Chapter 1
Fleetlord Atvar was many things a good Fleetlord of the Empire should be.
He was a good leader, he was smarter than most Males and Females of the Race, and he took time to solve a problem set before him. What was being shown before him was nothing like that. Almost 2 days ago did a set of pictures get sent to Him, his Shiplords, The Emperor's royal advisers, and the Emperor himself.
The object, now being called a USO for Unidentifiable Space Object, was unnatural in its own coming and being.
It had appeared out of what seemed like nowhere, with nothing but the best telescopes of The Race being able to pick it up. Even then it was still a huge chore. The USO also did not move like an asteroid, comet, or meteor would, It left no trail of either rocky, gaseous, or metallic dust in its wake. In fact, from the calculations of the super computers, the USO didn't appear to be moving at all; and if it was, it was going at a pace way too slow for The Race to pick up via telescopes.
Not that anyone would've cared about this that much, but they did since it was so close to Home.
So now, instead of going after the glory of just the conquering of Tosev, Atvar had to check on the USO to make sure it didn't have an unnatural properties. Some members of The Race said it was artificial, which meant that it had to be made by another intelligent species. Though Atvar thought they had hatch wrong out of their eggs.
In the entire history of The Race, and some pre-history, nothing had ever been recorded to prove that a species could ever get close to the technological level of The Race.
Though Atvar was sure that, do to how evolution worked, there would eventually a species that would get somewhat close. Just not then. Probably not in his or even millions of his descendants life times .
"Very interesting" Atvar said, staring at the holographic image of the USO before him. He kept one eye turret on the hologram while staring at the subordinate before him. "These will be quite useful for Me and the Shiplords..." Atvar didn't know the Males name. "It's Mal'saas, Exalted Fleetlord" The subordinate said. "Well thank you Mal'saas" Atvar said, somewhat lying.
He and the Shiplords already had these pictures in secured files. Though he supposed he did appreciate it somewhat that another was given.
The subordinate left quickly, leaving the Fleetlord, a Male of the Race who only answered to the Emperor himself, alone in his chambers. He turned towards his armor glass window, looking down at the planet called Home. He could see through the darkness, or more like emptiness of space the bright lights of the cities, burning bright in the sky. The Race, Atvar's species, was a proud and old one. Not only had his species brought prosperity to three, now soon to be four, planets, but they had also achieved things no other in the known universe did. He almost smiled at the thought.
Though the thought was rudely interrupted by his chamber doors opening up, sliding open to show a subordinate he hadn't seen since the days of his in school, learning about archeology named Khrelan. "Exalted Fleetlord. The Shiplords wish for your immediate presence. They say it has something to do with the Emperor himself" The subordinate said, with a voice that was much deeper than any one he had heard from a Male, with both Males looking down for an instant.
"I will come now. If it involves the Emperor, it must be important" Fleetlord Atvar said, quickly turning from the window to walk towards the place where meetings were held. There, in the room, was all the Shiplords, with a holographic projector in the middle of the table, and his seat left alone. Just like normal.
"I have been told that a message has been sent from us by the Emperor himself. Is this true?" Atvar asked rhetorically, getting no answers. "It is from the Emperor. He wished tell us the news personally" Kirel, the highest ranked Shiplord in the Conquest Fleet, with only the Emperor and Atvar himself being superior to him, said.
The hologram pulled up the date, with a voice saying 1:20 p.m., 100,000th year, 12th month, Home system.
Greetings Fleetlord and Shiplord, this is Emperor Risson speaking. I have gained knowledge from the most highly regarded scientists on Home that this USO is most likely a asteroid or something similar to it. Though like any natural Male of The Race, I also find it odd that we can not find it on any sensors, I am more than relieved that it has been figured out.
Quite quickly if I may add Atvar thought to himself. Usually it took weeks, or months to figure something like this out.
Though he supposed one hundred thousand years does help with knowing stuff. Though it was still weird they had decided that quickly.
Now, as per request of me, I have decided to send the Conquest Fleet towards it in hopes of get more detail on it. Though I still will have the Conquest Fleet sent to Tosev 3, I wish for you all to keep away from the cryogenic chambers until you have passed a good distance away from the Asteroid. May the Emperor's past be with you. The message ended, with the holographic projector going blank. The Fleetlord and Shiplords stayed quiet for a few minutes.
