Homeworld: Armageddon
By Zachary Alan Hilburn
Note: I do not own the Homeworld copyright or anything, and the names that I came up with and some of the places are my original material, so lay off!
Prologue
Pain. The sensation was distant, unassuming. Pay no attention to it. Where am I? He searched his memory, and found nothing. Who am I? Think harder, before the pain returns. Sensation ripped through the mounting shock, right to the core of his soul. Piercing screams could be heard echoing throughout the ancient Dreadnaut, followed by cruel laughter and a harsh commanding voice that bellowed orders. The pain began to recede, as it sometimes did, and only then did he dare to open his eyes. He tried to open his eyes, and discovered that his right eye was glued shut with a warm, sticky seal, which was probably his own blood. A figure stepped out of the fog that obscured his vision. It spoke in a language that he could not understand, but it sounded oddly familiar. That's not right, he thought. He closed his one functioning eye tightly, then tried opening them again. The haze retreated a little bit, or was that an illusion? The figure, who was obscured mostly by the haze, plucked a wicked looking instrument off of a nearby rack that was secured onto a wall. The figure was wearing some kind of uniform, he noticed for the third time that week. He attempted to speak, but a sharp pain in his head made him cry out instead. He regained his focus, then tried again. This time, he got a sort of hoarse croak past his lips, which immediately attracted the officer's attention. It shouted something at him, then whacked him in the face with the instrument, and he saw stars whirling suddenly about his vision. He must have passed out, because a blaring alert sounded. Looking back at the incident, he decided that it must have been the ship's ancient proximity alarm, designed to alert the ship's crew of a collision with a large mass. The alert hurt his head, and he passed out again. The next thing he remembered was a different figure in black armor that seemed to suck the light out of the room, kicking the hastily constructed hatch inwards with a kick that seemed to make the whole ship vibrate. The armored figure wielded a wicked looking rifle, holding it down his line of sight, the faint light glinting off his gold tinted visor. The man yelled something in a language that sounded familiar to the prone man, yet he knew that he had never heard it before. The armored figure fired a shot straight into the enraged brigmaster, the purple, almost liquid like Ion bolt making his chest explode like an overripe melon, spattering the barren walls with gore. The armored man checked the prone man for weapons with a quick frisk, then unlatched the shackles that the prone man had just noticed around his limbs. Limbs? I can't feel anything below my neck... he thought after a pause. His rescuer's weapon lost it's purple glow after he shot the brigmaster, the strips of glassy substance held the Ion charge, and after about one seconds delay lit up again. The man swung his rifle over his shoulder, and locked it with a click pointing straight down onto the equipment pack on his backside. His face was unreadable due to the heavy tint of his faceplate, so the prone man was greatly surprised when armored arms grasped him, and threw him over his shoulder. The shock of that particular action made his head swim with vertigo. "Ugh!" he managed to grunt unintelligibly, at that moment the armored man did something that he knew that he should have expected, but that surprised him anyways. He began to run. The simple, jarring motion sped up over a brief interval, and the entire ordeal made him want to vomit, but he realized that in order to vomit, one must have something in his own stomach, of which he had nothing. The ship flashed by in a haze of vertigo and nausea, therefore he remembered very little of his journey to the Marine frigate that had cut it's way into one of the great Dreadnaut's access tunnels. He finally passed out about halfway to their destination when his rescuer jammed his limp form into the corner of a wall behind him, unslung his rifle, and proceeded to paste some unlucky Vaygr security guards in the corridor ahead. He woke again later, screaming, tied to a long, very light metal stretcher. Some small machines wired to his head monitored his physical status, and were designed to make sure he did not die. A needle automatically stabbed him in the thigh, and injected painkillers directly into his bloodstream to keep him out of shock. The pain receded once again, and he noticed an armored suit, which was white instead of the intense blackness of his rescuer, who was nowhere in sight. The white armor had a large red cross on the backside of it, along with a red cross patch on the front as well, and he relaxed. Somewhere deep in his damaged mind, he recognized the figure as a benefactor, and a friend. Calmer, he took some deep breaths and attempted to observe his surroundings. The, for lack of a better word, medic, had been drawing attention to more medics that were attending to others outside of the prone man's peripheral vision, and were talking excitedly in a language that he could not place. One of his eyes was still glued shut, he noticed with irritation. Oh well, he could still see. The corridor that he was lying in gave him an odd feeling of Deja-vu, the large corridors dully reflecting the glowtube light set wherever up was at the moment, as ships in space usually had to either create their own gravity with great energy expenditure, or do without. An explosion rocked the ship, felling like a small earthquake, which also resulted in dislocating several joints in his body. His last thought before he passed out yet again involved trying to explain his confusion as to what exactly an earthquake was.