Before the current races of the Galaxy lived, before even the oldest had crawled from salty seas, there was The War, and before The War, the Faithful. The Faithful were an ancient, inhuman race, but they were not monsters. In meditation, they sensed the presence of the First One. The Faithful could feel its deep compassion, its terrible loneliness and its overwhelming power. In faith and love, they created The Church of the First One and taught The Way.
For millions of years, The Church struggled to teach wisdom to the younger races of the Galaxy. In those long years, The Faithful had stood by and watched as many races ascend to the higher dimensions. Once ascended, they were called by other names: Elders, Forerunners, Prophets, Gods and more. Only The Church remembered their real names. The Faithful never ascended but remained behind, there was too much work to be done. With the invention of the massive Vanishing Motor, even inter-galactic space could be crossed easily. In a small nearby galaxy, the Faithful encountered the Non-believers.
The Non-believers were a powerful collection of races that believed in reason and science; they laughed at the Faithful and mocked their rituals. For the Non-believers could not sense or feel the presences of the First One, and in their pride and arrogance, would say they did not need or want advice from The Church and their Mythical Being. This angered some of the Faithful, with many young, immature races calling for war. Through The Church, The First One urged caution, believing in time the Non-believers would see the value of The Way. Nevertheless, the Non-believers grew to hate the Faithful and in time, brought war between the Galaxies.
From the first engagements, The War was a disaster for The Church, the more technologically advanced Non-believers held almost every advantage. The only things that saved The Church and the Galaxy were numbers, industrial might, and faith. The numbers of Church starships destroyed in battle were horrendous, but The Church could replace those losses faster than the Non-believers could replace theirs. In time, The Church caught up with then surpassed the Non-believers in technology. This forced the Non-believers to unleash their Doomsday machines, and the Faithful answered with their own. The resulting destruction of entire planets and the deaths of many innocent beings were a sin and a burden for the Faithful. If the end truly came then something different would have to be tried.
The very fundamental forces of nature had been weaponised. Electromagnetism, Quantum wave functions, anti-matter, and other forces we can barely even imagine, became tools of war. Nothing was too strange or exotic to weaponize, for this was Total War, in all its horror. The non-believers, outnumbered and losing the war tried everything they could think of. Genetically engineered plagues, living starships, even entire races of monstrous designer soldiers did they build.
Through it all, the First One wept, unable or unwilling to exert its power and stop the war. Some believed that something older and stronger held the First One back; others felt it was all just a test of faith and soldiered on.
The star shivered as mighty energy waves passed through it, its two habitable planets glowed with the silver light of defense shields. Space twisted as beams of focused gravity flashed between ships of war. Destroyers and Frigates raced through space as battleships, miles long, traded death. The fighting swirled all around the two planets as thousands of ships fought and died. Some fought to save this little star and its planets and some fought to destroy them. This was the last star to harbor life, for this was the last battle of a long and bitter war. Neither side had any place else to go for both galaxies were dead, or soon would be. Then the star swelled as its abused core exploded, engulfing both sides in its death throes. Yet neither side tried to escape, for even the heat and radiation of a star going super nova paled in comparison to the madness and hatred that burned between the Fleets.
Finally it was done. Relative silence came to the Galaxy at last. For hates sake two great civilizations had murdered each other and had willfully killed entire Galaxies to do it. However, time heals all wounds and in scattered places nebulas collapsed into stars and planets. It time life emerged from primordial seas and ventured forth into space. There they found the wreckage of war and awoke weapons that should have remained sleeping. Weapons whose power they could never hope to beat and destroyed their civilizations. On and on the cycle continued, one after another.
Hope.
The last Warrior Priestess of The Church of The First One woke slowly from stasis; her mind and spirit confused as a horrible dream quickly faded away. The first thing she noticed was the silence. The absence of her crews minds was disturbing and yet...
"Did something happen?" she thought to the emptiness.
Though young for her race, she had fought well in The War. She had commanded one of the few Doomsday machines to reach the Non-believers home Galaxy. She had reaped a heavy harvest of enemy planets, feeling savage joy as she watched entire planets burn. The recall order had been a surprise, but she had obeyed. When she returned, her superiors had named her Winter, for she left nothing but death in her wake. That she was selected for this project had been a surprise, but The Church had no choice. Theo her savagery in battle and her devotion to duty was an embarrassment, they needed an officer with a reputation for getting the job done. There were also too few officers with any experience commanding big ships and nothing was bigger than a Super Dreadnought. "Projekt life Schiff" was The Churches second doomsday plan. It was an attempt to make up for the blasphemies of the past.
