Dawn of Forever, Part VIII

Drellis, a blue-grey world within the domain of the Empire's Milky Way territory; no more or less important than thousands of similar worlds throughout known space. Most of the population lived their entire lives here, and why not, most weren't more than a generation or two from the original settlers that had come through the wormhole. After several decades, it had gone from failed Malon colony to established Imperial world, with all of the expected comforts and industries and the usual traffic of starships.

The two new arrivals were anything but usual.

In the lead was a small, heavily-armed freighter named Shadow's Edge, a Mistryl ship that had been part of numerous raids on Imperial ships, and most recently, a chase across the galaxy. The chase was still on, as seen by the Borg Cube that had emerged from hyperspace shortly after its arrival.

Korri Rej, the Mistryl at the controls and top of the list of Milky Way raiders the Empire was after, slapped off the comm unit as the Borg repeated their standard hail for the umpteenth time. She hauled on the controls and the ship peeled away towards Drellis itself. Lian, the co-pilot and her closest friend, clung to her chair despite the straps. "What are you doing?" she asked as the planet soon filled the screen. "You can't land here; they'll catch us before we set down."

"We're not landing," Rej said, despite the evidence to the contrary.

"Then what's the idea?" Lian asked. "You can't jump to hyperspace this close to the planet." The ship shuddered at a near miss from the Borg's ion cannon.

"Get to the escape pods," Rej ordered. "Then wait for my signal."

Lian was aghast. "We're not leaving you to the Borg's tender mercies," she insisted.

"They've chased us across most of the galaxy," Rej said. "We're not going to shake 'em using the tricks in the Mistryl handbook. I have one or two others, but I want the rest of you somewhere safe."

"Korri-"

"There's about half a billion people living on that world," Rej said, ignoring her. "Lots of humans. Once you hit you can slip into the crowds, disappear. Finding a way off shouldn't be too difficult."

"Then come with us," Lian said. "If the Borg catch you, they'll turn you over to the Empire, and that's a death sentence."

"The Borg will just intercept the escape pods," Rej said. "We need a diversion, and that's my job."

"Korri-" Lian tried again.

"No more discussion," Rej said sharply. "Into the escape pods, now." Lian hesitated, but only for a second before she headed for the cockpit door. "Remember, wait for my signal." Lian nodded and slipped out.

Borg energy rays hummed near the freighter as the Shadow's Edge twisted and banked towards the planet. The Cube accelerated after it, but the ship continued to bank and twist like crazy. It twisted up until it was nearly skipping along the top of the atmosphere, then lurched as three escape pods blasted off the side towards the planet's surface. The Cube was about to adjust course to snatch the pods with a tractor beam when the Shadow's Edge raced back away from the planet.

A convoy had been approaching Drellis before the Borg-Mistryl drama had intruded on the system. Large transport ships, flanked by a few smaller escort vessels, were just about in position when the Shadow's Edge raced up and launched some proton torpedoes at one of the transports. The escorts immediately moved to intercept, but the freighter slid over to drop a second pair at a different transport. These weren't armored vessels, and the torpedoes penetrated and blew out some of the bays, causing the shreds of the cargo to blow out into space.

The decision took a millisecond to complete as the Borg observed this behavior. It was clearly a diversionary tactic to distract them from the escape pods. However, the life readings indicated that Korri Rej was on board the ship, not the pods. The Cube diverted course and followed the primary target; the escape of Mistryl underlings was as unimportant as the damage done to the transports.

Rej cursed in several languages as she broke away from the planet. The escort ships weren't interested in taking her alive like the Borg were, which kept things even more off balance. The Cube was approaching quickly as well; of course, that had been the plan, but it didn't mean Rej had to like it. She was at full throttle, but the Borg launched an interdictor torpedo before she could reach a safe point to jump to lightspeed.

It was the point where her luck had finally run out.

A blast by one of the escort vessels clipped the Shadow's Edge, causing it to veer out of Rej's control. It spun straight into the waiting grip of the Borg's tractor beam. Rej yanked and punched at the console in a desperate effort to escape, but it was obviously -she grimaced at the word- futile. The cube sped off with her in tow, shielding the freighter from further assault by the pursuing escort ships until Rej saw the bay appear in the side of the Cube. She tried firing weapons at it, but they bounced harmlessly off the shields. Snarling, she left the cockpit, grabbed her blaster from the rack, and took a seat facing the loading ramp. If the Borg wanted her, they'd be climbing over piles of bodies to get her.

Immediately upon the capture of Korri Rej, the Queen altered her Cube's course to rendezvous with the vessel. It was a mere two hours away, which left little time for due consideration. Despite her previous remarks, it would be prudent to deal with the Mistryl prisoner together. She touched a panel on the outside of the alcove, and Sebastian's regeneration cycle began to wind down.