"Well you heard the Emperor, prepare to board your own ships and begin to make way towards the asteroid" Fleetlord Atvar commanded, getting a set of eyes that look down and "Yes Exalted Fleetlord" as a response.
The Shiplords all at once left to their respective ships, with Shiplord Kirel staying with Atvar. "What an oddity, being able to figure something like this out so fast Exalted Fleetlord" Kirel said in an almost jolly tone. "Quite an oddity indeed Shiplord Kirel" Atvar said, thinking deep about the things just sent to him. Why had it been figured out so fast? There has never been in the recorded history of The Race such a quick understanding of something. Not even their rasher ancestors from hundreds of thousands of years ago were like that. "Exalted Fleetlord?" Kirel asked, getting a somewhat irritated look from Atvar.
"Yes Shiplord Kirel?" Atvar asked with some venom in his voice.
Kirel was about to say something, but bit back his tongue. Everyone in The Race knew not to disrespect a superior, especially an irritated one.
"Prepare the ship for 1/2 the speed of light Kirel. If I am needed, I will be in my chambers" Atvar said, leaving the meeting room. Once in his room, he opened a few files on the planet Tosev 3. Though, he mainly looked at the dominant fauna of the planet.
It made him laugh at how technologically primitive they were compared to The Race.
They wielded long iron swords, and bows with stone-tipped arrows as their main weapons. They wore chainmail and iron plated armor. Their cavalry was four-legged beasts, with them holding long spears. The artillery they used threw rocks at one another. He could image how long those would last against automatic rifles, Troopercarriers, Landcruisers, Killercraft, along with radar and heat-seeking missiles. Or, if he wanted to submit them without wasting ammunition, though he would never dare do it, he could always destroy a city or two with a couple Explosive-metal bombs.
The Tosevites had such primitive technology.
Fleetlord Atvar could feel the push of the starships going through space as he admired the easily conquerable species, waiting to go into his cryogenic chamber. Though, as if someone had wanted his head ripped off, the pictures went away. He was about to get them back up when a message appear. Odd, I don't recall another message that was supposed to be sent to me Atvar thought with some irritation. The Race was also a repetitive species, never deviating from the plan, and if they did, it was always in small increments.
I hope this is worth it Atvar thought, with wanting to claw at whoever sent a message this early into the Conquest Fleet departure.
It said: 1:20 p.m., Year 1,000 of the Galactic Republic, 12th month, Unknown star system
Atvar was perplexed by this. Galactic Republic? Unknown star system? Who in the Emperor's name was this?
Atvar only knew of The Empire, created by his species, The Race; and he was in his Emperor forsaken system! He knew whoever this is was not from here. Which made him nervous. The most of know nothing of the great Empire! Though that did not calm him down. Whoever this or these being was, no matter how primitive, still made Atvar have an important job. Though not just as Conquer, but as the first member of The Race to have contact with another space faring race.
Atvar played the message.
Hello, I am Lin-Gar Mik. I send a message of peace to your people. I have come here not of my free will. My Starfighter has been damaged due to a Galaxy sized Empire trying to kill me. I would not bother you with my troubles, but the thing that helped me get away from them has been damaged do to combat. Though I am not sure you can personally help me, if I am given a place to stay I can more than likely fix the ship myself. I also hope if I can show you things you have never seen before, either technologically speaking , or in other ways, I would be more than happy to share my knowledge with you. However, if you are to attack me, even though I am not in best condition, I will not hesitate to destroy all your ships if I need to. Though, I will only attacked if provoked. I wish for peace between us all. May the force be with you all.
Atvar was not sure how to make out the meaning of a few of the parts the being said, but the rest was simple. This man was unwilling sent here by a evil Galaxy wide empire, and the being needed shelter and to fix his ship, though he would fight if he was attacked, which Atvar thought was reasonable. He would do the same.
Atvar pressed down on a button, making a recording to the being, where ever they were, which he had a strong feeling it was that supposed asteroid.
"Hello being named Lin-Gar Mik. I am Fleetlord Atvar, the supreme leader of the Conquest Fleet" Atvar began. "You have landed in The Races Imperial Space territory. Though you have caused a scare for us with your spaceship coming out of nowhere, we will let you shelter on Home. We are a generous species after all. Though be careful what you do, or else I will be forced to turn you into either regular or Explosive-metal dust from our missiles. I will first have to call the Emperor however to see what ship you should land in" Atvar said, replaying the message a few times before he thought it was good. Though he would've liked it if he had proper recording gear, his chambers recording devices would have to do.
