HOMEWORLD2: WRATH OF THE GODS
CHAPTER 33: REWIND
"Behold, the Iron Grip. With this new weapon, we will complete the Genocide once and for all."
Imperial Taiidan archives
Onboard the Pride of Hiigara, Fields of Plaz:
"Faal Corum, do you read! Commander Eeraac, please come in!"
Yuno's desperate attempts to establish communications were met with silence. The plan had been going so well just moments ago. Then they had exited hyperspace and met the full force of a prepared War Moon fleet.
"By the Gods, Faal Corum, please come in! Faal Corum…"
"It's no use, Yuno," Eefrit spoke in a pained whisper, "Faal Corum is gone."
Yuno was on the verge of breaking down. Faal Corum was manned by thousands of Hiigarans, and home to the best astronavigational teams Hiigara had ever known. It had fought valiantly alongside the Kuun Lan since time immemorial, and now…
"… I don't understand… how could they have known… Faal Corum…"
"Yuno, pull yourself together, we've still got a battle to win here," Eefrit urged, feeling the Pride shake under the Taiidan onslaught.
There was no response.
"Yuno, please," Eefrit pleaded as he saw Yuno's hologram begin to flicker and fade, "Yuno, no!"
But it was too late. Yuno vanished from view and the command system shut down, throwing the fleet into chaos.
"Admiral, the fleet is reporting errors in the command registries! They can't recognise the Pride as the flagship any more!" an officer cried.
"By Sajuuk, Yuno, we need you! We need you now! Now is not the time to be doing this!" Eefrit yelled at the empty projector, "We need you back right now or this battle is lost!"
"Don't worry Eefrit, I'll take over," Karan's voice came in, "Karan to fleet, reroute command functions to the Sajuuk. The Sajuuk is now the flagship."
"Karan!" Eefrit exclaimed, "I don't know what's gotten over Yuno, she just…"
"She's probably blaming herself for the loss. I should know, I felt this way too when we lost a ship for the first time during the Homeworld War," Karan explained sadly, "We will mourn the Faal Corum another day. For now, we've only got five minutes before the War Moon uses the Gravity Core again. We need to work fast…"
"Admiral, we're picking up an incoming transmission from the War Moon!"
"Patch it through," Ecron snapped. A connection was quickly established.
"This is the Imperial Taiidan Battlestation Iron Grip. Filthy Hiigarans, we find it hard to comprehend how you managed to persuade the majority of the fleet to defect to your side. But that does not matter anyway. As we have demonstrated, the Iron Grip is more than a match for both fleets combined. Not even the Sajuuk can do a thing, for all we need do is press a button and…"
"Imperial fleet, we have our reasons for wanting your station," Karan interrupted, "The Galaxy and all that exist within it is under threat by the Neo-Beast and the ancient race known as the Mythra…"
"I'm sorry, Karan," the voice returned sarcastically, "That nonsense isn't going to work on us, so save your breath. Our terms are simple: hand over the Merciless and all Progenitor technology you have in your possession, and we will… delay the genocide for a few years."
"You know we can't do that," Karan responded.
"Then we'll just have to do it the old-fashioned way, Karan. Do you know how it feels like to have…"
"That's enough," Eefrit spoke, cutting the transmission, "Karan, they were trying to buy time. We've only got four minutes left."
"Don't worry, Kiir is powering up the distortion field. It should be coming online about now…"
The shudders ceased as the Koshiir Ra projected its extensive field of protection around the Alliance fleet. Now the Imperial forces couldn't touch them.
"Eefrit, Sajuuk may be the flagship now, but I'll leave fleet coordination to you. Is that fine?"
"No problem, Karan, I'll do what I can."
Karan cut the channel, and Eefrit turned to face the battlefield.
"Let's show these Imperials what we're made of! For Faal Corum!" he hollered.
