safe. Target the station and take it out." The Silent Blade turned its guns on the station as the rest of the fleet started to pull away. Three compression salvos and a few flare salvos left only a mass of floating scrap. The Silent Blade then joined the formation and headed out of the asteroid field. Seconds later, they cleared the field. "Engage." The twenty Kiojeas engaged Omnidrive and disappeared in a multi-colored flash.

The Andalusa dropped rapidly out of orbit,, losing speed as it entered the atmophere of the decimated world. After several minutes and a few hundred miles, the ship slowed and began circleing the charred pile of rubble that had once been a city.

"Look at that. It's gone..."

"I can't believe it. Helm, take us in closer."

the ship dropped several thousand feet and leveled off just a few hundred above the deck, cruising through the twilight over the wrecked city.

"I see stuff moving." Helm said.

"Impossible. Where?"

"Shadows and stuff. See there! crossing the road."

"Are they people? Where?"

Pharris turned back to his helmsman. The helmsman's chair had the holographic image enhancement on, The helmsman's head was hidden in a holographic sphere that represented what both cameras and the sensors were picking up outside, giving him an excellent view.

"What are they? Can you tell?"

"No sir, but whatever they are, they have a pretty strong EMF trace. Other than that, they're just blurs, maybe five, six feet."

"Could they be Survivors? Phylidions?"

"Can't tell, they disappeared into the rubble."

"EMF, what do you have?"

"Not much sir, the readings give em a dozen or so emissions lines above and below our visible spectrum, but not much else. It could just be getting dark out, sunset tends to be a bad time to look for life signs-too much EMF interference from the atmosphere. I still should be getting something, this is weird..."

"They must be what the Phylidions were after... How could they have survived?" The helmsman asked, pulling the ship slightly lower.

"I don't know, but I want to know what they are. I need a few volunteers to help set up a sensor grid down there. I'll be in storage."

As the XO picked up the intercom, Pharris slid down the gangway to the lower decks

By the time he got there, five crewmembers were there. Two humans, a Phylidion, a Cantharan, and an Ishiman. They had already unpacked the sensor gear, and were deploying the gangway. Agatha "Dag" Banson and Matt "Bernsie" Berns were both engineers. "Myrk", the Ishiman was the chief gunner of the third watch, the Cantharan and the Phylidions, Mat Su and Maeer Mendeya were EVATs. All of them had been aboard for years, except for Dag, who had been picked up just before the Starlance incident. She was eager to prove her ability and her devotion to the rest of the crew, she had already shown great ability in engineering, but they hadn't had much of a chance for hand to hand training yet, and she was green as far as small arms were concerned.

"Suit up. Powered suits, shield belts too. These things were badass enough to kill an entire colony. We are going to be very careful. The Andalusa will drop us, and pull off a few hundred feet to get us out of the engine wash. ECM will be watching us, and Tac will have the guns up and ready to cover us. Helm will standby to pick us up if anything goes wrong. Either way, we are going to do this real cautious like. Dag, Mendaya, Mat and I will form a perimiter. Myrk, Bernsie, you set up the sensor net. I'll talk helm down onto a good placement point. we won't have to move far at all. Once we're set up, the ship will get on top of us and drop the collar. We get in, we set up, they pull us out. No more than ten minutes. Questions?"

The crew leaned on their guns.

"Good. Into the airlock."

Pharris sealed the airlock and extended the stairway from the bottom of the ship.

The team walked down the steps, Pharris, the assault element, followed by the sensor team. Pharris held the handrail, his feet on the last step over the void.

"Helm, pan left 250, down 100"

"Left 250 down 100 aye."

The ship slid closer to the ground, nearer to a landing spot.

"Aft thirty, right fifty. Too far, back slow... There. Down, real gentle like. There. We are go!"

The team jumped the last five feet, their powered suits cusioning the landing, Dag came behind, then the two EVATs. They moved out in a circle, as the two others jumped down with the sensor module.

"We're off. Clear! Go for set up."

Through the four inches of armor, Pharris felt the jet wash die away as the Andalusa lifted up and circled. Myrk and Bernsie opened the cases and started setting up. Deep inside, he felt an all too familiar twisting deep within him. He looked around. His intercom crackled, it was the Andalusa;

"Movement to the north. Best traces in microwave-range"

"Copy, microwave range."

Pharris tuned his visual scanners to pick up the microwave area of the spectrum. He saw the others doing the same. The inside of his faceplate tinted red. Suddenly, he saw them. They definitely weren't Phylidions. They were walking on all fours, pouring out microwaves. On his goggles, they were glowing. Deep inside, he felt the knot settle deeper, as it had many times before. Two hundred yards off, around fifteen of the things were approaching.

