Tenchi Muyo: Son of Earth and Jurai
Prologue.
In the darkness between star systems a lone vessel stood silently in space. It was over two kilometres long and looked much like a brick crossed with a squid and had four petal-like panels extended from the rear engineering section. Great arcs of electricity danced along the inner surface of the petals, which bathed the vessel in an almost ethereal electric blue glow and brightened the constantly shifting dark blue-grey organic armour.
Deep within the centre of the ship sat two individuals. One had the appearance of a twenty five year old man in a blue Earth Force Commodore's duty uniform, and was sitting in the captain's chair, the other was a young woman, also in her mid twenties, was sitting at a side console usually assigned to the ship's xo, and instead of a uniform she wore a form fitting pair of black leather pants and a leather jacket over a dark purple t-shirt with a pair of PPGs strapped to her thighs and had a stylized badge with the Greek letter psi pinned just above her left breast.
They both heard the soft voice of the ship's personality in the back of their heads, "It is time, the circle closes."
"Do you always have to say that? Hearing it from a Vorlon is irritating enough," protested the commodore.
"You seem to forget who and what I am," the voice teasingly retorted.
He sighed. "Well, It is too easy to forget, most of the time."
"If you say so..."
He sighed and focused his glance onto the large view screen in the front of the Command Centre. "It's still not too late for the two of you to change you minds, you don't need to follow me home."
The lady could only smirk at the attempt of chivalry by the man she had known for the past five years. "And you know that the both of us would never feel complete if you left us behind. Face it Tenchi Masaki, you are permanently stuck with us."
"Well Motoko, at least I can say that I gave you the choice," said Tenchi with resignation. Everywhere I go I always end up with one more young woman coming home with me.
"All capacitors are charged," the voice said again, this time through the speakers of the mostly empty Command Centre. "Ready for dimensional jump."
"Execute jump," he said and leaned back in his seat. This would bring him back home. Hopefully.
"Executing Dimensional Jump Sequence."
Deep within the bowls of the majestic ship the large capacitors released their charge, focused it through several transformers and into the Jump Engine. Minute amounts of artificial Quantium 40 mixed with a rare substance called Tyrelium was injected into the main chamber of the Engine and the charge of the capacitors reached the chamber. The large amounts of energy were transformed yet again and released through the modified Jump Engine emitters, which tore at the wall that separated normal space, hyper space and the inter universal medium, called Third Space.
A dark blue vortex opened directly in front of the majestic ship and it accelerated into it. It seemed to get longer and then disappeared inside it. With a flash of light the vortex closed.
Several thousand kilometres away a small vorlon bioship dropped its cloak and swung around. Its passenger looked at the spot where the other ship just disappeared.
"Your circle here in this universe has ended, but another has just begun."
The vorlon seemed to sigh as he turned around and looked at the hologram showing a growing jump point.
"I wish you luck, Tenchi Masaki."
At that moment a dark skinned man appeared beside the Kosh.
"Yes, he will need all the luck he can get. Now we can't help him, can we Kosh."
"No."
With that the Vorlon bioship disappeared inside the jump point.
CH#1 The Journey Home
As the Dark Knight travelled through the multi-dimensional vortex its grey and blue organic form stretched and contracted, and both of the current occupants inside, as well as the ship, felt the same feeling of being stretched and contracted as they travelled through various different dimensions. The sensations were almost enough for them both to get sick, but they managed to keep their lunches down for the entire trip. Suddenly with a small flash they spotted the vast expanse of normal space ahead.
Thank Kami its almost over, Tenchi jubilantly thought, as he fought to keep his lunch down and decided to just keep his mouth shut. Both his companions felt the same way, with both DK, the ship's intelligence, and Motoko mentally retorting, You are so going to pay us back after this, and both sent images of what they wanted him to do to them in their little private mental cyberspace, which made Tenchi both excited and genuinely terrified.
With an almost lethargic ease the feeling of being stretched and squished subsided and all three of them got back to normal. Tenchi took a deep breath to settle his still queasy stomach and leaned back into his command chair. "Damage report?" he requested as soon as he made sure that he wasn't going to lose his lunch.
"We have a green light across the board, no damage, except that we seem to have used up the Tyrellium in the jump. Even if we wanted to return to my former universe we wouldn't be able to until we find another source of Tyrellium," reported Motoko.
