HOMEWORLD2: WRATH OF THE GODS
CHAPTER 7: SURPRISE
Long ago, you returned from Exile.
But now, fate will not be so kind.
Your enemies thirst for victory.
Your struggles have only just begun.
- Bentusi Prophecy
Onboard the Exile, the Great Beyond:
Kiir Sjet awoke with a start. Klaxons were blaring throughout the ship, and he could hear frenzied footsteps in the corridor outside his room.
What was going on? Had they been discovered by the Bentusi fleet at last?
Kiir wasted no time in getting to the bridge. No sooner had he stepped in was he greeted by sheer chaos. Officers were dashing around giving panicky sensor reports, while coordinators were updating Commander Hyll on the status of their ships. Kiir looked to Hyll for enlightenment, but found none. One glance at a console screen told him everything. Several hyperspace signatures had been picked up a few kilometres from their position, and they were clearly Bentusi ships!
Interceptors were already sweeping in to confront the enemy vessels, backed up by several squadrons of pulsar gunships. In the rear, a dozen ion frigates moved into formation to provide heavy firepower support for the strike craft. Any remaining flak and torpedo frigates stayed back to defend the Exile. As the ships advanced on the Bentusi fleet, Commander Hyll knew that this act of defiance would be in vain.
"All ships, let's show them that we Hiigarans don't go down without a fight!" he yelled with all his might. The bridge and the rest of the fleet cheered in response.
It was then that the interceptors got within visual range of the Bentusi vessels. The pilots stared in amazement, then screamed at the rest of the fleet to abort the attack. Almost instantaneously, the rest of the strike craft armada broke off and swerved away from their targets. Commander Hyll thought that he was witnessing an act of cowardice, and screamed at the pilots to explain themselves. It was then that a deep familiar voice boomed across all their comm frequencies.
"Hiigaran vessels, cease your hostilities. The nebula deceives your sensors."
"… What's going on?" Commander Hyll didn't know what to make of this.
"We are the Bentusi that fled from your Galaxy not so long ago."
"You mean… you're on our side? But how did you manage to find us here?"
"All that moves is easily heard in the Void. From your pre-emptive strike, we gather that you have encountered our lost kindred."
"You're referring to the infected Bentusi fleet right? What happened exactly?"
"The story is a long one, but we shall try our best to explain it to you."
Everyone onboard the Exile stared in wonder as the Bentusi ships approached and faded into view. Seven great tradeships escorted by an armada of Super Acolytes and Bentusi ion frigates, they dwarfed the Exile and her fleet.
When the Devourer spread like a plague across the Galaxy, the loss of a tradeship sent waves of panic throughout our entire race. For the first time in countless orbits, we feared.
The Devourer binds us to our ships in a state that is no less than eternal slavery. Anxious to escape such a fate, many of our kind decided to flee to another galaxy. This was opposed by our Elders onboard the Harbour Ship, and they decided to stay on to continue guiding the Hiigarans.
With the completion of the jump gate, no fewer than forty tradeships went through to the Other Side. The escape attempt by the remaining vessels, or so we heard, was thwarted by your Somtaaw kiithid. Perhaps that was for the better.
Our attempts in surveying the new galaxy ended in the discovery of a horror – a surviving band of Progenitors. They were entirely consumed in their quest to obtain the Three Cores. On seeing that we had come from that galaxy, they demanded for us to construct a jump gate with the coordinates pertinent to their conquest. We refused, and faced the consequences.
The Progenitors attacked us mercilessly. Their capabilities far exceeded ours but still, we defended ourselves. In the chaos, the Progenitors unleashed a techno-organic entity very much like the Devourer we all encountered before. Unfortunately, this new entity was far more lethal than the Devourer. It spread so quickly that many of our tradeships were unable to self-destruct in time.
In the end, our fleet was decimated either by their firepower or the infection. These seven tradeships escaped only by virtue of the advent of an energy storm phenomenon that disabled the Progenitor inhibitors long enough for us to make a hyperspace escape.
We estimate that at least twenty tradeships fell to the infection. We have since been on the run, hiding in places provided naturally by the Void, like this very nebula you are in.