"Contact, i count 15, NNE. Dag, get over here."

"Moving." He could hear her voice quiver.

"Still approaching, range one-fifty. Establishing contact."

He raised his Gauss Rifle and fired several tight controlled bursts. He watched several of the creatures fall and disappear in a cloud of high frequency radiation.

"Dag, suppressing fire. Tight sweep over the group."

"Aye."

He heard it in her voice. He looked at her. Through her faceplate, he could see her trembling. He saw the huge suit lift the Chain gun, and start firing. The suit's powered arms easily absorbed the shock from the gun, and she traced the fire over the approaching group of creatures. Suddenly there was a deep rumbling, and the entire group exploded in a huge cloud of debris. The Andalusa's Phase busters swiveled back to their neutral position as the XO come over the intercom.

"Taken care of, Skip. More movement on the south, larger group this time. Moving to intercept."

The Andalusa rumbled overhead, to the South. Pharris looked at his team.

"Report."

"Bernsie, here, Complications in the setup. We need five more minutes."

"Myrk, clear"

"Mat Su, clear"

"Dag, clear"

"Mendeva, clear"

Pharris was shocked. He heard something in the ex-Taeskor's voice that he had never ever expected to hear. He heard fear. He turned around, and stared at Maeer. He looked ok, but the quiver in his voice had been entirely unexpected. Off to the south, he saw the Andalusa kicking up huge clouds of wreckage as it poured fire into the ground.

"Alert Team: incoming from northeast. Medium signal. Will dispatch southern threat before lending aid."

"Thanks for the warn. Mendeva, watch south. Mat Su, cover north."

Mat Su moved north, just in time to see the horde of beasts approaching.

"Engaging"

The three of them fired, but the enemy kept on coming. Pharris felt the knot pull tighter. It closed around his body, the familiar pangs began to hit him, he let them come, and kept on firing. He heard Mat Su start to screech. The natural Cantharan reaction to fear is extreme anger and uncontrolled aggression. Mat Su began screeching louder, firing longer bursts, pumping grenades out almost aimlessly.

Pharris looked at him, then to his left, Dag was staring blankly, her gun poised but silent. She was staring blankly at the approaching enemy. Pharris hit her, screaming "SHOOT!" She snapped out of it and began firing, but they were getting closer still. Pharris turned to see how the grid was coming up. Myrk was still working diligently, but Bernsie was crouched, clutching his knees to his chest, rocking back and forth, whimpering. Behind him, Pharris saw Maeer. Pharris couldn't believe his eyes. The Taeskor was crying. He had never seen him give off any emotions, and there he stood, with tears running down his cheeks, staring past his captain. Now it was even stronger. Pharris knew fear. It was almost comforting in its familiarity. He had lived most of his life with some twang of anxiety lurking somewhere. He thought of fear as his friend, and he always knew it was there watching his back when he was in trouble. Now, all semblance of order was gone. His disciplined men were losing control. The Taeskor, usually like ice in the tightest situations was crying. And his old familiar friend was turning against him. He felt like a helpless child again lost and alone, on the lifeboat, watching his father bleed. The world was spinning around him. He saw Mat Su Firing wildly, screeching and shooting, he saw Dag's face frozen, blank, her finger clutching the trigger on her empty gun. He looked at the tears on the Taeskor's face, then spun as he heard something behind him.

The shadow hung in the air for a brief second.

Pharris raised his rifle and fired.
As the beast vaporized in mid air, Pharris screamed into his comlink.

"Alec! Get us the hell off this damn rock! NOW!"

He spun and began shooting the beasts. It was with him again. Keeping him on his guard up. The world shook as the Andalusa hovered forty feet overhead. The long EVAT deployment collar extended down to the ground as the anti missile turrets began spraying fire down around the LZ.

"Get up there! Go!"

Myrk looked up

"Wait, the grid isn't finished!"

"Grab the Taeskor! Move!"

Pharris grabbed Mat Su, only to be shrugged off harshly. He screamed at him, and pushed him up the collar, followed by Bernsie. He climbed onto the ladder pulling Dag behind him, as the Andalusa lifted off and cleared to a higher altitude.

The docking collar retracted, pulling them up into the EVAT deployment dock. The ship's doctor was already there with the medstaff, but there were no physical injuries. Pharris looked around the room. Except for the Ishiman, all of them looked as if they'd just woken from a horrible nightmare. Pharris looked out the open hatch, and saw the creatures swarming. He wondered if they had.

