The last chapter taking place on Marcadia platform.
A little information on future stories. i have decided to make triology and this story is the first. this story mainly focuses on the meeting. the next story focuses onrevaling the past. the third and final story focuses on the comming future. thats all the information i'm willing to give away now.
Chapter Four: The turn of the tide
If I determine the enemy's disposition of forces while I have no perceptible form, I can concentrate my forces while the enemy is fragmented. The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless: if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot discern it nor the wise make plans against it.
Sun Tzu, "The Art of War"
The great harbor platform MarcadiaHigh orbit over Antiaga 5
Karen and her team had just reached the hangar.
There they where met by the sight of two pirate boarding crafts that had landed inside the hangar.
Four pirates where escorting´ some Antiagan's towards one of the crafts.
Karen recognized them instantly. It was Sanders and AZ.
She nodded to Yoki and they both drew their weapons. Karen loaded a clip that emitted a calm blue glow into her gun while Yoki loaded a laser clip into her laser rifle. They both took aim and fired two shots each.
The pirates were dead even before they hit the ground.
They holstered their weapons and ran over to Sanders and AZ.
AZ smiled when they saw who had rescued them.
"Wow. That's what I call quadruple headshot." She said.
"Yes. But we must get to the old repair hangar under the station." Karen Interrupted.
"The repair hangar? But. Its only an old Kyloth there." Soren said confused.
"I know, but we don't have any choice." Karen replied.
They started to make their way down another corridor.
They were about to round a corner when a plasma blast hit the wall of the corridor.
Karen signaled the others to stop and briefly peeked around the corner.
She jerked back as another plasma blast nearly missed her head.
"What did you see?" Yoki and AZ asked in unison.
"Two Antiagan's are pinned behind some crates and are under fire from a gang of pirates." Karen replied.
"We must assist them." Yoki said as she drew her rifle.
"Yes. If we hurry we can get behind the crates before the pirates notice." Karen said.
The others nodded and prepared themselves to run.
They all flung themselves around the corner and run towards the crates.
The then skidded to a halt next to the two others, startling them.
"Whoa? Karen, why are you here?" one of them asked when he saw who it was.
"We're here to help." she said.
"Well, that's not going to be easy." The other one said, if you poke your around the corner on one of these crates, you would get fired upon by at least ten different types of plasma rifle."
"D'Arwit!" Karen swore.
But she then noticed the calm green glow that had started emitting from the pouch on his belt.
"What's that? A shock clip?" Karen asked.
"Huh?" he said as he looked down at the pouch.
"It's never done that before." He said.
"What?" Karen asked.
"This." he replied as he fished a small green sphere out of the pouch.
"Its beautiful." Yoki said. But Karen just stared at the little sphere.
"Where did you find that?" Karen asked.
"On Seltan IV a couple of years ago." the trooper said.
Karen snatched the ball and held it in front of the troopers face.
"Do you have any idea what this is?" She said as she shook the small sphere in front of the trooper's nose.
"No" he said confused.
"This is Materia, crystallized Mako." Karen said.
"But I thought those where just a myth." The trooper said.
"For from it." Karen said.
"But, no one here knows how to use it." The other trooper said.
"I wouldn't say that." Karen said as she looked down on the little green sphere, "I learned quite a few things while I was on the Discovery."
Karen took the little sphere in both hands and started to concentrate.
The sphere glowed more intense now. Karen closed her eyes as she let the energies flow through her body. The sphere then split up into two parts that transformed into small balls of energy that entered her body. She then let out a deep sigh and fell to her knees.
"Karen. What happened?" Yoki asked as she helped her up.
No one noticed that the symbol of fire glowed on her right arm for a few seconds before vanishing again.
Karen opened her eyes and smiled.
"It's been a long time since I last used one of these." She said as she got up.
"Stand back." Karen warned.
The others did as they where told since they had no idea about what was to happen next.
She started to concentrate once more.
Suddenly, flames started to surround her right hand.
"Karen." Yoki exclaimed worriedly.
"I'm all right, stay where you are." Karen said.
She then started to gather a large ball of fire in her hands.
When she was satisfied with the fireball, she rushed around the corner of the crates out into the open. She then threw the large ball of fire towards the pirates and quickly ducked behind the crates again. The fireball exploded on impact, disintegrating the pirates in seconds.
The others looked in amazement at what had just happened.
"Shall we?" Karen smirked as she gestured them to follow her.
The others nodded and they started to make their way towards the old hangar.
"Oh. And by the way" one of the troopers said as he walked next to Karen.
"My name is Nandor." he said.
"And that back there is my little brother. Morwend." He said as he pointed at the other trooper.
