Sailor Moon Chronicles
A fanfic by Captiosus
-Episode 5 Part 2-
I thought I might want to mention the reason why I am splitting every chapter up into chunks. For one, its redundancy. If one huge file goes corrupt, I have to rewrite it from scratch. But if one small file goes corrupt its a lot easier to rewrite it. Also, it allows me to change the length of the chapters by adding or removing a part. This Episode will be an example, where its 4 parts long instead of just 3. It also makes life easier for you readers, since you can take a break from reading more often without worry about losing your place. At least thats the whole idea. Next part should be up in a week, and the final part of this section a week after that.
The diminutive ship coasted through the dark, silently slipping through a sea of nothingness. It was cloaked, something to be expected from a stealth vessel. What is also to be expected from a stealth vessel is for it to do this through the middle of an enemy battlegroup, like now.
"I dont like the looks of this..." Sailor Venus muttered. For the last four hours, the tiny vessel has slowly passed through the cluster of NegaShips, apparently awaiting orders to attempt another attack on Earth. The commander of the small ship spun his seat around to face Venus.
"Get used to it," he pulled out a large cigar and lit it in defiance of Andromedan fleet regulations of having combustible material on the command deck of any vessel. "We're going to have to play chicken for the next," he consulted his watch, "Eight hours. Passive sensor sweep has detected thousands of NegaShips in the belt, and they seem to be using the entire belt as a place to hide. Cowardly bastards."
Venus snorted and turned to the viewing window, giving the Andromedan commander an ample view of her shape as she turned. He thought, "Damn, she is hot. Maybe I might get lucky..."
His thoughts were interrupted by Richard, the Admiral of the Solar Fleet, and Captain of the Cruiser Phoenix. The stealth vessel commander stood up and shouted, "Admiral on Deck!"
Richard rolled his eyes and sighed. He never did like the highest possible command post, but after the death of the last Fleet Admiral, he had no choice but to step up and take control of BOTH the Solar and Andromedan Armadas.
"At ease. Now what is our situation?" Richard walked over to the sensor console and ran another passive scan.
"It is shit," Venus stated flatly. Richard raised his eyebrows, still not taking his eyes off of the scan console. "Yeah I can sort of see that, Venus. Now, Uranus and Saturn said they needed help getting the weapon packs squared away, and they told me to let you know."
Venus walked off of the bridge, and Richard noticed he commander's eyes following her as she walked out. He turned back to the sensors and said, "Don't even try it, Commander. She will kick your ass if you try to go after her."
The commander laughed. "Oh and how would you know? You try it?"
Richard spun around and drew his sword so fast the shuttle commander never saw it happen, only the result: the 4 foot blade digging into his neck and drawing blood.
"Its not my job to date them, only to protect them you little scumbag. If you do try it I swear I will toss you out the airlock, or better yet, incinerate you," Richard snarled.
The short commander put his hands up in surrender."Okay okay you dont have to kill me. I was just saying..." He yelped as the blade dug deeper. Richard glared at the commander with enough force to penetrate Tarydium battle plate, and the smaller man quailed under the intensity of the glare.
After a few seconds of this, Richard withdrew his blade and walked off of the bridge, leaving the commander to patch the shallow cut in his neck. He sighed, but the thought of him having sex with one of the scouts was just too tempting, and his pants began to strain. The commander looked at his boner and said, "Damn it I need to retire and get laid."
Xxxxxxxxxx
Mars had been left to direct the repair and resupply of the fleets, and she was grouchy when an orderly charged in and began to tell Mars about the massing NegaShips. As she listened, she knew the Negaverse was never going to give up until Earth had fallen. The orderly also mentioned that Richard had ordered thirty-five Novas to be placed at strategic positions on Earth's surface. Mars turned pale as the positions were outlined. 4 bombs in North America, another 4 in South America, 5 in Africa, 3 in Europe, 11 in Asia, and the remainder scattered throughout the oceans.
The new holo pad on her desk flared to life, and Mack popped into existence. The AI glanced around to make sure no one was watching or listening before asking, "You hear about the bombs?"
Mars rubbed her temples. "What is he thinking? Why take the most powerful bombs he has and set them on the one planet he has sworn to protect?"
Mack paused as he got fresh telemetry from the network of probes in solar orbit. "Take a look at this."
His holographic representation vanished, to be replaced by an image of Earth an inch across, with icons representing the vessels in orbit... and the six Novas in orbit alongside them.
"Jesus Christ, he intends to annihilate the whole planet should it fall," Mars muttered. She opened a com channel to Serena only to have it squelched by Mack. The AI returned to his pad and said, "The queen has already been informed of the bombs, but she hasn't been informed of their purpose in the next brawl." He paused again. "Allow the fleet to demonstrate."
The holographic Earth returned, and a massive cluster of purple triangles near the lunar Lagrange point indicated a fresh assault wave.