He took off his suit and spoke into his comlink. "I've seen enough X, get us out of here."



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

A swarm of shadows pursued the twenty Phylydion war vessels int he parallell position equal to their position in Omnispace. Unbelievable as it was, the swarm had crossed nearly eight hundred lightyears in a matter of seconds! They spotted their next target.

They stopped near the Ishiman outpost parallel to the Hatares Nebula, and after taking the care of eliminating and feeding off of the colony, nine trillion of the nightmare creatures rained from the skies like a hurricane of terror, adding the planet to their ever-increasing list of infested worlds.

But this planet was different. It wa not just another world to be infested and exterminated. The Dark had a far greater prize with them. They brought with them a single organic creature, deceased and bloodied, salvaged from deep space amidst a historic field of debris. The Dark had also claimed six massive derelict ships of Salrilian design: The three Vindictive with their crews tortured and slain. Their destruction had only been an illusion as the crews' minds were ripped apart and swallowed by the hive. Alongside the three battlecruisers, drifted the memorial derelict heavy destroyer and it's two carrier escorts, released in memory of the death of their commander. They bore the insignia of Admiral Slug.

The still-moist body The Dark had salvaged was enveloped in an envelope of pure energy, boiling in forces of evil. The Nightmare Creatures flowed in and out of it. Then, only slightly at first, the body twitched. It was merely a tiny movement, but inside, past the many layers of Salrilian flesh, life breathed back into the body.

The pure evil now flowed, pulsed, coarsing through the veins and a soul was twice-born. Then, a single, glowing eye opened....

Communiqué
From: Sundered Angel
To: Sargatanus, Haruspex of the Divine Galactic Axis

You've left intervention too long. Cease this disturbance now, or soon it will be your people paying the price of your inactivity.

I think you understand what I refer to.

The Lifarla came in low over the third planet, destroying some ground-to-space batteries a thousand years obselete. The ground was now apparently thoroughly cleared of defensive machinery. Time to start the dig.

Alice didn't like it a bit. The Nijayias psychopaths must love fighting their way in, blowing up stuff like it was fun. She didn't understand why they couldn't just sneak in, and the "guards" standing around her with repeating lepton rifles weren't helping. The dig was getting underway, as the students and the machinery moved volumes of dirt at an astounding rate, given the care needed.

In 9 hours they found the image pictured on the top of some kind of metal pole. As per procedure they ran 20 meters and turned to see if anything unusual happened. The implosion wave starting 20 meters from the pole ceratainly qualified. A large boulder, and everything else within the radius of the sphere was crushed against the top of the pole. Then a huge laser emmited from the top of the pole, scanning across the sky, smashing pieces of wreckage as though searching for a ship. Thankfully the Lifarla had moved to the other side of the planet.

"That's good. The one we want is within 50 meters and is exactly 200 meters down." came over the comm in Kharadd's voice. Alice set the machinery to work again.

40 meters
80 meters
120 meters
160 meters
200 meters

Alice didn't know where the Nijayias had gotten such precise data on this without getting the codes to convince the defense system they were friendly. However, the data was off slightly: the second copy of the image was at 203 meters. In any case, Kharadd and a group of men arrived with some radiation suits.

"Put these on" Kharadd ordered, tossing the suits to Alice and her people.
"Why would you not need them if we do?" Alice asked, putting hers on.
"Because the systems are configured not to attack Nijayias. The drones wouldn't have attacked if we had been flying a Nijayias ship of their era, but we couldn't get any."
"If you say so."

Kharadd pressed the plate with the image and concentrated. A groaning was heard, and a door on the other side of the pillar supporting the laser opened. Kharadd stepped through.

------------------
*Error: target is violating the laws of physics*
*Error: target is locally exceeding c*
*Error: unable to determine if target exists or not*
*Error: target cannot be hit*

The armored and armed troop transport approached the former Phylydion colony. Twelve of the first batch of Taeskor Rangers were aboard, in light armor beneath their fiery crimson capes. They, unlike stadard Pure Taeskors, were each armed with a Burst carbine in addition to a Keutae. The pilot looked back at Cicion. "Sir, Pharris's ship just left the planet and it's headed to leave the system."
"When we picked up traces of Darks still alive on the planet, I didn't figure there'd be enough to make someone like Pharris hightail it. Everyone ready?" The others nodded. The transport plunged into the planet's atmosphere in the center of where the main complex had been before it had self-destructed. The transport hovered a few feet above the surface and the twelve jumped out, instantly assuming a circular formation, carbines raised. The transport lifted into low orbit. Cicion extracted his sense tendrils. They detected an unnatural cold in the air. Suddenly, the cold intensified. A few others noticed it, too, and turned in the direction he was facing. A dark form sprang over a pile of rubble ten feet away. Cicion thrust his fist forward, and the creature was flung backward and desintegrated. Cicion turned to look at his little unit. "Follow me. We'll take a look at the wreckage over there." He indicated a scorched section of Durantium plating that had survived the bombardment. The group moved forward.
When they reached the large space the armor covered, they spotted a few more inside. Several Burst shots took them out. Cicion surveyed his group. They still all looked calm and concentrated. He focused his energy to recharge himself, and moved on.

