Praeothmin wrote:Hhhhmmmmm...
I was thinking about it, but just couldn't muster the will to continue my story...
Now, if someone was to post a new chapter of their work, i'd have no choice but to update mine... ;)
Ask and ye shall receive
For Enterprise E, who asked me for this fight two years ago, I bring you the conclusion. To rest of you..enjoy
Two warriors baring their souls in battle, hopefully I did it right and it doesn't suck
"After the restoration, during what historians would call "the first golden age" historians would debate endlessly the morality, or lack thereof in the actions of starfleet command,( their persistent need to blame their actions on a phantom "section thirty one" and their deception of the populace and secrecy seems to lend credence to the admiralty of the time having doubts) of the last millennium, one thing can be certain. They changed the face of the universe, and we are where we are now, because of their deeds" Milan Grazha of the house of Thrawn Histories of Histories A.D/CE 6,200
Kiri’kree’fir Romulan colony
Kiri’Kree was a bright, green and blue gem that sat orbiting a brilliant swirl of colors that made up the gas giant that anchored the ancient Romulan colony. Its swirls of myriad of bright colors and sometimes disco like displays of lightning would explode across the atmosphere, gave this planet its name. “The gate to paradise” roughly translated in the native’s tongue, Kiri’Kree, settled some six thousand years ago by A Vulcan offshoot, moved either by an ancient race or by collapsing there in primitive generational ships guided only by desperation to escape the violent period of Vulcans ancient past. These cast offs and exiles had looked into the night sky and witnessed a dazzling swirl of orange and purple, pink and green that was one of the giants many lightning storms and called this place the frontier to the world beyond and it was an easy thing to see why. Commander O’Brien thought as she looked out on the planetoids remarkably earth like environment. It contained a continent roughly twice the size of Africa but possessing of the natural resources and fertile lands that had made North America so powerful in centuries past. The ancients who settled there, called their land a word that meant harvest. Apparently the architecture here was known throughout the empire, for these tribes had regressed backwards but by the time the Romulans came here, they had built mighty Romanesque empires, powerful mariner based cultures explored the millions of islands that surrounded the main land mass, and had begun to settle on the planets other continents. Less out of need and more out of a sense of opulence and ambition, ambition that had lead them to call the capital of one of their mighty empires “the gods’ eye”. Ego, she thought was such a very Romulan trait, ego and pride and when the Raptors came from the havens, the fall must have been bitter indeed.
Centuries ago, when the Romulans themselves had crawled from the ashes of their arrival and tamed their twin worlds they had set eyes on the stars around them and desired to possess them. Kiri’Kree had a dozen system moons, far less hospital but rich in resources and ores and soon the newborn Romulan fleet, reaching far with probes had discovered the bounty. For three hundred years nothing had happened, the people of heaven’s gate, grew and advanced until early telescopic technology picked up robotic factories, automated foundries and forges mining their sister moons and firing off their precious cargo in vessels that moved fast enough to make a journey to their nearest neighbor. Romulus carefully gorged itself on energy from Remus and every decade bountiful shipments of ore from Kiri’Kree. A gluttonous beast, Molly thought, must have reacted with confusion and anger when the shipments stopped coming. Their own monitoring technology had known of the primitives who lived in the paradise world and plans to conquer them were in the making. Romulus had expanded to include a great many orbital habitats and asteroid colonies, but they had yet to master the logistics and technology needed to invade another world. Still, their egos bruised and pride slighted, the Emperor called for a Senate meeting and within two hours, the worlds were at war. The first battles must have been long and ruinous, Molly thought yet the planet itself bared no scars. She imagined that Romulan ships primitive as they were arrived within a decade or so, to find a world comparable to the middle of the twenty first century earth and met with stiff resistance. She knew from the ruins of one of the moons that an orbital colony exploded on the surface, knocked out of orbit. Molly shivered at the thought, the action of dropping a space station or colony on a planet of any sort in an inhabited system during wartime was an intergalactic war crime (and she wondered how Rainbird skirted a court martial for what he did to Madred). She knew what happened once the first warp one ships arrived, the Kriians surrendered. She also knew that the surrender came with the Romulan Empire seeing their brothers and sisters in the faces of those beings. They had seen an opportunity, a claim to manifest destiny “to unite our brothers among the stars”. The people of heaven’s gate could either yield, with much of their sovereignty intact or fight or be lost forever to history. Today Heaven’s gate was one of the larger and older Romulan colonies; she also believed much of the Romulans bearing the trademark ridges had come from here. Spread out over three of the planet like moons were seventeen billion former Romulan citizens and a massive fleet yard, that had two years prior when the Empires capital was consumed by flames surrendered formally to the United Federation of planets. Molly knew it was to prevent conquest by the Klingon Empire, but the federation itself could not ignore the boon to its industry and tech base this offer yielded. This and many of the Empires other major worlds had surrendered and today, today they faced a decision that was threatening to split the Federation in two.
