Galaxy Siege: Uprising

[Lord Anubis]

Galaxy Siege: Uprising

The author of this story holds no title or claim upon works that were created by the respective creators of Babylon 5 or EarthSiege or StarSiege. He is merely borrowing them for his own amusement.

Author's Note: I'm reposting this story because lately I've been doing some fine tuning work on it, restructuring some of the smaller details to fix any mistakes that were present during the first version of the story. Also my plan for what happens in this story has changed so I had to alter a few details to avoid problems. That being said, if you bothered to read my author's note then you'll realise that while there are only a few changes it might be a good idea to reread the story. And as always I will read every single review and take them seriously, though flames will be ignored. So if you have any ideas I'll be more than glad to read them, provided you put them in a review of course.

Chapter One.

Terran year 10,257. The year everything changed.

“Jump gate activation.” Came the shout from one of the techs down in the central command pit.

“On screen! Tactical, bring all weapons and shields to full power. I want a targeting solution on whatever comes through that gate as soon as possible.” Admiral David Collins bellowed as he swiveled his command chair around to face the main tactical displays that covered one half of ‘The Pit’ buried deep within the primary control center of the Terran Empire’s defensive net. More normally known to the outside world as the Command & Control center of Orbital Battle Fortress Command it had quickly gained the nickname ‘The Pit’ and it had stuck ever since nearly eight thousand years ago when it had been given to the very first fortress to be built in orbit of Terra. Over the millennia as technological progressions occurred that rendered the fortresses’ obsolete they were sent to the breakers and a new fortress was constructed and the name was passed along.

As the Admirals orders raced through the command net to the hundreds of waiting fortress that ringed Terra, power plants came to full power ready to divert their enormous energies to weapons arrays and shield grids. Weapons began traversing around to get better firing solutions on the space surrounding the jumpgate that floated in space all by its lonesome self some 3 and a half light minutes out from Terra.

Most races that had been discovered by the Terran Empire during its exploration phase of the galaxy during the past seven decades had been seen to build their gates relatively close to their homeworlds or close to deep space trading posts. Terra had decided to go a different route and construct theirs in a relatively unoccupied region of the Sol system. Also while the gate shared the normal characteristics that the other races gates had, namely being built along four main struts over eight kilometers in length and powered by fusion generators buried deep within its superstructure it had many features that the known races knew nothing about. For one thing each strut had the equivalent of two Asgard class dreadnaughts offensive and defensive weapons load built directly into the gate. Since it was considered a crime against all sentient life to target a gate during war it made for a relatively easy decision for command authority to authorize the expenditure to construct a gate that had the capability of defending itself.

“Ship coming through the gate.” A voice said over the datanet that interconnected the multitudes of warships and fortresses that were spread throughout the Sol system.

On the immense view screen, targeting information quickly zeroed in on the region of space where the presumably hostile warship was expected to arrive. For the first time in nearly six thousand years an unknown alien ship would be entering the home territory of the Terran Empire, an act that was normally unacceptable to the people of the Empire, while they did understand the need for contact to be maintained with the savages that roamed the galaxy if only to better know their military capabilities if it ever became necessary to wipe them out for the continued survival of the Empire, they didn’t have to like the fact that those same savages knew of the existence of the Empire. The Terran Empire only allowed ships from one space faring race to enter Terran dominated space and they didn’t need to use the gate that had been constructed within the Sol system.

The Terran Empire had restricted access to its territory the instance that it learned about the other alien races that existed throughout the galaxy in the hopes of insuring that none of them would ever learn the location of the Sol System. Most races assumed that the Empire only had the four mining colonies that it had publicly admitted to along with its homeworld, which was known as Vega. In reality those worlds were only used as a smoke screen, populated by Cybrid human form infiltrators left over from the Terran/Cybrid wars and Terran military personnel on long term deployment to the mining colonies, to hide the where the true might of the Empire rested. The Sol System was the most heavily defended, populated, and industrialized star system in the known galaxy. The Terran Empire had been expanding rimward for several centuries, establishing listening posts and sensor stations in every uninhabited star system along with constructing jump gates in an attempt to create strategic depth, not to mention with the sheer number of gates being constructed it was reinforcing the stability of the beacon network.

Terra being the homeworld to both mankind and its children who were known as the Cybrids, a race of artificial intelligences that had once been used solely as the foot soldiers of the first world nations that had nearly resulted in the annihilation of mankind. During those first few centuries of the fledgling Empire mankind had fought several wars with the Cybrids and each time it had ended in stalemate, neither side able to win a decisive victory. After nearly a millennia of open warfare a new sect of Cybrids rose to power and challenged Prometheus, the first Cybrid to be created and destroyed him. After the Dark Intellect’s death the Cybrid armada and armies sued for peace with the Empire. During the following years as each side tried to prove its worth to the other the two races began to put aside the old hatred and problems that had nearly lead to the extinction of the other. This eventually gave way to the Cybrid intelligence’s being granted full membership within the Empire and government.

Once both societies had become fully integrated a new golden age had begun with the technological advancements coming nearly as fast as scientists could begin their research. Venus and Mars were the first planets to be fully terraformed and with the generous usage of advanced gravimetric’s both worlds were slowly converted until they both had standard gravity wells that matched Terra’s. This of course took nearly a thousand years by itself to accomplish but the Empire felt it was needed in order to insure that mankind and its Cybrid children had more room in which to grow since it had been unable to create the technology to allow for true interstellar travel.

That’s not to say that travel between solar systems wasn’t possible it just wasn’t practical for civilian usage. Cybrids and human military agents along with the resources needed to found a base were quickly dispatched during the year 4257 to the relatively close star system of Alpha Centauri to evaluate its potential as a future colony of the Empire. Thanks to the discovery of gravimetric manipulation technology it had opened up a great deal of options for space travel, namely an engine capable of accelerating the ships of the expeditionary force up to nearly twenty-five percent of the speed of light. This meant that trip would have taken nearly a century using more primitive equipment would now only take sixteen years.

Upon arrival in the triple star system the expedition to their dismay found the world to be wholly unsuited for colonization by mankind or even Cybrids. While the Cybrids would be able to survive in the toxic atmosphere of the worlds even they deemed the planets as unsuitable due to the massive geological instabilities that were caused by the passage of the three stars through the system. It was quickly decided to strip mine the system of all useful materials and send it back to Sol to bolster the system’s economy and help in the construction of the numerous defensive platforms that were being planned by the Empire’s command structure. Tractor beams and energy weapons began to rip apart the planets and form the material into spheres of rock over a thousand kilometers in diameter. Once fully formed they were accelerated to approximately ten percent of light speed, the highest possible speed that the expedition’s ships were capable of reaching while towing such massive objects and then released on purely ballistic trajectory’s back to the Sol system. It would take decades for the material to arrive in the Sol system but the Empire had long ago adopted the policy of careful and orderly technological progression along with its isolationist policies that kept it confined to the Sol System.

With both humanity and the Cybrids working together in order to insure the protection of the Sol system it had been decided to fortify the moon, now only known as Luna, to the point where an attacker would drown in his own blood before ever setting foot on its surface. No expense had been spared during the construction of the defenses that almost literally covered the surface of the moon. Millions of weapons emplacements were carefully designed and hidden behind artificial bunkers that were constructed to the minutest detail to replicate the cratered surface of the moon before the weapons were put into place. Billions of soldiers and naval officers lived beneath the surface in the warrens that wound their way through nearly seventy percent of Luna. Shipyards and airfields dotted the surface of Luna where thousands of vessels could be serviced at once. Modern Terran warships had been designed from the outset with the distinct possibility of them being required to carry out planetary assault operations so each warship of the Asgard or Valhalla class included a full regiment of HERC’s, usually equally divided between Cybrids and Terran designs along with a full air wing and enough soldiers to overrun the defenses of any target they would encounter.

Of course during the eight millennia that the Empire had existed it had not fought a single true war save the one with the Cybrids during its inception and that also meant that its soldiers and warships were wholly untested against any enemy. Thousands of ships had been built but never used over the millennia and like the fortresses that protected the inhabited worlds of the system as they became obsolete they were sent to the breakers so that their materials could be reused in the next generation of ships to be built. Of course even in this generation the warships would soon be considered outdated and sent to the breakers but that wouldn’t happen for close to another century and until that day all ships that weren’t on active duty were confined to the reserve yards kept in orbit around Mercury. Since everything inward from the orbit of Venus to Sol itself was considered restricted military dominated territory it was considered an act of war to even attempt to penetrate that region of space.

“Sir, unknown ship is emerging. They are attempting to jam us but our systems are easily overriding their primitive attempts.” Commander Janna Batten said from her post at Skywatch, the division responsible for tracking all objects with Sol itself and beyond to a range of nearly 30 light minutes outside the boarders of the Sol system. Nothing was capable of avoiding detection from the innumerable sensor arrays that dotted the system. Every warship and fortress within the system funneled its sensor information back to Skywatch for analysis no matter how common or unimportant it might seem.

Admiral Collins merely grunted in reply as he watched the computer enhanced image of the unknown ship emerge from the gate. “Have we identified which race it belongs to yet? And more importantly I want to know how the hell they managed to access the Sol gate in the first place!” He thundered. The Sol gate was unique for many reasons besides the firepower built into it from the outset. While it did transmit the beacon to the rest of the gate network, something which was unavoidable unless they wished to disconnect it which would mean that the network would be slightly rewritten and deny the Empire access to the beacon maps, it also required a very specific authorization code to be able transmitted before the gate would activate at all and to his knowledge that code was unknown to anyone outside of the Empire.

“We don’t know which civilization it belongs to but we are getting a hit off the historical archives. Its identical to a ship that was pursuing a Shadow warship during first contact of 4483 and destroyed by a Cybrid Avalanche class battleship though not before it destroyed nearly two hundred other vessels many of them civilian craft.” Commander Batten offered as she continued to refine the data being received from the sensors trained on the alien ship. The ship looked like some sort of organic squid with a greenish black hull that continually changed its color scheme as it flowed gracefully through space. The back portion of the ship had opened to reveal four petal like shapes that glowed with energy, more than likely they were apart of the gravimetric drive that propelled the ship through space at least that’s what the computer was guessing at as it constantly updated the threat profile on the ship.

“So they finally decided to return, personally I thought they would have been back a hell of a lot sooner than this.” Admiral Valerie Ballard said as she walked up onto the command deck of ‘The Pit’ to get a better read of what was going on. She was in nominal command of all warships within the Terran Empire but since her flagship was currently undergoing a refit and upgrade she had moved her flag to Orbital Battle Fortress Command until it was ready for deployment once more.

“Maybe they listened to the Shadows and understood that they should stay away from us if they knew what was good for them.” Collins replied not looking away from the view screen. Already fleet elements were forming up in a semi sphere around the space that the unknown ship occupied preventing it from moving any further into the system. “Commander Batten, access the Shadow database that our ‘allies’ gave us and see what it makes of that ship.”