------------------
-Traek Cicion of the Taeskor
"Never tell me the odds!"
-Han Solo
"Then we'll do it real quiet-like."

Every single one of the nightmare creatures on the planet became aware of the presence of the "delicious-minded ones", the Tæskors. They lept and swarmed, flowing like a rampant stream loosed by a burts dam. Rifle shots echoed throughout the valley, but were unheard by the tæskors trapped in their own nightmares.

The sky boiled, the ground shook, the whle planet seemed to come ablaze to the tæskors as the shadow creatures morphed into their worst rampant nightmares. Giant combat drones, massive expanding lava pools, plasma lightning storms, suits of armor, swarms of insects, vacuum, swirling, swirling, swirling in agony and terror. A veritable tornado of the shadow creatures enveloped the Tæskor commandos.

Amidst the confusion, the creatures seemed to turn even on themselves. Radiation levels were reaching lethal levels. Cicion rabbed him comm unit "Transports: get us out of here!"

The three transports shot a path through the swarms of The Dark and proceeded to land. The first transport landed and half of the tæskors boarded it. It lifted off and shot for space at the same time the second and third were touching down. The rest of the tæskors boarded them and the transports lifted up and cleared the planet.

- - - - -

Having cleared he planet, the transports moved for space. Cicion watched the other two transports from hs window. They had all survived, but many wished they hadn't. Half of the Tæskors were shocked to the core, never to speak again.

Suddenly, one of the transports exploded, showering a cloud of atoms! Cicion turned to face the direction of the attackers. A second bolt blew the second transport to dust. Cicion strained his eyes to focus onto the attacking ships.

Three vindictives, two carriers, and a heavy destroyer.....

Cicion strained his eyes looking at the attacking ships. He hadn't counted on any of them dying. The Taeskor Rangers' emotional and mental training kept the Dark from doing actual harm to their minds, but the horrid creatures could still tap into them, somehow. And he watched as the attacking ships glimmered a little, showing dark spots. The Dark had gotten themselves some ships.
Just as the final attack was about to be launched, a violent flash appeared a few dozen miles out from the planet, and the Vermillion Battlegroup appeared, approaching the Dark ships at maximum speed. "Sorry if we're late," came Garrion Retoe's voice over the comm. The Kiojeas fired, and fortunately the Dark weren't too well trained in starship maneuvering. They took the attacks full-force, and in a few seconds were ripped to shreds. The remaining transport was taken aboard the Silent Blade.
(Aboard the bridge of the Silent Blade)
"Sir, more of those captured shipss are approaching from the planet's surface!"
"Take them out, now." The Kiojeas fired again, eliminating the second wave of Dark ships. "Target a three hundred mile radius of where the transports landed."
"Done."
"Slag it." The flare bolt batteries of the twenty battlecruisers opened fire, and in ten minutes the top two feet of crust in the targeted area was turned to molten rock and metal. "Now, radio the Phylydia II and see if she can get here and perform a Slammer." The communications officer contacted the Phylydia II. "She can get here with a full fleet in three hours, sir."
"Good. Set up a blockade all around the planet. If you read ANY activity that could be Dark movement, bombard that general area until you cannot detect any more."

Cicion was in the training room with six of his Taeskor Rangers, the only ones who had survived the attack of the Dark-ships. The six were calm and controlled, but a glimmer of fear still shone behind their eyes. "Begin!" As they went through their excercises, the fear disappeared, and they became fully confident again. Back on Dominus, three hundred Taeskor Rangers were undergoing training. The only Phylydion ground force that could ever hope to beat the Dark was being set into motion.


------------------
-Traek Cicion of the Taeskor
"Never tell me the odds!"
-Han Solo
"Then we'll do it real quiet-like."

[This message has been edited by Taeskor Cicion (edited 12-17-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Taeskor Cicion (edited 12-18-2000).]

