Chapter 2
"Fire the Needle cannon, and make sure it's a surgical strike on the life-support system! Along with the bridge and the fusion power reactor!" Huur-Captain shouted. There was a brilliant flare as one of the Needle cannon spewed pure fiery destruction, that stabbed the enemy's armor in seconds and shoot right though the bridge, destroying everything within a few meters of the needle thin beam, it was their surgical weapon that they used to destroy certain area on an enemy ship. Without warning a second fiery needle shoot out of another turret and stabbed the largish orb at the back of the vessel which was the fusion reactor. With a specular explosion, the fusion reactor died and all of the shipboard light suddenly died out. Yet, a third needle thin beam shoot out again and performed another surgical strike what was the remains of the life-support system, just to make sure. The hiigrans found it a form of entertainment to capture unarmed peaceful ships from systems that wouldn't join them and simply haul them to the killing field that was the Karos graveyards and allowed warships to shoot off the reactor system, the bridge, and the life-support system. Then they would actually record the crew's painful and slow death as a form of entertainment. They would then broadcast it to the population of hiigrans. Their motto was join or die, and in the last several millenniums, many slave species had rebelled angest the hiigrans rule but they was unfortualy crushed and dragged to the Karos graveyards, and given an unhonorable death. Huur-Captain thought, I feel sorry for these peoples… blasphemy! He suddenly thought. I must cleanse myself of this blasphemy thought! So, he left the bridge heading to his quarters to cleanse himself of these blasphemy thoughts.
The captain himself had earned his first name from the short but brutal xenocide of one of the slave species that had rebelled; he was aiming on getting his second name, the greatest honor in the hiigran navy. He himself was huge at 2.2 meters compared to the average hiigrans height of 1.8 meters. Huur-Captain often used that to his advange in keeping his iron grip over the ship's crew. The ship he was captaining was one of the few ships that were powerful to mount the formidable Needle cannon; they're an extreme form of ion cannon. It consume an incredible amount of power, eats almost four time the space of a single frigate sized ion cannon, and required thirty second to charge up the focusing system with enough energy to focus the ion streams into a needle thin beam. The beams itself was extremely thin but very brilliant almost bright enough to daze a hiigran. It also had another advange, which was its incredible range, almost four time the range of a regular frigate sized ion cannon. The dreadnought had mounted four Needle cannons, along with five frigate sized rapid fire ion cannon on fast reaction turrets that could track and tag fighters and corvettes with deavseing firepower, along with many energy cannon all over the ship. The hiigrans has never ever lost a war in the last several millennia and has gotten lazy with their weaponry research and they are still flying the very same ship that was designed many millennia ago. This would turn out to be a fatal error.
Hski Turko was feeling like pure crap. The effect of wakening up from stasis can be very unpleasant. The effects usually wear off within the next few hours. Crap not another headache coming on! Hski Turko thought. She opened her eyes and tried to rub away the pink highlight that was tinting her vision. She looked at the clock for the tenth time and saw that only an hour had past, crap, she thought. She started to coil up in pain so she lied her long hairless tail cross her nose and went back to sleep. The peaceful soft rumble of the ramjet gradually put her to sleep.
The ramjet itself was accelerating at near standard gravity of her homeworld, which is about 1.5 the gravity of hiigara, the home of the tyrant Hiigran Empire. It was galaxy standard date 3,000 the dawn of the 3rd millennia of rule by the ancient hiigara empire when the ramjet was starting her voyage. The ramjet itself is nearing one thousand year old, it has escaped multiple accept by the hiigarans to intercept and destroy it because of its already incredible high speed. The hiigarans knew where it was heading to…. Their home… for what reason they didn't know. However, despise the best effort by the hiigara navy they haven't succeeded at destroying the craft. Now the craft was mere one light month away from hiigara, and its ancient crew was awakening. Ancient systems were coming onboard and the ramjet was starting to shift power around in preparation for the competition of their ancient mission. It was now the dawn of the fifth millennia.
Suddenly with no warning there was a bright white light-surrounding Kraal, mm I must be in heaven Kraal thought. Then a soft voice drifted though "Captain…. Captain…. Are you okay?" He jerked slightly at the sound of the soft voice, it sounded like his wife… NO! He screamed, his wife died in the burning of Kharak. He felt the bile rise from his stomach, he had witnessed the burning of Kharak and there was NOTHING he could do to help her other than hope that she found peace. With no warning, he heard the hiss of a hyproinjection, suddenly felt cold spread all around his neck, and then blackness consumed him.