Commander Hyll and Kiir Sjet listened with great interest, as well as the rest of the fleet. The Bentusi had certainly gone through terrible things.
"Now our story is done. May we enquire as to why you came to this place?"
"Well… it all started with an exploration mission of the Eye of Aaraan…" started Hyll.
"The Eye of Aaraan! Do you mean to say that you have opened the Eye?"
"Erm, yes. Karan Sjet opened it when she united the Three Cores to defeat the Vaygr."
"This is madness! Do you know that by doing so, you have effectively shown the Progenitors the way to the galaxy!"
"How? What do you mean?"
"Activating the Eye using the power of the Three Cores will not go unnoticed. In fact, this will explain the massive quantum waveform disturbance we picked up about one year ago. We were ignorant of the significance of the phenomenon at the time, but it is for certain that the Progenitors will home in on that gate and use it as a jump point to reach your galaxy!"
"But then, the Gate can't be opened without prior clearance from the central Eye of Aaraan! Only Karan has the power to open gates in the network!"
"You are most unclever for bound persona. Has it not occurred to you that the Progenitors were the ones who built the gate network? Would they not therefore have the means to open their own creation if given the chance!"
Hyll went silent at the startling facts he was receiving from the ancient race. Then he suddenly recalled Gate 112A – it had closed for no apparent reason and then infected Bentusi had just hypered in on top of them. Surely the Progenitors hadn't launched their assault so quickly? What would happen to the Galaxy, and most importantly, Hiigara?
Onboard the Sajuuk, outskirts of Tanis ruins:
Karan Sjet opened her eyes in agony. Her thoughts were bleeding and her mind was in tatters. She was being bombarded by data from every angle, and each packet of information tore at her like a pneumatic drill. She could vaguely see the shapes and shadows of the emergency medic team that was pumping her full of fluids and drugs to stabilise her condition.
Despite all the pain, she sensed something different about the Sajuuk. With the last bits of whatever mental strength she could muster, she focused to see what the problem was. To her shock, the Trinity had shattered, and the Three were no longer acting as one. Now Sajuuk was just a derelict ship drifting helplessly in space.
Karan tried to stabilise the Three Cores and force them together like she did before. However, the strain was too great and unconsciousness gripped her once again.
Onboard the Paaura, outskirts of Tanis ruins:
General Qwaar was thankful that their hyperspace jump had gone uninterrupted. Now the Somtaaw fleet was racing at full speed towards the crippled Progenitor ship.
"Attention Sajuuk! This is General Qwaar of the Somtaaw Command Ship Paaura! We picked up your hyperspace signature and are proceeding to your coordinates! Do you require any assistance?"
"Paaura? Thank goodness Tanis Base picked us up! Karan's drifting in and out of consciousness right now, we've lost Trinity stability and all systems control!"
"We'll send over a repair team ASAP and cover you while Karan recovers. What happened to her?"
"We're still a bit fuzzy on the details, but it seems like she had a powerful psychic encounter with something while in hyperspace transit. We're sitting ducks out here without her conscious control, so your fleet's coverage is greatly appreciated!"
"Don't worry, we'll protect the Sajuuk-Khar with our lives!"
Alas, Sajuuk's abrupt hyperspace exit had not gone unnoticed. The Paaura's sensors began picking up hyperspace signatures all around the legendary ship.
"General! Turanic Raider and Imperialist ships coming out of hyperspace around the Sajuuk!"
"Those pirate scum are fast… What are we looking at here?"
"It's substantial – Twenty ion array frigates backed up by three Lord attack carriers. We're also detecting two Imperialist battlecruisers and five heavy destroyers!"
The Imperialist heavy destroyer was the exact same ship that the Legacy of Kharak had encountered in the Coruc-Tel System. Another new ship design by joint Imperial and Raider researchers, this ship was equipped with four heavy mass drivers and its entire chassis was wrapped around a small energy burst cannon. Regrettably, General Qwaar had yet to receive any information on the power of the energy burst cannons.