[uh, those were supposed to be the real things, not just illusions]

Unless they were from some rebel or rogue faction of the Sals, we can't have them attacking Phylydion ships. The peace effort is far too far progressed for them to openly attack us, especially when we must join forces against the Dark.

Mag Steelglass was in a quiet area of Cicion's bar, trying to get away from the crowds, when a Cantharan walked to his table and sat down, pockets bulging.

"Greetings, Mag Steelglass."

"Um, who are you?"

"I'm one of the Cantharan Order's mercenary employers."

Mag was already beginning to not like the conversation. He'd been offered jobs by the Cantharans before, most of which was stopping escaped slaves and the like.

"Tell me, have you been watching the news recently? More specifically, news about the Dark?"

"I've been hearing of them."

"Good, good. The Prophets of Salril approached my government. They want one of these Dark captured in confinement. All of our military ships sent on this mission have failed."

"So you want me to do it?"

"You could save many lives if they find a way to stop these monsters."

"What's in it for me?"

The Cantharan stood up, and opened it's pockets. Several coins fell on the table. Mag picked one up and examined it. It was a five zomdoz piece, equal to approximately 12 credits.

"The rest of them are the same. The Cantharan Order would be willing to give you 500 zomdoz now, and 4500 when you retrieve the Dark."

"Sounds good. Anything else I need to know?"

"Yes. We have a special device which can put a single Dark in stasis for up to a week. You'll need to retrieve this device from the Salrillian transport 'Watcher' in the Isota System, in the Free Trade Zone."

"Sounds fine to me."

"The captain of the transport will tell you where to bring the Dark, and where you can find them."

"Very well."

"Goodbye, Mag Steelglass. I will see you when you have acquired the Dark."

The Cantharan walked back into the crowd of partyers.

Mag continued sipping his drink, examining the smooth coins. They were definately real...

------------------
"Oi, oi, oi, me got a hurt n here
Oi, oi, oi, me smell a ting is near
Me gonna bosh and me gonna nosh
An da hurt'll dissapear"

Quote

They were captured by the Dark. Remember the two carriers set loose in Slug's memory after his death? Remember the three Vindictives that disappeared on patrol in the Hatares? Remember how The Dark merged with "the great one" and reactivated the ships for use?

The Fury looked around the bar. It appeared that he had somehow missed Sundered Angel, but that was okay, as he had another idea now. He watched as Mag Steelglass chatted with the Cantharan. He was obviously now unavailable. He had heard of a man named Vierto who could be some help. He found him, and sat down at his table...

------------------
The Fury

"If I had a rocket launcher, I'd make somebody pay. And my fighter has a rocket launcher."

Piemur1 was mildly surprised when a small fleet of ships attacked him. “Sensors? Who are they?”
“Sal cruisers, a couple of Sarillian fighters, it seems...no response...must be pirates since they are attacking us...should we do it?”
“Helm...contact the frigates and tell them to deploy...”

The swarmer-spiders were deployed, and soon his fleet was increased by a few more ships...since that the cruisers had a crew, he had to drop them off at the proper authorities...landing at a sarillian prison outpost, the authorities were amazed to see the prisoners landing in their own ships...sal policing ships had been looking for this group for a long time and they had a long record of piracy and terrorism. The judge had no trouble convicting the felons and allowed Piemur1 to keep the cruisers as part of the bounty. With his account a little fuller, Piemur1 reset his course off to the Hetares Nebula. Along the way, he requested some of his free officers to do some training on some strategic remote ship commanding. He picked a crew to control the 3 cruisers and 4 fighters. One had to be destroyed when his ship was attacked and there was no choice but to defend... it was fatal for the cruiser. The computers of the ships were all under his control, so there was no need for a crew on board. However, he did set up some repair droids on each of them to keep it functionable while in combat.

Upon reaching the nebula, Piemur1 started feeling a little queasy, as if he had a sort of premonition. Going further, the sensors was starting to go haywire. Drat the nebula. All of a sudden, a wormhole appeared about 100 klicks ahead of them. This was Piemur1’s greatest fear. “Sensors! Report!” “I-It appears to be a wormhole...an-and sensors dont report anything on the other side...and...GET AWAY FROM ME!!!” Piemur1 saw a family floating outside, and a dark figure stalked them. They dont have any pressure suits, how could they not be decompressing? The figure stepped up behind them and slit their throats. Geraldine, at the sensor console started sobbing uncontrollably. He understood. This was what had happened to her family. Robert, who was at the helm, screamed, a very high pitched one for a man whose singing voice was a bass. Looking up, he saw a swarm of bats flying toward the ship. These were all of his crew’s fears. Even his...