"I thought I saw some similarities between you." Karen replied.
"Yes. We look almost the same. One of the few differences is my scar." Nandor pointed to a small scar under his left eye.
"Oh. And by the way." Karen said as she gathered the fire energies back into a sphere again. "I guess you'll be wanting this back."
"Keep it. I guess that it glowed because it finally found someone capable of handling it. I think that its best left to you." Nandor Replied.
They walked the rest of the way to the hangar doors in silence so that they could hear it if they where approached by pirates.
They soon reached the blast doors that separated the hangar from the rest of the platform.
"Here we are." Karen said as she fished a keycard out of her pocket.
She slashed the card trough the card reader at the wall next to the blast doors and entered a three digit number code on the keypad.
Both the card and the code where accepted and the huge doors slid open.
But what was on the other side almost made her close the door again.
The repair hangar where a large hangar capable of handling up to ten frigates at a time but it hadn't been used since they installed dry-docks on the platform. The only ship there now where an old Kyloth frigate.
The Kyloth are the standard Anti-cruiser frigate in the Antiagan armada.
Their hulls are large and bulky with Tritanium alloy plating (though this Kyloth where an older class with titanium plating.)
They have two heavy kinetic cannons mounted to their upper hull, one fore and one aft.
They're main weapons are five X-7 cluster launcher's on each side of the ship.
The X-7 cluster launcher consists of seven launchers that each launches a special type of elemental torpedo that brakes up into ten smaller torpedoes when within a certain range of the target for maximum damage (Authors note: this might sound small but one of the smaller torpedoes is actually twice the size of an adult human).
The frigates also have two impulse engines mounted on each side of the aft section of the ship.
On the other side of the door there was a large gunfight between a battalion of Antiagan guerrilla fighters and a gang of black hammer pirates. The guerilla fighters where heavily outnumbered and pinned behind a large pile of old supply crates next to the Kyloth
Karen and her group could see two black hammer boarding frigates docked near the hangar entrance.
"Are you sure that this is the only way?" Morwend asked.
"I'm afraid so." Karen replied.
"Uh… Karen." Yoki said."
"What?"
"I think they see us."
Yoki was right. Two of the pirates was pointing towards where they where. Some of the other pirates started to point they're weapons at them.
"TAKE COVER!" Karen yelled.
She and the others immediately ducked behind an old steel crate that was standing near the doors.
"We have a serious problem." Sanders pointed out.
"Oh. Do you really think so?" Yoki replied sarcastically.
"We cannot stay here." Karen said.
"She's right" AZ said. "If we stay here. We'll be blown to bits for sure."
"So what do you suggest we do?" Nandor asked.
"We must get over to those guerrilla fighters." Karen answered. "We must move swiftly of we are to get there alive."
"No problem. It should be just like the live fire obstacle course at the military academy." Morwend said.
"Ok. On my mark." Karen said.
"Three."
"Two."
"One."
"MARK!" Karen shouted.
They all started to run towards the Guerrilla fighters at a high speed.
They did their best to dodge the various laser and plasma blasts that the pirates shot at them.
"Almost there." Shouted as she skidded under a laser blast.
She skidded to a stop next to the guerrilla fighters. Yoki came to a halt next to her a millisecond later.
"Need a hand." AZ asked the troopers as she stopped next to Karen.
It was first then that the guerilla fighters noticed them.
"Karen? Yoki? What are you doing down here." One in a light green uniform asked.
"We thought you might needed some help, Parker." Sanders said as he skidded to a halt next to AZ.
"Where is Morwend?" Nandor asked as he skidded to a stop next to Karen.
"I thought he was with you." Karen asked.
"There he is!" Yoki interrupted as she pointed towards him.
There he was running for his life from the various plasma blasts that the pirates fired at him.
For a moment they thought he was going to make it but then he was suddenly hit by a laser blast in his left leg. He instantly toppled over and hit the floor. He was lucky though. He was traveling at a high enough speed so that he skidded the rest of the way across the floor all the way to the others.
The others rushed to his side to see if he was ok. He was not.
His left leg was stained in his own blood and if they didn't stop the bleeding soon, he would die from the loss of blood.
Karen and Nandor lifted Morwend up and laid him up against one of the supply crates.
"Is it bad?" Morwend asked between clenched teeth.
"Radical reconstructive surgery is the only option." Nandor said as he bandaged his little brother's leg.
"Leg's that bad?" Morwend asked.
"Leg's fine. I was talking about you face." Nandor joked.
"Not funny." Morwend said.
"Hey. Can you two keep it down? I'm trying to blast pirates here." Parker said as he fired another shot from his plasma rifle.