Molly was young, daughter of a legendary engineer, decorated soldier and most importantly family man. Molly at her age was the youngest person to receive a promotion to first officer. She was told not even Kirk had achieved this honor, but Molly had achieved it simply by being the last living soul alive aboard the USS Hood when Admiral De Sotto had begun barking orders at a burning bridge. She had fought well, and the campaign to drive the Gorn, ever-willing puppets of the Klingon Empire out of contested territory. Her actions had been exemplary however, Molly expected the battlefield promotion to be gone, and by all rights, it should have been. De Sotto on the other hand had decided to keep twenty-year-old commander at his side and give her on the job officers training. Molly was twenty-two now and De Sotto was serving was the commander and chief replacing fleet Admiral Shanti. She answered to an old friend of her father now, Captain Nog. The Ferengi was debating this change with Fleet Captain Ruiz, who was in command from a Galaxy class that orbited one of the other planets in this system, gathering resources to replenish its stocks from the local debris. The truth was, the vessel fully stocked as it was, Ruiz was likely preparing for a fight. He would exhaust his stores preparing replicator patterns for armor and high yield Quantum and Photon torpedoes and wanted reserves. Pride she thought, pride could force her into battle again either against the Romulans themselves, or in defense of them from their own.
The Federation was changing; over eight thousand colonies demanded a much more centralized government while the one hundred and fifty principle member worlds were now, intensely divided on this. Many of them preferred the federation to be much akin to a fusion of the United Nations and the European union of pre-world war three earth to being a unified government. However, recent wars had taught the UFP the wisdom of a unified body, the strength in it, and the peace at any price faction that had existed within federation politics since the beginning had become a minority. Growing ever smaller since wolf three five nine decades ago, they had held sway enough though, enough to severely limit the Federations ability to prevent the Klingons and their puppets from expanding, enough to prevent intervention in a civil war that saw the rise of a power within the empire not seen in centuries. However, their influence and the sheer inertia that carried the old party seemed to have smashed into an implacable wall when Bajor and her colonies joined the Federation. Richard Epcar was the current head of the Peace and enlightenment party, derisively known as the Peace at any Price party. He had also been Federation president for two years, when a Captain Ro Larren humiliated him in a live debate, where she essentially called his entire faction to task for their moral cowardice regarding the occupation of Bajor. Railing them as blind hypocrites, who drunk on their self-deluded sense of moral superiority allowed millions to die, the point hit home harder when she brought up that, failing to prepare a solution for the Borg, resulted in Janeway needing to commit genocide. That, popular opinion was overwhelmingly in that “incompetent criminals favor” for that act alone, and that failing to deal with the Cardassians created much of the horrors of the Dominion war. This she argued was their entire fault and that the Federation needed to begin taking a much more serious role in cosmic affairs. Watching the fiasco was the centralist movement, who had begun to use this debate, recent events slowly gaining power and appeal eroding the enlightenment party’s power until Epcar resigned, members of the council, and local offices began to lose their jobs others fought back. Rallies and committees, protests and actions shook the United Federation of Planets until eventually a vote that would dramatically alter history and according to some murder; the spirit of the Federation would now take place.