"Well, I don't know about you, but I don't feel like returning to that universe anytime soon."
"Uh Tenchi, you may want to reconsider that," said DK. "On screen!"
The forward view screen came to life and zoomed in on some bright flashing lights, which quickly resolved onto a space station and three ships that were attacking it. The space station looked more like a large collection of old ship hulls that seemed to have been haphazardly welded and bolted together. Most of these ship hulls looked like they were ready to fall apart and more than one was pockmarked with craters from micrometeorite impacts, carbon scoring from old weapons impacts, and simple space dust.
The three attacking ships however were each almost a kilometre wide discus shape with a parabolic indentation with a tower sticking out from the middle of it, which Tenchi identified as the bow, and three large ion-plasma engines going aft. They had multiple weapons turrets along the edge of the discus trench, along with more turrets arrayed in a pair of concentric rings above and below the trench, and a pair of large bore guns, which according to the sensor information were each ten metres in diameter, mounted into the bow.
"Got any details on those ships?"
"They appear to be armed with a mixture of laser and particle cannons, plasma cannons and what looks to be a pair of large bore rail guns mounted spinally. The space station is holding its own, but its shield seems to be on the verge of collapse," reported DK.
"Can you access both sides computer systems?"
"Stand by," said DK as she began the act of breaking into both sides computer systems. They were close enough now that she could tap into the wireless network of the space station, but the attacking ships networks proved to be harder, which forced her to use a brute force approach through their communications system and copied everything inside their computers. She quickly found the ships orders and became incensed.
"It seems that this race, called the doranians, sent these ships here to destroy this space station for harbouring twenty dissident families. The station is called Novak Station and is basically a free port in this neck of the galaxy and has currently a civilian population of nearly twenty thousand."
For Tenchi this was a no brainer. "Change course to intercept the doranian warships and begin powering all weapons, go one hundred percent on all reactors," Tenchi ordered.
With that order the Dark Knight surged forward while powering up all of her weapons systems, and DK was almost giddy with excitement.
Novak Station's Command Centre.
In the station's command centre the director of Novak Station was currently coordinating the defence of the station. Surprisingly enough the director was a human, Alistair Baker, who had twenty years previously been abducted by a race known throughout the galaxy as one of the worst examples of capitalists, scavengers and to him personally the most sadistic scientists, the vree.
The doranians in their discus shaped cruisers had been attacking the station for the last three days, which was slowly but steadily destroying the station's shield generator. It was originally made by a low level Quantum II civilization to protect a large and slow bulk freighter from raider attacks. However the doranian cruiser, the main frontline warship for the Doranian Protectorate, was one of the most advanced and powerful warships a Quantum I civilization could build without reaching Quantum II level.
As another barrage of rounds from the cruisers powerful spinal mounted railguns hit, Director Baker took out a small picture he kept in his chest pocket, the last picture he had of him and his wife and daughter on a beach back on Earth, somewhere in California he thought. With that picture came some very painful memories of what happened. They had been taken in the middle of the night and the vree began their experiments. All they said was that they were researching human emotions, and soon all three had been drive to near madness with the images they constantly showed and the physical torture, which was enough to cause his wife to have heart failure, and his daughter died from shock and trauma, but before they could kill him he had been saved by the Galaxy Police, and the vree scientists were tried and executed, then he was sent to some back water planet to live out his life in some sort of peace.
He wasn't satisfied with that, so for the next decade he tried to get back to Earth, but for all his hard work all that had gotten him was this space station, only four light years from Earth and with no way to get there, and then he somehow became Director of this station, and now his life was about to end because of some blood thirsty oversized cats who couldn't just let people live out their lives in peace. He stroked the picture of his wife and daughter and quietly whispered, "Don't worry, I'll be joining you soon," then put it back into his pocket and refocused his attention back to the oval view screen.
"Director, another ship is approaching fast," reported one of the Command Centre techs, an alien with a head of a mollusc and the body of a squid, which Director Baker like to call Scotty, due to its skill as a tech, and because he could make the impossible possible with limited equipment and technology, and unlike many of the residents it hadn't broken down in terror by the doranians near constant siege. "Increasing magnification."
