Chapter 3 - Again We Go
Interlude: The Dreams
He awoke, and walked about the room he woke up in. There were several windows. One labeled Hiigaran, one Republic, one..."Naggarok", and the other window window was labeled Somtaaw, all labeled on little signs above them. Each window was black as night, maybe blacked. He stepped towards the one labeled Hiigaran. In the Hiigaran window, he could see The Last Battle, the black shape of the Taiidan Imperial Flagship, burning to ashes over verdant Hiigara, the Elite Guard ships fighting in vain against the onslaught of rebel Taiidani and the Exile Fleet. Hyperspace signatures of the galactic council ships appeared, and he looked away.
In another window, "Republic", he could see a planet, a base. Republic Base Alpha. This used to be one of the biggest imperial bases, in fact the former shipyard-base of the 2nd Elite Guard fleet, the first being based over Hiigara. Most of the 2nd had betrayed the emperor, thanks to a Captain Elson, and had been decimated at Vorshan's Rift by the 2nd's heavy cruiser and carrier complement. In the vast shipyards of base Alpha, he could see a spherical shaped vessel, undergoing construction. Only the frame was there, but he could see the fittings for ion cannon arrays, a command facility in the center...the sphere was quite large, almost like a Moon.
He knew this was a dream, but he could not acknowledge, like most dreams, one knew it was not real but could not force the body to accept, and wake up. He wanted to wake up. But, the only way he knew to wake up, other then be awakened by someone else, or forcing yourself out, was to play the dream to the end.
He looked into the Naggarok. He saw a giant vessel, moving through hyperspace, suddenly consumed like the Imperialist vessels. He saw it come to a stop in a forgotten sector, and launch a beacon...he sensed the despair and resignation by the crew, the fear and cries as they were consumed, their ship lying adrift and derelict.
And finally he backed away, the images repulsing him. Memories of the battle came back to him. This...thing, had infected his friends, his comrades. He realized that these crew did not desire infection...but could not control anything. They were pawns now...and he resolved not to let this happen, to him.
He looked over to the window labeled "Somtaaw". Looking in, divining what this window held.
He saw a pod, and a Somtaaw worker. The Worker latching onto the pod, and bringing it back to Kuun-Lan.
The image faded, and was replaced.
The Kuun-Lan. He watched the entire bottom half detach...the screams and wails. And then this image detached and opened back, like a door, into a bright light...
Again We Go
The fleet had arrived at the Imperialists mobile star base, which served as a command center, the headquarters anyways. He hadn't reported in his visions. He'd woken up in the infirmary, and cleared out. He'd spent the last four days mulling over what he'd seen, attributing it to hallucinations, fear, stress, and other things.
Looking out the window he could see the command center, basically a Taiidani star base modified to have hyper drives and other equipment.
Next to him lay a near empty bottle of Ryzillian-brewed something, it had a long name and high alcohol content. He'd resorted to drinking himself into a dreamless cow-like stupor. He was afraid to fall asleep now. He was afraid to dream.
After several blackouts he'd awakened, only to go to the bathroom, throw up, think some more, and drink some more, black out...and so forth.
He woke up yet again, feeling the thin carpet under his feet, knocking over the empty bottle, feeling a little less sick today.
Rising to wobbly legs he limped to his cot and fell in, going into a sleep, a dreamless happy sleep. He heard the faint hint of a whisper, but dismissed it as people in the next room over.
4 hours later he ended up on the flight deck, in a line-rank formation with other pilots, all wearing the yellow-red uniform standard for fighter pilots, officers wearing gray and brown, the few pilots from the Elite Guard wearing dark black.
Outside; ships of the TIF milled about left and right, countless vessels, Skaal-Fas and Skaal-Tels, a Qwar or two, and many carriers. The shipyards in orbit began cranking out super-capships, the carriers produced in turn produced assault frigates and strike craft.
It looked like one of the Emperors war fleets from days of old. Such moved him in a big way, but he did not show emotion.
A shuttle landed, Taiidani Marines piling out and moving around the ramp, reading off names of persons who would go aboard. Unusually it was everyone that survived the conflict with the beast.
As he was herded into the shuttle he wondered what was going on. He looked to the others, none of them knew. What was going on?
He sensed inner machinations at work, plans, and perhaps some things that he was never meant to know, was being conducted as of now.
He mouthed a silent "why" to one of the other pilots onboard. The other pilot shrugged.
Why? He thought. What did we do?
We survived. Would that be it? What did we know? We were the strike craft pilots. He remembered they had replaced the gun cameras, and these were being shipped in. Perhaps they would be on site to sate the curiosity of some Imperial think-tank analyst, who would never see and hear the essence of war, and would prefer it in a dry technical report.
The shuttle was passed over by various craft, a Fiirkan flying by and engaging afterburners, igniting the craving within his psyche to go and fly a craft of some sort.
A shadow fell over the tiny craft, a giant heavy cruiser left the shipyards and passed by, meter after meter of giant vessel falling by on the view screens, imparting a sense of awe and admiration from fighter craft pilots. Until one broke the silence, saying: "Killed a republican one of those before."
Everyone turned to look at the pilot, a man in maybe his thirties, black hair, blue eyes, a circular face. He forgot the guys name.. Rochell or something.
There his curiosity of the pilot ended, he looked up to see a giant black shape.
The craft suddenly changed vectors, and he could see the black shape was a elite guard carrier, previously he had come in from a different angle, and could not see the lit flight bay. That, and he noticed the significant absence of nav lights. The flight bay was running on dimmed lights. The comm. channeled crackled and came to life.
"Imperial Shuttle this is IEG carrier Emperor's Retribution. The Council is aboard and wishes to speak with the pilots. Carrier out."