"How many ships?" Mars asked
"Mmmm maybe a couple thousand. Nothing like the last space battle we had. I think they are just keeping us busy while they try to concoct a new plan to get screwed over by us. Watch."
One of the smaller Andromedan vessels had grabbed a Nova, whose symbol began to pulse red, indicating it was armed. The small vessel accelerated towards the battlegroup and jettisoned the bomb before pulling away to rejoin the Andromedan cluster in orbit. A Galaxy class ship started the transformation sequence to begin charging its Eclipse Cannon, and a moment later a bright green bolt of raw energy hit the Nova as it was passing through the heart of the enemy battlegroup.
The bomb detonated with phenomenal force, flash vaporizing every NegaShip. The shockwave expanded a short distance, then contracted to a razor line beam of power, pulled along the original shot that triggered it. A Z-Space portal opened almost a million miles outside lunar orbit, and the beam roared into the open maw of the portal. Another explosion went off, this one near the asteroid belt, quickly followed by 1,064,927 more explosions as the NegaFleet in the asteroid belt was destroyed in a chain reaction of self destruction.
Mars watched this with awe. The bombs had been modified to directionalize their blasts when triggered by an Eclipse Cannon shot, changing them from planet killers to fleet annihilators. It would come in handy later.
Mack re-appeared over the pad. "Do you understand now?"
Mars nodded, but then said, "I dont like it. Its too risky, and there is the chance using one of those things will end badly."
Mack sighed. "The captain doesnt think like you or me. I know, its weird, but he has always done things his way, for better or for worse. Sometimes for worse, and very rarely for the absolute worst of the worst. Dont ask, I will not tell you. Lets just put it this way, if it wasnt for the fact he was immortal and had the fleet to back him up, he would be dead or imprisoned for some of the things he has done. And a warning to you now: if you greatly anger him, nothing in this world or the next will save you from his wrath. Centuries of war has twisted him to the very core, and although i have yet to witness it myself, i have no doubt he would mercilessly slaughter those he despises." The holo-pad shut down with a pop, leaving Mars there to ponder what horrors the captain might have unleashed, and decided it was probably not a good idea to explore that chain of thought farther.
Xxxxxxxxxx
The Solar Sword's razor edge made the air sing as Richard swung it in a mock fight between him and Ganymede, Io, and Saturn. Saturn took a swipe at Richard's head with the Silence Glaive, and he ducked to avoid the weapon. He retaliated by hacking away at the staff weapon, putting Saturn on the defensive. Io and Ganymede jumped and swung their weapons at Richard's back, only to hit air as he did an ugly roll to the side. Richard jumped up and swung with all his strength at Io's neck. Io didn't get his stone knives up in time, and the Solar Sword bit into his neck. The blade didn't make it deep though, clattering off the impenetrable Tarydium armor now impregnated into Io's skin and skeletal structure. Io's knives, however, were in position to take a jab at Richard's groin, and they slid through the joint between his inner thigh and groin plate to nail him. He howled in agony and growled, "If that had been permanent I would have been VERY upset."
He was silenced a moment later by the Ice Sword digging into his spine and breaking off. Richard collapsed to the deck before shouting, "Enough! That is enough for today."
The others cheered at the captain's humiliation. He might have been the most powerful being when it came to raw power even in his reduced state, but when it comes to swordplay, it if he was outnumbered and wasn't paying attention, he could be quickly overwhelmed.
Richard howled as the ice shard embedded in his spine melted and turned into water, running across the deck. Mercury ran over to check the hole in his back and noticed it wasn't healing up like it should. Richard noticed that she had paused and grunted, "What, a chunk of the ice in there still?"
Mercury mentally flashed him an image of the hole, and at the same time, a surge of emotion and memory blew through the link. Richard acted like the extra information passing through the link didnt exist and grimaced. "Ow. It looks a lot worse than it feels. But why isn't it sealing itself up?"
Saturn peered at the hole as blood oozed slowly out of it. She touched the edges and the captain jumped, biting back a cry of pain, mainly because the edges of the hole were so raw from the ice. His body wasn't the most conductive thing to ice and water, and both at the same time made his flesh extremely sensitive to pain. A moment later and after a few muttered words, Saturn had sealed the hole and repaired the damage to the muscle underneath. Richard flexed his back and was pleased to see that the damage was not permanent, nor affecting his ability to move. A brief but intense burst of pain hit like a slegehammer, and he dropped to one knee as the pain flashed like fire throughout him. Saturn grabbed him to keep him from falling over, and after a moment, it was as if the pain was never there. Richard shook his head to clear it, stood up and, after thanking Saturn, went to the mess hall to pig out on more food. Sparring always had a habit of making him hungry, and now was no exception. But he couldn't help but think about why the hole in his back wouldn't automatically heal, and about the burst of thoughts that has passed between him and Mercury...