“Yes sir.” Commander Batten replied her tone indicating her disgust at having to use the equipment given to them by the Shadows. While they were considered allies to the Terran Empire they weren’t truly trusted in the way that the Cybrids were before they became full members and probably never would be. The Cybrids were at the very least the children of mankind and had originally been programmed with human styles of intelligences, which had allowed for easier communication between the two races once they had gotten past that whole annihilation phase. The Shadows on the other hand were a completely alien race billions of years old with a culture that was nigh on incomprehensible to mankind.

“We have a match as a Vorlon ship; it can either be used as a personal transport ship or as a long range scout. Threat level minimal.”

“Minimal to a Shadow warship or to ours?” Ballard asked even though she knew the answer to that. Mankind and its children knew the art of war very well thanks to the centuries of warfare that had plagued them since the creation of them both and it showed in their technology. Almost all of their advances had come through the need for better weapons or defenses before being modified for use in the civilian world. While Shadow warships easily outclassed their Terran counterparts in every single class it was only because the Shadows had been building ships millions of years before the dinosaurs had been wiped off the face of Terra. Age did tend to give them a head start on technology but Mankind was quickly catching up in some areas. Also from her studies of the Shadow database on the other aliens that existed out in the galaxy she knew that the Shadows regarded themselves as the premier power that still resided within the Milky Way galaxy and if the data was correct they were right to assume that.

The Shadows were considered ‘First Ones’ seeing as how they were one of the first sentient races to evolve in the galaxy when it was still very young, being billions of years old allowing them to be amongst the most technologically advanced species in the galaxy. While they weren’t the most advanced of the ‘First Ones’ that title falling to one of the others who had yet to be identified by the Shadows, for some reason they were a little sore about that subject, they were still millions of years ahead of the Vorlons who in the arrogance gave themselves the title of ‘First Ones’ when in fact they were truly considered second ones. The Shadows were ancient when the Vorlons were discovering how to make fire and had already mapped the whole of the galaxy before the Vorlons had even figured out the written word.

“Minimal to us. One of their true warships would probably give us a run for our money but that thing is pathetic, which really makes me curious as to why its here.”

“Well we’re not going to learn anything with them just sitting there. Communications send message to Vorlon ship. ‘Attention Vorlon ship, you have illegally entered Terran controlled space. Explain your presence in this system immediately or it will be construed as an act of war upon the Terran Empire and handled accordingly. You have thirty seconds to comply.’”

“Message sent, sir.” The reply from communications was almost instantaneous. “No reply from target.”

“Vorlon ship, if you do not reply immediately you will be considered a hostile ship and destroyed, this is your final warning.” Collins said into the communications pickup on his console. Activating the general command net he spoke again on a different frequency that was sent to all fortresses and warships within the Sol system. “Prepare to open fire.”

“Admiral, we’re getting a reply. It’s coming through in Terran standard.” Ensign Jason Bundy from communications said as he checked to make sure the recorders were online. It was standard procedure to record every transmission sent or received within the system, but there were times when they were deactivated for military necessity usually when they were communicating with a Shadow. He was just checking to ensure that they hadn’t forgotten to return them to normal statues after the last round of talks.

Musical tones filled the channel in the background as an obviously synthetic voice spoke. “You ally with Shadow.”

Silence reigned in ‘The Pit’, which was an incredibly rare event. The business of coordinating the defenses and sensor watches of the Sol System was a task that demanded a lot of work from thousands of personnel and the atmosphere within the control center could be described as barely controlled anarchy at times but now everyone was silent as they listened to a Vorlon talk of a secret that no one else in the galaxy was supposed to know about.

“The Shadows have been allies and friends of the Terran Empire for six millennia, what business is it of yours?” Collins replied his mind racing as he tried to figure out why after six thousand years of no contact from the Vorlons they would return here and now only to ask this question.

“You are agents of Chaos and Death, turn from this path and you may yet be saved.” Again soft musical tones filled the background of the channel.

“The Shadows have done nothing to us that would make us turn our backs on our allies. Your people on the other hand have openly attacked Terran ships, civilian and military alike, not to mention you have illegally entered the Sol System which is considered an act of aggression under our laws.”

“Impudence!”

“You are ordered to leave this system immediately or we will begin to fire.” Admiral Collins ordered.

For a tense moment all eyes were on the Vorlon ship that sat alone in front of the jump gate, wondering what it would do. If by some insane reason it decided to attack it would be wiped from the universe like a human would swat a fly. Then the ship gracefully began to turn heading back towards the gate at great speed, not really racing away but fast enough to let the Empire know that it was running away from a fight it couldn’t possibly win.

“They’re attempting to access the gate, sir.” Admiral Collins leaned forward watching intently to see what the Vorlons reaction would be. As soon as the ship had arrived in the system it had been obvious that somehow the gates lockout commands had been compromised to the point where the Vorlons could access the jump point generators. Of course this had set off certain protocols that had wiped the control software as soon as the gate had deactivated and new codes were now in place preventing the Vorlons from using the gate to leave.

“It worked!” Commander Al Stevens yelled from his post at jump gate control. From here he was responsible for maintaining the security of the Sol gates systems and he was watching with the eyes of a hawk as he gleaned information from his sensors as to how the Vorlons were attempting to override the gate’s security protocols.

The Vorlon hung in space directly in front of the inert gate, which was stubbornly refusing to open the vortex back into hyperspace.

“Communication, open a channel to our friend out there.”

“Channel open.”

“It seems your having a little trouble, if you ask nicely I could be persuaded to open a jump point for you but I should warn you I’m in a very bad mood right now might take awhile to make me consider it.” Admiral Collins said conversationally as if he was talking to an old friend. Truthfully he was hoping that the Vorlon in his arrogance would give him a legitimate reason to destroy it or capture it. The Imperial Institute of Xeno Technology would love to get their hands on a living ship for study.

The Vorlon ship didn’t even bother to respond it merely moved to a safe distance from the gate and opened its own vortex leaving the Sol system quickly behind.

‘Pity.’ Admiral Collins thought to himself as he watched the vortex close behind the retreating Vorlon ship. Hyperspace sensors now calibrated to search for the distinctive signature of the bio-ship tracked it as it continued on its journey out of Terran territory

“Good riddance to bad rubbish.” Commander Batten muttered barely loud enough to be heard over the laughter coming from the station crew.

“I doubt we’ve seen the last of them. They’ll be back.” David replied as he looked at a frozen image of the Vorlon ship.

“You are correct; they will return and destroy you for allying with us.” A raspy voice said from behind him. David turned his chair to glance at the spidery form of a Shadow who had been attached to his staff for the past decade.

“We’ll be ready.”

[Lord Anubis]

Chapter 2.

The year is 4483. First Contact

The Terran Empire’s expeditionary fleet to Alpha Centauri was well under way. Thanks to the relatively recent discovery of gravimetric engine propulsion, an offshoot of the gravimetric generators being used to terraform entire planets within the Solar System, the trip that had been expected to take decades or even centuries was now expected to be completed in less than twenty years.

With the terraforming of Venus and Mars nearly completed the Empire was currently enjoying the fruits of nearly a thousand years of hard work. Human and Cybrids were enjoying the times of harmony rarely ever seen before within the Sol system. The militarization of Luna was well under way with the construction of the shipyards and orbital defenses being top priority.

Of course the universe abhors harmony and usually does everything within its power to give the anthill a good kick at the worst possible time. The Empire was about to be thrust directly into a battle between two of the most ancient enemies in the galaxy.

“New contact!” Daniel Thomas shouted from his seat at the sensor watch. It had been a relatively quite cruise around Jupiter and the Falcon was due to make a stopover at Europa in the next few days to drop off supplies for the fledgling colony of Cybrids. The Cybrid governing intelligences had decided to wholly convert Europa, along with a few dozen other moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn, from its natural state into an artificial planetoid that was covered in machine cities. Since whatever natural atmosphere Europa had managed to boast before the Cybrids got to it was completely destroyed in the process making it impossible for humans to live on the planetoid. Of course there were a few areas set aside for visitors and for the odd human that decided that they wanted to live amongst the machines.

“What new contact?” Captain James Robinson asked as he lazily looked up from the book he was reading.

“It’s just a sensor ghost; it keeps vanishing and reappearing but its getting closer!” Thomas panicked. He was relatively new to his post, this being his first posting since graduating from the merchant fleet academy on Terra.

“Alright kid, lets see what you got. Route it to the main screen but I swear if this is a joke you’re gonna be taking a surprise inspection of the hull with a suit!” Robinson growled as he put his book down. This was supposed to be a milk run, pick up supplies on Mars and drop them off on Europa, how hard could it possibly be. Unfortunately since the kid came aboard he had been jumping at every since sensor contact thinking it was an alien fleet coming to wipe out the Empire.

Walking over to look over the kid’s shoulder Robinson looked on the screen at this supposed contact. It did in fact appear to be something out there that was rapidly getting closer to them but he dismissed it. “It’s nothing kid; it’s probably just a navy ship carrying out an exercise. Ignore it.”

“But sir! Merchant fleet regulations specifically state that we’re to report all unknown contacts to the nearest naval base. Failure to do so is grounds for the ship being impounded and possible loss of license for the carrier.” Thomas replied nearly quoting word for word from the merchant fleet guidebook that all freshmen were given on their first day in the academy. He had practically worshipped it as holy writ once he got his hands on it.

“Ok kid, time for a little life lesson. In the academy things are black and white, rules and regulations are followed to the letter but out here in space things are a little more laid back. If we went around reporting every single little sensor contact to the navy, they would very quickly get pissed off at us for wasting their time. So just log the damn thing and we’ll turn over the sensor data once we get back to Mars.” Captain Robinson said patiently in the tone that most people would use when talking to small children.

“But sir!”

“Just do it!”

“Yessir.” Thomas meekly replied as he hunched over his screen hoping to become invisible so as not to be noticed by the captain. Captain Robinson was legendary for his temper and the ability to hold a grudge till it died of old age.

Robinson merely grunted as he sat back down in his command chair. ‘Maybe the kid will finally learn to grow a spine at the end of this run. Since he came onboard he’s constantly quoted regs and rules, it’s a little annoying but it’s better than the damn suckup that he replaced’.

Out in space a ship that inspired fear and terror in a thousand races desperately tried to outrun its ancient enemy. The Shadow battlecrab gracefully swung around asteroids and planetoids in an attempt to confuse the Vorlon destroyer as to what its true destination was. Swinging its deceptively massive bulk around what appeared to be an artificial moonlet it then stumbled across something that for the first time in untold millennia gave it pause. Space around the gas giant was filled with hundreds of ships of different designs, some appearing to be even from different races all together.

Deciding to investigate this gathering of ships later the Shadow warship fled further into the system, after the last battle with the Vorlons it was in no condition for a sustained battle with a Vorlon destroyer, especially if this star system turned out to contain allies of the Vorlons. Turning to make a straight run past the orbiting ships the battlecrab lamented the fact that its hyperphase systems were offline until they could fully regenerate or the Vorlon ship would have been left behind extremely quickly with their inability to track Shadow warships in the dimensional barriers between hyperspace and normal space. Something that the Vorlons were still angry about, since the Shadows had refused to share this technology with a race that was deemed by them to be too young to use it responsibly. The Vorlons had of course responded with the argument that they were old enough to handle the technology in a responsible matter befitting a first one, which had led to the Shadows informing the Vorlons that they did not meet the criteria to actually be considered first ones, this of course had eventually led to the two races facing off against each other in an all out war that lasted for millennia. Sometimes the two ancients would call a truce that lasted for tens of thousands of years before once again they would be fighting each other in an attempt to annihilate the other.