As Kraal Sjet gradually woke up from the effect of the hyproinjection drug, he heard multiple voices of his crew talking. "To be frank, I'm worried about our captain here." Said one the soft voice, a second one responded softly "It probably affected him the worst because he saw Kharak burning and he couldn't do anything about it, I know… it affected me pretty bad, probably not as bad as him…" the voice gradually drifted off. " Hey hey, don't talk like I'm dead." The captain said gruffly as he was swinging his legs around to get off the medical bed.
Krrista Sommtaw was dozing away in her cabin when a crewmember knocked on her door. She sleepily got up, put on a robe, and walked over, to jab the button that turned the camera above the door on so she could see who was distributing her peace. It turned out to be one of the bridge crew assigned to the watch duty while she was sleeping. She jabbed the button to turn on the intercom and spoke into it " this better be a good reason for wakening me up." The respond was "yes sir! It's a very good reason, and I think you should get to the bridge immediately it's very urgent!"
Shortly after getting the message from the crew on watch, Krrista showed up on the bridge all dressed up. As she walked over to her command seat a message popped up and the face was of a grizzly old man who was the captain of the Sommtaw's navy. He started to speak "This recording that you send us of the destroyer disappearing like that, alarmed us. We ran several experiments on current theories and the results was alarming, it appears that our friend has somehow discovered the secret of space and time travel." Krrista jaw dropped, time travel she thought, and that is IMPOSSIBLE. However the message continued "We recommend that you contact our egmical friends the benusi, and immediately!" the message termated. Krrista was stunned for a while, and it seemed that all of the small chat on the bridge simply stopped, and it was absolutely quite other than the soft rumble of the engine system. "Okay, you heard the man, get me the current known location of the benusui's trade ship now!"
"Let me get this right, we lost nearly thirty crewmembers, both sensor dish has been shot off, and one of our fusion reactor is almost completely meltdown." Said Kraal sadly. "Yes, captain… The repairs on the ship is going good, but however we will need to dock somewhere to get the repairs on the fusion reactor 3, and replacement for some of our armor planes, and that will be very tough, well to put it this way, this ship is two thousand years old, and it'll be hard to find replacement armor." One of the techilogian spoke. "We aren't registered with any Kushian or Taiidan republic navy so where would you suggest we find a base to stop by for additional repairs?" A third techilogian injected "Sir, we have a little problem, it appears that every single base that is in our database is gone, no. I checked the database, and the primary sensor system is fine, thought the high detail sensor system is gone, the primary one is adequate. However, all of the bases simply aren't there! I am also getting multiple contact of odd design but it appears to be… I don't know I'm guessing, from the fragments that we found in the graveyard it seems to be ancient hiigaran design." The captain jerked "Ancient hiigaran design? How is that possible?" The respond was punctured by several pauses "Perhaps we came out in a far different region of the galaxy… but…. That would not explain those ships! Well to be frank captain, I don't have any clue what is going on, all I know is that we engaged the transhyperdrive for a designation of who knows where, and then we are here, and that's all I really know…"
"Sir! We just got a very odd signal, an very strange ship suddenly appeared in region 589,723,770 we may want to check it out!" Whispered the sensor operator. Huur-Captain stood up "Do it now! Hyperspace to the sector 589,723,770! At maximum speed! Make sure all weapons are fully charged up, and ready for firing the second we come out of hyperspace!" he shouted. A few mins later, a huge bluish window opened outside the dreadnought and glided forward, as quietly as a ghost. A few seconds later the entire dreadnought vanished into the quandroum flux of hyperspace.