Onboard the Sajuuk, Fields of Plaz:
Karan regarded the wreckage of the Faal Corum with tears in her eyes. She had not expected the Iron Grip's gravity weapon to be this powerful. If the Imperials had attacked Hiigara with the battlestation, there was no doubt that Sajuuk would have fallen along with the planet.
But now that Koshiir Ra was providing cover, the Imperials stood no chance.
Karan shut her eyes and focused fiercely on the task at hand. The Sajuuk obeyed and plunged forward into the Iron Grip's defence fleet like a dagger, point defence systems blazing. The Imperials returned fire, but their weapons were rendered useless by the Sajuuk's energy shielding.
It was a magnificent sight to behold. The Sajuuk manoeuvred deftly around the Imperial super capital ships, pumping fire into the enemy vessels that were struggling to get the Progenitor ship into their firing arcs. In a bid to avoid even more enemy fire, Karan would blink the Sajuuk in and out of hyperspace, taking the ship to where it was most needed.
In this manner, Karan took the Sajuuk deeper and deeper into the Imperial fleet. She didn't see a need to use the Phased Cannon Array at all, until…
… The Sajuuk rocked violently as it was raked by the heavy ion cannons of the Iron Grip. The shields held, but the salvo was more than enough warning that Iron Grip was no pushover.
Karan to fleet, Sajuuk is within firing range of the Iron Grip. I will attempt to distract the defence forces while the marines are sent in. Please provide suppressing fire as best as you can!
A collection of voices acknowledged the order in unison, and the Sajuuk was surrounded by flashes and bolts of fire raining away from the Alliance fleet. As the Imperial carriers were pounded by the onslaught, the Imperial forces began to break away to defend the rear and deal with the Sajuuk.
Another salvo of ion beams slammed into the Sajuuk, throwing the ship off centre slightly. Whatever those ion cannons were, they were definitely more powerful than the battlecruiser-class ions.
"Karan, are you all right?" Kiir's voice came in, "I saw the Sajuuk take a pretty bad beating, you sure you don't require a localised distortion field?"
"Don't worry Kiir, the Sajuuk's shields are holding fine," Karan replied, "Just keep those fields around the Alliance fleet."
"You know we have the additional shield power to do so… but never mind. Just a reminder, you've got two more minutes, so be prepared to scram when they're fully charged!"
"Got it Kiir, Karan out."
The transmission ended and Karan returned to the task at hand. Everything was going according to plan – the Imperials were so intent on crippling the Sajuuk that they now completely ignored the Alliance fleet. Marine frigates were now rushing in without risk of being fired at.
Now the Imperials' rear support, their carriers, were succumbing to the combined attack of the Sajuuk and the Alliance fleet, which now moved in to provide cover for the Marines and the Sajuuk. Hiigaran vessels clustered in and around the Imperial formations, turning the battlefield into one gigantic mess. Karan was pleased at this tactical deployment.
"Karan to Admiral Eefrit, that's some nice strategising you've got going there!" Karan complimented.
"Thanks Karan, now the Imperials can't use their gravity weapon without endangering their own ships too."
"That's good to hear. Just remember to keep the carriers and command vessels in the rear, there's no telling if…"
A sudden energy spike caught Karan's attention. Checking the Sajuuk's sensors, she was stunned to see the Iron Grip powering up for another attack. Eefrit noticed the approaching calamity as well.
"No way! Karan, they're going to use the weapon! Get out…" Eefrit trailed off.
The connection was lost as the Sajuuk was halted unceremoniously by a powerful gravitational field. Karan diverted more power to the drives, but the Sajuuk still could not break free. Alarms went off as the shields struggled to protect the ship from the sheer gravitational stress. Karan knew she was trapped – there was no way she could jump the Sajuuk away in time. She sighed and braced herself as the shields began to fail…
The Sajuuk rocked violently as another external force gripped it in a bid to free it from the field. Karan checked the sensors once more and saw the space surrounding the ship rippling vigorously in protest. Kiir had put up a localised field around the Sajuuk, and now it was the Koshiir Ra's distortion field against the Iron Grip's gravitational field.