The large overhead view screen quickly changed views from the scary form of the three doranian cruisers to the oddly designed ship that was rapidly closing in. A sensor readout of the new arrival overlaid itself over the visage of the approaching ship. It was just over two kilometres long, and seemed an odd cross of a brick and a squid. The brick parts looked like something a human would design, but the four tentacles that grew out from the bow and the four open petals to the rear, near the main engines, were definitely alien in origin. He quickly noticed some script but couldn't quite make it out.
"Increase magnification of grid D7," the Director ordered, and it promptly zoomed in on the ship's name. His eyes nearly bugged out of his sockets when he saw no alien script, but human Latin letters illuminated in bright flood lights.
Dark Knight.
What the hell? Humanity can't have advanced this far in such a short time, nobody on Earth could have built a ship like that, the Director thought furiously.
"Director, the alien vessel is broadcasting a hail on an open channel to the doranian cruisers," reported one of the other alien technicians in the command centre, a five foot tall squirrel-like alien wearing only his fur and a utility belt around his waist.
"Patch them in," the Director ordered immediately.
Seconds later the image of man of either Japanese or Juraian descent and looked to be in his forties, four hundreds with a well trimmed beard, came upon the screen. "This is Commodore Tenchi Masaki of the Earth Alliance battleship Dark Knight to attacking ships, you will stand down and leave this system at once. If you do not withdraw I will be forced to engage you." The Commodore's voice was of someone who knew how to hold onto the reins of command well, and was a man who seemed used to getting his way.
The screen split and showed the frowning face of the doranian commander. The doranian male had brown coloured face and the scar that went through his right eye gave him the appearance of an old and accomplished warrior.
"We will do as we please, Juraian."
Baker could see a slight twitch on the face of Commodore Masaki as he was called a Juraian.
"It is our right to attack and destroy that station for hiding traitors to the Protectorate! And I will destroy you if you chose to side with them," he said with venom.
Baker watched Commodore Masaki's face grow darker.
"So be it," said Masaki with a tone of finality and the connection was cut.
Soon after the view screen changed to a view of the two sides. The insides of the petals on the engineering section of the Dark Knight began to glow, as if gathering energy from space itself. A pair of cannons mounted on the bow began to glow blood red as arcs of blue electricity crisscrossed in between the four tentacle-like structures that seemed to have been grown out from the bow. There was also a number of smaller double pronged turrets that also had powerful electric arcs similar to the primary weapon, though much smaller in scale. At roughly amidships Director Baker could also see a pair of what he identified as missile pods, though their outer doors appeared closed for the moment.
The first to open fire were the doranian cruisers with a quick barrage of laser and particle beam fire. With the nimbleness of a ship an eighth its size the Dark Knight dodged with a sharp manoeuvre, and luckily the initial long range barrage missed entirely, some of it by several kilometres at least.
"That ship's ECM must be seriously mucking up the doranian sensors," the Director mused as he watched the doranian cruisers go all out. One of them did a random swipe with a couple of particle beam cannons and both managed to intersect with the Dark Knight. One of them seemed to bend away, as if a strong gravity well had managed to curve the beam away from the ship's armour, while the other didn't and managed to deal a glancing blow to the forward hull.
Director Baker was astonished at what he saw. A glancing blow from one of those cannons had turned the station's last defending corvette into a floating scrap heap, and all this did was scratch the paint job and boil off several layers of armour, though from the look of it there were no violent decompressions, as was usually the case of warships, most having little to almost no armour at all. He couldn't help but wonder how thick that ship's armour was.
Less than a second after the last beam connected a great beam of blue lightning lanced out from the centre of the crossed arcs and hit the lead cruiser. As a testament to its builders its shields held for a second, but through sheer brute force the lance of energy penetrated the shields and proceeded to vaporize everything in its path. The beam cored the cruiser from bow to stern and succeeded in splitting it in two, then consumed itself secondary explosions.
