(Credit where it is due to Carcosa Hali, whose work I greatly admire and from which I have borrowed)
In the darkness of space, there is no day or night. The positions of the stars are only relevant as warp coordinates and points of reference. There is nothing to tell you when you should be sleeping, and when you should wake. No beams of light to shine through your window and softly wake you from your slumber. There is nothing to interrupt your Dreams…and nothing to wake you from your Nightmares.
-----
It was peaceful in D-FZI7. Asteroids slowly rolled through space, content to reside in their belts for as long as they existed. The eight planets orbiting the sun were uninhabited and liked it that way. There were no pirates in the system, as it had been abandoned by the capsuleers long ago, after the fall of Sansha’s Nation. Many pod pilots religiously refused to enter the entire region of Esoteria, once home to the pinnacle of Sansha’s accomplishments. What remained of the Nation still roved through Stain, occasionally jumping through the stargates into their late creator’s home region in a futile effort to salvage any of the highly advanced technology that was Sansha’s legacy. A search futile not because the technology was not there, but because Sansha Kuvakei didn’t want it found.
Slowly orbiting the large magma planet farthest from the system’s bright central star was a single, unassuming scrapheap. Had there been any pilots nearby to observe the scrapheap, they would have noted how large it was – easily 30km in diameter, an amalgam of junk infested with rogue drones and their ilk. There’s nothing worth looking at there, the pilots would say, and continue on. And these pilots would have been immeasurably wrong.
It is said jokingly among the larger three Empires that the Amarr pray to God, Caldari pray to money, Gallente prays for peace, and the Matari pray their ships hold together. With the least conventional ship designs of the four major Empires, it is easy to see why. Welded together bit by bit from diverse parts of diverse origin, color, and function, many Matari ships, although deadly in their own right, looked downright ridiculous. Their stations and outposts as well looked soldered together from odds-and-ends that miraculously formed an operational unit. Exceptions existed, with some of the more advanced ships appearing to have some method designing the madness, but for the vast majority this was not so.
For Sansha Kuvakei, Matari ships were a delight. Used to the stoic, hard-faced polygons of the Caldari ships and fond of the rounded, powerful silhouettes of the Amarr craft, he found the Matari ships refreshing and unpredictable. He admired their speed and hitting power, but most of all he adored their look. Whether intentional or unintentional, it was a perfect camouflaging agent for things best left untouched – if it looks like junk, it probably is junk, so why bother taking a closer look?
-----
The whirrs and hums of outdated but operational equipment filled the interior corridors of the Dream’s Rebirth. With the more valuable-looking pieces of the scrapheap disguised by a combination of cloaking devices and rust, the massive outpost was impossible to find without already knowing where it was, or that it existed at all. The advanced diagnostics systems Sansha himself had installed into the Dream’s Rebirth were more than adequate to keep the behemoth running. Able to hide itself from the largest, most advanced starships in the universe, it is perhaps ironic that something as small as a Render Alvi rogue drone would cause much of a problem. Along the outside carapace of the Rebirth, the small machine-creature finds a tiny piece of material that it wants.
In the midst of the days that followed, no one in existence would know that the events which occurred next were all started by a microscopic, primitive intelligence firing a single laser bolt at a tiny bit of a scrapheap.
----
The man awakened to the hiss of cryogen being expelled from the clone vat. He stepped out of the coffin-shaped incubator, blinking and allowing his eyes to readjust to the dim lights in the medical bay of the Dream’s Rebirth. An ocular scanner presented itself to him.
“Name, please”.
The man thought for a moment, trying to recall that particular detail of his history. Much seemed….foggy. Scrambled. Disrupted. Finally he remembered and leaned towards the scanner, eyes wide and awaiting the identification beam.
“Rhuuark Lok,” he said as the green ocular scanner beam buzzed over his eyes, comparing their ID to the one stored in memory. It responded.
“Rhuuark Lok – Race: Matari. Bloodline: Brutor. Uploading skillset.” Rhuuark felt the familiar wave of electric impulses scatter throughout his brain as the Skill Retainment Matrix implanted into his cranium was transferred millions of files, teaching him how to fly starships, operate laser batteries, and utilize warp drives. After several seconds the scanner beeped softly indicating the upload had been finished, and then retreated into the side of the medical bay to allow him to pass. This was nothing new for Rhuuark – he had been killed and cloned dozens of times.
Suddenly, the scanner’s LED indicator flashed red.
“Warning: Pod bay not found.”
“Warning: Clone matrix not found.”
“Warning: Cryogen Vat destabilized. Shutting down.”
Rhuuark whirled around to see the clone vat he had recently vacated begin to lock down into the floor of the medical bay, becoming enclosed in heavy alloys and sealed shut by the Dream’s Rebirth security system. He frantically tapped at the scanner’s LED, trying to get it to respond.