"Karan, this is Kiir. Jump now!" Kiir spoke urgently, "The space time disruption is becoming too dangerous!"
Karan didn't need to be told twice. A mental thought told the Three Cores to pump every ounce of power they had into getting the Sajuuk away from the trap. Moments after the Sajuuk vanished into hyperspace, the region of space where the Sajuuk once was exploded in a shockwave of space and time.
As the Sajuuk emerged from hyperspace some distance away, Karan was amazed to see the result of the duel of fields. The fabric of space and time and been ripped asunder, and a large slipgate now shimmered brilliantly in the middle of the battlefield.
"Now that's something you don't get to see every day," Karan commented as she began targeting all sensors on the slipgate, "Kiir, you analysing the gate too?"
"I am, but remember we're still in a battle, so I may not have the resources for a complete scan."
"No problem. Hand the scans over to the Legacy, I think they can do it just as well from the rear."
It was then that alerts began to come from every sensor there was on the Sajuuk. The slipgate was apparently starting to build up a gravitational well of its own, and it was getting stronger with each passing moment. Already, several Imperial strike craft that had flown too close were getting sucked in by the unrelenting force.
"By Kharak, that slipgate is becoming unstable!" Karan cried, "Kiir, we must abort the mission immediately. Take us all to hyperspace!"
"No problem. Kiir to fleet, stand by for emergency hyperspace jump!"
Karan saw the hyperspace windows opening before every ship in the Alliance fleet. To her shock, the windows were immediately dragged away from the ships into the slipgate as streams of quantum energies. Instinctively, she powered up the Three Cores to assist the Grand Core, with the result that the additional hyperspace windows were sucked in as well.
"By Sajuuk, Karan, that slipgate is stealing all our quantum power! The Grand Core can't take us out!"
"The Three Cores are no good either, Kiir," Karan replied grimly, "Looks like we'll have to distance ourselves on conventional drives."
"That doesn't look like a viable option to me, Karan. If the sensors are to be trusted, the gravitational field will overwhelm even our conventional drives in…"
The Sajuuk shuddered violently as it lurched towards the slipgate. Karan was alarmed – for some reason, the slipgate was having a greater influence on the Sajuuk than the other ships. A few emergency scans confirmed the worst.
"Kiir, the slipgate probably has a greater pull on ships equipped with a hyperspace module. Sajuuk's getting drawn in first because the Three Cores are generating more quantum energy than standard hyperspace modules."
"Whatever, you need to get off the Sajuuk right now Karan! At the rate you're going, the ship'll hit the slipgate in two minutes!"
"No, it's too late for me," Karan replied, "Kiir, you need to get the Koshiir Ra and Grand Core away from here while you can, the pull on the rest of the fleet should have weakened now that the slipgate's got the Sajuuk."
"No way, Karan!" Kiir protested, "You're the leader of the Hiigaran people, there's no way we can jussttttt…"
The transmission broke up as the quantum energies began swirling around the Sajuuk, preventing any form of communication between the fleet and the trapped ship. Karan sighed and gazed at the view ahead.
The slipgate loomed in the distance, growing quickly as the Sajuuk accelerated towards it. Karan made an attempt to alter course by diverting every ounce of excess power there was to the main drives, but there was no escaping the field.
"Karan."
The voice came in suddenly again, but Karan was not surprised this time.
"Koshiir Ra? It looks like it's the end for me and the Sajuuk."
"It is not the end. Rather, it is the start of a journey, and I will accompany you temporarily in this odyssey."
"Journey? What do you mean?"
"I will make a few adjustments to the Sajuuk's Cores. You may pick up some anomalous readings, but do not be unduly worried."
Karan had no time to respond, for the slipgate was upon the legendary ship. Everything flared a brilliant blue as the Sajuuk's prow plunged into the portal, dazzling the entire battlefield in a display of lights.