"Unless you've noticed. We have a downed soldier here." Nandor scolded.
"Sorry. But it's not that simple to notice things like that when YOU HAVE TEN DIFFERENT PLASMA BLASTS WHISTLING PAST YOUR EARS EVERY NANOSECOND!" Parker yelled back.
"Zip it. Both of you." Karen said before Nandor could come with another reply. "We need to get aboard that frigate."
"There are to many of them." One of the female troopers pointed out.
She was a little taller than Karen and her fur was completely white and she had a long fluffy tail .Her eyes where sky blue.
She was wearing a black uniform with a white stripe running down from each shoulder.
"Cin is right." Parker said.
Yoki rubbed her temples for a few seconds.
"Can't you use that Materia thing again?" She finally suggested.
"No a can't. I've already used it too much today. I need to rest before I can use it again." Karen said.
"D'Arwit!" Yoki swore.
"Here. Take this" Cin said as she tossed a small clip to Karen.
Karen caught it with ease and looked down at it. It was emitting an intense pulsating dark purple glow.
"Where did you get this?" Karen asked puzzled.
"Your brother gave it to me before he disappeared sixteen years ago." Cin replied before she fired two more shots from her laser rifle.
Karen's brother and Cin had been close friends when they went to the academy together.
"I can't believe that he actually gave you a Shadow clip.
"You better believe it. We would have been mates now if he hadn't disappeared." Cin replied.
"Great. What is a Shadow clip?" Yoki asked.
"My brother once managed to compress powers from the element of darkness into a form that he was able to process into these clips." Karen said.
"How the Z'atch did he manage to do that?" Yoki asked baffled.
"Don't ask, because I don't know." Karen answered.
She grabbed her gun and loaded the Shadow clip into it. They could see the Shadow energies through the slightly transparent material that the weapon was made of.
"This definitely gives new meaning to the words Shadow strike´" Karen said as she charged up the gun with the shadow energies.
"Three words. Hit-The-Deck" Parker yelled.
The others obeyed him immediately.
"Hope these work as good as you used to say, brother." Karen said.
She briefly took aim and fired.
The Shadow energies left her gun with a tremendous force, knocking Karen down in the process. The Shadow energies gathered into the form of a huge black orb that had many dark purple lightning bolts arcing across its surface. The orb traveled at a high speed towards the pirate gang and flared up into a huge flare of dark energies that completely obliterated the pirates down to the very molecules that they where made of.
The blast produced a shockwave powerful enough to rip the teeth right out of a persons scull.
This is what would have happened to Karen and the others if they weren't taking cover behind the canisters.
Karen came out from behind the canisters after the blast had cleared.
"All clear." She reassured the others.
"Whoa!" Parker said as he saw what the blast had done to the pirates. "There's no trace whatsoever."
"Hurry to the ship before more show up." Karen said as she ran towards the ramp that led to the frigate.
The others followed her without hesitation.
Karen, Yoki, Nandor, Cin, Parker, AZ and Sanders entered the bridge of the Kyloth frigate.
The bridge was small with one weapons station, one comm. Station and one sensor station.
The helm was in the front part of the bridge next to the view screen.
The bridge also had a commander's chair in the middle of the room.
"I'll take the helm." Yoki said as she rushed to the helm.
"I'd better take the weapons station." Nandor said as he took his place by the console.
"It's best that I take the sensor station since I'm the only one who took a degree in sensor operation." Cin said as she took her place at the censor terminal.
"I got dibs on the communication console." Parker said as he sat down in the chair at the comm. Terminal.
Karen walked down to the middle of the room as memories of her past at the Dauntless flickered across her mind. It was a long time since the last time she stood inside the bridge of a battle ship.
"I guess this chair belongs to you." Sanders said to Karen as he pointed to the command chair.
The others stopped what they where doing and looked over at Karen.
Karen hesitated for a moment and then slowly settled into the commander's chair.
"It's good to have you back in the command chair Karen." Yoki said.
The others cheered.
Karen smiled now that she was doing what she was born to do. Commanding a battleship.
"Yoki. Undock this scrap heap and prepare to exit the platform." Karen ordered.
"Aye, Aye." Yoki replied as she undocked the frigate.
They could hear a small clunk´ as the restrains were removed.
"Parker. Monitor the communication between the ships." Karen ordered
"Aye Admiral. All communication systems nominal." Parker informed.
"Cin. Keep track of everything within twenty clicks of the ship." Karen ordered
"Aye. All systems green and ready to go." Cin informed.
"Nandor. Keep a line open with the weapons compartments at all time and keep me informed of everything that happens." Karen ordered.