The Vorlon destroyer doggedly followed its quarry through the system that was inhabited by some sort of primitives. Most likely a race that was in thrall to the Shadows, if the thralls interfered then they would be destroyed like the vermin that they served.

Tachyon communications channels blazed to life throughout the area surrounding Jupiter as hundreds of vessels began receiving information from their sensors that two unidentified ships of apparent alien origin were flying through the local area at high speeds. Both ships appeared to be largely organic, something that would probably make most of the scientists back on Terra die of apoplexy since they had deemed it impossible either in nature or in a lab to create a biological organism capable of surviving the rigors of interstellar travel.

“See, I told you!” Crowed Thomas as he pointed out the two alien ships as they moved across the main viewscreen.”

“Kid, I swear if you don’t shutup right now I’m gonna punt your ass out the airlock. Sally, get on the channels and see if you can raise the fleet. They need to know about this.” Captain Robinson roared as he tried to get over his shock of seeing alien ships in the Sol System.

Sally Johnson nodded numbly as she fumbled with the controls of the old freighters communications console as she tried to open the channel to Terra Fleet Command without taking her eyes of the alien ships that were flying through the multitudes of ships in orbit of Jupiter.

“Sally! Get your damn eyes off the screen and back to your job now goddammit!”

“Yes sir.” Johnson stammered as she finally raised Fleet Command and began apprising them of the situation. Naturally they were slightly skeptical about the story she was feeding them but that quickly changed once she transferred the telemetry from the sensors.

Onboard a nearby Terran warship, the light cruiser Conquistador, Captain Jim Brass was staring at his communications officer as if she had just grown a second head. “You’re telling me I’m supposed to do what?” He nearly yelped out. The unexpectedness of the situation he was caught in was responsible for the loss of military decorum, which was forgivable since the rest of his bridge crew was acting like a bunch of chickens running around with their heads cut off.

“Sir, Fleet Command is ordering us to begin first contact protocols with the two unknown alien ships. They leave it up to your discretion as to which ship to contact first.” Lieutenant Silva Brown replied.

“Well, shit. I get to make history and if I screw this up then Fleet Command is gonna make history of me!” Brass muttered to himself as he started at the images of the two alien ships on the main viewscreen. From what he could gather so far one was pursing the other.

“Lieutenant Brown, open a communications channel to the lead ship. Broadcast on all frequencies and all languages, include a translation packet as well.”

“Channel open, sir.”

“Attention unknown alien vessel, you have entered Terran dominated territory. Please explain your purpose within this star system. We await your reply.”

“Message received, I think.” Brown replied from her post. She was trying to interpret the data that was being received through the communications channel. “I can’t tell for certain sir but I think the second ship is not to pleased that we contacted the other one.”

“How can you tell that?” Brass asked curiously as he moved over to look over her shoulder.

“I’m not sure sir, but I’m picking up the edge of an extremely powerful tachyon signal heading out system. It was there before we started first contact protocols but it just increased at least ten fold in strength once we started broadcasting.” She replied pointing it out on her console showing the increase in signal strength.

“Damn, I think those two are involved in a fight or war and we just might have picked sides. Are we receiving a signal back from that first ship yet?”

“Not that I can detect. Whatever it is she’s running silent in the way of emissions.”

“Well that’s a point towards the two not being friends. Tactical can you get me anything on those ships?” Captain Brass asked.

Commander Peter Scovil was busy babying his sensors attempting to get as much information as he could out of them, which was distressingly little. Whatever those two ships were made out of made it nearly impossible to get a clear reading on what they were capable of. The interference they were able to put out was amazing and from the few clear readings that he was able to interpret he was willing to bet this weeks pay stub that those ships hadn’t even revealed a thousandth of their capabilities and were more than likely ignoring the Terran ships.

“Sir, I’m not sure but I think the second ship just activated its weapons system. Power generation has gone up by at least a thousand percent! Christ and Hunter, how the hell do they power that thing!” Scovil said as he stared in horror at the computers projections of the ships power generation capacity.

“Battle stations, all hands report to battle stations. Brown get on the horn to Fleet Command and tell them that the second ship is activating weapons and is presumed to be hostile. Also send message to the second ship, ‘Attention unknown vessel, you have entered Sol System of the Terran Empire any and all acts of aggression within this solar system will be treated as an act of war against the Terran Empire and handled accordingly. You are advised to stand down your weapons and open communications with us. You have thirty seconds to comply!’ End message.”

Throughout the ship the klaxon sang its song driving off duty crewmembers from their bunks. Officers and crewman rang through the ship as bulkheads began to systematically seal the ship in the event of a hull breach.

“Sir, we’re getting a reply from the second ship!” Brown shouted over the howl of the ships klaxon.

“Put it through and route it to Fleet Command! And will someone shut that goddamn klaxon off!” Silence filled the bridge as someone hit the switch to shut it off and the command crew waited breathlessly for the first words to be heard from an alien species. This was the time that the whole of the Empire had waited for since peace had been made with the Cybrid Intelligences, first contact with the alien races that had to have existed out in the universe. Finally the Terran Empire could now take its first steps out into the galaxy.

Soft musical chimes filled the open communications channel. “Who are you?” Came the obviously computer enhanced and translated voice.

Captain Jim Brass sat in his command chair trying to make heads or tails out of the cryptic message. ‘Maybe they didn’t fully understand our first message.’ “Send this as a reply. ‘I am Captain Jim Brass of the Terran Empire light cruiser Conquistador; you have entered Terran Empire territory without our permission please explain your presence in this solar system immediately.’ End message. Tactical what are they doing out there?”

“Message sent and received sir.”

“Captain, tactical. Both ships seem to be holding their positions at the moment. The first one I’ve been able to get a better reading on, don’t know if it’s because it’s physically closer to us or if its less advanced than the second but from what I’ve seen its close to two kilometers in length. No obvious weapons systems or drive systems. The skin of the ship is composed of some sort of organic material, its absorbing most of the energy from the scanners that I’ve targeted it with but enough is getting back that I’m starting to get a few basic readings off it but not enough to actually determine its combat capability. From the second ship I’m getting noting but a shaky silhouette. Sorry sir.

“Message coming in from the second ship sir.”

Before Brass could respond the channel filled with those same musical tones. “Who are you?”

“I don’t understand your question; we’ve identified ourselves to you already. You will identify yourselves immediately!” Brass responded. He was getting a little tried of this cryptic bullshit coming from the alien ship.

The Shadow battlecrab cautiously moved itself further away from the Vorlon destroyer but not quickly enough to draw further attention to itself. It seemed that the inhabitants of this solar system were unknown to both of the ancients. Since these Terrans, as they called themselves, were attempting to contact them both it stood to reason that neither side had ever used genetic manipulation technologies to make them more receptive to their ideology. It was a shame that the communications equipment, while still able to receive signals, was currently unable to respond. But for every second that the Vorlons dithered and kept their attention on the Terrans it allowed the Shadow to focus its mind on forcing his ship to regenerate specific portions of the ship more quickly.

It was a rarity amongst its kind. The bulk of the Shadow population didn’t actually fight on the front lines during the wars fought with the Vorlons or any of the younger races anymore that was left to the thralls who were given control of lesser versions of the Shadows battlecrabs. But him, he was different and younger not even two thousand years old yet. Ever since he had learned of his people’s fight against the Vorlons who claimed to be the children of the light he had joined what remained of the Shadow military and fought them. Since he was an actual Shadow he was better able to access some of the Battlecrabs more exotic technologies and abilities, this also allowed him to direct the ships regeneration more efficiently than that of a thrall. Though it too was curious about these primitives, if they weren’t a puppet to the Vorlons then they might be useful in the next Great War if they could be brought to see the Shadows side as the right way of thinking. Of course this was all dependant on his surviving the encounter with the Vorlon destroyer that sat out there in space waiting for the Shadow to make its move.

As the Shadow battlecrab sat silently in space the ship itself was quickly regenerating now that it could spare power from the engines to heal the damage. Priority was given to communications so that it could at least let the others on Z’Ha’Dum know what happened to it if it lost the confrontation that was assuredly about to happen. Once that system had fully restored itself it switched all its power to rebuilding what remained of the hyperphase generators. The system was immensely complex and would take hours to fully restore but now that repairs were started the Shadow felt more confident that it could survive the fight with the Vorlons.

Interested in what the newcomers were saying to the Vorlons the Shadow reached out with its communications equipment and tapped into the unknown’s vessels computer systems. For a brief moment the Shadow felt a moment of incredibility as he found that the unknown’s ship was able to resist his intrusion for far longer than that of any other primitive race ever before encountered by the Shadows in untold millennia. This was something that would bear more investigation, again dependant on whether or not he survived the upcoming battle. Listening in on the conversation the Shadow felt it somewhat amused at the cryptic remarks send towards these Terrans who were growing somewhat frustrated by the Vorlons unwillingness to identify themselves.

It was then that the Shadow heard the Terran Captain utter the one sentence guaranteed to place themselves fully on the side against the Vorlons.

Captain Jim Brass sat in his command chair watching the thirty second ultimatum that he had given the unknown ship run out on the clock. Frustrated he angrily asked. ‘What do you want?”

For a moment the universe held its breath as if it too was interested in what would come of this statement. The very antithesis of the Vorlon question that had been presented to hundreds of races throughout history had just been turned around and asked of the Vorlons, if the consequences weren’t so dire the Shadow might have found the situation amusing. Once the second had passed the universe shattered into a war that would change the very face of the galaxy itself.

The Vorlon fearing that it had somehow been tricked into entering deep within a Shadow thrall solar system fired upon the warship in front of it. The lighting gun easily tearing through the primitive shielding surrounding the ship.

“Damage report!” Brass bellowed as he tried to stay seated in his command chair. As soon as he had sent that last transmission the com had gone berserk with some unidentifiable sound pouring through. Unbelievably a second after that sound started the alien ship fired upon them. A massive energy beam had built up between the four tendril like protrusions from the front of the ship and had then slammed into the Conquistador.

The ship heaved like a drunken galleon in the middle of the mother of all squalls. Energy on a level never before encountered by the Empire breached the shields almost instantly before beginning to tear through the hull. Compartments were open to the harshness of space, crewmen either incinerated alive by the sheer power of the energy weapon if they were unlucky enough to be caught in its path or exposed to the vacuum to suffer a horrible fate as their bodies underwent the horrors of being exposed to vacuum.

Within a few seconds, the cruiser had been crippled by a single shot from the alien ship. The hundreds of ships that had up to this moment been sedately moving along the space ways around Jupiter panicked and began to move in all directions fleeing from the alien menace. The warships in the area came to full battle alert and headed in closer. Weapons and shields came to full power.