"Come on! I need to know what's happened." She said aloud.
She also knows better than to try to speed up the process, so she took a deep breath and willed herself to calm down.
"Some anxiety will be normal but stay calm and don't panic." She muttered to herself.
Finally, the stasis pod opened and she was able to look around. Nothing had changed from the last time she had been awake, other than the absence of her First Officer and the Medical Technicians. With some concern, she headed to the Super Dreadnoughts Bridge.
She reached the Command Deck and took her seat, the ships systems were already starting up automatically so she brought up the main view screen to see outside. What she saw stunned her, for nothing was out there but the cooling remains of a star! The stasis cradles, holding the other Super Dreadnoughts, were gone. As were the two planets she and her crew had lived and trained on.
Quickly, she sent out a request for a status update from the Super Dreadnoughts stasis pods. There had to be someone else on board this ship! Where was her crew? Did they not make it off planet? She would be hard pressed if she had to rely on AI programs, robots and androids. They were for emergency use only but that is exactly the situation she apparently faced.
The ships computers finally informed her that the Super Dreadnought was alone and in a stable orbit. There were no other living beings onboard ship and the stasis pods were empty. There were also many corpses scattered throughout the Super Dreadnought.
"I'm alone?" She whispered.
The stasis cradle that had held and protected the Super Dreadnought was badly corroded and decayed; she could pull very little information from its computers.
The Super Dreadnought hovered 100,000 light years over the Galaxy. She had found no trace of the other Super Dreadnoughts. She was now looking for a place to start her mission, and to give her navigation computers time to figure out how long she had been in stasis. Finally, it returned an answer, 1.2 billion years!
"No, why… how?" She asked.
She was only supposed to have been in stasis for a month at most! Just enough time for the ships Med Techs to finish calibrating her pod. She knew a stasis field was almost indestructible but still…She needed advice.
She entered the meditation chamber reverently, for this was a Holy place for her. She needed to calm her mind and decide what to do next. After starting an appropriate piece of music, one that she liked, she sat and began to hum the Mantra. When she was ready, she reached out with her consciences and let herself float along the calming waves to The Door.
She was surprised that she was alone here. Usually she could feel the presence of millions of other minds meditating but this time there was no one else. She had been warned that it might be this way but to actually feel it was scary. To be here, at The Door, had once been described like being a child, trying to listen to adults talking through a thick door. You can hear them and you can tell one voice from another but you cannot understand what they are saying, not unless they want you to.
Now there was stillness, like listening to an empty room. Yet she knew there were others, she could dimly feel them watching her. She felt her fear rising, why were they being so quiet? Had she done something wrong? In a panic, with her mind, she pushed at The Door. Back in the meditation chamber, the computers monitoring her noticed the increase in her heart and respiration rate. She was so deep in meditation she did not notice the blood that started to run from her nose.
"What's wrong? Please, answer me!" She screamed to the silence.
She pushed harder, trying to open The Door. Then she felt it, she was dying, but she did not stop. She needed to get through! Then she felt a firm but gentle pressure.
"Stop, you must stop." A soft voice said.
She felt herself being pushed back; she did not fight for she knew she could not win, and she was so tired all of the sudden. She did feel a twinge of curiosity though; she did not know this presence.
"Who are you?" She asked.
"Shh, you must be quiet. I should not be getting involved but I had to stop you. You almost killed yourself pushing so hard. I am… was Dr. Elizabeth Dehner."
"Who?" She asked.
"I'm sorry but I can't tell you. The others, they will not let me."
"Where is everybody? Why can I not feel the presence of the First One? What… what am I supposed to do?"
"They are gone… for the most part. You must go on without them, but I am certain you will sense The First One again. If you Stand, if you are True. I'm sorry I can't tell you more but you must go, I will talk to you again if I can."
She felt the alien but comforting presence leave her. She was alone… again. Her people and her God had left her behind. In the meditation chamber, she collapsed into a pool of blood, while hot tears ran freely down her face.
The Super Dreadnought approached the binary star system slowly; this systems planet will be the 23rd one that she has repaired so far. In her time, this had been a Sector Capital and she had been surprised to find its star still intact. The planet itself had been bombarded and sterilized. There was no debris, nor anything else to indicate that this star system had once had a population in the billions.