"Yes ma'am. This ship is maybe running on a skeleton crew but that doesn't mean that she can't kick some serious pirate patooke." Nandor said.
"Karen. We wont fly out of here any time soon with those boarding frigates blocking the way." Cin reported.
"Nandor. Think you can clear us a path?" Karen asked.
"That's what I'm here for." Nandor replied.
"Turret control, this is weapons command what is your status." Nandor asked over the intercom.
"Both turrets loaded and ready to go." Came the reply.
"There are some pieces of wreckage blocking our path. Inform fore turret crew to take aim and let 'er rip." Nandor ordered.
"Affirmative." Came the reply.
They soon saw the fore turret taking aim through the view screen.
It then fired its twin barrels at the two boarding frigates that were blocking the way.
The kinetic energies of the turret shells blasted the boarding frigates away as if they were cardboard models.
"Shields up." Karen ordered.
"Aye." Nandor said as he raised the shields.
"Take us out, Yoki." Karen ordered.
"Aye. Course: X-Zero-Zero-One." She informed as she activated the ships impulse engines.
The two massive engines roared to life, emitting a blue energy flare that propelled the large frigate forward. The frigate soon exited the hangar and started to move away from the huge platform.
"Karen. You might want to hear this." Nandor said.
He pushed a button and rerouted the communication stream to the speakers.
"Is that what I think it is?"
"Isn't that the old frigate we left to rust in the old repair hangar?"
"Heads up. It could be another pirate trick."
"The flagship is hailing us." Parker informed.
"On screen." Karen ordered.
A rather annoyed Antiagan appeared on the screen. But her expression soon changed when she saw who was sitting in the middle chair.
"Karen? I thought you where dead." she said.
"Many seams to think so, admiral Zirana." Karen replied.
Zirana smiled.
"Admiral. Bombers, coming from starboard." One of the crew informed on Zirana's side.
"Karen. I would love to chat. But right now I have a crew to manage. Zirana, out." Zirana said before she terminated the link.
"Not to interrupt. But we have pirate Ion frigate coming in from port side." Cin informed.
Karen looked over at the view screen and there she saw a pirate frigate moving slowly towards them.
"Bring up the THS (Tactical-Holo-Sphere)" Karen ordered.
Nandor pressed a few buttons on his console and a large floating sphere of blue light appeared in front of the commander's chair.
The frigate they were piloting was shown in the middle of the sphere.
There was also many other contacts mowing around in the sphere but the main focus was on the frigate approaching their frigate from port side.
"Nandor. What is the status on the X-7 launchers?" Karen asked.
"Port launcher two and three ready to go." He informed.
"Prepare to fire." Karen ordered.
She touched the approaching frigate projection in the sphere.
The frigate projection lighted up and the projection grew to fill the entire sphere.
"Give them a salvo." She ordered.
"Aye, aye." Nandor replied.
"Launcher control, this is weapons command. Prepare to fire port launcher two and three at these coordinates." Nandor ordered over the intercom.
The hatches on two of the port torpedo launchers slid open to reveal seven individual launchers.
"Set course. X-Three-two-seven. Z-Three-five-two." Karen ordered.
"Setting course." Yoki informed.
"Engage." Karen ordered.
The Kyloth frigate banked slightly to the left and started to turn towards starboard, putting them in a much better firing position.
"Fire!" Karen commanded.
The launchers each fired seven huge torpedoes towards the pirate frigate. The torpedoes each turned towards the Ion frigate, approaching it from slightly different angles. The torpedoes then broke up into several smaller torpedoes that traveled at a much higher speed. They zeroed in on the Ion frigate and impacted one by one with tremendous force. The force of the impact sent a chain reaction trough the hull of the frigate that completely ripped the ship apart.
The others in the bridge of the Kyloth cheered as they had just downed their first enemy target.
"Two more, heading right towards us." Cin informed from the sensor station.
"They're preparing to fire their main guns." Nandor informed.
"New course! Y-Two-seven-zero! Z-zero-nine-zero!" Karen ordered.
"But that will take us into a steep dive towards the moon!" Yoki objected.
"JUST TO IT!" Karen yelled.
Yoki hesitated for a few nanoseconds before punching in the course.
The Kyloth frigate plummeted into a steep dive towards the planet.
The two beams from the pirate frigates missed by mere inches and just scratched the Kyloth's hull.
"Give me manual. NOW!" Karen yelled.
Manual? Are you insane!´ Yoki thought, but she followed the order and gave Karen full control of the ship.
A small console with a flight stick rose from a hatch on the floor in front of the commander's chair.
Karen grabbed the stick and started to maneuver the ship away from the moon's gravitational field and towards the platform.