He pressed a button, sending a radio signal over to the ship. He prayed to past Emperors this would be picked up.
The message didn't just play in Fleetlord Atvar's chamber however.
Through the power of technology more advanced than anything in the Milky Way galaxy, any the species that could receive radio signals suddenly got a message from a human male called Lin-Gar Mik. The message played through all the holographic projectors of Home, startling even the Emperor himself. This went out to the colonies of The Race, who, do to all of them having time to prepare for the few problems or anomalies they've had, were also startled by the messages set before them.
Then, through the long distances of spaces, did Humanity get it, with only the best radios even being able to pick it up.
Finally, however, in a much larger, farther away section of space, did a certain species of the Galactic Hegemony receive this message, with the one that got this making a canine teeth filled grin.
_
When I awoke from my forced slumber, I opened my eyes to see a star system I didn't know.
The place had four planets, with one surrounded by strange looking ships and satellites of sort. Nothing like I had ever seen the Republic or new Empire use. Though I didn't know much about the new Empire, or this place. "R2, you still working?" I ask through the mic, which lead me to get a few beeps in response.
At least it was working.
"R2, can you give me a scan of what system this is?" I asked, pressing a few buttons to check if the machine could fly. I sighed in relief when the engine lights went green. The R2 unit beeped a couple more time before a message appeared on my panel. It said No matches found. I found this confusing. I was positive I was somewhere in Galactic space, no matter how weird those ships were.
"Okay then, scanning for closest Unknown Regions signal" I said to myself.
The computers sent out a signal capable of finding with anything all things related with something in the unknown region of the Galaxy. No matches found appeared in my screen once again. I chewed my lip, unsure why this was the case. I knew there were some ships on the outer edges of the unknown region, but to get nothing...
I shook my head.
"R2, try finding any signals relating to our galaxy. Use all the power you need to find a signal of sort" I stated, pressing a few buttons. The R2 droid tried finding a signal, while I meditated. I used the force to the best of my ability to find a familiar force energy. Though they all felt the same in general, something was off in a way I couldn't identify. As if they were tweaked in almost unidentifiable ways.
The R2 got me out of focus, with me staring at the screen again, this time with me having confirmed suspicions.
It appeared I was nowhere near former Republic, now Imperial, space. I then asked R2 to first make a map of all the star systems he checked, and what artificial signals he was able to pick up from them. I was almost shocked by the amount of space the Galaxy had been charted with intelligent, sentient life. I then created a list of the closest to farthest species in this new galaxy.
The first was the species right in the same galaxy as me.
From radio signals, I learned they called themselves The Race. They were a species far older than even the Republic was, but appeared to advance extremely slow. In fact, they were so slow, they didn't appear to have the bare basics of a modern society. They didn't have anti-gravity, mag-lev (magnetic levitation) transportation, or service droids. Hell, they didn't even laser or plasma weapons, or even a primitive Hyperdrive. That didn't it didn't have a modern army though.
"R2, hack into their computers for me. I want to see what I am up against if I have to fight them" I ordered, with the droid seemingly happy to do anything besides scan the unknown galaxy.
The droid hacked it quick. "Such primitive technology" I mumbled to myself. The computers showed their best weapon was a Nuclear bomb, which they called an Explosive-metal bomb apparently.
Not that it would do much good against a decently shielded ship, especially a capital ship, which I guess didn't matter considering I didn't have one.
They had turbofan ran, hydrogen powered, supersonic jets, but I could easily over fly and maneuver those, seeing as they were in the lower half of being supersonic, and I could go the higher half of hypersonic if I wanted to in the atmosphere, a place their fighters were restricted to, with the only vehicle being their spacecraft that could leave the planet. They appeared to be armed with radar-guided and heat seeking missiles, with their missiles being able to go at a much better speed than their fighter jets, which for some reason, they called Killercraft, along with giant slugthrowers.
Their second flying machine, which somewhat made up from the empty place for anti-gravity so fighters could get up vertically, was called a Helicopter, a device armed with a slightly smaller version of the jets giant slugthrower. It was also armed with heat-seeking and radar guided missiles like its Killercraft cousin. Though for what it gained in being able to lift off vertically, it sorely lacked in speed. The speed on the helicopter was low subsonic speeds at its best of times.