She had noticed that the binary stars sister system was emitting radio signals and was less than a quarter of a light-year away. She decided to go look and see what kind of life it held.
The other system was in perfect condition! A large watery world was right in the middle of the liquid water zone. The sun was a middle-aged yellow dwarf star, calm and steady. Her navigational computer informed her, this used to be a proto system, a billion years ago, but there was intelligent life here now.
She knew programing the Main Guns genesis wave would take some time but the basic program was designed for flexibility. She had decided to turn the old sector capital into a planet the natives of this system could live on.
"This will be fun!" She thought.
Later.
"Well that could have gone better." She sighed.
She had made a rookie mistake, and had forgotten to check the Main Guns power levels. All she had wanted to do was heat the old planets core up so its magnetic field would be stronger, but instead she had almost blown the planet apart! It now had a nice big hole in it, and she was going to have to heat the planet to melting to fix it!
The Super Dreadnought could not generate that much power so she deployed Solar Skimmers, they would tap into this stars magnetic field and transmit the energy to her Super Dreadnaught.
"Ok, let's try that again," she thought, watching the power levels rise.
She hovered over the old Sector Capital, watching carefully. So far so good, the hole in the planet was filled with magma and the Main Gun was charged and programed. Everything was ready; soon this dead world would live again and the natives of the other star system would have a colonizable world just waiting for them.
Suddenly, her short-range sensors detected a warp signature! Someone was using primitive warp drive and it was getting closer.
"No, not now!" She cried out.
A decision had to be made , to fire the Main Gun or not. The energy spike from the Main Gun would surely be detected but everything was ready! She paused for only a second then pushed the fire button; this planet had been dead long enough.
"Captain Akeen, I'm detecting a massive energy spike from star system Ec 1:9." Science officer Akoval reported. "It does not read as a natural event, definitely artificial."
"Are we close enough for visual?" Akeen asked.
"No sir, we are still too far away, Captain I recommend we investigate." Akoval said.
"Agreed, Helm, change course, lets see what's going on." Akeen said.
She watched the alien starship approach nervously; she was five light seconds away from the alien and cloaked. It did help that her computers were telling her the aliens' propulsion systems were nowhere near as advanced as her own, so she could successfully disengage any time she wanted too. The alien ships sensors did not seem very advanced either. How else could she explain their not seeing the Non-believer Biofrigate following them?
Wait…what? "No! My new planet!" She cried.
She started decloaking the Super Dreadnaught and began charging up its secondary weapons. It was going to be a risk but the enemy Biofrigate had to be destroyed before it could damage the planet, the safety of the alien starship was a minor concern.
"Captain. Unknown ship decloaking, range… 1.5 million kilometers. She's big sir, scanners make her at 28 kilometers in length." Helmsmen Keval reported.
"Sound yellow alert. It's still too far away to worry too much about, at least not yet. Helm, slow to sub light. Hailing frequencies." Akeen said. "This is Captain Akeen of the Starship Athilrith representing the United Federation of Planets. Please respond."
Ensign M'Nass was in her cabin aboard the Athilrith, answering a communication from her older sister. Her sister was Lieutenant M'Ress, currently assigned to the U. S. S. Enterprise. M'Nass had not seen her sister in months and was counting down the days to their reunion. The two starships were scheduled to take part in war game exercises in just a few days.
M'Nass could hardly wait to tell her sister how different serving on a majority Andorian crewed starship was, in comparison to being on a human ship. For one thing, the Andorrans did not flirt with her or ask her out on dates during shore leave. For some reason, many human men found her attractive. The Andorrans also preferred to keep their ships cooler, which made it more comfortable for her.
When the Athilrith went to yellow alert, she was up and out the door in an instant. Her battle stations post was near the accelerator mag-coils for the impulse engines. She was a Damage Control Technician and her job would be to keep the impulse engines online.
She received the aliens communication but could not understand it. The Super Dreadnought did not have a universal translator (?) and decoding the message was taking too long. The Nonbeliever Biofrigate was keeping the alien ship between them. She just hoped it would hold off attacking for just a few seconds longer.
"Sir, no response." The communications officer reported.
"Helm, what's their distance?" Captain Akeen asked.
"Range has closed to 1.2 million kilometers." Keval reported. "The alien ship is not moving."