"Slow down! This ain't the Dauntless!" Yoki said as she noticed Karen's acceleration.
"Hang on to your lunch folks, cuz here we go!" Karen replied as she cranked the thrust up to max and speeded towards the platform.
She brought the Kyloth into a wild barrel roll to stop the pirate ships from getting a proper lock on them.
Then one of the nearby pirate carrier launched a frigate that started follow Karen's Kyloth.
Karen then turned the Kyloth towards the platform and speeded towards it at full impulse.
"Warning! Collision course detected. Impact in fifteen seconds." The computer informed.
"Karen?" Yoki asked.
"Ten seconds." The computer informed.
"KAREN!"
"Five seconds."
Karen almost twisted the flight stick out of its socket.
The Kyloth missed the platform by half a meter.
The other frigate weren't so lucky. It was completely trashed when it hit the platform's hull.
The entire bridge crew where both terrified and exited at the same time.
"Next time. Warn us before executing another maneuver like that." Parker said.
"You got it." Karen replied.
Suddenly a bright light illuminated the lower left corner of the view screen.
"What was that?" Nandor asked. But he soon got his answer.
When the Kyloth turned around they could see the burning wreckage that once were the proud flagship of the Galactic armada crash down towards the moon.
"No!" Karen exclaimed.
"RAY-EAGLES! COMING FROM ABOVE!" Cin yelled.
They all looked at the view screen that displayed the five advancing ray eagles.
There was no way they where getting out of this jam in a hurry.
Cin looked back at the sensor console and noticed a familiar hyperspace signature approaching their sector.
"Karen. Looks like we got incoming." Cin informed.
"We got a sector full of incoming." Karen snapped back.
"I know. But this is different." Cin said. "It's the Zegema!"
Karen turned away from the view screen and looked towards Cin.
She had a huge smile on her face.
A huge red military transport tug with white markings dropped out of hyperspace between Karen's Kyloth and the approaching ray eagles.
The Ray-eagles were forced to abort their attack and break formation to avoid crashing into the large ship.
The new ship had the name Zegema painted in huge letters on its starboard side.
The ship also had numerous hangars and it even had two battle cruisers tied under its belly.
"Hey, Hey, Hey. This is the Zegema dropping in to the rescue." They transmitted over all the radio channels.
"The Zegema is hailing us." Parker informed.
"On screen." Karen ordered.
The captain of the Zegema appeared on the screen.
It was a young humanoid with a blue skin color and black eyes with a blue iris.
"Karen. Your friend Jacob informed us of the situation here. You go after Peirce. We'll handle the situation from here. Captain Kirith out." And with that he severed the connection.
"Cin. Can you pick up any hyper core decay trails leading out of this sector?" Karen asked.
"Yes. One is very fresh. It has to be him." Cin replied.
She brought the coordinates up on the main screen.
"Good. Set the H-drive coordinates for quadrant 17 section 005 area 51." Karen said as she sat down in the commander's chair.
"Set a course, for Earth."
Quadrant 17 section 005 area 51High orbit
A small corvette dropped out of hyperspace over a blue and green planet with one small moon. The corvette was damaged from combat but still spaceworthy. It slowed down and went into an orbit around the oxygen rich planet.
Inside the ship were two people.
One of them was a tall humanoid with a red skin color and black eyes with blue irises.
The other one looked similar to an Antiagan, except that his ears where different and his tail where more in the way than of use. He was 6,5 feet tall. His fur was gray and his eye color was black.
He had a black military outfit with many pockets that could fit almost any handheld weapon.
He held a sealed envelope in his hand that read "Open only when target planet has bean reached".
"I got you to safely the target area, Pierce. Now I want my payment." The other one said.
"I expect nothing less from the Black Kafit." Lex said as he reached down one of his pockets.
He pulled up a thick stack of galactic credits out of the pocket and tossed it to the hacker.
The hacker greedily snatched the credits and retreated to one of the other compartments on the corvette to count the money.
"Now. For the mission." Lex said to himself as he opened the envelope.
The envelope contained the usual information files on the target(s).
This time there were two targets. He opened both of the files and gazed down on them.
They contained very limited information but all Lex needed was a picture and a location. The files had both.
Both the targets seamed to be located on a small island called Kauai not to far from one of the larger continents.
The picture in the first file was the picture of a small blue furred creature. This picture had the word TERMINATE´ stamped over it with red ink.
The picture in the other file was of a pink furred creature similar to the first one. This picture had the word CAPTURE´ Stamped over it with blue ink.
"Soon." He chuckled "Soon."
'N other cliffhanger. i hope to get the next chapter done in about two mounts, give or take.