Chapter 4

It had been three days since their arrival and the crews were beginning to settle into their new home. The pilots were in the mess hall getting some much needed nourishment after their long morning of physical training. Kayjan was sitting at the end of one of the long tables and was forcing himself to eat. He felt quite sick with all the thoughts on his mind. His mind was a twisted plain of darkness now. At least that's how he felt. He knew that the war was drawing closer with every moment. It would be roughly five months now before it all began. He was not sleeping. He couldn't with all the worries on his mind. He was thinking about the visions again. He also had another worry on his mind. Despite his inability to see how people felt about him, he had become an expert on foreseeing relationships between other people, at watching life from afar. Niaba and Diego were now regularly together. He could only watch from a distance as their relationship moved from a professional to a personal one. They were becoming closer with every passing day and Kayjan felt himself slipping further away from Niaba than he had ever been. The only thing he could tell himself was that at least it wasn't turning out like last time. He blamed himself once again for not being good enough to gain her love. It always turned out the same way he used to tell himself. Everyday he was just waiting for a miracle to happen and for them to be put together. He believed that because he had already tried once to impress her and failed that he just had to wait for fate to put him in position where he could talk to her again. As if it had never happened.

Meanwhile, talk inside the mess hall was loud and constant. Pilots were either soaking up the surprisingly good food on offer, were gossiping merrily about nothing in particular or were sharing jokes between one another. There were two men who stood out from this. They seemed to be whispering between themselves. They were talking about Particle Fusion accelerators and about certain members of the Mothership's crew, especially those who were of high rank. It seemed that they were just a pair of gossips, because their conversation focused on facts such as what sugar the Captains took in their coffees and which support staff were friendly with each other. Another then came over with a tray and sat alongside them.

"Hey," he began, "I just came from talking to them on the far table. That Diego and them over there. I heard from him that the Hyperspace core they're powering the Mothership with is the same as the one that brought the original Mothership to Hiigara. Isn't that interesting?"

"That's nothing D," replied one of the other two, "I hear that there's a Marine Frigate arriving tomorrow to transfer the so called 'Fleet Command' into the Control Room."

"Is fleet command a super computer or something?" said the last one in a whisper.

"No you flid, it's some kind of power core, at least I think."

"It can't be," spoke up the one with the tray, "This 'Fleet Command' brought the Hiigarans home thousands of years ago. It can't be a power cell.

"Then what do you suggest it is huh?"

"I don't know. Maybe you should stop surveying the crews' coffees and..."

"What do you mean brought them here?" asked the second man who seemed young and slightly spaced out as to what was being discussed around him. The other two looked at him stupid for a moment.

"What do you mean what do you mean?"

"How did this 'Fleet Command' bring them back to Hiigara?"

"Well it plotted their course didn't it?"

"I'm not sure," replied the young man scratching his head.

"No, it must have been used to control the Mothership's subsystems," said the third person.

"Well what does it look like?" asked the young man.

"I don't know. It's probably just a huge computer system with buttons and stuff."

"Then why have I heard it referred to as her by the support staff."

"Maybe the designers christened it female, I don't' know."

"It will have to be a large thing though."

"Why do you say that," asked the other two.

"Well, I brought them here didn't it after such a long journey. How far was it? Three thousand or four thousand light years?"

"Thirty thousand," came a voice from the end of the table. All three of them looked over and saw Kayjan sitting, leaning back on his chair with his feet up on the table staring at them. He had a kind of dark aura around him with the pose he had taken and with how the shadows of the light hung over his eyes.

"Sorry?" asked the third man, looking at him with a confused look.

"The journey was thirty thousand light years." The three men looked at each other for a second and then back at him.

"What else do you know? Asked the third man.

"You mean you don't know the story?" The three men looked at each other quickly and said, "Well, no." Come over here and explain it to us then." Kayjan picked up his chair and moved to sit with them. As Kayjan sat down the third man put his hand out to shake.

"My name's Demetrius", he said as Kayjan shook his hand "and these are Jericho," he pointed to the first man "and Sarandon, he said as he pointed to the youngest man.

"What's your name?" asked Sarandon.

Kayjan replied. "My name's Kayjan."

"Your friendly with them from Alpha squadron aren't you?" asked Jericho.

"Well, I'm part of Alpha squadron yes, as for relationship wise I guess I know them."

"So what about this story then?" asked Demetrius.

"You do know that this is a long story don't you?"

"I guess," replied Demetrius.

