Subnautica, Ghosts of the past

by Vesper110

it has been 5 years since the aurora exploded and the lone survivor recieves a message from another vessel that responded to the Aurora's distress signal and fearing the worst the survivor frantically sends a message to warn the vessel away but it fails and just like the ships before it the ship crash-lands and forces the survivor to stop history repeating itself

11. Chapter 11 Finale

Chapter 11: Finale

After the marriage of Richard, Sapphire, Amythyst and the marriage of Serena to Isajin the extending family are starting to work on the cure for the carar, Richard has been going out collecting samples while Sapphire and Amythyst have been working on the other guns around planet 4546B trying to restore the defences on each of the hemispheres, the first gun they restored was the Ground to Air defence gun of the Triton family. It has taken three months to restore it and now it is operational once again "Well that's one gun down and two more to go little sis so, how are you holding up? It can't be easy working on a superweapon when you're pregnant," Sapphire looked at Amythyst and said "Well you can't talk sis because so are you," Amythyst laughed and said "Yeah you're right, so why don't we head back home to Richard?" With that they both returned to the northern territory to a very grave faced Richard to which Amythyst said "Sweetheart, why are you so worried? Is there something you know?" to which Richard said, "Yes well I have good news and bad news, the good news is that Alterra is ten years away but the bad news is that they have decided to abandon their non-lethal approach, but that's not the worst of it, they have found a way to evade our system since the Celestine incident, basically we are screwed unless we get all of our planetary defences online and upgraded; Jade and Crystal are working on that now but it is taking them a while, with the carar research and the weapon upgrades in progress this will take us a long time so what I am saying is that the Alterra people are coming and we have nothing we can do to stop them as of yet so it's looking grim." hearing those words from Richard Amythyst's heart sank to which she said "you mean there may be a chance that our baby won't make it? No I don't want that! Please we need to do something!" Looking at Amythyst's hysterics Richard raised an eyebrow and said "Calm down Amythyst my dear, did I not just say that it would take ten years for the Alterra ships to get here? While you were sleeping I used the gun to target parts of the Ariadne arm phasegate that is how I bought us some time but still... we need to get all planetary defences online and get rid of the carar otherwise we won't stand a chance against them, so all this tells me is that humans never ever got rid of their destructive natures, those years of pacifism where but an illusion they lied and as a result we face a new threat from humans in control of stolen precursor technology so no matter what we must do everything to restore our defences! Unfortunately due to your pregnancies you can't do any more with the superweapons so I am going to bring them online myself; you girls just take it easy because I want no harm to come to any of you." Richard then hugged them both and escorted them to the habitat and put them to bed so they could rest, after Amythyst and Sapphire where comfortable, Richard headed to the south most quadrant where the Atashihito gun lay in ruins to which Richard just cursed and swore for a few minutes before saying "Well this is gonna take me a long time to rebuild and repair, shit! Well no matter I need to get on with the work." With those words Richard started to rebuild the gun from the base up and after another three months the gun was still half done, during those three months Richard stayed in touch with Sapphire and Amythyst who seemed to be very excited at the prospect of being mothers and very soon, Richard often travelled to visit them via the precursor teleport network and just as he was about to return back to working on the Atashihito gun he was stopped by Akémi and her sisters who said "Richard you have done enough on the gun, but now you need to spend time with Amythyst and Sapphire as they are six months pregnant with your children; don't worry little brother we can fix our gun faster since there are three of us now you take it easy and work on that carar cure." With that Richard did as he was told and said "okay big sister I will do what you ask but please, be quick about it." After that was said Akémi nodded her head and headed through the teleport network to fix their superweapon.