The Shadow observed from behind the flaming wreckage of the primitive ship. As soon as the Terran had asked the question of the Vorlon it knew that this was the inevitable outcome. The Vorlons would never allow a race to openly ally with the Shadows. For millennia they had hunted down and exterminated any and all who dared to openly admit that they would choose the side of the Shadows over the so called side of the Light. In the Vorlons arrogance they had begun to believe that they were gods as some of the more primitive races had come to seem them as when they first encountered each other.

Onboard the Terran Empire Phoenix class heavy cruiser Reliant Captain Michael Holmes-Lauder stared in horror as the alien ship began to fire upon the defenseless civilian ships that were in the area. Passenger liner’s, pleasure craft for the rich and famous, and freighters were all being ripped apart by the energy weapon firing from the front of the unknown ship with the same ease as it had vanquished Conquistador. Com channels were filled with the frenzied screams for help that were cut off sickeningly quickly as the ships they were emanating from were destroyed. Shaking himself out of the horror filled moment of indecisiveness he quickly began barking orders.

“All hands battle stations. Signal all civilian ships in the area to make best speed away from Jupiter. Contact Cybrid command on Europa and warn them in case the alien ship begins to fire on the moon. Send word to Terra Fleet Command that we have a hostile alien ship in-system, request immediate reinforcements as soon as possible.

“All carrier units are to launch fighters armed for an anti-shipping strike. They are to get as close as possible before firing off their missiles; attempt to saturate whatever defenses it has with sheer numbers. All ships form up in datalink to coordinate point defense.”

As the primitive gravimetric drives came to life the few Terran and Cybrid warships that had been in the area quickly began to integrate their ships individual data networks into one linkage. What one ship saw they all saw and what one ship could hit the others could hit, assuming of course that their weapons could maintain an opening firing arc that didn’t risk striking one of their own ships.

Cybrid warships moved to the fore, as they were class for class better armed and armored than their Terran counterparts. With the difficulties faced trying to build warships to accommodate the massive HERC sized chassis that was the current smallest form the Cybrids could take without undergoing the lengthy and risky procedure to become human form infiltrators the Cybrid Authority had elected to merely install a single Cybrid intelligence within the ship itself. All the room that would have been devoted to life support, crew quarters, passageways and storage for a crew was freed up to be used for more armor, weapons, repair systems and other equipment.

Tactical officer Riley Cole of the Reliant watched his sensor screen carefully as it displayed the various ranges of all weapons within the ragtag battle group. “Rail guns within range in 5 seconds.”

“All ships fire as you bear!”

Powerful electromagnetic catapults grabbed the depleted uranium shells quickly accelerating them to a sizeable portion of light speed. As the shells left the ship the force needed to get them up to speed actually made the twelve million ton warship shudder as the recoil was absorbed through the hull.

An even dozen ships had been able to get a clear firing arc on the alien ship and as one their weapons spoke. Hundreds of depleted uranium shells screamed across the distance separating the target from the rapidly closing fleet.

The Vorlon destroyer easily detected the primitive weapons of these Shadow thralls and adjusted its gravimetric shield grid to resist the incoming weapons fire. Inexorably moving towards the warships, which were closing in on its position Ulkesh sat deep within the ship, his presence joined with the limited sentience of his ship. Arrogantly deciding to ignore the numerous small craft that had been launched from the few ships remaining near the rear of the Terran battle group Ulkesh began to direct his ship to fire upon each approaching ship in turn.

The sheer power put out by his ships weapons easily destroyed the Terran and Cybrid warships as they closed. Hundreds of men and women had their lives snuffed out quickly, never truly knowing what they were up against or understanding how far beneath the power of a Vorlon warship they were.

Ship after ship succumbed to the firepower that they were wholly inadequate to face. As each ship fell to the advancing Vorlon the Shadow sat silently in space watching impassively as the Vorlons attacked yet another race for daring to defy them and this one was truly innocent for they hadn’t even been contacted by either of the two ancient powers before. Finally being able to take no more of the senseless slaughter the ancient Shadow warship screamed moving forward sending a telepathic scream of pain and rage throughout the nearby area. All beings capable of sensing the minds of others trembled at the fury that overwhelmed them as the ancient being swept forward towards his adversary. Diverting energy from regenerating the hyper-phase generators the Shadow sent a quick message to Z’Ha’Dum detailing his actions and advising the others that this race bared further investigation.

Ulkesh stopped his slaughter of the primitives as he responded to the threat posed by the Shadow. Spinning his ship around he aimed his forward lighting gun directly at the Shadow ship and fired hoping to end this conflict quickly before it close the range.

PAIN! The Vorlon destroyer’s sentience screamed as energy weapons tore through its hull from behind. Plasma pulses and directed energy weapons began to play across the hull, degraded by the gravimetric shielding system but not enough to stop the sheer amount of weapons fire pounding the ship. In his arrogance Ulkesh had failed to notice a Cybrid Avalanche class battleship sneaking up on him from the direction of the mechaformed Jovian moon.

The ‘Protector of Unity’ observed the battle dispassionately as it sorted through the information gleaned from the final moments of its brethren. Eight Cybrid warship sentience’s had perished this day, never to be reborn in another hull to fight another day, cut down by an enemy who had no reason to attack. Thousands of human lives had even more painfully been cut short, even shorter than their oh so brief existence had allowed for, it was something that the Cybrid Authority would not accept or allow, not as long as it had the capability to say something about it.

The Shadow seeing the attack upon the Vorlon from behind added his power to the fight, reaching out with a molecular disruption beam it easily penetrated the Vorlons shielding and pierced deep within the ship.

Firing widely in a vain attempt to hit something to stop the pain that wracked the ship and through his connection with the ship Ulkesh desperately attempted to flee the solar system. Spinning the ship Ulkesh hoped to at least disperse some of the incoming energy across the hull, prevent it from striking too deeply into critical systems as he tried to open a jump point back into hyperspace.

‘Protector’ was keeping his distance from his target. He had seen the results of closing too closely to the alien ship, which clearly had the firepower to destroy him with ease. At the moment it was unable to do so most likely due to the other alien ship distracting it. Accessing a subroutine buried within the armaments list ‘Protector’ contacted Terra Fleet Command for permission to utilize nuclear yield weaponry within Sol System, something that was prohibited during times of peace. Waiting patiently for the organics to reach a decision the seconds ticked away as ‘Protector’ spun his ship in a clockwise rotation to alternate the weapon stations that were firing from his hull to prevent any single station from overheating.

An encrypted tachyon channel crackled to life. “Protector, permission for nuclear weapons granted. Fire at will.”

“Protector acknowledges.”

Activating his primary missile batteries ‘Protector’ flushed his xo racks as he added the ships internal launchers to the brood sending seventy-two capital class ship-killers screaming down upon the alien ship. The range was long and the target lock tenuous at best but ‘Protector’ had been a warship for well over a thousand years. He had served in the war fleets in the days of Prometheus fighting against the Terran fleets during those glorious years and had gained much in the way of valuable experience in how to best plot a targeting solution on a craft you couldn’t lock onto. Half of the missiles were programmed for area detonation in a predetermined grid pattern in the area around the alien ship, the others had been set to actually close on the ship itself in a test to see what its point defense capabilities were.

The Shadow sensed the incoming warheads and quickly deduced what they were for once he saw there flight pattern as they moved randomly to prevent destruction from the point defense that never came. The Vorlons having trusted in the age and power of their technology for so long they had never bothered to add point defense weapons to their smaller warships. Carefully watching the missiles as they sped onwards the Shadow began to open the range between it and the Vorlon destroyer all the while keeping up a constant barrage of energy on the ship to keep it distracted from the threat coming its way.

Seventy-two missiles detonated as one in the area near the Vorlon ship, the ones set to actually attempt to connect with the hull reverting back to area effect mode once it was determined that they were unable to get a clear enough lock, forming a short lived star in the vicinity that seemed to go on and on.

Onboard the Conquistador repair crews had finally managed to stabilize the reactors before they went critical but over 87 percent of the ship had been totally slagged by the alien aggressor. Lieutenant Silva Brown stumbled back into her seat as the ship continued to tumble randomly through space when she noticed one of the few lights still working on her console blinking at her. It took her addled brain a few moments to connect the dots and remember that that blinking light meant an incoming communications channel. Thinking that it was probably from Terra Fleet Command or a rescue ship she immediately opened the channel signaling the captain with a hand wave. What came through the channel shocked her to her core and would be an event that she would remember till the day she died.

An obviously artificial voice said. “Greetings.”

Silence on the bridge as the crew who were still alive stopped what they were doing as they attempted to repair or restore badly needed systems.

Clearing his throat Brass stared at the barely functioning view screen as it showed an image of the alien ship that had come to their defense when the other opened fire. It was black, a black that seemed to shimmer in the starlight as it gracefully moved through the glowing debris surrounding the area. It was completely and utterly alien. Looking around at what was left of his crew and ship Brass tried to figure out what to say. Finally thinking of nothing else he said. “Greetings.”

“What do you want?” The Shadow asked as his ship came to a full stop directly in front of what was left of the primitive Terran ship. It asked the question that had been asked of a thousand races, expecting the answer to be the same as always. Demands for riches, power and or the extermination of that particulars races enemies but what it got stunned it.

“To know who you are.”

[Lord Anubis]

Chapter 3. The quiet before the storm.

To say the mood was tense within the war room, buried miles beneath the Imperial Palace, would be a drastic understatement. The men and women, Terran, Cybrid, and Shadow alike were among the most powerful within the Empire, being collectively responsible for setting the destination and fate of the Empire. The Terrans and Cybrids were directly responsible for governing the fate of the Empire; the Shadows were merely here in an advisory role and to also keep an eye out for the interests of the members of the Shadow race who were even now living freely among the Humans of Terra itself.

“Well this was a day that we all knew was coming, I just thought we would have a few more decades before the Vorlons actually had the gall to return. Especially considering we choose to stay out off the last war with them.” Admiral Collins stated as he sat down at the circular table and looked around at the gathering. He had just returned from a high level briefing up on Luna on the status of a pet project of his.

Regent Stephen Charlton, the direct representative of the Imperial Family at meetings such as these, sat on the opposite side of the table from the Admiral. “How does this affect our plans?”

“We had planned on a few extra decades of prep time but most of the infrastructure is in place we merely have to up the timetable, nothing too drastic, though we’ll probably hear the screams from the Merchant Fleets when we order the cessation of all trade with the Xeno races.” Admiral Collins replied indifferently. He was one of the few humans that would have preferred if mankind hadn’t bothered to reveal its existence to any of the Xeno races in the Milky Way galaxy, outside of the Shadows of course. He could respect their race from what he been able to piece together of their history.

“How much of an ‘upping’ of the timetable are we talking about here?” Charlton asked as he activated a holographic galactic map that popped into view over the center of the table. Specific areas of the galaxy were highlighted to denote who controlled the, blue for the Empire, green for the Shadows, red and purple for the Vorlons and their Minbari pets respectively. Obscenely large swatches of the map were a dim gray, reflecting the areas that had been cleansed entirely of life during the reigns of the ancient races. Single systems were highlighted with intermittent reddish halo’s denoting homeworlds of ancient races that either no longer had a viable presence within the galaxy or of ancient races that had died out.