"Well then," began Kayjan. "We live in a spiral galaxy right?" he said as he illustrated with his finger on the table. "In the centre is the galactic core, which resonates all the light and heat for our galaxy to support life. That's why our solar systems have only small, young suns. Now, spiralling out from that is what are described as two arms. These are two long belts of suns, planets and moons that spiral outwards to the edges of our galaxy. About ten thousand years ago, the Bentusi, the great far seers and intergalactic traders, discovered what has become known as 'The great Hyperspace core.' This opened the way for Interstellar travel and soon the Outer Rim trade routes were created.

Now a few millennia after that, our people were stranded on a barren, desert-like world near the end of the left most arm of our galaxy. This world was Karak and was what we believed to be our home. For three thousand years we fought the elements for survival. On many occasions, the Kiith clans fought each other over land and resources in order to survive. It was difficult to survive since useful materials and habitable areas were few and far between. Eventually, these Kiith skirmishes turned into full-blown wars as death and destruction ran rampant. This later became known as the Heresy wars. It wasn't until Kiith Nabaal, who had isolated themselves from these three hundred years of war, arose from their hidden city of Tiir and brought the technology of explosives, steam power and refining into the world with such unimaginable strength. They quickly routed every army they encountered and liberated village after village, city after city until their armies stood unmatched anywhere in the world. Within three years they ended the heresy wars and asked only of their defeated, an end to the blood-shed. After that, the capital of Tiir was established in the Northern polar region and our people colonised this land as much as was possible. The Daiamid were also established as a governing body to discuss and solve problems civilly on our world." By now Kayjan could see by the look on the three men's faces that he had grabbed their attention.

"Despite the limited land and resources, our people prospered on this world. Even though this planet was nearing the end of it's life cycle, we still survived as best we could, where we could.

Now, onto the real story at hand. Since the end of the Heresy wars, science and discovery became more common practise and focus was turned to the understanding of our galaxy. It was discovered that, excluding a variety of bacteria and a single species of small foraging creatures, our bodily helix was entirely different to that of any other form of life on our planet. Many scholars however, deemed this evidence intriguing, but inconclusive and believed that no theories could be based upon it. The question of whether we belonged on Karak had only ever been truly adopted by priests and heretics. This evidence however, for many to begin to seriously consider that they didn't belong to Karak. This though, did not give them any clear answers as to their past on this world.

The next hardened evidence came from our people's early space flights. A small belt of debris was reported to be circling the planet and when samples of no more than a hand span were brought back to the surface. They were found to be of a manufactured form of a metallurgic compound. What was more unusual was the metal was discovered to have been put through intense atmospheric pressuring and was of a strange molecular complexity. After intense study, the metal was found to be to contain complex isotopes unknown to Karak and in fact, anywhere else in the Solar System. But this evidence only suggested that an alien vessel had once orbited our planet. This did however advance our understanding about metallurgy and within a few years our technologies were on the verge of greatness as we took more and more steps into the future. Then, just as we were preparing to advance further into our understanding of the galaxy, our eyes were turned back down to the surface."

Until this time, Kayjan hadn't realised that he had begun to draw in a crowd of curious listeners. He looked around quickly to find that about another six or seven people were listening in.

"Go on," said Demetrius with an intrigued look on his face.

"Well," began Kayjan again, "in the year1106, a satellite was sent into orbit around our world with the mission of detecting other debris belts and space resources in and around our solar system. However, a malfunction in deployment and numerous attempts to correct the problem lead to the satellite pointing downwards toward the planet. While many on the program were focused solely on correcting the problem, amidst the chaos a scientist called Leykab Jaraci was monitoring the readings being produced by the craft and noticed a strong signal being picked up from the surface when there should not have been. It was believed to be some sort of ancient city, centred around a large metallic object partially buried beneath 75 metres of sand.

It took four years, but eventually enough scientists and scholars were convinced to allocate resources to a project to excavate the site. This team eventually crossed the great desert and found an ancient city, founded long before recorded history, built there. More astonishing was the large metallic object in the centre of the city. It was huge and skeletal with all that remained of it being a few worn down support beams. Eventually, it was discovered to be the outer chassis of a vessel far advanced from what we could produce. Only a few scribbled words and diagrams could be deciphered from the remains of the hull. From these the archaeologists discovered the vessel's name...The Khar-Toba.