The remaining pair of cruisers raced forward to close the distance while opening up with everything they had. In response the Dark Knight's interceptors began to systematically knock down enemy weapons pulse cannon fire and six Light Hawk Wings sprung forth to stop the laser and particle beam fire. Both cruisers closed in to the sides of Dark Knight in an attempt to force them to split their fire. In response the Dark Knight turned hard to port and unleashed its own main particle beam cannons. Two blood red beams of particles accelerated to near light speed impacted the cruiser that was angling to come alongside the Dark Knight's port side was hit with both particle beams and quickly collapsed with the force of several dozen giga-tonnes of energy slamming into it and its entire port side got raked with the particle beams, which led to the entire portside of the cruiser's armour to melt away and buckle the inner hull, causing a string of violent decompressions, spilling forth atmosphere, equipment and bodies of crewmembers.
To finish it off one of the sixteen inch forward rail gun turrets put half a dozen APHE (Armour Piercing High Explosive) rounds through the hull which detonated within the engineering spaces, and detonated the ship's own reactors and fuel supply and went up like a huge fireworks display.
The third and last cruiser attempted to exploit the Dark Knight's preoccupation with destroying its second target and tried to attack it from behind. The cruiser fired off six rounds from its own spinal mounted railguns, but each one was intercepted by streams of plasma bolts form their targets point defence guns. With main engines and RCS thrusters firing the Dark Knight continued its portside turn and lined up for a full broadside counter attack with its secondary batteries. Before the last doranian cruiser could react several of the smaller double pronged weapons turrets opened fire with powerful blue beams of destructive power and quickly demolished the cruiser's shields, then continued to hammer the cruiser's hull as it desperately tried to fight back, though its resistance dropped off as the beams either destroyed weapons mounts or severed power conduits.
By chance a few white particle beams managed to score a few hits to the Dark Knight's armour, but the damage was negligible, and served only to intensify the battleship's attack, and seconds later one of the cruiser's reactors went critical and destroyed the ship in a titanic explosion.
Director Baker could only sigh in relief as he released a breath he didn't know he had been holding in, and was astonished to find the engagement had only lasted a few minutes, and had ended the three day long siege.
"Communications, open up a channel to Dark Knight," he requested.
"Director, they are already hailing us," said the communications technician.
"On screen," responded the Director as he was quite eager to express his gratitude to Commodore Masaki.
Once again the Commodore's visage was on screen and this time his eyes seemed to have tired, but hard as diamonds look to them
"Commodore Masaki, on behalf of Novak Station and its inhabitants I thank you, and I offer you any assistance you may need to make repairs," said the Director with a short bow.
"You're welcome, and thank you for the offer, but your assistance is not required at this time. Would you like to come aboard?" the Commodore offered. You may bring aboard as many as three body guards, no more!" he added.
"Very well, I accept those terms," said Director Baker in response and with a short bow of the head the com line was cut.
"I believe that I should join you, Director Baker," said a rather aristocratic voice behind the Director, one Director Baker had relied upon for advice ever since he had taken the position he currently held.
"I would appreciate your company, as well as your bodyguards presence, citizen G'Kar," said Baker as he and G'Kar, along with a couple of Narn bodyguards, headed down to one of the stations landing bays and took a shuttle out to their saviour.
It was a short trip, but the view was quite telling. As they approached in one of the few shuttles remaining, a small box-like thing with a couple of sub-light thrusters and a stout nose, Director Baker could see the damage that had been inflicted upon the ship. There were a number of burn marks, but they appeared to be healing, like it was a living organism. Only the Royal Trees of Jurai had that kind of armour tech, and the minbari were close to cracking that technology, both were Quantum III level civilizations. The Light Hawk Wings, to the Director's mind, pretty much confirmed this as a juraian ship, but its form was anything but graceful, more like an oversized brick with big engines and guns.
As they approached the ship's docking bay the shuttle's navigational computer was taken control of. One of the narns almost took manual control, but G'Kar stopped him, and reminded his younger comrade that such things were standard procedure in the Narn Fleet as well. They were guided in with incredible precision and the Director could also see a number of smaller secondary craft, including a number a very powerful looking x shaped craft, and soon enough they were guided to a landing pad, and the large air tight docking bay doors sealed behind them.
They waited with baited breath as the hangar bay had breathable atmosphere pumped in again, and soon enough the atmospheric warning lights turned off, signalling that the atmosphere outside was safe. The first out of the shuttle were the two narn bodyguards, armed with fist sized PPG handguns, and heavier rifles slung behind their backs, then behind them the Director and G'Kar came out of the shuttle and took a look around, seeing nobody there to greet them.