"I'll start to worry when it drops to 200,000 kilometers. Helm, hold your course. Nice and slow, lets not spook our big friend." Captain Akeen said.
Suddenly a call came to the bridge. "Captain! Aft sensors are picking up another ship, below us. Range 100 kilometers and closing fast!"
Captain Akeen felt a cold breeze blow across his soul "Red alert. Shields to maximum. Helm, all ahead ful…"
The Non-believer ship fired its Hyper-Laser at 80 kilometers, drilling through the Federation ships hull. The Biofrigates cybernetic brain had calculated that the Federation could pose a problem, if it sided with the Faithful. The Hyper-Laser easily punched through the Athilriths shields and armor. Captain Akeen and the entire bridge crew were killed in an instant. Secondary explosions started to rip through the Athilriths hull as the ship lost power and began to tumble.
Ensign M'Nass could not believe what her damage control console was telling her. The bridge was gone along with the front quarter of the secondary hull, destroying the ships primary sensor deflector arrays. She just stared for a second before her training kicked in, and then M'Nass was busy ordering the main computer to initiate an emergency saucer separation. She had to separate the saucer section from the secondary hull before the whole ship was destroyed!
Then M'Nass screamed as her body exploded with searing pain. The Andorian members of her team were affected more, screaming and writhing on the floor like the damned in Hell. Before the blackness could take her, she saw on her monitor the secondary hull falling away from the Athilrith. Success.
"Gotcha!" She exulted.
The Super Dreadnoughts secondary guns fired on the Biofrigate. The beams catching it as it cleared the alien ships hulk. The Biofrigate tried to phase in and out of subspace but she had staggered their firing. The shields of the Biofrigate tried to fend off the attack but then failed, beams of energy striking the ships hull. It held together for three seconds before the Biofrigate disintegrated, releasing a howl of psychic energy.
She watched with some satisfaction, as the enemy warship died. Its death howl a faint pressure on her mind. She now turned her attention to the alien ship; she could tell it was in trouble. Most of the lights were out, its lower hull was gone and it was drifting. She realized she needed more information and the alien ship was a treasure trove.
After approaching, she ordered one of the Super Dreadnoughts tractor beams to move the alien ship to one of the small docking bays. After instructing, the docking bays AI to do a thorough examination of the alien ship and its computer records she tried to rest.
However, too many things were bothering her. Why was a Non-believer ship following the alien? Was it trying to sneak up on her? A Biofrigate was no match for a Super Dreadnought so why did it attack. It should have run the moment it detected her ship. Was it alone or were there more out there and why show up now?
The moment the remains of the alien ship were safely docked, swarms of repair robots and androids flooded into the ship. Soon she was informed that the alien ship's crew had been killed in the Biofrigates attack but one of them might still be salvageable.
She looked down on the alien as it laid on one of the Super Dreadnoughts medical beds. The creature was very pretty, with its thick mane of dark orange hair. Its body was covered in light orange fur that was short, thick and soft. Her Federation uniform was red; she wondered if the color meant anything. The Federation ships computers were damaged and security lockouts keep a lot of information secret but they did identify her as Ensign M'Nass, a Caitian. Hers was one of many races in the United Federation of Planets. Unfortunately, her brain had suffered heavy damage from the Biofrigates psychic attack.
"How can it be salvaged? It's barely alive now." She asked the medical bays AI.
"We can replace the damaged parts of her brain with a synthetic tissue their primitive medical devices will not be able to detect. This will allow you to link with her mind and see the world through her eyes. " The AI said.
"A spy? How much of her original personality will remain?" She asked.
"Hard to say, but if she is found by a Federation rescue party they will probably re-educate her. This will allow you to get a unique perspective of them."
She needed more information on the Federation and her race had learned through painful experience that most races reacted violently upon meeting her kind in person. A puppet would go a long way to helping her and Ensign M'Nass was technically brain dead already. However, it did leave her with a moral dilemma. Her kind used puppets all the time, but they were genetically engineered for that purpose. To modify a sentient being into a puppet…
"Proceed and be sure to upgrade her body as well. I will have the Federation ship repaired just enough to supply minimal life support." She ordered the medical AI.
Three days later, she was watching over the Federation ships saucer section as it drifted through space. Its emergency disaster beacon had been active for days. Finally, the warp signature of another Federation ship was detected approaching the system.
"Time to go." She thought as she engaged the Super Dreadnoughts warp drive and proceeded to the next system on her list.