As the Somtaaw fleet launched its squadrons of old generation acolytes to provide fighter cover for its twenty Dervish II multibeam frigates and six Gospel-class heavy dreadnoughts, the two Imperialist battlecruisers turned to face the advancing fleet, charging their energy burst cannons. Meanwhile, the ion array frigates proceeded to surround the Sajuuk while the Rogue-class boarding corvettes moved to dock with the ship.
It was then that the two battlecruisers fired their energy burst cannons, raining their destructive energy beams across the Somtaaw fleet. Many of the Dervishes managed to evade the beams, and many didn't. General Qwaar watched in horror as hundreds of his kiithid perished when seven frigates were torn apart by the beams. The second salvo came when the five heavy destroyers let loose their lesser versions of the energy burst cannons, this time targeting the Paaura and the heavy dreadnoughts. The command ship shuddered under the impacts and Qwaar held onto a computer console for support.
"Damage report!"
"Moderate outer hull damage to Hangar Module and outer hull breaches across several decks. Thankfully there's been no inner hull damage thus far. Repair crews are working on them now."
"Update me on fleet status and Sajuuk!"
"We've lost seven multibeam frigates, two of the remaining frigates are critically damaged and returning to dock. We have fifty-three acolytes left of our initial seventy, and the heavy dreads report minor to moderate damage. Sajuuk is not looking good – the Raiders are going to board them!"
"All Dervishes, switch to focused ion mode and target the destroyers, use full evasive manoeuvres! All Gospels, focus fire on the battlecruisers – take them out ASAP! All fighters, primary targets are the boarding corvettes and any other strike craft! Helm, take us full speed ahead to the carriers and ion arrays, we'll blast them with our point defence systems!"
With that, the Somtaaw fleet leapt into the thick of battle. The Dervish IIs were a marked improvement over their predecessors. They not only had slightly improved ion beams firing from all five turrets, they also had the ability to focus energy into a single turret, allowing for a strong ion beam comparable to a standard ion frigate's to be fired at the desired target from any one turret. This let the frigates dodge the mass drivers of the heavy destroyers while maintaining optimal fire on them.
The heavy dreadnoughts screamed into battle, blasting the battlecruisers with their twin dual heavy ion cannons and missile launchers. They were in turn raked by the crimson ion beams of the battlecruisers as the Imperialists fired back. The acolytes were already engaged in dogfights with the Raider interceptors and corvettes, trying their best to eliminate the boarding corvettes that were swarming the Sajuuk.
Onboard the Sajuuk, hand to hand battles had erupted. A few corvettes had managed to drill through and plant their crack teams in the ship. Now the crews of the Sajuuk fought to prevent the Raiders from taking over the ship and reaching the Sajuuk-Khar's computerised cubicle.
As the Paaura came within firing range of the carriers and ion array frigates, it received the full brunt of the ships' ion beam attacks, suffering gashes across its Hangar module and frontal sections. General Qwaar yelled an order and the command ship's heavy pulse cannons came online, blasting back at the Raiders with pulses of contained energy and plasma. Qwaar would have used the Siege Cannon in normal circumstances, but he doubted if the Sajuuk and his fleet could withstand a firing at such close range.
As a battlecruiser erupted in a flash of light, Qwaar cheered along with the rest of the bridge. But their euphoria was not to last. The Paaura began to pick up even more hyperspace signatures. Another Turanic Raider fleet was coming out of hyperspace to surround them!
"This could be very bad…" Qwaar muttered.
Onboard the Sajuuk:
Karan regained consciousness again, becoming aware of the battles around and onboard her ship. She was still in great mental pain, but she knew that something had to be done to assist the fleet of the Somtaaw. Karan sensed the approaching presence of Yuno, but was dismayed that their fleet would fall short by a few light years. She focused again, trying to obtain the power of at least one Core… and did it! With that, Karan fainted once more.
Onboard the Legacy of Kharak, hyperspace transit:
"Emergency alert! Hyperdrive malfunction! The quantum waveform is overloading!"
"Crap, Yuno what happened!"
"Cause unknown. We received a massive surge in quantum waveform energy moments ago from an external source. I am attempting safety interrupt, but we're jumping on that external source's power now. Our hyper speed has also increased significantly!"
"Any changes to our destination?" Eefrit was worried by this unexpected development.