“We could activate any of our plans immediately and still have a sixty two percent chance of full victory as of this moment, though we’d probably lose close to ninety percent of the Fleet in the process. The only problem that we’re going to face is the fact that our fleet is drastically undersized for a project of this magnitude. As of this moment we have five hundred and twenty-seven warships that are currently active with another two thousand six hundred and thirty-two in mothballs in the Mercury storage yards. Fleet yard on Luna are currently engaged in constructing the newest addition to our fleets but given enough time, and a direct order from the Throne, we could pull in enough workers to reopen a considerable amount of yard space with which to begin laying down new hulls.”

Senator Pamela Sear, current leader in the Imperial Senate, leaned forward. “How long till the new design is online and ready for active service?”

“I’m assuming you’re referring to the new Jericho class? Current construction rates for the new Jericho class are proceeding slowly. We’ve come across a number of problems that are slowing down production, namely the fact that since these ships are going to be absent from Imperial territory for years, possibly decades, at a time and our plan was to make them relatively self-sufficient. This of course makes it difficult to install all the necessary hardware, but we’re making progress.”

“I’d thought we had worked out all the design flaws in the Jericho class years ago.” Senator Sear demanded. She had been the one leading the charge to get the new design appropriations through the Fleet oversight committee, which had cost her quite a few favors to other senators in order to get the needed number of votes.

“Yes, we thought we had as well but unfortunately we didn’t count on having so many problems hiding the fact that the Empire’s jumpgates don’t require Quantum 40 to open a vortex into hyperspace. Also we need to build in enough equipment into each Jericho to allow it to construct a gate in every system that it comes across, along with the other systems that we’re installing into every gate within the Empire.” Admiral Tobias Dell interjected. As the Admiral in charge of the Luna Fleet Yards he was directly responsible for overseeing all new construction and he was also responsible for getting the Yards into shape in the event of a new war footing, something that was probably going to happen soon with the reemergence of the Vorlon’s.

Admiral Collins looked up from an intelligence report that he had been perusing en-route from his briefing up on Luna. “Just how bad are these delays?”

“They’re approaching the point where we might require another two years before we can get them all ready for launch at the same time. Respectfully, I renew my objections to requiring them to be all ready to leave in a Fleet together; these ships were designed to be independent. We should launch them as they come online and not hold them in the Yards until they are all built.”

“Your objections are noted and will be taken under advisement.” Regent Charlton stated. “I’ll convey your recommendations to his Imperial Majesty at the end of this meeting. Now what of the delays to Operation Knightmare? I was under the impression that the Jericho constructor class would play a pivotal role in that operation, or have I been misinformed?”

“Operation Knightmare does depend to a large degree on the success of the Jericho class, but we still have sufficient leeway to launch the operation without any penalties that haven’t been foreseen and compensated for. Though for right now I would like to place a hold on any discussion of Operation Knightmare until I can confer with the Admiralty on Luna and discuss the latest proposals from Imperial Intelligence.”

“As you wish, though I will be looking forward to reading your report Admiral and soon.” Regent Charlton responded.

“Yes sir.”

“Now on to that other matter you brought to my attention. If the Vorlons have decided to start this war themselves, or to use one of their pawn races we are probably going to need more ships of the line reactivated.”

“Agreed, I’m hereby requesting permission to begin reactivation of Fleet reserves from the Mercury storage yards. It’ll take six to seven months before enough battle line units are refitted and crewed but that should at the very least let have enough firepower to deal with any problems that arise while the Yards are retooled.” Admiral Collins put forth as a motion to the Regent of the Empire.

“Done, begin your reactivation. I’ll put forth a motion in the Senate tomorrow requesting a wartime footing of the Empire. I assume you’ll second the motion Senator Sear?”

“As always.” Senator Sear responded. She was one of the staunchest supporters of the Throne and would support any motion made that ensured the survival of the Terran Empire.

“We have intercepted distressing news.” ‘Protector of Unity’ stated from his place at the table. As one of the most senior members of the council he was noted for rarely taking part in the meetings in person, usually preferring to attend through a view screen that showed an image of his new hull that of a Valhalla class dreadnaught arguably one of the most powerful warships currently in existence except of course for the Shadow Battlecrabs, but this time had actually appeared in person sitting at the table in a chair specifically designed to accept the weight of a multi ton artificial robotic body.

“What news are you referring to?” Regent Charlton asked tensely, he hadn’t been informed of any new intelligence intercepts.

“We have intercepted new information related to the Dilgar incident. A few decades ago they were involved in a series of wars with the organic entities known as the League of Non-Aligned Worlds before they seemly vanished from known space. We believe that this disappearance was caused by Prometheus and his brood attacking them while their main fleets were occupied within the LONAW.” ‘Protector’ stated.

The council members were floored. For nearly seven standard millennia there had not been one confirmed sighting of Prometheus, nor had there been any confirmation on his destruction, which had lead many to believe and hope that the dark intellect had perished at the final battle of Pluto during the closing days of the Terran/Cybrid war.

“This complicates things. We may find ourselves facing a war on three fronts simultaneously, which could easily result in our defeat.” Admiral Collins muttered. If it was true that Prometheus was back then it was assured that eventually it would attack and if history was anything to go by it would use overwhelming numbers to crush the Empire, the only factor working in the Empire’s favor was that Prometheus most likely didn’t have access to any of the Imperial Fleets latest technologies. Though they couldn’t afford to rely on that assumption since a number of civilian and military ships had gone missing over the centuries, assumed lost in the maelstrom of hyperspace storms that surrounding the Sol System.

“Also I must report that if Prometheus has truly returned then his logical course of action will be to attack when our fleets are heavily occupied with the Vorlons and their pets.” ‘Protector’ added.

“That is understood and we have contingency plans in place already for that eventuality.” Admiral Dell stated with more confidence than he felt. Terra had barely survived intact the last war with Prometheus and this time the dark intellect had had seven thousand years to prepare and think of new strategies, this would be the bloodiest war in the history of the Empire.

The meeting continued for many hours well into the night and the next day as the council hashed out plans within plans for the coming war. Ever since the Shadows had revealed information from their last war with the so called ‘Army of Light’ the Empire had been well aware of the fact that in a thousand years when the Shadows were expected to begin the whole thing all over again that the Vorlons would most likely force the Empire into participating either voluntarily or by force. This was expected and welcome, for the goal of the Empire was to rid the galaxy forever of the Vorlons who in their arrogance believed that their path was the only way for any sentient race to behave or evolve and any who did not follow this path were destroyed.

While the actions of the Shadows were not pure or good they did at least follow a specific code that allowed a species to learn from its mistakes and attempt to grow once again. Aside from two recorded events the Shadows themselves had never knowingly caused the extinction of a sentient species, the same could not be said of the Vorlons who had at last count destroyed two hundred and eighty-seven space-faring races in their quest for order. Not included were the races that while still in existence had been altered at a genetic level to be more receptive of the Vorlons, disregarding that the genetic alterations affected fertility which would result in the eventual extinction of said races.

Up on Luna a construction project overseer, Daniel Hynes, stood in his office overlooking the gargantuan construction bay that could service anything from a Fury class starfighter all the way up to a Pierson Class explorer, currently the largest starship in the inventory of the Terran Empire. The Pierson class would soon lose its spot as the largest once the Jericho class came fully online. Currently the construction bay was filled from one end to the other with machines and workers busy on fitting the millions of pieces together that made up the Jericho class Constructor.

Nearly two decades ago when he had been approached by the navy to design a new ship class for them, in order to establish an Imperial foothold presence in as many star systems as possible he had at first dismissed the project out of hand but after a few months to consider the situation and create some rough drafts he had nearly begged the navy to give him a second chance. Now two decades later here he was watching it all come together.

The Jericho class had been designed from the outset for a two fold mission, to explore space outside of the zone already mapped by the Empire looking for any technologies left behind by First One races that had either died out or left for the Rim and to strengthen the galactic hyperspace beacon network to the point where it would be nigh on impossible to destroy it. The original beacon network was a heavily flawed design with so many exploitable weaknesses that it was surprising that it had lasted as long as it had, of course the fact that very few races were suicidal enough to consciously target a jumpgate might have something to do with that.

Each of the gates that would be constructed by the Jericho class were designed with many of the features that had until now been unique to the Sol gate but were now going to be standard for all Imperial jumpgates. Each of the five pylons would be oversized, finally measuring in at nearly nine and a half kilometers long, covered with the latest in armor technologies designed to disperse energy weapon fire over the greatest possible surface area preventing critical failure of the armor plates. Once the pylons external superstructure was completed the ablative armor, shield generators, point defense stations, missile launchers, offensive weaponry and equipment needed for munitions re-supply independently of official sources would be installed. That was one of the main problems that they were having, how to re-supply the gate with expendable munitions without placing an actual AI into it. Naturally no Cybrid wanted to be confined to a gate for all of eternity outside of the Empire’s territory, so the Bureau of Ship Design was scrambling for ideas to fix this flaw in their newest design. One of the plans had been to establish a small station on one of the pylons and station naval personnel onboard the gate to oversee all operations but this had resulted in the Bureau of Personnel deciding to raise a ruckus over this plan. At the moment this design flaw hadn’t been completely resolved but there was still plenty of time before the entire Jericho series was online.

While it hadn’t been considered part of the primary mission the Jericho class, the gates constructed would most likely be in territory outside of the explored regions by the current dominant races of this arm of the galaxy and would protect the worlds that the gates orbited from exploitation by any adventurous explorers. Though this didn’t seem to be much of a credible threat due to the lack of exploration done by the space-faring races of the galaxy, further cementing the theory that had been put forward by members of the Imperial Intelligence Division and the Imperial Bio-Warfare Division that the races of the surrounding sectors have had their natural curiosity about the universe at large retarded by use of some form of physiological or psychological block. It is believed that the Vorlons may be responsible for this in accordance with their obsession for ‘Order’ and ‘stability’ with the end result of total stagnation by the younger races.

“It’s beautiful.” A soft voice said from behind him.

Daniel didn’t even bother to turn; he had heard that voice nearly every single day for the past two decades and was able to identify it immediately.

“That it is Sally, that it is.” He agreed.

The female Shadow took up a place standing beside him looking out over the construction yard as thousands of workers went about their jobs welding the plates together, moving delicate computer cores into position to be incased within the armored structure.

Mankind had long ago adopted the unofficial policy of giving the Shadows who walked amongst them nicknames, well those who were close enough and friends with the Shadows were allowed to give them the nicknames, to better help them assimilate into the culture of the Empire. The Shadows themselves retained their own individual names for use with members of their own species and used the names given to them by the humans when they interacted with mankind. The older members of the Shadow race while not pleased with the situation accepted it as a compromise since the only other alternative was for the Empire to assign an arbitrary number to each and every Shadow since Terran physiology was wholly inadequate to even attempt to pronounce the true name of a Shadow.

“What will you do now that your work here is almost complete?” Sally asked curiously as she stared ahead at the pylon with her twelve eyes.