“Repeat last message!” he ordered. No response.
He tried again. “Run full diagnostic system scan on station’s clone matrix.” This time, the LED blinked and the scanner swiveled to view him.
“No station found,” it reported. Rhuuark frowned at it and, now that his eyes had finally adjusted to the light, for the first time viewed his surroundings. Nothing was familiar. He checked the local communication channel and found no signatures other than his own. He checked the starmap interface implanted into his head, confused. He had been killed many systems away in Stain while fighting to repel the Empires invading Sansha’s Nation space. What was he doing here in D-FZI7? He turned back to the scanner.
“Upload mission objectives.” The scanner’s LED blinked green, then red again.
“Last objective broadcast. Author: Sansha Kuvakei. Orders: all True Citizens, evacuate immediately. Repeat, evacuate immediately. Navy personnel, escort civilian transports out of systems to safe zones.” Sansha’s tone shifted instantly from calm and collected to panicked and fearful. “All units…it appears my time has come. Never forget the Dream. Where one of you survives, the Dream lives on.” Sansha signed off in a burst of static.
Rhuuark was dumbstruck. Sansha was dead? All of the Nation was evacuating? He did a doubletake at the scanner’s display. The date of broadcast…no. That was impossible. Using his neural interface, he pinged the local communication array, requesting the time and date. The array responded. Rhuuark fell to his knees, the breath gone from his lungs, his heart racing, and his mind exploding with panic. He had been idling in the clone vat for over one hundred years. He had no pod, no more clones, and the only cryogen vat that had his DNA stored was locked down indefinitely. He was a mortal.
Stunned, he began to wander the strange structure that he had been reborn into. It was simplistic, straightforward, and unremarkable. In fact there wasn’t much in the Dream’s Rebirth at all, that he could see. A hatch in front of him was marked “docking bay” – he activated the door switch, walked through, and looked through the observation port.
At first, he thought there was nothing in the bay. All he could see was blackness. Then he saw it.
Almost completely filling the docking bay was a supercarrier. As a veteran pilot, this wouldn’t have surprised Rhuuark. However, this was not an Amarr supercarrier. It was not Caldari. It was not Minmatar nor was it Gallente. The metallic blue tone of the ship’s hull was unmistakable. This was a Sansha’s Nation supercarrier. Rhuuark stared in wonder at the Revenant, Sansha’s final technological gift to the universe.
And they had killed him.
Rage engulfed Rhuuark as he thought of all of the innovations and breakthroughs the Nation had been responsible for before the war. He thought of all of the True Citizens who had been given hope and support, embracing the gifts that Sansha offered and proving to the universe that nothing was impossible, proving to everyone that the Dream was attainable and it was theirs. He remembered his leader’s final words.
“Where one of you survives, the Dream lives on…”
-----
In the Sansha capital of Stain, a board meeting was occurring. The CEOs and officers of the only remaining True Sansha corporations left, True Power and True Creations, were discussing the border patrols needed to keep unwanted visitors out of Stain when the Invasion Proximity Alarm sounded. The holoscreens on the walls flashed to show the invading force – the biggest carrier they had ever seen. They jumped from their chairs at the board room table and began running along the corridors to the warships, ready to defend what was theirs. Then, the alarm stopped, followed by a static burst.
“Friends, do not be afraid. You do not recognize me or the ship I fly, but know that both belong to Sansha.” The executives and soldiers alike paused. “My name is Rhuuark Lok. One hundred years ago I fought where you stand to ensure that our Nation would survive. Now, although reduced in number, I still see the Nation I swore to protect. I see our battleships, the Succubus frigates, and the Phantasm-class cruisers. I see the shipyards and the factories. I see the Nation that Sansha envisioned. I say to you now, we cannot sit here any longer. Let us show the Empires that the Dream they would not allow us to have will now become their Nightmare.”
-----
Across the universe, Sansha ships halted their activities and aligned to warp out. Pilots on the brink of destruction were awestruck when the Nation ships broke their targeting locks and disappeared from view – though few questioned it before safely warping away themselves. Sansha outposts and installations became ghost towns. True Power and True Creations registered ships simply ceased all operations and disappeared. Ore being mined from belts was left unattended. Prey being stalked was left to escape. Trade deals and meetings were interrupted and then terminated. Grateful for the reprieve, pilots took the opportunity to flee from their engagements as quickly as their ships could carry them, thanking whatever deity they prayed to for delivering them from harm. In this lies the great irony.
-----
With the Revenant, Sansha gave his Nation a superweapon. This was not his greatest gift.