The ship started rocking hard. The engines were still trying to get away from the wormhole. “Helm! We have to ‘port outta here! While we still have time! Forget the bats! They’re not your problem right now! 700 klicks down 70 degrees port side, downangle 20 degrees.” The alarms on the ship started blaring and in a few seconds, the ship disappeared. 700 klicks away, it reappeared at its destination. “Helm, good job, keeping a tight head” He looked back up at the screen. “Holy crack! The wormhole is still there! Whats going on?!?” A white shape started to appear, as if it was in a bad picture. The frigates were approaching since they were programmed to follow his ship. The door to the bridge opened and the young man started to gibber. “Th-th-the St-st-starlance!” Oh great, thats what we need now...a 1000 ton behemoth coming down at us. Wasting no time, he walked up to the officer and gave a sharp elbow to his temples. The man was knocked out and the phantom shape of the Starlance dissapated. He noticed a sort of dark shape out there. Several dark shapes. He looked up at the wormhole. “Its not real...its not real...ITS NOT REAL!!! Helm, shut off the engines!” Robert was still shaking hard and didnt do anything. The shapes of the bats were still approaching the ship. “Its our shields, they are interfering with the fear projections...its some sort of electrical impulses or something...EMP! Thats it! Launch the EMP swarmers and have them shoot at everything around!” When Robert didn’t do anything, Piemur1 decided to take things into his own hands, now that he understood what was happening to him. The fear was still gripping him, but wasn’t as hard as before. He walked up to the helm console and shut off the engines. The image of the wormhole approached faster. He hoped he knew what he was doing. As it came to engulf the ship, it disappeared. He breathed a slight sigh of relief. The dark shapes were approaching. At this time, the EMP swarmers were let loose. They started shooting at the shapes of the family and the bats and the other scary images, they seemed to be as if they were bad picture transmissions and wavered. The crew around him started to get their bearings. The dark shapes were shooting at him, and hit the shields. The officer at the shield status console looked up. “It’s real! Shields are dropping to 95%...92%...89%...” Piemur1 had no choice but to recall the swarmers and try to outrun the dark ships approaching. He programmed the frigates to scatter and exit the nebula as quickly as possible. There was no one on them left alive. They didn’t have the same kind of shielding as he did. The Sal cruisers would follow him and try to provide as much protection as possible. Going as fast as possible in the nebula, the dark ships were taking apart the cruisers. He had to ‘port out...again, the klaxons sounded and the ship once again disappeared from the nebula. Several light-years away from the nebula, a spark appeared and enlarged to a shape. It faded to reveal Piemur1’s ship. It had taken most of the fuel, so the ramscoop engines opened up and Piemur1, with a pretty heavy loss, set course back to a repair bay. He contacted the 8 surviving frigates and saw that some of them had only slight damage. There was no response from the other 2. Amazingly, he found contact with one of the Sal cruisers and 2 fighters. After leaving no living being in the vacinity, the dark ships seemed to lose interest with the ships. He recalled them and set their course to the same drydock...why wasn't he warned about this? He would have to have a long talk with a certain someone...once the ships were repaired

------------------
Your Horoscope for Today (Wierd Al):
Gemini
Your birthday will be ruined once again by your explosive flatulence
Your love life will run into trouble when your fiance hurls a javelin through your chest

[This message has been edited by Piemur1 (edited 12-19-2000).]

Kharadd stepped lightly through the door.

All that was inside was a computer with no apparent inputs and outputs. All of a sudden, several drones appeared from under a sliding plate. They scanned everyone in turn, but stopped once they reached Alice and her group.

Immediatly, the drones began to project green-light cones onto the archeologists. "What is this?" a nervous student queried.
"Radguns. The drones are trying to insure you don't leave the system alive. Good thing you have the suits, but I'll turn them off." Kharadd responded.

He stepped into the center of the room and closed his eyes. All of a sudden, the drones deactivated and fell to the ground. Kharadd now moved to the more important tasks. The system was slowly recognising him, slowly bending to his will. A little more, a little more, there. The system immediatly began a data dump. Not to Kharadd, he couldn't take it, but to the network. Knowledge that had been lost for millenia, nothing too important except a few trivial tricks...

This would secure their future. Kharadd knew it was time for his true role.

------------------
*Error: target is violating the laws of physics*
*Error: target is locally exceeding c*
*Error: unable to determine if target exists or not*
*Error: target cannot be hit*

The Rouge dropped out of hyperspace at the specified coordinates, but Mag's sensors didn't detect the Watcher anywhere. No Salrillian transports, either.