2 months later

Just as the Atashihito sisters finished fixing their gun they got a transmission from an unknown source and once their Array was active they searched for the source of the signal and to their surprise it came from deep within the Lost River zone as they triangulated the position it became clear; the transmission was coming from their secondary research facility, a place that until now seemed destroyed riding on the hope that the facility was somehow fixed up they went and investigated it and what they got there surprised them, as soon as they entered the main control room they found a beautiful young lady at the communications relay and what made things even more surprising that it was actually Richard's mother Celeste, a precursor beauty known from around planet 4546B and she was alive and well, as they stared at her she giggled and said "judging from your reaction I can tell you didn't expect to see me, especially when I supposedly died from the carar, so how am I alive you ask? It's simple really, I didn't really die; yes I was hit pretty hard by the carar but through my determination to see my beloved son again I pulled through, injected myself with the cure and rested for several years hidden away from those hostile humans all those years ago when they took my son away from me and turned him into a husk of his former self and I want revenge, please tell me you saved my son from them Akémi." Akémi bowed to her and said "yes Lady Celeste, Richard is fine and he's going to be a daddy again, he already has one daughter who is five years old and he has two more children on the way." Celeste looked at Akémi with hope in her eyes and said "for the first time in a long existence I feel like we will once again have links off world but to do that we need to destroy this carar and I know from looking at our main array that three of the four planetary defence guns are offline and that leaves us 75% defended from any hostile attack. We need the last gun online as soon as possible if we are to stand a chance against the invading human forces." Akémi looked at Celeste and said "so you know about that already huh?" to which Celeste said "why yes my dear I do, because it's me who has invited them here to be destroyed! No one will EVER hurt us again once we take out those foul, filthy humans!" the sudden burst of rage from Lady Celeste surprised Akémi who tried to reason with her saying "Please Lady Celeste, dampen your ire! Not all humans are bad I swear, if we show them the error of their ways I'm sure they will understand!" Lady Celeste sighed a little bit before saying "You know Akémi, I thought you were smarter than this; your love for humanity has blinded you to just how evil they can be but don't worry, I won't hurt you because I understand why you are hesitant to engage humans but you are still going against the precursors by saying that and I will have to lock you away with the sea emperor, he needs the company so off you go." With that Lady Celeste warped Akémi to the Sea emperor holding cell and began her planning for the revenge of the precursors.

While she was locked away Akémi felt sad, Lady Celeste had lost her mind; she was so overtaken with grief and hatred for humanity that she turned on her own kind just to eliminate humanity in one full attack, she couldn't stand it so as a result she made an escape from the sea emperor's holding cell and tried to communicate with Richard, "Come on Richard I know you can hear me so answer!" Richard heard Akémi and decided to respond and said "So Akémi what is the hold up and where are you? Your sisters Sakura and Kari are worried about you so what's the holdup?" to which Akémi said "The array is online again but we have a new problem, your mother has gone mad and is planning a large scale attack on humanity! Somehow she survived the carar and has been working on revenge I tried to talk her out of it but she locked me away in the sea emperor's prison, thankfully the sea emperor helped me out so I'm coming back to help you but it will take me a while to get there, I don't have the energy left to teleport or talk any longer so I will meet you on the floating island where your gun is" and with that Akémi fell silent, to which Richard said "so my mother IS alive and gone off her rocker? I guess that is what happens to you when you feign your death; Sapphire, Amythyst, we have to get that last gun operational and synchronise the facilities with each other and once that's done we will lock my mental mother out of the system."

After that Richard headed to the Ryokuto gun with Kari, Sakura Crystal and Isajin to repair it but due to its own recovery system the Ryokuto gun was already mostly repaired so it just took a day to fix it. Once he repaired the final interface Richard began the synchronisation process and headed home to a pair of screaming women. "Richard the babies are coming! Please help us!" A pain-stricken Amythyst said to which Richard said in a panic "What do I do? What do I do!" seeing Richard panic Sapphire took a deep breath and bared the labour pains just long enough to say "There is no need to panic Richard you, ah! You just need to hold our hands and let our mother help us bring our children into the world." Then the pain took over as Richard held both of their hands, their labour lasted for days and when it was all over a very tired Richard was sat down holding his two daughters Aura and Argentine to which Serena said "oh they are two beautiful babies! I'm so happy to be a grandmother!" she then hugged her two tired daughters and said "by the way why have you named one of your newest daughters after that awful ship?" To which Richard said "Didn't you hear the names properly? Their names are Aura and Argentine! One is the Latin name for gold and the other is the Latin name for silver!" Serena blushed and said "Oh my mistake, I guess MY pregnancy hormones are messing with my head, I'm sorry Richard." After Serena said that Richard sighed and said "Oh it's no problem Serena… wait, you are pregnant?!" to which Serena nodded and said "Yes Richard I am pregnant and I know the gender of the bayby that I am carrying, he is a boy and his name is gonna be Onyx, isn't that fantastic?" after she said that Serena skipped off singing a very happy song to which Isajin looked up and smiled saying "I'm happy to be a father for the first time but I want my son to live in a world without carar and without any threats from Alterra so let's sort this out and get the carar out of the way." With those words Isajin went after Serena making sure that she was okay to which a very Tired Sapphire said "so we are getting a little brother? I'm so happy I could cry!" And right on cue that is what she did. While all of this was going on, Lady Celestine was in the secondary research facility refining the carar to unleash it on humans so she could completely eliminate them from existence and she wasn't going to let anybody get in her way; not even her own son.

Ten years later….