Sebastian stiffened almost imperceptibly, and his eyes shifted around. Finally he tapped Jorri on the shoulder. "I have to go," he said.

"What, already?" she asked with some surprise.

"I'm sorry, but all of a sudden I'm feeling exhausted." He yawned like a lion. "I'm afraid if I don't walk now you'll be carrying me."

"All right, if it's what you want," Jorri said without accusation.

"I am sorry," he said. "I'll make it up to you tomorrow, I promise."

"Don't worry about it, I mean it. You've been probably overdoing it lately, and your body is telling you things you're too stupid to figure out yourself." Sebastian kissed her, then got up and headed for the house.

Morgan watched with the kind of rapt attention normally associated with predators as her father broke away from the group and headed towards the house. "Something's wrong." She didn't say it, but she thought it so loudly that Ryan, sitting next to her, was able to sense it.

"Maybe he's just tired," he offered.

"He's been 'just tired' a lot lately," Morgan said, eyes still fixed upon Sebastian. "I don't like it. Something's going on."

"I don't sense anything wrong," Ryan said.

"That may be, but that doesn't mean all is right either." Morgan duly catalogued the pros and cons, filtered it through some human judgment, and reached a decision. "I have to go."

"I'm sure it's nothing," Ryan said.

"But I'm not," Morgan said. "And I'm afraid it's my opinion that counts on this."

Overriding the lock on the ramp hadn't taken long, and the Borg had started up towards Rej. She took careful aim and fired a blaster bolt center of mass; the drone crumpled. The one behind him did so as well. Rej waited, but there was no third, not right away. She sat back and waited, her grip on the blaster only tightening as time passed. Soon she heard the sound of clattering around the hull of the ship; were they going to try to rush her from several directions? But that would be-

There was a hum and the lights all blinked out. They'd terminated the ship's power; no lights, no sensors... no jamming equipment. The darkness gave way to the dim interior of the Borg Cube as she was transported away. She got off a shot that only managed to hit a wall before two drones grabbed her arms; the blaster was pulled from her grip with disappointing ease. They dragged her forward despite her best efforts and deposited her face-first onto a table; less a table than a bench, actually. Rej couldn't help but notice the drains on it. She struggled even more madly, but drones held her down; one hand on the wrist, one on the shoulder, was all it took. She kicked savagely, but that didn't seem to matter. She screamed at them, the usual gibberish about them having no right, but in truth it was just so she could have something to scream. Being helpless enraged her, and the fact she couldn't lash out properly intensified it.

Rej felt someone lifting her hair off, exposing the back of her neck. She felt the satisfying thump as a kick caught a drone who had strayed too close, but it was only a moral victory, since she was just as hopelessly pinned as before. She tried twisting her head to avoid whatever they were doing, but a drone grabbed it. It was a vise-like grip, tight and unyielding in the slightest. She felt something being attached to the back of her head, and having run out of even gibberish she just screamed in frustrated rage. Then their work was done.

Rej's mouth hung open in silence and her eyes bugged out. She had no control any more; she could hear the whispers, not loud enough to be understood, but close enough to be heard. They were all around her, everywhere, above and below even, even.... even inside. She tried not to think about the secrets she knew; it had been a strong part of her training, to help resist telepathic intrusion. No telepath could dig like the Borg instrument, but Rej had bottomless resources of hate to call on.

"Her resistance is considerable," the Queen remarked. "The little data we can absorb is fragmented, and little is of any real use."

"Only full assimilation would allow us to learn what she knows," Sebastian agreed. "But that would jeopardize our relations with the Empire."

"Agreed, although this limitation hampers our efficiency," the Queen observed. "Would she succumb to torture or brainwashing?"

"Unlikely," Sebastian said. "She is strong-willed, and the Mistryl have likely trained her to resist such methods as well. If we had her companions, she may be compelled to cooperate."

"Yes." The Queen was silent as they tapped into the communications relays. "The Drellis authorities have found the escape pods, but they have lost the occupants. Minimal chance of recovery."

"Then we should inform Romal the Attorney," Sebastian said, "that Korri Rej be dealt with by Imperial Law."

Admiral Tyrine could arguably be called the most powerful man in the Milky Way, although it was a power some would consider abhorrent. He was not only the commander of the only remaining Eclipse-class star destroyer in the Imperial fleet, he also had been given the power to fire its ultimate weapon on his own discretion. It goes without saying that if you're going to place the power to annihilate whole worlds in the hands of a single individual, you had best hope the owner of the hands could handle it. Grand Moff Tarkin couldn't... the man instigated the largest anti-Imperial movement since the onset of the Empire by blowing up Alderaan, and what was worse were the rumors that he'd planned to use the Death Star against the Emperor himself to usurp control. And when the Emperor got ahold of the second Death Star, he'd immediately let it go to his head.