"Yes, it seems we have been redirected on a course for the outskirts of the Tanis ruins… Alert! We are exiting hyperspace, repeat, we are exiting hyperspace!"
"Admiral Eefrit to all ships, stand by for emergency hyperspace exit! Full alert!"
Then it suddenly dawned on Eefrit what was going on. He quickly relayed a new set of orders to the fleet.
"People, I think Karan just gave us a hyper jump on steroids. All ships, stand by to protect the Sajuuk!"
Onboard the Paaura, outskirts of Tanis ruins:
"Sir! You're not going to believe this, but another fleet is coming out of hyperspace right below us!"
"Dammit, we're being overwhelmed! Helm, get a message to Engineering to activate hyperspace module. All ships, run Sync Jump Algorithms now to jump the Sajuuk out of danger! We may perish, but Karan must be protected at all costs!"
"That won't be necessary, Qwaar."
"This voice… Eefrit!"
General Qwaar looked at the viewscreens and watched in relief as the Mothership Legacy of Kharak exited hyperspace along with her fleet.
"Looks like we arrived just in time. Sending everything we've got to cover your fleet and Sajuuk!"
"Many thanks, Eefrit! How did you get to us?"
"Honestly, we couldn't have gotten here had Karan not given a little "divine intervention" with a Core's jump power. All ships, engage and destroy all hostiles!"
Onboard the Gatekeeper of Sajuuk, Kadesh nebula:
Their plan had worked. Hypering into the nebula had covered their tracks, as their long range sensors indicated. The red dots had exited hyperspace at the coordinates they had just fled from, and hyperspaced to another location instead.
Engineers raced against time to complete repairs to the Gatekeeper while sensor crews struggled to recalibrate the sensors to suit the environment of the Kadesh nebula. A century ago, the Mothership's sensors had gone haywire in such a rich and energetic region. Now, they were still facing the same problems.
It had been peaceful for a few hours now, with no mad "Protector of the Garden" rushing out to declare them "defilers". Captain Soban was relieved as this meant that he and his crews could finally get a much-needed rest after all those hectic battles and encounters.
And so, the Dreadnaught drifted on silently through the beautiful expanse of the nebula.
Onboard the Progenitor World Crusher Oblivion, the Great Beyond:
The room was dark as hell, and robed figures moved around silently in the shadows. Various holograph projectors displayed the status of their invasion fleet. Having passed through Gate 112A successfully, the recon fleets were now scattering throughout the target galaxy, scanning for the location of Sajuuk. Already, stunning victory had been achieved at the exit point of the gate, with no casualties. The only disturbance was the defeat of the recon squadron dispatched to the Coruc-Tel System.
At this point, the shadows were pierced by rays of light as a grand door swung open, revealing the leader of the mighty force. The other Progenitor crews bowed down in a mark of respect. He walked slowly down to his computer console, his black robes trailing behind him. He sat down slowly, and looked at the projector screens with cold eyes.
"I trust the invasion is going well."
"Yes, your Greatness. Our psychics report that they have successfully made contact with the Sajuuk."
"The Sajuuk? Operational? Interesting… What of the controller of the Sajuuk?"
"Her name is Karan Sjet. She managed to evade the full force of their telepathic assault, but we believe the mental effort would have crippled her."
"Astounding, for a mysterious woman like her to evade the best psychics in our fleet. She would be a marvellous Unbound pilot to us, but alas, she must be removed. Has the exit point been secured?"
"Why of course. We can advance the main fleet to the galaxy at any time you desire."
"Very well then. Give the order for the main fleet to push on to the so-called Realm of Sajuuk. We shall show those pitiful races the true power of this… World Crusher."
The Progenitor fleet leapt to hyperspace, the last to jump being the colossal World Crusher ship. Thrice the size of the Karos Foundry Ship, it was wrapped around a massive cannon with the power to extinguish stars and shatter planets.
This was the feared Quantum Pulse Cannon, and it was this very cannon that sent the Progenitor homeworld to dust.
The leader caught a glimpse of Karan's homeworld, Hiigara, on his holographic display. He regarded it with interest, then burst into laughter as his ship completed the entry into hyperspace.