Ten years have passed since Richard and his new family began to prepare defences from the human incursion by Alterra and its subsidiaries, all four of the guns were operational and upgraded, unfortunately during those ten years, Alterra made advancements of their own, the guns could not locate them; Alterra had breached the airspace of planet 4546B and had taken up geosynchronous orbit around the planet it was a fleet of eight ships with highly destructive weaponry at its disposal, seeing this Richard switched the canon to manual fire and aimed right at the main ship before saying "Attention Alterra ships, you are trespassing in restricted airspace, I am locked onto your main ship and demand that you leave this place immediately, we are a peaceful race and just want to rebuild our existence so please! Don't make me shoot at you, I've seen enough death and destruction to last me a thousand lifetimes! Don't add to that destruction!" hearing Richard's plea the captain of the main ship sneered and said "If that's the case you hippy, step aside and let us take this planet without resistance!" Richard started to get annoyed and said "you do not realise what danger you are in, we really need you to get out of here as the planetary quarantine has not been lifted yet so get your ships out of here or die!" After that sentence Richard heard a familiar voice saying "Richard my dear child, when did you become so pathetic? You need to destroy these interlopers with your whole heart! They alone reduced us to a bunch of simpering weaklings and experimented on us! So if you don't do anything then I will!" hearing what was said Richard heard Akémi say "Lady Celeste please! Not all humans are bad! Please don't infect them with the virus, please!" Akémi's pleas were falling on deaf ears so as a result she said "Very well Lady Celestine, If you won't come to your senses then I will force you to!" There was the sound of a struggle then a very loud piercing scream to which Richard heard Akémi say "Richard, she has fatally wounded me little brother, I… I can't…" then there was the sound of a thud over the communications line as Akémi fell down to the floor followed by the psychotic laughter of Lady Celestine making Richard roar out in anger he then started the teleport but before he got through he saw something fire at the Alterra ships followed by agonised screams of men, women and children from all of the Alterra ships to which Richard cried out in despair and anger "What have you done you psychopathic bitch?!" to which Lady Celestine said "How dare you talk to your mother that way? The woman who brought you into the world! The one who fed and clothed you, all the way through the first few years of your ungrateful life!" growing tired of his mother's rant Richard said "You are NOT my mother! She died when I was young; my mother was a kind woman who wouldn't hurt a fly! She was the kind of woman who, if she saw an animal, human or otherwise that was suffering she would heal them and if that failed she would bury them when they died after making sure that their last few moments of life were something special! YOU are a SICK and TWISTED BITCH! Who has lost her mind enough to kill humans with the disease we cured!" he then tried to communicate with the other ships and they retreated to a safe distance, all but one ship that was piloting his ship into the planet in an effort to destroy it and with the guns useless the only option was to get onto the ship and stop it from crashing into the planet face so using his abilities Richard warped onto the ship and took out the people who attacked him especially the ones suffering from carar. When he finally got to the ship's drive core he fought his way past the sentries and made his way to the drive room where he killed the ship's captain and pulled the crashing ship up out of its crash and did a gravity slingshot around the planet as the ship got tagged by the gun from the southern territory destroying its engines and forcing it to crash into a nearby planetoid Richard then looked around the devastated drive room and made his way to the drive core deactivating it and stranding himself on the ship to which a heavily modified PRAWN suit made its way to him with Jade at its controls, as the PRAWN suit approached Richard's PDA spoke up and informed him that he was infected with a new strain of carar and told him that he had a few days left until he died and seeing his first child approach him made his decision all the more painful, just as Jade got close to him Richard smiled and said "Jade my dear I am sorry but I cannot come home," hearing these words stopped jade in her tracks and she said "But wh..Why papa? Why can't you come home?" to which Richard said "I'm sorry but I have been infected by a new strain of Carar and it is one that will kill me in three days so I am staying here now you must leave," Jade started to cry and ran over to him in the prawn suit and begged him to not give up to which he said "I'm sorry but go! Please don't make this harder than it already is, I have led a relatively good life, I have three beautiful daughters three beautiful wives and one wonderful friend, not forgetting three loving big sisters so it isn't all bad, all of you are my most treasured memories so I have no regrets." He then overridden the PRAWN suit with his PDA and forced it out of the airlock and piloted it back to planet 4546B with his sobbing, heartbroken daughter vainly trying to override the autopilot and once he was sure she was out of harm's way he sealed the drive core and detonated the core with him still inside it killing him instantly as his daughter cried out in despair as the rest bowed their head in respect for their fallen comrade.

The end…

Alright people the next chapter will be the last one for this story so I thank you all for reading the story this far and I hope you enjoyed it, sorry it couldn't end on a happier note.

The next chapter is the aftermath of our main protagonists sacrifice so what awaits us in the next chapter? Stay tuned and happy reading!

Regards

Vesper110