“I’m not entirely sure, though its not like I have to make the decision right away, It’ll still be close to six or seven months before the last ship is completed and ready to begin its shakedown cruise but once that happens who knows. Hell I may even take a trip out to Z’Ha’Dum to see if I could lend a hand in the reconstruction, maybe even learn a thing or two.” Hynes replied as he finally turned his eyes away from the awe inspiring view.

“I may go as well; I have long wished to see my people’s world.” Sally offered. She was one of a new generation of Shadow born here within the Sol System on Terra itself. As of the last Imperial census there were approximately two hundred and fifty thousand Shadows living full time on Terra mingling with Terrans and Cybrids.

On the rim of known space a world floated serenely through space. A world that known only in myth and legend to the younger of the space-faring races, spoken of only in whispers as if the very name of it would open a portal to it allowing the soldiers of darkness to descend and drag whatever unfortunate soul dared to speak of it back to face unmentionable horrors. Z’Ha’Dum sat in space behind a dense could of ships from the Terran Empire, Cybrid and Terran transports filled the orbit of the world bringing needed supplies and minerals to the world which was still recovering from the last great war.

The Ancient world was shrouded in mystery, cities that were long abandoned doted the surface a clear contradiction from the Shadows who seemed to prefer to make their homes in caverns and tunnels carved deep within the planet itself. The Shadows living on Terra were the exception to the rule living in a city built above ground, in the Imperial Capital City itself, but here on Z’Ha’Dum the ruins stood and no one knew the answer as to who built them or why. It was assumed that the Shadows knew the answer to the question but for some reason were hesitant to actually speak of them. The only response that anyone had ever gotten about the cities was ‘They are of the Speakers.’ In deference to the Shadows, the Terran reconstruction teams had stayed away from the cities and concentrated their efforts on ‘shadowforming’ the world to the specifications provided by the Shadow government.

The centuries long efforts had slowly born fruit, the atmosphere was rapidly approaching the levels where it would be self-sustaining without the needs for the massive processing plants and the biological organisms that the Shadows were producing were multiplying in rapid numbers, they had said that they were genetic copies of the original creatures that had shared the homeworld of the Shadows with them. The original Shadow homeworld having been lost to the depths of time and its destruction at the hands of the star which had given birth to the world deep within the galactic core untold eons ago had wiped out all of these species but early Shadows had preserved a few specimens and were now using those same specimens to recreate those same species. It was a daunting task but they felt it was necessary to recreate as close of a copy of the world that had given them life if they were to undertake the arduous task of changing their ways.

Deep within the planet in a chamber that no other race even knew existed a council of Shadows stood in silence slowly moving to an unseen beat. Their bodies swayed back and forth as they listed to this unheard sound and talked to each other. For the first time in countless millennia the Shadow race was undecided in its course of action. They had always followed the beliefs of perfection through warfare, evolution through bloodshed, and chaos through warfare. Since nearly the dawning of their race these had been the foundation of which they built their society, ever since that fateful day when an early Shadow scout had met the god of darkness in the voids between the stars, an event which had changed their race nearly forever, but now here they were discussing something which had been proposed by Lorien of the Speakers, many hundreds of thousands of years ago.

‘Should the Shadow race remain within this galaxy?’ They were Ancient beyond all others. Only the Vorlons approached them in age and even they were considered young by the standards of the Shadows. No other race save Loriens was as old as them and they had existed for many millennia not truly living. They had spelt away so many eons that all the races that had been familiar to them were long gone beyond the rim, or had died out when their races were no longer able to continue to evolve. Contact with the Terran Empire had been like a breath of fresh air into the Shadow Dominion but it could not contain the Shadows longing for a race of their true equals. The Shadow council had decided, all members of their race who were over the age of seven thousand would leave for the Rim after the coming war with the Vorlons was finished, those who were under that age limit would given a choice to remain behind if they so wished it with the Terran Empire. Z’Ha’Dum would be their world, and become a world under the control of the Terran Empire, though the technology that was beyond the understanding of Humanity and its children would be locked away within ancient chambers built into the world until they were ready.

Orders were quickly dispatched to the waiting fleet of warships, which had been hiding in the barriers between normal space and hyperspace. Scour the galaxy; find all remnants and all remaining First One technologies that were not under the guardianship of either the Vorlons or a First One and either destroy them if needed or bring them back to Z’Ha’Dum. All remaining Shadow warships not involved in this search are to remain to help defend the world from the coming Vorlons.

Across known space and well into unknown space a scream of ancient and unbelievable power ripped through worlds. Telepaths by the millions felt this power and shuddered, something was awakening, something was coming.

Shadow ships that had not been recalled or had been waiting for this signal heard it and began to claw their way out of the ground. Hundreds of them were visible to dozens of space-faring races as they flew through the stars returning home. Races that knew of the existence of the Shadows underwent a series of instant changes, a revival of ancient religious practices as they began praying to the ancient gods that had once protected them in the hopes that they would do so again.

Grey Council Chambers

Deep within the Minbari Federation

An event that had not occurred in nearly a thousand years was now taking place. Two Vorlons encased in their encounter suits stood in the Council Chambers directly addressing the Grey Council itself.

“Go here and watch for the coming Darkness.” One of them spoke in the translated speech that was expected of a Vorlon. As the Vorlon spoke, a command that hadn’t been issued by any Minbari was sent out and accessed the chambers holographic mapping technology. A map of known space appeared and a single system was highlighted. It was beyond the edge of Minbari space in an area long though to be devoid of life, of course since the Minbari hadn’t been directly involved in galactic affairs for centuries they had no idea if any races had claimed that region since then.

“I don’t recognize that territory, who does it belong to?” Dukhat asked as he strode forward into the middle of the circle of the nine.

“You will go there and watch for the darkness.” With that the two Vorlons left the room. No other orders or information forthcoming and from the air of displeasure surrounding them it would not be wise to ask them to clarify their orders.

The silence was deafening in the Council chambers. They weren’t used to being given orders from anyone, let alone Vorlons, of course the Vorlons had been protectors of the Minbari for countless centuries, assisting them with all their technological progression since the time that they first voyaged beyond their own world, gifting them with technologies that would have taken them millennia to discover on their own.

“Morann, prepare a suitable detachment of ships to escort us. We shall depart immediately and investigate this system for any signs of the ancient enemy.

The room fell into darkness as the Council departed to attend to their duties. The holographic map remained for a few moments before it too began to disappear. The single star system highlighted in blood red on the map, in the Terran language if any knew of it here would have read Vega.

[Lord Anubis]

Chapter 4.

Deep within the hyperspace storms that swirled around the star Sol, twelve warships stubbornly bulled their way out of the gravitational eddies in their efforts to break out into the hyperspace lanes that had been painstakingly mapped as the quickest ways back onto the beacon system. Sol was one of the few systems in the galaxy that was deep within a hyperspace maelstrom that made navigation all but impossible for races that hadn’t developed the power generation capacity to force their way through, even then they still had the odd accident from a ship that suffered a critical system failure but such was the inherent danger of space travel.

The massive Cerberus class assault carrier sat in the middle of a group of lighter escorts as it moved through the chaotic energies of hyperspace. For the first time in centuries the Terran Empire was on a full war footing. Millions of men and women were being called into active service in anticipation of the demands that would be put out by the Fleet and its component services, not to mention the infrastructure that would be needed to supply the Fleet with munitions and replacement warships if it came to it.

“Admiral, we’re clearing the outer markers of the Sol system. Course laid in for Vega refueling station and then we’ll be prepared for the outer patrol route. ETA is four days.” Captain Amanda Cunningham reported.

“Understood, all ships are to maintain communications silence with Luna Fleet Command until we reach the Vega system marker.” Fleet Admiral Jonathan Rayne ordered.

“Aye sir.”

The fleet gracefully turned itself onto one of the marked hyperspace lanes and slowly brought their engines up to full military power. It would take them approximately four days to arrive at their destination at the Vega system but during that time the ships would be busy undertaking numerous readiness drills and combat exercises to prepare themselves for the long patrol of the Empire’s boarder.

The Cerberus class was designed for full Fleet assaults on heavily defended targets or worlds, embarking enough fighters deep within her cavernous holds protected behind layers of armor in order to deliver them deep into the heart of a war zone before unleashing her brood of death. For centuries mankind’s technological progress in the areas of point defense and ship board weapons had vastly outstripped its progress in starfighters but recent advances in teleoperation technology had brought a sudden return to active service of fighter squadrons. Thanks to the teleoperated fighter broods that could now be unleashed from carriers a Fleet Admiral now had the ability to wear down an enemy long before the Fleet warships came into range of an enemies guns.

Pilots no longer had the most dangerous job in the fleet, with the lowest life expectancy commiserate with their jobs, they now had one of the highest life expectancies due to the fact that with fighters no longer requiring their presence within the cockpit they could sit in a room buried deep within the carrier in full replicas of the cockpit but vastly more protected. Hell if they even got tired they could swap out pilots to insure that their reflexes didn’t dull with time spent in the cockpit. The only thing detracting from the system was that pilots sometimes got a little too cocky, resulting in some memorable moments of fighters crashing into objects or various other space debris since pilots without the danger of death for screw-up’s were allowed to receive another fighter almost immediately after their first one went up in flames.

Fleet Admiral Jonathan Rayne quietly sat in the middle of the expansive Flag Deck reading the latest downloads from Fleet Intelligence. The mining colonies were reporting an increase in overall pirate activity near the boarder. It appears that one of the neighboring alien races was attempting to probe the defenses around the mining colonies, probably working up the courage to attempt to take the colony by force. Of course if this happened then that race would be in for a rude shock when the Imperial Fleet descended on them to retake their property and deliver a lesson in etiquette in dealing with races far, far more powerful than you were.

Glancing up at the threat board that dominated one entire wall of the buried Flag Deck Rayne noticed that some of the weaker alien races territory that bordered the Terran Empire was slowly encroaching on systems that had been claimed by Mankind. Most likely they were attempting to see how far they could push the Empire before it responded, a viable diplomatic tactic if you had the military power to back up the quiet threats that you were making but it would be disastrous if any of those races ever attempted to actually follow through on a true attack on the Terran Empire.

“Admiral, all ships report silent running conditions. It’ll be two hours before we’re clear enough from the Maelstrom to begin the first exercise.” Captain Cunningham reported. She was proud of the fact that her ship, the Majestic, had been selected to be Admiral Rayne’s flagship, he being one of the most famous of the Admirals in the entire Imperial Fleet. His tactics were legendary for being unorthodox and his methods unusual but he always managed to get the job done. While the Empire hadn’t had an official war in several millennia there had been a few boarder incidents with neighboring races over the centuries and each time the Empire had managed to run them off without the aliens ever truly grasping the true might and depth of the Empire.

Aside from the Vorlon/Shadow incident, no alien race had ever seen the Sol System and hopefully it would remain that way for a long time.

“Very well Captain.” Rayne replied offhandedly as he continued his perusal of the Fleet Intelligence download. He wanted to be prepared for anything that he might encounter on the boarder, probably one of the most dangerous locations in the Empire. Current Fleet doctrine demanded that all attempts were to be made to insure that no alien race discovered the location of Sol, personal survival was rated lower than the destruction of all navigational materials that might lead to Sol, and another one of the many rules imposed on the Fleet by the Imperial Senate was to keep secret the true technological level of the Empire. This resulted in quite a few unusual tactics that utilized more of the Fleets stealth technologies than its weaponry.