"This is our story."
Onboard the Koshiir Ra, Fields of Plaz:
"You're the leader of the Hiigaran people, there's no way we can just leave you!"
Kiir swore when the computer beeped back at him, indicating that the transmission had been interrupted. He tried to save the Sajuuk by willing the Koshir Ra's field to drag the ship back, but to no avail. There was no way a stable distortion field could be sustained in the vicinity of such an unstable slipgate.
He could only watch helplessly as the Sajuuk plunged head-first into the portal, which lit up the entire battlefield as it swallowed its victim. For a few seconds, there was nothing on the battlefield but the blue light. Then it all dissipated as quickly as it had come, the slipgate flaring back to normal brightness as the space battle continued around it.
Kiir tore the neurohelmet off his head and rushed to the viewscreen, staring at the shimmering slipgate. Its gravitational pull had ceased, and the fleet was no longer in danger. However…
"Karan…" Kiir uttered.
Onboard the Sajuuk:
The sensors could not understand what was going on, and neither could Karan. It had been a full minute since the ship had entered the slipgate, and there were no signs of their journey ending anytime soon. The Voice of Koshiir Ra had since vanished, leaving Karan more puzzled than she ever was.
"Karan to Engineering, what's going on with the Hyperspace Cores?" Karan enquired, "Standard diagnostics can't seem to identify the problem."
"Sorry Karan, but we're stumped too," came the reply, "It seems like the Cores have added another quantum waveform frequency to the slipgate's waveform. They are showing no signs of shutting down, even though we've cut off all power."
"I see. Well, do what you can to deactivate the Cores. Abandoning the fleet in the middle of battle is definitely not good for morale."
"We'll do our best. Engineering out."
Karan returned her attention to the view before her. It was exactly the scene one saw during hyperspace transit – blue streaks of light shooting past the ship in elongated lines. But she could definitely feel something different about this particular jump.
"Koshiir Ra, what are you doing?" Karan asked aloud.
As if to answer her question, the Sajuuk fell out of hyperspace abruptly. Vibrations reverberated through the superstructure as the inertial dampers struggled to compensate for the sudden reversion to realspace.
Karan heaved a sigh of relief as the inertial dampers got a foothold and the Sajuuk ceased to shudder. Then she was promptly alarmed once more when the ship began shaking violently again. As the visual sensors finally locked on, Karan was surprised to see a fleet of ships firing on them.
They were all of Progenitor design.
Another impact brought Karan back to her senses. She remembered to raise the shields before the attacks could do any more damage.
"Koshiir Ra! What is going on?" Karan cried, hoping for some miracle now.
"Welcome to the past, Karan. This is where it ended and began – the Battle of Karos."
"The Battle of Karos!" Karan was dumbfounded, "I don't understand, how could we have travelled…"
"Only with an unstable slipgate is this procedure possible," Koshiir Ra replied, "An unstable slipgate has no fixed exit point, making it possible to influence the slipgate with external waveform events. All I did was use the Three Cores to make this a reality."
"Then how are we supposed to get back!"
"Do not let that bother you for the moment. Right now, it would be advisable to jump a safe distance away and observe the battle from afar."
Karan wasted no time taking Koshiir Ra's advice. In a matter of moments, she programmed the Three Cores to make an emergency jump to a fresh debris field some light years away. The Rebel squadron didn't appear to have tracked them, for they continued scouting the immediate vicinity on conventional drives.
"The debris field ought to hide us for a while," Karan commented, "Now why did you bring me here?"
"To show you how the Elders won this battle and were hence victorious in the War. The key to your Salvation is the same as theirs."
Karan powered up the long range sensors and was treated to an awesome sight. Tens of thousands of Progenitor frigates, Keepers and battlecruisers clashed in titanic fights to the finish. So many ion beams and phased beams slashed through space that the Sajuuk's sensors registered a substantial increase in the ambient temperature of space around the warring fleets. For every ship, Elder or Rebel, that met its end, a dozen swarmed forward to take its place.