Suddenly, a Cantharan gunship with a pirate IFF code warped to him, and began firing with it's antimatter pulse reactor type II. Mag quickly dodged the antimatter pulses and flew out of range, and the gunship opened fire with a concussion missile launcher.

Mag continued to dodge, long enough for the gunship to turn its back on the cloaked Repellant. The Repellant opened fire, and used its superior speed to stay behind the cantharan gunship.

The battle was short, and then Mag began more sensor sweeps, looking for the Watcher. As he was scanning, the Watcher uncloaked right in front of the Rouge's bridge. It flew around to the side, and docked with the Rogue.

Mag walked to the airlock, and opened it. Several Salrillians were slithering his way.

"Greetings, human. We have brought the equiment."

"Actually, I was hoping to load it on the other vessel."

"Oh?"

"It has more crew members, so they'd be able to handle the situation better if the Dark escaped."

"Very well, then. I suppose you want to know where to get the Dark, and where to take it to."

"That would help."

"You can find them near the Hatares Nebula, and you need to take it to Testing Lab 958345, in the Salril system. Our patrol ships will be notified of your service, and will not attack you."

"Fine, then. I'll have the other ship dock on the other side, okay?"

"Very well, then."

Mag took out his iPad, and flipped the monitor up. He sent an email to the audemedon droid to dock with the transport.

"They're on their way."

"Very well, then."

After a few minutes of moving equipment, the transport cloaked and left. Mag set in a course for the Hatares Nebula, and went to hyperspace.

------------------
"Oi, oi, oi, me got a hurt n here
Oi, oi, oi, me smell a ting is near
Me gonna bosh and me gonna nosh
An da hurt'll dissapear"

Drion Nerec stood in the bridge of the Phylydia II, looking out the main viewport. The rest of the small fleet that had quickly been scraped together out of any ships not in use flowed around the massive Emperor II-class carrier. As he approached the planet, the Vermillion Battlegroup came into view, its twenty Kiojeas spread out around the planet. Every so often, one would fire a few salvos onto the planet's surface. The Phylydions had never ravaged a planet in their own space this much. The fleet slowly took up positions around the planet to keep any Dark from escaping and to wipe out any Dark remaining. Inside the carrier were transports carrying a total of ten legions of Taeskors for ground deployment. "Hail the Silent Blade."
"Yes, sir." The comm beeped and garrion Retoe's face appeared on the small communication screen on Nerec's console.
"Welcome to the border worlds, Octicate Nerec."
"The fleet will assume the position you are currently occupying until we are sure that the Dark on the planet are wiped out. The Vermillion Battlegroup is far to elite and important a force to waste on blockade duty. Proceed to Dominus to await any further Dark crises."
"Yes, sir." Aboard the Silent Blade, Garrion Retoe nodded to his comm officer, who cut the connection. He then nodded to his navigation officer. "Tell the battlegroup to assume formation and stand by to Omni to Dominus."
"Aye, sir."

---------------------------------------------
Cicion was aboard the Phylydia II, preparing to go back down to the planet's surface.

It was time for a brief test.

Darkk had been participating in some sparring at the palace's dojo. As the strength of will of the Nijayias can be used to bolster their phsyical strength, Darkk was doing rather well.

"Vaerion, I'd like to try a little match with you."
"Darkk, I'm a pure Taeskor. You'd lose so fast, you wouldn't know it."
"I'd rather see for myself."
"Just don't hold me accountable if I hurt you."
"Likewise."

It wasn't a long trip to the dojo. The floors were padded to prevent serious injuries, but a fight with a pure Taeskor usually is more like SEEKING serious injuries. Darkk had agreed not to use telekenisis, and Vaerion had agreed not to use throwing weapons.

It began rather as Vaerion expected. Before Darkk had a chance to make a move, Vaerion slammed him with an impact kinetic punch that knocked backwards, then followed with a furious barrage of punches Darkk was too stunned to react to. But suddenly, something happened.

Darkk's fist suddenly appeared in Vaerion's nose. How could Darkk have punched him so fast? Vaerion threw a punch, but Darkk blocked it with [b]one finger[/i]. Vaerion was stunned. He leaped back and threw an impact kinetic punch. Except it wasn't impact kinetics, it was just punching air.

Kadt! he thought to himself, what's wrong with me? Suddenly Darkk launched into a flying kick that came down so hard on Vaerion's shoulder and dislocated it. Vaerion wasn't going to give up from a little thing like that, and lept up just in time to recieve several blows to the solar plexis. He stumbled for a second, and then tried to hit Darkk.

