Chapter 12 - Fight The Future

"STOP! DO NOT HYPERSPACE! ITS A TRAP!"

The bridge crew turned to look at him.

"It's a trap! We are working with the beast, because Councilman Risseau ordered so! His computer is on! They ordered him back...a week ago. The 1st Alpha Elite Guard fleet has left its docks. The Councilman is leaving, right now of all times. An Imperial Fleet is en route...the Beasts attacks have diminished, a Tiamat mothership has been attacked! What does this mean?"

"They want the Unbound. They are using us to help them...to get the Unbound. We are nothing to them...but they want the Bentusi, the Tiamat, the others."

The admiral turned around and yelled.

"You-are-mad!"

He recoiled, suddenly loosing resolve, steeling himself, remembering the evidence he had seen.

"Would you like the evidence?"

The Admiral glared at Qu'jet, barking a order for the vessel to move away from the Naggarok, following Qu'jet into the room.

"LOCK DOWN ALL SYSTEMS! GET ME THE COUNCILMAN! LOCK DOWN THE FLIGHT BAYS!"

The bridge is active, Qu'jet heads to one of the lifts and goes to the flight bay.
-----

Risseau walks slowly to the Heavy Corvette. The Flytrap and her crew knew too much. They knew of the Naggarok. The repair fleet was a section of those loyal to him, the 1st Elite. The Flytrap had seen too much. Its firepower had been needed to show force to the beast...now it was expendable; tables were set in motion, plans readied.

The repair fleet emerged from hyperspace and began repairs. Risseau walked to the ramp, followed by two burly Taiidan Elite Guard Commissars in power armor.

Behind them a few hundred meters back a door opened.

Qu'jet walked out, aiming his .50 mass driver pistol

"STOP THAT CORVETTE!"

Other elevators began opening, Taiidan Marines pouring out, firing, shots flying across the flight bay and impacting everywhere.

The Flytrap had moved beyond sensor range of the Naggarok by now...suddenly several hypergates opened, black ships pouring out and opening fire on the Flytrap, rail guns and ion beams raking the hull.

Shit! he thought...

Suddenly he pieced it together. Risseau wanted the glory of the Taiidan Imperium...and recruited the beast. He needed to curry favor, repair the Naggarok. He needed to show that the Taiidan Imperials were powerful allies, the Flytrap and its use. But they were never meant to survive. They were thousands of light years away from home...the repair fleet...most likely Elite Guard. The new ships were elite guard as well.

The marines ducked as the Commissars began firing back, the statacco of automatic weapons fire ringing through the halls, followed by return fire, the Taiidani Marines advancing slowly, firing short bursts from their mass driver rifles before advancing.

He ducked behind a barrel, popping his head up and firing at the robed figure, scoring a shot on his leg, advancing behind cover.

Cover fire over his head forced him down, including the deep voice of "NOBODY HARMS THE EMPEROR!", followed by more weapons fire.

What the hell...the Emperor is dead! I saw it! I saw him burn over Hiigara!

He looked up and fired two more times at Risseau, a shot hits his leg and grazes, blood dripping to the floor as the Commissars haul Risseau into the Corvette, which promptly opens fire, turning and engaging reverse engines, opening fire with all weapons and shredding up the fighters, which lay unprotected in the flight bay.

An Elite Guard carrier then emerged from hyperspace, and fired a cruise missile into the flight bay; the blast rocking throughout the craft, sending marines flying in all directions as the black-brown vessel flies off. The flight bay began to burn, small fires appear left and right, a random explosion, and so forth. The Flytrap began firing at the Elite Guard fleets around it, which hyper spaced out just as quickly as they had gone, the flight bay was charred and wrecked, repair crews running about left and right to put out fires.

Qu'jet crawled out from under debris, walking over to where the heavy corvette had been; looking at the bloodstain, scraping some charred and dried blood off the deck.

The Emperor Riesstiu, the first one, had engineered his blood to be a different color, red with a shade of blue.

He looked at the piece of dried blood, and tilted it in the light.

First red, then a shade of blue.

He got up and kicked a empty barrel.

Damn! How is this possible! How can he live! How! What was going on! He signaled to one of the marines nearby to get a blood sample out to bio-lab, watching the medics moving around and getting the wounded elsewhere.
----

"We found a set of coordinates in Risseaus comm-unit. We have no evidence of why, but I do not think we were meant to live. I found several remote detonate devices on PDAs, resource storage units, barracks, and the induction module. Apparently we weren't meant to survive" ended the security officer.

Again they were all in the meeting room, having absorbed enough developments. First they had found an alien craft...then Qu'jet had told them about what he had seen, and heard. Then they retold the attack of the Elite Guard fleet, and Risseaus true identity.

"But why would Risseau do this?" asked the Security Officer. "Why would he sabotage this ship? If he is who you say he is, Riesstiu's clone, why would he do this? He isn't that stupid."

Qu'jet snorted once, then looked over to the Security Officer.

"Riesstiu the Fourth, immolated Kharak, burned whole asteriod colonies to ash. And you are wondering why he would ally with the beast. Riesstiu was insane, power-hungry. I guess he had sent out a clone of himself into the Assembly of Lords, during the Homeworld Wars. After his death, we all know whatever was left of the House of Lords became the Imperial Council. But, there are no records of any Risseau before the Hiigaran landing.

The 1st Elite Guard fleet, as you know, was the first to hunt down the rebels and destroy them at Vorshan's Rift. The general public does not know of the 1st alpha fleet. To them, there is only one Elite Guard, the second. Everyone here is above Level 7 clearance, so you all should know what the 1st Alpha fleet was for. It was they who attacked Kharak, painted in standard colors. The Emperor used the 1st as a black ops fleet, a fleet used to do his more covert and politically sensitive work, stuff that he could not trust the raiders with.

Now we have a madman, a fleet, and a monster on our hands. In a sense, we're fucked."

Suddenly the PA went active.

Comm: "Sirs, theres something on the Tel-programs that you should be aware of."

Admiral: "Put it through on the display screen."

On the other side of the room was the giant 30-inch LCD display, which chittered and came to life....

"INN, Imperial News Network! This is Hruk Qubaal, and in todays news, we have been dealt a grevious blow. The Taiidani Imperial Navys newest vessel, the Venus Flytrap, has announced its defection to the Taiidan Republicans.

Radicals have called for "A jihad against the traitors". The Moderate party had no comment on this issue. The Venus Flytrap carrier announced its intention to defect just a few minutes ago, and attacked a Outer Rim frontier fleet. Clearly they are too cowardly to come to us.

"We will hunt them down and destroy them!" Councilman Risseau has quoted.

The scene changed, to that of a gaunt figure sitting on a podium, Councilman Risseau, most likely aboard the Elite Guard carrier, which was Sajuuk knows where.

"I Councilman Risseau, guarantee you that this traitor-ship will be eliminated...their crew will be hunted to the far corners of the galaxy...we will go to even Hiigara to capture them and bring them back to Justice!"

The display turned off, the crew mulled over their new dillema.

They could not go home. They could not warn home...the Emperor had already done so.