"And that's only one flank…" Karan whispered, awe-struck beyond measure.
It was truly a battle to end all battles. The conflict stretched across the entire region of what Karan knew as the Karos Graveyard, which extended for hundreds of light years in nearly every direction. There were just so many ships, enough such that there would be a significant battle taking place every light year or so.
For the battle raging at the centre, there was no comparison. Karan had always wondered what could have been responsible for the massive hulks and derelicts that were found in the core of the Karos Graveyard. Some of the hulks were so large that they made mothership-class vessels look like strike craft alongside them. Now she knew.
Karan saw megaliths moving slowly among the smaller, faster mothership and battlecruiser-class vessels. Some were just slightly larger than the Pride of Hiigara, and some dwarfed even Balcora Gate. All were brimming with the most horrible weapons of destruction Karan could imagine.
The Phased Cannon weapons that Karan regarded as the most destructive forces in the known Galaxy were like mass drivers to the Progenitor forces. There were many more weapons that packed a punch far exceeding even the Gatekeeper's Phased Cannon Array. Some were focused energy weapons, others were missile weapons. All resulted in massive explosions that cleansed entire fleets.
"Do not worry. Those weapons could only be found on the megalith battleships. None of those ships, or their weapons, survived the battle."
"That is good to hear," Karan uttered, "Heaven knows what our enemies could do with such devices…"
The battle raged on, and it soon became evident that the final showdown was going to take place. Karan stretched the Sajuuk's sensors to their limits, zooming in on the two massive fleets gathered in the very centre. One had the Sajuuk at the lead, and the other…
"… That is the Oblivion!" Karan cried, "The Qwaar Jet! The ship with the power to destroy planets!"
"It was the most powerful weapon ever devised by our civilisation, planet destruction was not its true purpose."
"Then what was?" Karan asked, afraid of the answer.
"It was predicted that the Qwaar Jet, at full power, can wipe out entire star systems with its singularity generator."
"By the Gods…" Karan murmured, deciding to look back at the battle once more. Now the fleets were pumping whatever they had into each other, and explosions were nearly blinding the long range sensors.
The two ships remained motionless – the Sajuuk and Oblivion holding position in some interstellar standoff. Around the two ships, the fierce battle continued. There were mothership-class assault ships in their death throes, and megaliths burning brilliantly under the firestorm.
Then the Rebels, in a desperate attempt to turn the tables, used their trump card. The Oblivion advanced on the Elders' forces, which cowered from the mighty vessel. The Elders knew that the Oblivion could win the battle for the Rebels, even if they were outnumbered and at a strategic disadvantage.
Memories began flashing back as Karan saw the Oblivion bloom in space. Images of Hiigara shattering flashed into her mind, and she groaned from the psychological torment. To her gratitude, Koshiir Ra intervened, calming her nerves and stopping the images.
Sajuuk advanced as well, unafraid of the threat Oblivion was posing to their entire campaign. The brilliant blue energies were already building at the front of the Oblivion. Anytime now, the energies would burst forth…
… And burst forth they did in a shockwave whose magnitude was far greater than what was used in the destruction of Hiigara. The mighty wave would wipe out every last ship in the Elder fleet. There was no time to evade, no time to hyperspace…
Sajuuk stopped moving and glowed a brilliant vermillion, the fabric of space and time rippling around it as it pulled and bent space to its advantage. When the shockwave hit, the unimaginable happened. The wave stopped as though it had hit some invisible barrier, before curving around in a reflected attack on the Rebel fleet. Oblivion was scarcely able to put up an emergency distortion field before the shockwave hit.
Karan could not believe what she had just seen. How could the Three Cores alone possess that much power?
"The key lies not in the Cores themselves, but the Cores together," Koshiir Ra explained, "Do not be deceived by the power of the Grand Core – the Power of Three shall always exceed the power of One."