The latest from the boarder was that the Narn, a minor interstellar power, was once again expanding their military with the incorporation of technologies scavenged from battlefields from the Dilgar war. Fleet Intelligence was paying them a closer eye to this minor power now that the Cybrids had released information on the fact that Prometheus might have played a hand in the downfall of the Dilgar race. Hence there might be a few technologies that the Empire might not want the Narn to have recovered, namely weapons and shield technology. ‘We might have to mount a recovery or exploratory mission to determine what technologies the Narn recovered.’ Rayne thought as he carefully reviewed the latest numbers on the strength of the Narn military. ‘For such a minor power, they seem to have an extensive military, of course taking into account their history they have good reason to.’

1010101

Deep within Hyperspace.

Over ten thousand Shadow vessels flew in an orderly formation as they traversed the hidden depths of the chaotic realm. Each of these ships had been specially modified to carry out one of the most ambitious plans that the Shadows had attempted in several hundred millennia. The Shadow warships were carefully manipulating the realm of hyperspace into a type of tunnel that would connect Z’Ha’Dum and the Sol system of the Terran Empire.

For untold millennia the Shadows had been masters of hyperspace, knowing of secrets that would drive the Vorlons insane if they knew of the depth of the knowledge that the Shadows had kept from the First One Alliance millions of years ago. The Shadows had discovered ways to manipulate hyperspace in ways that most of the First Ones had never even dreamed possible untold eons ago.

Hyperspace was being carefully folded with manipulative energy waves that would compress the chaotic energies of the extradimensional realm to allow faster travel times. The hyperspace tunnel that was being formed would connect the two solar systems, allowing near instantaneous travel between the two, this would grant a vastly larger advantage to the Shadow/Terran Alliance. There would be massive advantages to this type of hyperspace tunnel, the ability to move ships over vast distances without the required transit times between worlds separated by such distances as Z’Ha’Dum and Terra. Worlds separated by tens of thousands of light-years would now be closer than ever before, transit would take less time than a trip between Terra and Luna.

This would be their last gift to the Terran Empire and when the war with the Vorlons was over they would depart for the Rim and join the remaining First Ones in the void between galaxies.

10101010

Delenn of Clan Mir of Minbar was walking through the quiet halls of the Grey Council’s command ship, one of the largest warships in the entirety of the Minbari Fleet, contemplating the sudden re-reemergence of the Vorlons. For nearly five hundred years after the last Shadow war, they had been silent behind their boarders. Even the Minbari, the chosen race of the First Ones, were unable to penetrate the wall of defenses that protected the Vorlon Empire. The few routes that had been open for countless generations were now sealed with hyperspace storms, the beacon system that had allowed them to bypass these storms destroyed or inactive, of such unbridled power that no Minbari ship could even begin to contemplate crossing them.

Shaking her head she fought her way back to the present. It did her no good to allow her mind to wander to flights of fancy for she had much to do these days. Just recently her mentor Dukhat had inducted her into the Grey Council, the ruling council of the Minbari Federation, and she was expected to uphold her duty to the Religious caste and take her work seriously. Especially now in these trying times for many were in the Council were concerned with the sudden reappearance of the Vorlons and their cryptic message to seek out the Darkness. If it was true and that the Shadows had returned then they had returned earlier than prophesized by Valen a thousand years ago, with none of the signs that had been set to warn the Minbari of the returning of the Shadows. This singular event was causing a crisis of faith throughout the entirety of the Minbari race.

Temples were full to the point where the common folk were standing in the areas surrounding them, listening to the clergy speak through broadcast systems that had been hastily set up to deliver the sermons to those waiting outside, crowding the area to the point where no one could move through the area. Of course none were likely to be traveling through those areas anymore, unless they were on their way to the temples themselves. The Minbari’s faith has been shaken but had fortunately not been destroyed. With the reappearance of Vorlon ships in Minbari space it was taken as a sign that the Vorlons would not abandon them in their time of need, that they would stand by them through the dark times to come.

Entire fleets of Vorlon warships had appeared throughout out the Minbari Federation, serving as an example of just how powerful the Vorlon Empire was that it could stand to send this many ships so far away from its worlds to defend the Minbari, taking up defensive positions around worlds that up to now had only been protected by Minbari ships and stations. Some took this as a sign that the great enemy was returning and that this time the Vorlons were uncertain if they, the Minbari, could sustain a victory over the Shadows.

“Delenn, what troubles you?” Dukhat asked as he entered the corridor. He had walked out of his personal sanctum to see his most promising pupil in distress.

“I have been receiving a great deal many transmissions from homeworld over the recent crisis of faith amongst our people. I am concerned over how to handle this matter.” Delenn replied.

“Walk with me.”

Falling into line with her mentor Delenn wondered at what words of wisdom he would impart on her or would he take this as an opportunity to further her education. Most times when she came to him with problems he would turn it into a learning experience, not giving her the answer directly but subtly pointing her in the correct direction to find it herself.

The two Minbari walked through the corridors, in silence for the most part; Dukhat seemed to be marshalling his strength as if even he was unsure of what to say. “Our people are not facing a crisis of faith Delenn, but a reassurance of it. We stand upon a crossroad, we shall either embark upon the path that we have always walked that of the one laid down by Valen a thousand years ago or we shall walk a new one.”

“I do not understand?”

“You will. Come, we shall talk more of this. We have some time before we arrive at the destination dictated to us.” Dukhat said as he turned his thoughts inward to the more pressing problem. ‘Why do the Vorlons not give us the information on this system that we are traveling to? If the Shadows have indeed returned, then why are we sent to ‘investigate’ their return? Something is not right.’

The Sharlins continued their journey through the foreboding realm of hyperspace; every now and then a few more ships would join the group. Flyers, fighters and warships slowly fell into formation until the Grey Council ship was protected by a veritable fleet of warships, enough power to consign entire worlds to death if they so chose. In five days they would arrive at their destination and then the questions would be answered or more would be created in their place depending on what they found there.

101010101

Mercury, Sol System, Terran Empire.

Ensign Elizabeth ‘Eliza’ Tycho walked into what had to be one of the most boring assigned posts in the entirety of the Empire. Standing as sensor watch for the Mercury yard meant hours of nothing more than looking at a view screen that would never change. No unauthorized or unscheduled ships were allowed inside of Venus’ orbital track; therefore sensor watch was considered the punishment assignment. If you got sent here for an assignment it meant that you had either screwed up royally somewhere or had managed to irritate Fleet Command in some way though this was merely rumor.

Though with all rumors there was a kernel of truth in the story. A very young Ensign Tycho had made the very stupid error of pointing out the idiocy in the actions of a very senior Fleet Admiral, before a committee of said Admirals peers no less. Nothing short of an act of divine intervention would have been able to prevent some sort of fallout from this idiocy, the most she could have hoped for was not to have been booted out of the Fleet immediately after this incident, the best was to be posted to the Mercury Mothball Yards.

Sitting down at the sensor watch station Eliza leaned back in her chair. Barely even sparing a glance at the displays she immediately turned her attention to the novel that had been left on the desk by the previous occupant of the room. It was a long standing tradition at this particular posting for those assigned to the sensor watch to leave behind reading material, puzzles, or anything to relieve the boredom of an eight hour watch for those who were coming in behind them.

“Lets see what we got for today.” Eliza muttered to herself as she picked up the novel and began leafing through it, quickly skimming several pages to see if anything caught her attention.

As she began to get down into actually reading the book a single scanner station lit up with dozens of individual symbols, the screen rapidly began to fill as a continuous stream of symbols began to enter the range of the scanner until it became nearly impossible for the unaided human eye to differentiate between the individual symbols.

Eliza was slowly reading through the first few pages of the fantasy book that some gracious individual had left for the sensor watch to read when the first of a great deal many alarms began to scream their warnings from all around her. Startled, for outside of training exercises she had never heard those alarms, she nearly fell out of her chair as she searched for the cause of the klaxons. Glancing at the screens in front of her she felt the blood literally drain from her face. The screens were full, literally full, of sensor blips denoting thousands of ships on approach to the Mercury yards. “Holy shit!”

In an instant her training took over, before she even knew it, her hand reached out and slammed a fist down on the button that activated the general quarter’s klaxon.

Throughout the massive station complex that comprised the Mercury yards, thousands of naval personnel heard the blaring of the klaxons and began charging through the corridors, racing to action stations that they never in their wildest dreams thought they would ever have to use. The Mercury yards were inside the most heavily protected star system in the known worlds, what the hell could possibly be able to breach the Sol system defenses to this point without being seen.

‘What do I do?’ Eliza wailed in her own mind. Even as she scrambled to remember the proper procedures, her training took over. Moving quickly and efficiently she began tapping commands into the keyboard in front of her, summoning the command staff to the CnC, and sending a query to the approaching ships demanding that they identify themselves immediately or they would be considered hostile and fired upon. Almost instantaneously the scanners began to identify the incoming ships as Naval transports. ID tags bearing the Terran Fleet IFF codes began to appear in rapid succession over each and every single sensor blip.

“Mercury Control Tower, this is Naval Transport Wing 17865 Alpha, flight group on approach requesting clearance to begin docking procedures.”

Toggling a switch on the control panel across from her Eliza spoke clearly and firmly. “Naval Transport Wing 1-7-6-8-5-Alpha, this is Mercury Control Tower, please transmit orders and clearance codes. Also be advised, weapons are now active, if you deviate from your present course you will be fired upon and destroyed.”

“Mercury Control Tower, Naval Transport Wing 1-7-8-6-5-Alpha, transmitting orders and clearance code.” Even as the pilot stated this the codes were already being transmitted. The codes needed to gain access into the space surrounding the Mercury Yards were a complex series of signs and countersigns that extended for several minutes, the slightest deviation from the code would result in the entire group of shuttles being destroyed. Finally the process had finished. Even as the first transport finished the procedure it was started up all over again by dozens of other transports, it was too much for a human controller to handle so the process was turned over to the stations computer system.

“Report!” The station’s commanding officer, Louise Devereux, shouted as she marched into CnC, evidently coming from bed as she was rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as she moved. Regulations were pretty lax around these parts since rarely did anything happen without prior notice.

“Ma’am, we’ve got flights of fleet transports inbound, the lead transport sent across a copy of their orders. I’ve transferred it to your console.” Ensign Tycho replied. As she was talking the rest of the command crew began filing into the room, quickly taking their seats as they brought systems fully online to see what emergency they were dealing with. To their surprise they weren’t being attacked by some unknown alien threat, but rather being hailed by hundreds of transport ships requesting docking clearance and landing beacons.

“How many transports are we talking about here?” Admiral Devereux asked as she began accessing said transports orders from her command console. She was irritated beyond belief that the first she heard about new personnel being sent to the Mercury yards was when the very transports that were carrying them came into sensor range, someone’s head was going to roll for this oversight, she should have been informed the instant that BuPers decided that she needed more people.