Hski Turko's eye slowly opened up and she glanced around the room she had been placed in after she woke up from stasis. The room was similar to what a hiigarans crew quarters would look like but with a few difference, the items in the room was much bigger to accomplice their naturally large size, they can reach up almost 2.5 meters in height and weight almost as heavy as one ton. They're extreme warlike, from the very dawn on their world they always was at war with the native life which are very ferocious and can put up even harder fight than even the Kushian feared desert creatures. She yawned and her fangs gleamed in the dim light. Then she got up and stretched on all four of her paws with her tail held almost straight out. Hski got up off her four paws and started prowling the halls of the ramjet inspecting ancient systems to make sure that they was functioning normally. The ramjet was now just little less than one light month away from the sun of hiigara. This was a suicidal mission but the original planners had hoped that this might prove to their various allies in the resistance force that it was possible to do an assault on hiigara and do some severe damage. Hski had volunteered to be one of the three crewmembers aboard the ramjet. Her parents had been murdered in the great Xenocide. Her parents were an abrassor to another planet who was rebelling, in hope to calm them down and try to get them to join their cause of resistance. When the hiigara navy showed up and incarnated the planet, destroying everything on the planet, and destroying the astrospheres so no one could ever live on that planet ever again for the next several thousand years. Even today, the planet crust was still melted down; just it had just barely cooled one degree in the last few thousand years.
Hski walked into the bridge and nodded to the other two crewmembers, today they were going to release their primary weapon. It was a few thousand spheres that were created out of the heaviest material known to them, each weight one ton, and was coated in random type of stuff. Like a few would be almost solid black and absolute almost all sensor directed toward them, yet the others would be bright sliver and basically screaming to all the sensor in system that they was there, and the rest would vary between each extreme. They was going to blow them out from the body of the ramjet and let them fly at near light speed to impact on hiigara and the orbital docks, that was scattered all over the system. At near light speed a one-ton sphere could deal out massive damage, each equal to the explosion of perhaps four or five of the most powerful fusion reactor in existence. There would be wild spread devasion cross hiigara when these projectile impacted. Thought the damage could be repaired and contained, it would still require a several hundred years to repair and contain all the damage that Hiigara would suffer.
Hski smoothly walked up to her seat, entered her access code and actived the launch system, then looked and nodded to the other two to her side. One of them had an orange streak cross his face almost alike to claw cuts cross the face; he yowled in respond and entered his code. The third one yowled shortly later and all three of them felt the multiple thumps as the ramjet was releasing the spheres and softly pushing it away from the ramjet. The ramjet's main dish had folded up, because it was near the end of their mission, the ramjet was going to impact right into Hiigara sun and destroying all trace of it, of who did it. It was burning the final left over fuel from its primary tank, and shortly later, the engine will die, having served faithfully in the past thousands of years. All three of the crewmember will choice whether they want to die watching or die in stasis, they will die as heroes.
"Sir! I'm getting a hyperspace jump signal from a kilometer ahead of us!" One of the sensor operator exclaimed. A bluish window appeared and paused a while, the window itself was MASSIVE, almost twice the size of the largest known ship other than the mother ship herself, and few other ships, the window started to move sideward, and an ship was gradually appearing. The front section of the ship appeared to be very heavy armored, probably used to ram ships, just like the Kadeshi needleships was, a shiver ran down Kraal spine. Shortly later four massive turret twice the size of a frigate appeared, and some of the crewmembers gasped, appearly the ship was a military model, of a very advanced design. The ship was starting to narrowing down from its massive bunt nose down to an narrow spine that was little under half the size of the front part, giving the ship an eerie needleshiplike look, this spooked Kraal to the soul, he rembered the Kadeshi war in the great nebula, and about fifteen years later the Kadeshi assault on Hiigara. The battle where the ancient hiigara carrier crashed into Hiigara, and the eerie message of Mother N'ua, which revealed the ancient ancestors of the Kadeshi was also Hiigara…
"Shit sir! Will you look at THAT!" exclaimed another one of the crewmember, just as a massive engine block was coming right out of the hyper window, it was bigger than even the front section, and you could see multiple frigate size turret scattered all over the block. Kraal jaw dropped when he saw fifteen frigate-sized turrets scattered over the engine block, from the look of it also appeared to be a fast reaction type of turret. Shortly later, the very end of the ship left the hyper window and Kraal could see the multiple cylinders of the propulsion system, it eerily looked like the rear of a Taiidan Qwaar-Jet heavy cruiser but with the expectation that there were many more engine cylinders sticking out. Shortly later the hyperspace window closed and the engine system came online, furious plasma hurled out of the engine and the dreadnought started to gradually move, Kraal thought he could see the massive turrets at the nose turn to target his destroyer, Oh shit was his only thought before he was interrupted by an beep at the comm. system.