Baker took a look at the gun-metal-grey deck plating and saw numerous yellow-and-black warning lines on the deck, much like on a Nimitz class aircraft carrier, and as he took a closer look around the hangar it was obvious to him that this ship had been designed by Earth born human engineers, though the organic components were definitely alien in origin.
Taking a chance the Director called out in his native tongue, English, "Hello, is anyone here?"
As if in answer to his call a pressure door opened up and a woman came walking into the hangar with an air of confidence, as if she owned the ship and the Commodore was just borrowing it.
In accented Intercosmo, which was similar to Japanese, she introduced herself, "Welcome aboard the Dark Knight gentlemen. I am Motoko Kusanagi, the xo of this ship." Her voice was sensual, yet also carried a hint of danger as well. Please come with me, the Commodore is waiting." She swiftly turned on her heel and the four guests followed after her like a line of ducklings.
As they walked along the corridors and took a lift up a couple of decks Director Baker saw more that made him absolutely sure that this ship had been originally built by Earth human hands, with small screens and controls at regular intervals and all the signs and insignia were all in English. He could also swear that someone he couldn't see was watching him, and as far as he could tell, apart from the xo and the Commodore, this ship seemed utterly deserted, which gave Baker the creeps, and the narns were as nervous as cats in a room full of rocking chairs, and were getting even more nervous as they went deeper into the ship.
Centauri Prime,
Capital Planet of the Centauri Republic
Emperor's Throne Room
Upon a golden throne with red vinyl-like coverings sat the Emperor of the Centauri Republic, basking in his absolute joy of having finally achieved the first part of his destiny, and like a young rascal he had one leg propped on top of one of the armrests, hardly a dignified posture for someone in his position, unlike his predecessor, Emperor Turhan, who had always been the image of regal centauri nobility, Emperor Cartagia was viewed by most as a young upstart that only gained his position because he was easy to influence, though to his enemies, both within and without the Centauri Republic he was considered a potentially dangerous mad man.
From a side entrance one of Cartagia's many minions came forward with a data crystal in hand. This minion was none other than Lord Refa, one of the nobles that had put him into power, and in turn gained a great deal of power and influence in the Centaurum, same thing as a senate, but instead of Senators it had the Heads of the Centauri Noble Houses.
"Emperor, I bring news from our spies. It was sent over a Silver Channel."
With a bored sigh the Emperor opened his eyes from his own personal daydreaming of godhood. "Don't tell me the juraians or the minbari are up to something again?" he asked wearily.
Lord Refa's right cheek twitched slightly at the young emperor's attitude, then remembered why he was here, and placed the data crystal he had in his hand into a data port. "This was recorded by one of our spies aboard Novak Station, a rather filthy place, but useful for gathering intelligence. You would be surprised by what sort of riffraff wash up there. We even found the last of the original Kha'Ri members, Citizen G'Kar. Our spy was actually tracking him when he recorded this," said Refa in as much a subservient tone as he possibly could make as the recording played.
It showed the siege and the battle that took place, the dramatic entrance of the Dark Knight, and its commander that claimed the ship was owned by something called the Earth Alliance.
"Do we have any intelligence about this Earth Alliance?" the emperor asked with a mad gleam in his eyes as he greedily drank in the sight of the ugly blue and grey battleship.
"There is no mention of any organization under the term Earth Alliance, but there is a planet in the Corian Expanse that is called Earth that is protected under the Juraian Protected Planets Treaty. It is a sub-Quantum Zero world that should not have been able to build such a ship, and since the ship appears to be organic in nature we can assume that the juraians helped build that ship."
"Which automatically makes Earth fall out of the Treaty and is no longer protected," said the emperor gleefully. "Deploy a fleet to this Erp and secure the system. They can't have that many ships for just one planet. Take that ship, preferably intact. We must make it and its technology ours. It will elevate us to Quantum III level status for sure and we will finally be able to challenge the juraians and the minbari," he said gleefully, already dreaming mad daydreams of conquest.
"By your command, my Emperor," said Refa as he bowed respectfully and made his way to make his own plans, both with some 'special allies' and to gather his own house fleet to pick up the pieces.
TBC...