-----
Imperial Major Thymond Venum was in line for a promotion if he kept his head down and played the political game. The Amarr Navy was a very political arena, with many promotions and ranks being passed to those with the proper pedigree and family tree, and not those with heightened intellect and tactical knowledge. Nevertheless, he was determined he would become a Divine Commodore one day. For the moment, he had an easy post – defending the Amarr home system of the same name. With a secrurity status of 1.0, coupled with the fact that it was the Home System, it was easily the most-guarded area of space in all of the Amarr Empire. Today of all days, which was a Holy Day, much traffic was expected in the system and he needed to keep the peace. His job wasn’t to worry about pirates, as there weren’t any. Wars between rival corporations (which CONCORD approved, for a small fee) sometime caught innocent Amarr bystanders in the crossfire, and it was them he was protecting. The corps were free to blow each other to bits, it didn’t matter to Thymond….but don’t touch the innocent bystanders, or you’ll get a fleet dropped on you. And he would personally fire the first shot.
The local communications array pinged his command center informing him that a very large group of ships had entered the system. Probably just another corp war, he thought. He opened a comm channel to his fleet, which was on stargate patrol duty.
“This is Major Thymond, can I get a status report on the large group of ships that just entered the system?” He waited for several seconds, hearing nothing. “ANYONE? You don’t have to raise your hands, call out where that fleet is!” Still nothing.
“You’re going to make me do this the hard way, fine. Lieutenant Crysa, is there anything on the Sarum Prime gate?”
“No, Major,” he promptly responded.
“Lieutenant Xav, anything on the Tash-Murkon gate?”
“No, Major,” was the response again.
“Alright, then Lieutenant Granv, you must have something on ----“ he trailed off as his jaw dropped to the floor. A battlegroup of Sansha Phantasms simply appeared out of nowhere, as if they warped in from in-system. None of the gates were reporting breaches, and they were in 1.0 security space! “This is Major Thymond, I need all fleet personnel back to the command center asap, we have a group of hostile Sansha cruis…”
The biggest Supercarrier he had ever laid eyes on warped in, followed by an entire fleet of mixed Sansha frigates, cruisers, and battleships. Fighter-bombers began launching from the supercarrier’s hold immediately, and the command center began getting target lock notifications on all of the defense turrets. Thymond knew what he had to do, and blast it if it cost him a promotion. Keying in the emergency broadcast channel straight to the Divine Commodore of the Amarr Navy, Thymond turned on his recording device and streamed what he was seeing to Navy High Command, which was probably in the middle of a cathedral visitation or a church service, but he didn’t care. Chanting had to wait.
He heard gasps on the other end of the emergency channel, followed by much swishing of robes and thudding of boots as the high command ran from the cathedral to ready their fleets. The Commodore began barking orders to all channels to mobilize them into Thymond’s command center, but the Major realized it was too late, now.
The Sansha battleships fired a single volley at each defense turret, crippling them instantly. Thymond’s fleet, now just warping in, was locked by the supercarrier and had fighter-bombers on them before they could finish calibrating their laser turrets. The Succubus and Phantasm crews circled the command center, hoping to intercept any shuttles or interceptors that may try to undock and escape.
He had been told by his superiors to never surrender, and he wasn’t going to start now. However... it couldn’t hurt to at least see what the Sansha fleet wanted, could it? He pinged a comm request to the supercarrier.
A beep from the emergency command channel informed Thymond that the entire Navy command and the Emperor himself were now linked in to the broadcast stream. Almost as if it were waiting for that cue, the commander of the Sansha supercarrier opened the comm channel to Tymond. The Major decided to talk first.
“This is Imperial Major Thymond Venum of the Holy Imperial Navy, please cease and desist this assault or we will be forced to respond with our full strength,” That had to sound good to the high command, he thought. Maybe he’d still get the promotion.
“Major Thymond, I do not think you understand what is happening here,” the gruff voice on the other end of the comm channel responded. “I did not open this comm. channel to accept a surrender or to give you mine. I opened this comm. channel so you could hear this,” there was an audible click, and an angry, but calm voice began to speak.
“Do you know what you are, capsuleer? The truth will not comfort you. You are a frightened child running headfirst towards oblivion. And I? I am the only one who tried to stop you. I am the Messiah that you turned against.”
Thymond could no longer feel any of his internal organs and felt as though his legs had been turned to Quelf. The entire Sansha fleet had just locked on to his command center.
“You persecuted me, hunted my children. Vowed to burn my Promised Land to ash. Now I have returned, and I know you better than you know yourself. I will vanquish your fear, and commute your flesh to dust. I am Sansha. You have ruined my Dream, now allow me to show you a Nightmare.”
The flash was blinding.
The second Sansha War had begun.
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Topic: [Fiction Contest] Recompense: The Beginning (Read 1022 times)