"But we've done extensive research on the Sajuuk and the Three Cores!" Karan rebutted, "It's well-known now that synchronising the Three Cores doesn't even come close to the Grand Core!"
"There is more to the Three Cores than synchronising them. Having the Three Cores operate as One takes more than mere synchronisation. In this case, Sajuuk himself was orchestrating the Three."
"Sajuuk?"
"Sajuuk was the master Progenitor who devised the Far Jumper. He was the one who devised the Sajuuk-class warship, laying the path for the future Qwaar Jet and Koshiir Ra models to be built. His discoveries brought many advances to Progenitor technology. He was also the only true Unbound in the Progenitor race."
"Unbound?"
"Sajuuk was truly one with his ship. He was thus able to use the Sajuuk warship to its fullest potential, wielding the Cores like a master swordman wielding his blade. It was he who led the Elders to victory in the Battle of Karos."
Karan was silent now, her mind trying to absorb all the new information Koshiir Ra had thrown at her. The great Battle of Karos, the true potential of Sajuuk, and the Progenitor Sajuuk himself…
"We have remained here long enough. We must return lest we disrupt the timeline. The consequences would be disastrous if we did."
Karan felt Koshiir Ra take over the ship, jumping the Sajuuk to where they had first entered the past. The Rebel fleet was still there, but they were fleeing now that the war was lost. She felt the Three Cores focusing their power into a single point in space, amplifying a spatial anomaly that Karan could barely feel.
The slipgate flared open, and the Sajuuk plunged back through the hole, back to its own time…
Onboard the Pride of Hiigara, Fields of Plaz:
"Admiral, our forces are gaining the upper hand," reported the sensors officer, "The Imperials are falling back, and some are escaping to hyperspace. Our marines have already disabled the Iron Grip's Gravity Core."
"That's one less thing to worry about now," Eefrit noted, "Eefrit to all ships, let's push through! We may have lost Karan and the Sajuuk, but we must win this battle to avenge them!"
Eefrit's words roused every Hiigaran in the fleet, and the channels erupted with roars of fury and determination. The Hiigaran fleet leapt forward, weapons blazing, while the Taiidan allies mopped up the rear. The Pride itself maintained position at the centre of the advancing Hiigaran fleet, protected from harm by Koshiir Ra's field.
Then, most unexpectedly, the slipgate flared up in a burst of activity once more.
"Sir, the slipgate has become active! Something's coming through!"
"Don't be too worried about the slipgate," commanded Eefrit, "If it's hostile, we'll deal with it in due time. All ships maintain safe distance from the slipgate!"
"Sensors are getting a lock… Admiral, it's the Sajuuk!"
"What!"
Eefrit glanced at the viewscreen, and saw the godly vessel exit in a flash of light. As the Sajuuk glided away from the slipgate, the portal of hyperspace began to flicker and fade, vanishing into the blackness of realspace.
"By Kharak, it's a miracle," Eefrit uttered.
Onboard the Sajuuk, Fields of Plaz:
"We have returned, Karan, and I must depart."
"Will we meet again?" Karan asked, still amazed by what Koshiir Ra had just shown her.
"I'm afraid we will not, Chosen of Sajuuk. Kiir's mastery of the Koshiir Ra has improved tremendously, and his contribution in this battle is proof of that."
"Wait, please don't tell me you're going to…"
"It is inevitable, and I will now follow the lead of Sajuuk."
"But Koshiir Ra, there is still so much I have to learn! Please stay!"
"There is nothing more I can show you, you have seen the full extent of my databanks. The rest is up to you, Chosen of Sajuuk."
"Koshiir Ra…"
"The journey to being Unbound is long and arduous, but you will reach the end of the journey soon enough. When that time comes, you will guide Kiir as I have guided you."
"… Thank you, Koshiir Ra."
"It was my duty, Chosen of Sajuuk. Well may you prosper, Karan. Farewell."
And the Voice vanished for the last time.