Tyrine frowned. And then he'd returned after being thought dead, and changed. Tyrine'd seen him at the christening of the Shade, the second of three Eclipses he'd ordered after the establishment on Chandrilla. It was almost with a sense of distaste, as if he regretted having built it. And he had only ordered its deployment on a handful of occasions during the war with the Vong... Maybe it was because he didn't go onto the ships himself. They said that the Empress became more and more inclined to deploy the superlaser despite her original opposition to the Eclipses.

Taar kept on top of things, though. While he'd given Tyrine authority to fire, a report always had to be submitted detailing why he'd felt it necessary. Taar had also given him a list of primary, secondary, and tertiary targets within all of the independent governments, no doubt to ensure only proper military targets were destroyed. He had the feeling that despite the war effort, Taar was keeping one eye on the Milky Way, and that if he felt Tyrine ever crossed the line, a quick change of command would be in order. And what could Tyrine do? Use it against Taar like Tarkin? He'd joined up to serve and protect the Empire, not blast bits of it into asteroids. No, he had to ensure that the authority didn't go to his head, or there was a chance he'd lose the authority, and possibly also the head.

"Admiral," the captain said as the ship dropped out of hyperspace, "we're within range. Shall we prepare a firing solution?"

Tyrine looked at the distant dot; it was next to impossible to tell what it was from here, but he knew from reports it was Nillan, one of the larger Kazon worlds and also the likely source of their recent attack on the Empire. The Kazon were always a little slow; most worlds had realized that the Empire meant business when the Malon planet was blown up, but some were just stupid enough to think armageddon was something that happened to other people. "Yes, captain," he said, hoping in a small way it didn't sound gleeful or callous. It was his duty, he had to remember that.

A lieutenant spoke up from a nearby control station before anyone could move. "Sir, there's heavy jamming in the area."

"Visual scanning," Tyrine said. A Kazon ambush? If so, they were even dumber than he'd thought. Their entire fleet could maybe defeat a single star destroyer, but against an Eclipse and its escort it'd be slaughter.

"There, sir," an officer quickly said, and indicated on the holographic display. "There's a fleet approaching... Ninety vessels."

"Kazon?" Tyrine asked quickly.

"No, unknown type."

Ninety ships... ninety Kazon vessels were a joke, but ninety heavy warships would probably be enough to destroy the fleet. There was no need to take chances. "Alert all commands," he said, "we're proceeding to our secondary target."

"Admiral," the captain said, "looks like a gravity shadow is holding us here."

"DIT," Tyrine ordered. He watched the torpedo streak out towards the approaching ships, then power down and explode. It only did that against two types of targets: an interdictor torpedo, or a Vong gravity well. That at least settled who they were up against. "All batteries, open fire," he ordered. "Prepare a firing solution on the assailants with the superlaser and fire when ready." Coralships were tough, they couldn't risk holding back.

But they weren't coralships, as the two fleets closed with one another, Tyrine could finally see them clearly, and if they were Vong, they were like nothing they'd ever used before. These weren't flying rocks... they looked almost like giant remora with bony exoskeletons, covered with spines like an urchin. They were only about half the size of an Imperator, but their numbers would likely make up for the size difference, unless the Vong had desperately thrown third string ships against them. The superlaser found its target, which exploded in a cloud of vapor and some kind of shrapnel that played hell with the other ships, but they kept on coming, and recharge time meant they'd only get maybe one more shot, at most. Tyrine ground his teeth; these weren't the third string, these were something new. "Which one is the interdictor?" he asked, but the jamming was proving too much. It was also clear the Vong -if it was the Vong- were able to match them nearly shot for shot. One of the escorting star destroyers was already burning in space.

"Alert all commands to disperse and withdraw," he ordered. Immediately the ships broke off their attack and raced in different directions. The Vong couldn't stop all of them, which meant the Empire could be warned about whatever this new menace was. However, it was quickly apparent that that wouldn't include Admiral Tyrine. The enemy ships converged on the flagship and blasted away at it. The Imperials returned fire, blowing ship after ship away, but whoever was piloting them seemed to have no concern about their own safety. Slowly but steadily, the final Eclipse was blasted into pieces until the reactor was breached with the expected results. Two more enemy ships were lost in the explosion, but again this fact seemed beneath notice. The ships merely gathered the salvage of their own vessels and departed.

On Nillan, the Kazon watched the whole thing with equal amounts of adulation and confusion over their saviors.

Go To Part IX
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