The second that they exited hyperspace Huur-Captain punched the comm. system to contact the odd vessel that was in the distance. Shortly later, a face popped up on the screen and Huur-Captain was staled for a few seconds, the face… so similar… almost just like his face. The Captain of the odd vessel spoke, the sound startled Huur-Captain again, it sound so… same… his thought trailed off, and the voice continued, "…I am Kraal Sjet, the captain of the research vessel Cauchy…" Huur-Captain bellowed a laugh "An research vessel!" The captain on the other side of the comm. appeared to be puzzled. Huur-Captain turned serious "If you don't give me your registration number immediately I'll consider you hostile and take safe measure to protect myself from an military threat." The other captain responded calmly "You don't understand, we are damaged, and request permit to head to your closest station for some repairs, and um… could you please informant us as of where we are? We are kind of lost…" Huur-Captain started to get furious at the other captain he responded furious "I will not fall for that kind of trick!" He sliced his hand cross his throat and then termited the connection. "Fire the needle beams along the so called ship's flank, NOW!"
For Kraal the captain on the other side of the comm. looked too eerily similar to his face that it made Kraal nervous, but the problem was, they were in unknown space, secondly the hiigara navy doesn't have any ship that big other than the orbital construction stations. The captain on the other side appeared to be huge, taller than your average Kushian, he thought but that could be the average height for their group… "I am Kraal Sjet, the captain of the research vessel Cauchy" Kraal said into the comm. The other captain bellowed a laugh "An research vessel!" Kraal was puzzled at the other captain's reaction, then the captain turned serious "If you don't give me your registration number, immediately I'll consider you hostile and take safe measure to protect myself from an military threat." Kraal was surprised by how fast the captain had became serious, he responded "You don't understand, we are damaged, and request a permit to head to your closest station for some repairs, and um… could you please informant us of where we are? We are kind of lost…" Kraal traced off. With no warning the other captain responded furious "I will not fall for that kind of trick!" Then the comm. termited. Kraal was unnerved and one of the crew member cried out, "Will you look at THAT!" The crewmember was pointing at one of the massive turret, you could see some faint light inside the turret, then suddenly with no warning the brightness increased tenfold and a needle thin beam shot out and impacted the ship. It started to slice toward the bridge, and at that point Kraal faintly heard the rush as the air was flowing out into the void of space just before he blacked out from lack of air. -discontinuity-
"NO!" Kraal cried out and jerked sideward and felt the hard thump as his head hit the hard wall… wall? Am I not on the bridge? Suddenly with no warning, he was on the decks of the deep space cryogenic storage unit. Cryogenic storage unit? He thought. He looked around, and looked downward and noticed he was naked, and coated with some kind of sticky stuff, and then he reached out with his hand and felt the cold surface transparent glass. It was all around him, crap he felt so chilly. He gazed out and saw the multiple techians in white lab coat walking around and checking their screen, punching commands into their terminals. Then he looked upward to the clock, and noticed it was 1035 standard hiigaran time, and below the clock was an date, 5/39/11649… Oh, shit! He had been in deep storage for two millennia. He felt faint, then felt the hot rage rise in him, "DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!" he screamed as he pounded the glass cylinder. -discontinuity-
He was walking naked on the cold deck of the deep space cryogenic storage unit, with two hiigaran military guards following beside him with their standard issues rifles pointed at him. Damn you to hell! I hope you enjoy your victory because I will be back! Kraal thought stonily as the guards was walking him toward the cryogenic storage area. He noticed that the rifles was both set on stun… Perhaps… as he neared the doors of the cryogenic storage area he suddenly with no warning jerked one of his fist up into one of the guard face, and he jerked backward, blood spewing out of his broken nose, then Kraal dropped and grabbed the stun rifle just as it hit the ground. Just as he was scrambling to find the trigger, he felt numb all over then the darkness enveloped him. -discontinuity-
Kraal was piloting one of the newest models of the scout that the mothership had constructed, and was firing at those damnable Turanic raiders; he was still in shock at the destruction of the defendless Khar-Sliem by the Turanic raiders. "This is fleet command, the Turanic carrier is retreating, all fighters and corvette dock with the mothership and prepare for hyperspace jump back to Kharak to speed up the final check and refitting of the mothership." Kraal turned his scout around and punches the speed boost, and speed toward the massive mothership. Shortly later Kraal headed up into the docking bay of the mothership then he careful manvered his fighter into the grapping hook that was designed to hold scout craft in place during a short hyperspace jump. Outside the huge window, that was the docking bay, he could see the void of deep space, and then with no warning it was replaced by the bluish flux of hyperspace. Kraal tried to sleep during the fifteen min long hyperspace jump but found that he could not sleep at all. Fifteen min later the bluish flux of hyperspace was replaced by the stark void of deep space, Kraal heard the voice of fleet command "initiating launch" then he felt the thump as the grapping hook let go. Kraal then slammed on the start engine and shot right out of the docking bay. He was back home; over to the side shine Kharak his home for the last two decades. He glanced over at Kharak and his heart sunk, Kharak was on fire… The north pole the cities was all gone, you used to be able to see the gleam of the massive towers, like diamonds on top of the north pole, but that was all gone! His home… gone… He howled "NOOOOOO!" It was not your natural howl but a howl of a man gone insane.