His punch almost had connected, when suddenly he realized that he was leaning in for an attack on a guy half a meter to the side of him. Vaerion fell to the floor emberassed and confused, and lept up just in time to catch a spinning roundhouse to the head that rendered him unconcious.

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

Later that night, sitting in his bed with bandages all over him, Vaerion wondered what was going on. Darkk hadn't seemed very good at first, but then suddenly was beating the daylights out of him. Obviously, Darkk had played some kind of trick. It only remained to see what it was. He'd report this dishonorable behavior, but it would be far too emberassing. He'd simply forget it happened. It was probably some chemical in the air, that's all.

------------------
*Error: target is violating the laws of physics*
*Error: target is locally exceeding c*
*Error: unable to determine if target exists or not*
*Error: target cannot be hit*

(Mind doing a little editing, Darkk? Impact Kinetics is a skill not many people can really use, and Vaerion doesn't sound like one of the few that can.)

The shuttle landed on the cratered, blasted planet's surface, and Cicion dove out, rolling and spinning and coming up straigh with his Keutae drawn. Within moments, swarms of Dark covered and entered the shuttle. That was not surprising. What was surprising was the shuttle's sudden ascent. Its engines flared and it took off, somewhat unevenly, heading for the fleet. Although he had not expected this, he had planned for it. As the shuttle reached about thirty feet of altitude, he pressed a button on his wrist pad, and the shuttle detonated in a fury of smoke and flame.
Cicion heard a noise and whipped around. The Dark had come. He concentrated and filled his mind with blinding rage. He dashed into the formation as a whirlwind of steel, fists, and feet. The Dark had no fear to feed off of. Anger made them powerful but it disoriented them. Cicion whipped through their formation, occasionally recieving a dazing blow from an icy tendril.
Finally, there was only one left in the immediate area. Cicion flung his mind open at the creature so that it could select any deep-down fear it wanted to. "Go on. Give me your best shot." Cicion's eyes grew narrow as the creature morphed into a form Cicion had not seen in a long time. Cicion slowly moved into his battle stance, arms down, blade up, feet spread apart. "Hello, Verad."

------------------
-Traek Cicion of the Taeskor
"Never tell me the odds!"
-Han Solo
"Then we'll do it real quiet-like."

::Encoded Transmission, tight stream::
PATCH-cipherpad OH44289-26
to: UNS Delegation to the UGPA
re: "the dark"

Although the UNS has yet to encounter these creatures, our sources indicate that many members of the UGPA have. I would like you to make it a point to bring this topic of discussion up, and I would like you to press it, regardless of any reluctance that the other members may have. Eventually, I would like to see it discussed at the summit meeting with the DGA next month. Our sources show that these beings could be a danger to our security, should we come in contact with them.

-President Jack Wade, UNS

Vierto was part-Phylydion, and wouldn't say what other blood he had in him. At any rate, while he was a pretty good fighter, he wouldn't be able to make up all of The Fury's needed team.

Next, he needed a couple more people. Firstly, someone who could both fly a ship and fire a gun.

But first...

------------------
The Fury

"If I had a rocket launcher, I'd make somebody pay. And my fighter has a rocket launcher."


[This message has been edited by The Fury (edited 12-22-2000).]

The Palyos Belt.

Hundreds of asteroids strung across the system, some of them made up of explosive compounds, others dangerous merely from kinetic energy: Ek=1/2mv2... Lots of m, even without too much v...

Most would not have found it as the safest place to hide a private equipment stash. But then, that was the idea.

The Fury dropped from it's limited hyperspace into the area, spinning to the left to avoid a small asteroid. It disappeared into the belt, dodging the asteroids it's pilot could, blasting those he couldn't.

The target asteroid was small, and on a course predetermined three years ago, as guaranteed not to collide with another asteroid within the next 40 years.

It looked as if it would not need to stay there as long as the man, who at the time had been known as 8 Lightnings, had planned.

A message beam opened a small door on the side of the asteroid. Tractor beams pulled the contents over to the The Fury.

Finally, after everything was inside, The Fury thought over his reasoning.

He needed some of the items, transponders, computers and so on, for his primary plan.

Others, he had for a more personal reason.

In his universe, he had never had to fire a weapon such a a P-K pistol or a Lepton rifle. In this one, until now, his cyborg implants had sufficed.

He decided that now was no time to learn.

In here was a weapon that could at least be used until he recovered some weapons from his base.

The huge sword gleamed in his hands...


------------------
The Fury

"If I had a rocket launcher, I'd make somebody pay. And my fighter has a rocket launcher."