Their armored vehicles also ran off the same thing as the Killercraft and Helicopter did, with both having armor made of titanium, having one armed with a giant slugthrower cannons, with either a supposed armor piercing or high explosive shell, then along with that came the same slugthrower as the Helicopter, which, again for some reason, they called them Landcruisers, and the other one being armored, though not as armored as the Landcruiser, vehicle which is armed with a Landcruiser slugthrower.
They had such weird names for vehicles of war, primitive or not.
Their spacecraft, or Starships as they called them, had no shielding, something that was keen to keep your ship from getting ripped to shreds by laser, plasma, or missile fire in combat. They were armed with Killercraft sized close ranged slugthrowers, close ranged radar-guided or heat seeking defense missiles, and a few nuclear weapons. In fact, the only good thing about them, if there was anything good about them, was they could go half the speed of light. Not as fast as some ships I have heard of, but considering the other items they had, it was impressive enough.
Their infantry was armed with regular automatic slugthrowers, along with a weird looking set of googles that were suppose to help you see in the dark, with a camera attached to it to record things, and a vest that used a material made of plastic called Kevlar to protect the people wearing them from the slugs launched from the slugthrowers.
It was almost laughable at how easily a fraction of the new Empire's army could've been able to assimilate this primitive species.
Their best fuel source was nuclear fission created from a material called uranium, which could power their cities pretty efficiently, with a few things that could do better from what I knew. Their trains went half as fast as their helicopters, but was very well connected for such an unadvanced species. Same went for their roads, with their delivery trucks and cars going at speeds more than half as fast as the trains could go.
They also had holograms, but had to be projected inside a tube to be seen, and for some reason, they still used radio. I thought why not FTL communications, but that's when I remembered they couldn't use FTL technology to begin with.
"They seem to be able to keep care of themselves, you agree R2?" I asked the droid rhetorically.
All I got were beeps and whines. "R2, prepare to send a message. I will be recording one for anyone with the ability to receive it.
I prepared my recording device, somewhat wishing I could show myself, or at least stretch my body. "Prepare recording R2" I told him.
"Hello, I am Lin-Gar Mik. I send a message of peace to your people. I have come here not of my free will. My Starfighter has been damaged due to a Galaxy sized Empire trying to kill me. I would not bother you with my troubles, but the thing that helped me get away from them has been damaged do to combat. Though I am not sure you can personally help me," I had no how to say that they weren't technologically capable of helping me, "if I am given a place to stay I can more than likely fix the ship myself. I also hope if I can show you things you have never seen before, either technologically speaking , or in other ways, I would be more than happy to share my knowledge with you. However, if you are to attack me, even though I am not in best condition, I will not hesitate to destroy all your ships if I need to. Though, I will only attacked if provoked. I wish for peace between us all. May the force be with you all."
R2 sent the message, letting anyone who had the technology to pick it up be able to hear it.
I meditated further, letting myself feel through this galaxy's force. I could feel a natural balance of both Light and Dark, differing from the highly more common light side in my galaxy. It felt good to be one with the force as I meditated. Though, after what felt like two minutes, but was probably an hour, a message came back to me.
It said: 2:20, 100,000th year, 12th month, Home system
Hello being named Lin-Gar Mik. I am Fleetlord Atvar, the supreme leader of the Conquest Fleet. You have landed in The Races Imperial Space territory. Though you have caused a scare for us with your spaceship coming out of nowhere, we will let you shelter on Home for a time. We are a generous species after all. Though be careful what you do, or else I will be forced to turn you into either regular or Explosive-metal dust from our missiles. I will first have to call the Emperor however to see what ship you should land in.
I manually typed up binary for thank you to them.
Then I began to meditate again, with the next message getting to my ship faster than last time.
It said: 2:50, 100,000th year, 12th month, Home System
Hello Being called Lin-Gar Mik, it has been decided that you will land in my ship 127th Hetto, so you can discuss business between our people on The Races most secure ship. Also, if any of your engines do work, I advice you to fly to my ship immediately.
The message ended there.
Even without the Force, I knew this was a trap so I would surrender to them because of overwhelming numbers. I smiled for a moment at how easy this was to figure out. Then my instincts kicked it. What if there was more behind this meeting besides them wanting me? What if some species multiple times more advanced than them wanted me here?
I guess I would have to see and wait.
"R2, follow the signal, and also prepare Laser Cannons and Concussion Missiles in case thing end up badly for us" I order, getting the R2 to send us flying while preparing for battle.