Very little could be recovered from the ship or the city, but there was found to be a large labyrinth of tunnels underneath the surface. After following these tunnels and recovering small artefacts from different chambers, large underground bunker was found and after opening it a large power plant, grand in scale, was discovered. This was believed to be the ultimate discovery as it was intact had a device of a design unknown to any attached to it. The power plant, and many of the members of the team, returned to Tiir with news of a miraculous machine that was discovered from an ancient wreck. This was then back engineered over a decade and was discovered to be a space folding hyperspace Module. We now know this to be 'The Second Core.' It was deemed the greatest discover of the site and as scholars and governors began to imagine the untold possibilities this machine could bring, the Khar-Toba was forgotten.

Over many years a hand-full of scientists who remained at the site continued to work through sandstorms and hurricanes, as they stayed dedicated to discovering the origins of this ancient site. Accident after accident and storm after storm took their toll on the morale of this team until their young leader, a woman by the name of Mevath Sagald, was left to excavate the site single-handed. However, when she finally managed to pry open the doors to the inner most chamber of the ancient city, she discovered something that both shocked and amazed her. She knew that her discovery would far surpass the importance of any other that had been made before it. She knew that it was the most important discovery in our history.

Upon return to Tiir, Mevath burst open the doors of the Daiamid council chamber, interrupting a discussion, to show them her discovery. She held in her hand a finely carved black stone. It's surface had been slightly eroded over the thousands of years it had been locked away and the message it once read had long since been erased, but in it's centre was etched a small, neat diagram of our spiral galaxy. It also had points plotted on it; one on the furthest reaches of the galaxy and one near the galactic core. She explained that she had discovered that the point plotted on the end of the line was that of there current location, of Karak, but what was most amazing was what was on the other end of the line. The line lead to a small, round circle located around a dot near the centre of the galaxy. Alongside it was a pair of what appeared to coordinates, indicating where this particular point was located. Then Mevath spoke of what she had discovered etched underneath this diagram. A single word that had remained at the base of the stone, untouched for millennia. It of the ancient clan dialect and when translated lead to a word that would forever alter history,

Hiigara...Home."

Kayjan could tell by the look on the faces of the people listening that he had struck the right cord in their minds. He had waited throughout the whole conversation, built up all that suspense, just to utter those few simple words.

"From then on, all our race was set on the sole purpose of creating the means reaching our destination... and to actually carry out this task. To discover and reclaim our Homeworld. The of course you know that the Taiidan empire destroyed Karak and the survivors of our race had to flee with the Mothership into space. Then, once we waged a guerrilla war against them, we faced them off in orbit, above the Homeworld in the final battle. That's where one of my ancestors died. Gerath Soban, leader of the Black Falcon squadron. That's where he sacrificed his own life for our people. Where the Taiidan emperor fell. He was destroyed along with his Mothership and peace was finally brought back to the galaxy in which they ruled. Our people achieved their goal and we finally, the Homeworld was ours." Kayjan then left a dramatic pause before saying "And that's it. That's the whole story."

Jericho then said loudly in a sarcastic voice "Whew, that's it? I thought it was going to be long!" Everyone laughed and even though Kayjan didn't find it particularly funny he still joined in as to not look offended.

"How do you know all this?" asked Sarandon.

"I'm fascinated with history, and the nature of our people. I prefer to go beyond what I learnt in my schooling. I'm also interested in religious beliefs. I know all about the legends of Sajuuk and about the stories of his awakening. Except it has never been explained how he can be awakened. I do know the story of the Hyperspace cores though, except I doubt there is a third core out there somewhere. It would have been discovered by now it existed."

"So do you know anything about what this 'Fleet Command' is?" asked Demetrius.

"No. I don't know what Fleet Command is. That's been kept classified since the return from exile."

The crowd gathered around began to disperse when Demetrius spoke up, "Well Kayjan, I'll tell you what. We're having a little get together over our place later. Some others have already been invited and why don't you come along?"

"Well... Okay then," said Kayjan with a slightly weary tone. Kayjan had been weary of parties since 'The incident' with Niaba. Kayjan tried to shut the though out of his mind and Demetrius said "Great, we'll see you there then. Its room 453 on deck G, Starboard quarters.

"O.K. then," said Kayjan. The three of them took their trays away and walked out of the mess hall. Kayjan then just sat there. He wondered what he was doing. Why was he going to this party? He barely knew these people, but, then again it may be fun, maybe he would enjoy himself. He had vowed to himself before that he would try to be more sociable, to try and become part of society again. He always felt so shy but he knew that he had to get over this if he was to become popular with other people.

There was one thing nagging on his mind though. All three of them had little black tattoos printed on the back of their necks. Like little black boxes with symbols inside. Were they some kind of mark of their friendship? Or were they something else?