He shook himself out of his thoughts and focused on the upcoming task: Retrieving the Thunder Stone. The stone was bound to be heavily guarded, and he needed to keep his skills as a warrior fresh for when the time was needed, as well as regenerating the massive amount of raw energy lost in the massive explosion he set off several months previously. A quick check of his energy reserves revealed he was at around twenty percent his max theoretical capacity, but it refused to recharge any higher. "Thats odd..." He thought, "It should be triple that, and I should have more than enough for my higher end attacks and defenses."
Solaris' crystal flared as he spoke. "When i was appointed your guardian, i had 'rewired' your powers so they would focus themselves though this crystal. The main advantage of that is i can amplify your attacks to many times their normal strength. Problem with doing that is your energy capacity is now limited by the crystal itself, and until it is repaired in full you will not be seeing your full strength.
Richard pulled the stone out and examined it. Running the length of it was a large crack, and the stone dimly glowed. "Well, guess someone higher up doesnt like me that much."
As he passed into the mess hall, a whisper made him snap his head to the right. He saw nothing, but when he turned his head back to the direction he was going, there was the shuttle commander, fury covering his face and a big bucket of liquid nitrogen in his hands. Richard began to draw his sword, but the wound in his back exploded in pain, and he had just enough time to see all thirty gallons of nitrogen drench him. He managed to flash a single, garbled message to Pluto saying that the commander has just frozen him solid with liquid nitrogen. The the freezing was complete, and he became a human icicle. The commander drew his service pistol and checked the chamber for a loaded round, and let the slide snap back into position when he found what he needed inside. As he did so, the commander said, " I dont give a shit whether you are their protectors or not, but its been months since we last got laid, and I cant wait a moment longer. You just keep getting in my way, so now enjoy your fate."
The bullet shattered the frozen captain into thousands of shards. The gravity failed a moment later, and the shards began to bounce around in the zero G. Silence fell, and then a few moments later all of the female Scouts screamed, for they had been pinned in the zero G and were being gagged and bound. Io, Ganymede, and Darien hear this and rushed to help them only to find that they were entirely gone. They both went looking for them on the vessel and made the gruesome discovery of Richard's remains floating around the mess hall. They found the control to restore gravity and set what was left of him on a low power burner to thaw him out.
As they waited, Solaris popped out of his crystal and tried to help, but the bloody pile of remains was too far gone for him to repair, especially with all the energy previously stored there dispersed from the captain getting blown apart.
Another scream prompted the men to abandon the captain and try to hunt the Scouts and the Andromedan crew down.
When they got to engineering, they found a simple object floating in the air: a square. As they watched, the square morphed into a cube, and then a weird object, which was almost like a cube within a cube, both cubes connected to each other by a line at each corner, with eight cells total.
"What is it?" Io asked. The figure began to shift and spin, changing its geometry with every twist and turn.
Ganymede paused and then his face lit up. "Its a tesseract!"
Darien looked confused. "Come again?"
"Its a tesseract, a hypercube in layman's terms. Its four-dimensional cube!"
Another scream echoed around the room, the floating tesseract being the source.
"Well I see no choice but to somehow get inside and get them out."
Io walked up to the twirling hypercube and touched one of its constituent lines. Ganymede ran forward, saying "Dont touch it jus..". As soon as Io's hand made contact, the hypercube expanded and engulfed all three of them before returning to its original size, swirling... swirling...
Xxxxxxxxxx
Richard's skull had finally managed to thaw itself out on the burner, and his shattered and beaten mind began to piece itself back together. After a few moments, he realized what had happened and tried to get out of the bowl that was on the burner. He managed to make it halfway up the sides, but slid back down to the bottom. After several tries, he snapped his jaw and mentally roared, "A little help would be appreciated if IT ISNT TOO MUCH TROUBLE!!!"
Solaris' crystal home flared, and the familiar red ring of light appeared above it. "What? Who's there?"
"Its me you lazy bastard! Get my head out of the bowl so I can piece myself back together."
Solaris contemplated the situation, and then just started laughing.
"Get me OUT DAMNIT!"
But this just prompted Solaris to laugh harder.
Richard's head rammed the edge of the bowl in a attempt to get out, and was rewarded by the bowl going sailing through the low G before crashing against the wall. Richard's head bounced out with a wet splat and rolled around before coming to a stop. Richard's now thawed body slowly but surely began to piece itself back together, and soon his head was back on top of his neck where it belonged.
Richard grabbed Solaris' crystal and ran for engineering, knowing that he had maybe thirty seconds to stop the Andromedan crew before it was too late.
As he burst into engineering he saw the floating tesseract and knew that the Andromedans weren't the pushovers he used to know them as anymore. He ran up to the cube, and jumped into its swirling embrace. Once more, the hypercube expanded, engulfed him, and sent him to a twisted dimension that made hell look tame.