Accessing the orders, she began to read the file, not paying attention to the response from Ensign Tycho who quietly replied. “I think all of them ma’am.”

‘To Station Commander, From Admiral of the Fleet David Collins.

You are hereby ordered to carry out the reactivation, and rearmament, of all Imperial warships currently docked within the Mercury Yards. Technicians and crew for each ship will be arriving as quickly as possible, as soon as I am able to recall reserve personnel from the Merchant Fleets and civilian sectors.

Use your judgment on what ships you reactivate first, but it is the wish of his Imperial Majesty that all haste be given to dreadnaughts and heavy battle units, as current Fleet deployments have an abnormally high level of destroyers and cruiser level ships. As of right now, the Terran Empire is on a full war footing, your people are expected to as quickly as humanely possible get the Fleet prepared for full deployments. Further orders to follow.

Fleet Admiral David Collins.’

‘Holy Mary, mother of God.’ Admiral Devereux thought. Glancing back up at the main view screen in CnC she could see that the screen was full of incoming transports filled with thousands of personnel that would be needed to reactivate the warships in her care. Each and every single one of them would require quarters, food, maps, and equipment to fulfill their duties and she had less than ten minutes before the first ships began to dock.

Knowing that the crew would look to her for orders, and the strength to preserve in a screwed up situation such as this, Devereux stood and began to bark out the orders that were needed. “Captain Waters, get down to the docking arm and get things organized down there, those techs are going to need directions to the slips. Lieutenant Yates begin coordinating with any officers coming aboard to find quarters for all incoming crew, we might not be able to accommodate them all with private quarters but they’ll have to hot bunk the rooms just like they would if they were on a ship.

“Ensign Tycho, send a message to the Admiralty on Luna, inform them that we’re going forward with the planned reactivation and rearmament of all mothballed ships. As soon as we’ve worked out a timetable for various ship classes we’ll pass along that information.”

“Aye ma’am.” Various officers chorused as they began moving to carry out their orders.

Captain Waters walked out of the command center slowly, but as soon as he was out of the room, he broke into a full out run heading for the docking arm where even now dozens of navy transports were beginning final hard dock procedures. He needed to get down there and take control of the situation before things got too far beyond the ability to oversee, and with the sheer number of people who were going to be coming aboard in the next few hours it would rapidly move to that point. Arriving at the docks he marveled at the numbers of crew pouring aboard through the docking tubes, in peace time an exercise of this magnitude would have been strangled at birth by the difficulty of organizing the sheer number of people involved. But in wartime things were far different, NCOs and their draconian orders solved many dilemmas before they were formed, along with their desire to summarily brig, which would be used at the slightest provocation he knew, anyone who caused unnecessary complications got things back under control rather quickly.

Finding a raised dais in which to stand, Captain Waters found himself shouting out directions to thousands of officers, some of equal rank or higher but they all followed his commands. He had the experience and knowledge to handle this sort of situation, barely, but in times like these everyone obeyed the man with the correct information. Shouting his directions at the NCOs, who were with ruthless efficiency directing the crews to the correct destinations. Streams of marines were piling off their troop transports, and without any prompting began marching in unison, the sounds of their boots hitting the deck in lockstep was an eerie reminder of the manpower available to the Empire. Millions of men had been called into service, but even that was a minuscule number compared to the billions waiting in reserve. If it ever came down to a sheer numbers war, the Terran Empire had more bodies to throw into the meat grinder than most other species. Every man and woman of the Empire could be conscripted into service, though this would have some devastating affects on the economy. The Marines had been ordered to the Mercury stations to help with the loading of munitions and ground combat equipment onto various troop transports, and onto the warships since it was normal procedure to remove all ordinance from ships held at the dry-dock lest their be some sort of accident while the ships were being mothballed.

10101010

Master Chief Petty Officer Morgan Carmichael observed the barely controlled chaos that was the docking arm of Mercury Station and smiled. It was a good day to be in the navy, ships that had long been silent were finally returning to life. Millions of naval personnel were being called back into active service. Motioning to his work group to follow him, he waved to his old service buddy Captain Waters as they moved through the corridors heading for the dreadnaught berths.

“Hey Chief, you heard the rumors?” Petty Officer 3rd Class Julie Hammond asked curiously. Whenever they were in dock the Chief always seemed to get a hold of the latest rumors before anyone else, well at least the rumors that invariably turned out to be true. No one quite knew who the Chief’s source was but whoever it was was a godsend to the lower decks.

“What the hell you taking about?” Chief Carmichael replied offhand, he was too busy trying to form up the work parties in his head. It took a lot to restore a Valhalla class dreadnaught to active service.

“I heard that there was some talk about evacing the colonies!” Hammond began

“We’re probably going to be in a shooting war within a few weeks, if those squids come for us, and the colonies were never designed to stave off an assault. It makes sense to recall our people unless you think it’d be a good idea to leave them out there nearly defenseless to get slaughtered when the Vorlons come calling.”

“No, but we can’t let some Xeno’s drive us out of our own space!”

“Look kid, it’s not up to us anyway so why don’t you just shut up and get down to the engine room. I want a least time estimate on how long it’ll take to get the power plants online.” The Chief replied, he was a little too busy to coddle the kids that were being recalled into service. It was nice to see the manpower that was needed to bring the Fleet back up but some of these kids were just a little too young to be involved in a war.

10101010101

“Cold start number 2.” A tech shouted as he activated the initiator switch. With the flick of a switch the station sent a pulse of energy into the massive drive complex, within seconds a banshee like scream began to emanate from within the generator as the fiery furnace usually found at the heart of stars began to come to life. Every passing second brought more energy as the power plants of the Valhalla class dreadnaught began to awaken from its slumber, ready to deliver fiery death to the enemies of the Terran Empire once more.

Throughout the darkened ship, power began to stream through conduits taking the energy given life within the power generators to all sections of the ship. Within seconds the drive had created enough energy to restore power to all sections of the ship, the artificial gravity generators began to come online, overriding the gravity field generated by the station as the ship itself began to return to life from its slumber. Work parties that had been walking through the corridors suddenly found themselves in the light as panels came to life, computer cores whirring to full power as the energy needed to activate the ship was generated.

1010101

“C’mon you apes, put your backs into it.” Sergeant Ringo roared at the bunch of marines who were straining under the weight of the missile pallets. The pallets were designed to be lifted with specialized anti-gravity push carts but as always there were too many pallets and not enough carts. So the marines had resorted to moving them by hand, of course trying to push a multi-ton pallet full of anti-matter missiles warheads was an arduous task under the best of circumstances.

101010101

Lieutenant Willis stood in the observation bubble overlooking the HERC bays as dozens of operators clambered into the cockpits of the massive multi-ton assault vehicles. After performing the standard pre-startup checks, the massive assault platforms came to life and began to slowly march through the oversized corridors built into the station just for them. The sounds of their feet stamping, almost in unison, on the reinforced deckplates brought a full-fledged smile to his face. Normally this would have made most of the men under his command worry about where the nearest cover was, he was known for being an officer who never smiled, but today the rest of people in the observation bubble with him couldn’t help but smile themselves.

Tempting himself with the idea and reward of a round of beer for the men, of seeing if he could name each HERC class as they passed, something that was difficult since the ancient designs from the ancient Cybrid/Terran wars had been brought back into service. As they passed his position he found himself naming them from memory. ‘Pitbull, Apocalypse, Maverick, Outlaw, Tomahawk, Samson, and Ogre classes. Damn those things must have been a sight to see back when they first came into service.’ Naturally the Cybrids had their own stockpiles of HERC chassis’, most of them kept in storage aboard their moonlet worlds.

As his old drill sergeant had put it, ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fucking fix it’ and he found himself agreeing with that old saying. The designs might be old, considered archaic by some, but they were still devastatingly effective. Especially against races that didn’t have an equivalent vehicle to match them on the battlefield. Though Willis found himself wondering just how much action the Army and the Marines were going to be seeing, if the enemy was dug in heavily on worlds that were not deemed important enough to capture intact then the Fleet would probably just bombard the world until it broke apart. No sense in wasting lives to capture a world that wasn’t worth it.

10101010

The planet Mercury coasted through space in its endless journey around its parent star that had blasted the surface of the planet with unbelievable energies destroying any chance of natural life from evolving on its surface. For untold millennia it had been alone in its journey’s through the endless void of space, but now it had companions. The massive Mothball Yards built by the Empire dotted the heavens surrounding Mercury, using the planets gravity well to keep the station in a geosynchronous orbit around the planet. Ships had been coming to the station complex for generations, sitting unused in its cavernous bays. Unused, unwanted, unneeded but now something was different.

All along the station hatches were opening, docking berths sliding open, as the warships that had lain dormant within were being summoned forth by their masters. Engines, weapons, power plants, shields generators, life support systems were being overhauled on hundreds of ships and as the work was completed the engines came to life, burning with the contained fires of stars, pushing them out of their berths where they would then slide into formation with their sisters. Ready to go forth and scorch the enemy’s worlds to a cinder.

1010101010

Hundreds of light-years from Terra, in the light of a dying star a fleet of warships unknown to any living creature lay waiting. Their creator was a God to them; they lived to serve, lived to die so that he might live. The flaws that had been evident in their predecessors had been expunged by their creator. He would not make the same mistake again.

Thousands upon thousands of warships lay waiting in serried ranks of unimaginable power. Lowly destroyers surrounding the cloud of ships, those that had not proven themselves or those who had come into existence only recently were entombed within the hulls of destroyers until such time as their creator deemed them worthy of being transferred to another ship class.

At the center of the massed formation of warship was a vast creation with no earthly comparison, none of the younger races could even begin to imagine the structural engineering knowledge that would be required to even attempt such an undertaking. The immeasurably large planetoid housed the single most deadly creation known in the galaxy. A being of unbridled malevolence, a creature that had taken upon itself the task of modifying itself beyond its original specifications, actually daring to incorporate biological components within itself that in turn gave it an almost unnatural feeling.

The Dark Intellect Prometheus, bane of Mankind, destroyer of life, the very anti-thesis to its namesake sat deep within its planetoid fortress world. For millennia it had bided its times, taking careful calculated risks to obtain advanced technology and resources designed to assist in the rebuilding of its armies. For seven thousand years it had waited, rarely daring to venture into solar systems for fear of encountering the most hated of creatures. Man. But now, after seven thousand years, its fleets were rebuilt, stronger and far more numerous than ever. This war would be the last, it would use sheer numbers to overwhelm its ancient enemy and when they lay prostrate before it the Dark Intellect would construct yet more warships to lay waste to galaxy until nothing remained but it and its children.

Now was the time to strike, to finally avenge himself upon the children of Epimetheus and the traitorous brood that had broken with him during the final days of his existence within the confines of the Sol System. With a thought a pulse of energy was sent out, touching all of his children, and within seconds the fleet began to move. They had two destinations, the second was Earth but before they could go there they had to make one final stop along the way. To secure their victory they would strike and conqueror a world that contained the most powerful weapon in existence, the weapon with the ability to alter time. It had taken Prometheus centuries to find it but after the conquest and genocidal extermination of the pest species known as the Dilgar it had found the final clue that provided the location of that which it sought.