Hski was looking out of one of the several windows aboard the ramjet, she was gazing at Hiigara, it was a lovely world, if little too small. She regretted releasing the spheres at hiigara, but it had to be done. Hski glanced upward at the countdown, only five mins left before the first sphere should be entering the air of Hiigara. Suddenly with no warning there was a faint flare of sunlight from Hiigara, appearly one of the several massive towers was just at the right angle to the sun so it flared for a few seconds. Hski could see the savannah near the equator of Hiigara; it was a lovely tan color with some green injected in there and there, Aha... There, right though the middle of the savannah there was a massive blue river that gradually bent all over the area, like a snake. Suddenly there was a bright flash, then an long streak from the heavens all the way to the sea, then suddenly there was an brilliant explosion, it immediately vaporized megaton worth of water, and massive earth quake was shaking the area surrounding the impact site, there was multiple kilometer high tisuiums racing at over a hundred kilometer per hours outward. The first projectile had impacted… more would follow…
Suddenly massive orbital construction yards, which were multiple kilometers long, crossed the termator between day and night, and as it drifted into the darkness, you could see multiple powerful light all scattered over the orbital construction yards. Many millions of Hiigarans worked and lived in each construction yards, constructing massive war vessels, from the small scout fighter, to the massive dreadnought, each upward of maybe excessive of ten kilometers each. Toward one side you could see the skeleton construction of an extremely massive assault carrier being constructed, it was one of the largest one in construction, they was very rare because of the expense involved in constructing them. But on the other hand, they're the very core of every invasion force… completely unbeatable, it mounted the most powerful armor known, and multiple needle beam cannon, multiple anti frigate, destroyers, and fighters cannons. All of this would go up in flame in just seconds, 200 years worth of construction and work, million and millions of soul aboard, would be all gone in an second…
Hski calmly watched as the projectiles that they had launched peppered hiigara with devasion. All over the world, there was massive explosion, earthquakes, and cities vanishing in seconds, military base simply going up in smoke… Suddenly in deep space, there was a huge explosion as one of the projectiles impacted a Hiigaran navy ship. It penetrated thought multiple meters of armor, and streaked right though the core of the ship, an massive fusion reactor and exited out of the other side, only to impact into a second ship, gutting it, the explosion from the projectile and several overloaded fusion reactor severely damaged the surrounding ship. Frigates was flung across the heaven, destroyers was being rolled onto their side tumbling though space… any fighters or corvette unlucky enough to be caught in the area was instantly destroyed. Hski looked away from the devasion, so that is the end of hiigara she thought. Her mission was over, it was now time to enter stasis and wait for the end…
Krrista Sommtaw was getting nervous as she waited on the Bensusi ship to respond to what she told them. The silence seemed to get heavier and heavier the more time past. Finally, the Bensusi broke the silence "We knew this would happen some day… It was written in the prophecy… The prophecy said that the one… The choicen one would break the barrier of space and time… The one would cross time into the deep past… The choicen one would have to make a decidision that will alter reality, as it is known… The choicen one has the power to alter the timeline…" the Bensusi traced into silence then suddenly they said "We will have to summon the council over this matter, farewell." The massive trade station turned around then a yellow hyper window opened and enveloped the ship. Aboard the Sommtaw's Dream there was only silence.