Would the UFP reorganize itself, into a federated republic, would Vulcan, Andor and Tellar, and the hundred and forty-eight other member worlds give up their sovereignty to become part of something larger? The Vulcans agreed at least in nearly all the colonies. They argued it made logical sense, given how closely tied everything was. From economics to politics within the Federation, that the entity itself had a century earlier become the sovereign government of all the races within the Federation and the change was merely acknowledging what already existed. Al-Aurians slowly recovering refused to vote, arguing that they were an ancient race on the rebound that they did not possess enough members or influence to fairly vote. They would, as they always did listen, but the ancient Medusans and shockingly enough the belligerent and proud Tellarites supported it. The Federation council backed into a corner, decided to relent, Ambassador Troi took the first colonial poll. The colonies, outnumbering their member home world did count but rarely could they muster up the unity to produce the votes needed to counter the influence of the one fifty. Today that seemed about to change, and for that Vulcan, Venus, Mars, Alpha Centauri and Denobula threatened to secede. She knew their colonies however would refuse to obey and that the Federation would be obligated to defend them should anything happen. The Romulan colonies given a vote were silent. The high chancellor of the Klingon Empire, Lord Drex of the House of Martok and the Emperor Kahless reborn condemned this as simply imperialism and threatened to “honor” any world’s desires to remain independent of Human greed. Weyoun the tenth of the Dominion ironically begged peace and offered their “services” as mediators, and would do all that they could to prevent war from spreading. Threats like that, likely goaded more and more votes in favor, and when the two Captains stopped arguing and the large holo-screens projected the votes the bridge became rigid and tense.
One hundred and thirty five of the hundred and fifty member world council voted in favor. Of the eight thousand colonies, sixty five hundred voted yes. Her eyes widened as more votes in favor came in until the last thirty, followed by a Romulan Admiral, old and tired hobbling to the podium. Molly was impressed by the sheer fortitude in his tired eyes, and his speech was heart wrenching but she understood it. They were a people who had lost horribly, and over half their population was now under Klingon rule a good ten percent of that were starving and homeless. He urged his people to remember their values, their sense of duty and honor, their pride and ingenuity. He spoke of humanity and how they themselves valued much of the same, he urged Vulcan and the other member worlds to accept this decision and let the tides of history carry them to a greater destiny. To not, suffer the loss he had known and risk tearing down all they had built out of a sense of fear, fear of the future, fear of becoming obsolete, as he now feared. Surprisingly it worked, and one by one they all backed down and acceptance came.
Thinking on that fateful day in her quarters Captain Molly O’Brien handed a data pad to a Romulan ensign and nodded with a smile and a courteous dismissal. They were a people she would forever respect, for they unified a government not their own, and did so by sacrificing their pride to end a civil war before it began.
Beside her communications officer called out that a vessel in they were tracking in slipstream had exited and on the outskirts of the solar system and was moving towards the fleet. A nostalgic smile escaped her features and she nodded to the ensign “order the shuttle to hold low orbit over the fifth planet in the system and wait for us to come pick the Commodore up”
Her vessel the Archer began to accelerate forward, Molly smiled, for some reason moving outwards to the edge of a solar system always felt like going downhill to her.
Thory Sector: The Ram HQ
Tightness, pain, shortness of breath and a burning in the, feeling Lord Vader had long forgotten in his artificial prison, the armor that had kept the rotten husk of a long faded man alive, trapped forever screaming in his hatred. Until a determined Grand Admiral acted on her own and with mercy, he did not deserve. Though Vader had grudgingly admitted his thanks earlier, now he was cursing her actions as they brought new strength, and yet new weakness. He could hear the humming of his lightsaber as it pushed into the deep black blade, gripped and held in place by limbs that seemed more like industrial lifting machines than flesh. He cursed himself, the force was radiating through him, as it had not in decades, blazing through his blood yet he could not call on the power. Frustration filled his mind and rage turned that power inward. He was impotent and weak, asleep and yet awake and watching, his thrice damned opponent. “You seem tired brother” that accursed silver handed giants voice boomed, it seemed full of mirth and confidence. Vader hated that voice, hated what it represented “And yet it is your breath I hear” Vader mocked, he called upon the force, upon his rage and stepped forward driving the dark blade back, finally pushing it until it slipped!
The blade launched out of Im’pecs hand and Vader wasted no time thrust his sword forward it smashed into the giant Dominion spawned killer of men’s stomach rebounding off armor that screeched and cackled burned as the giant turned and wheeling into Vader’s body smashing the dark lord’s torso against the giant’s bulk. Before Vader could twist his sword an elbow crashed into Vader’s head and the dark lord felt the world blur and his stomach and liver twinge and hurl all manner of obscenities his way as a powerful knee smashed into his stomach. Feeling his lightsaber drop Vader cursed as he was gripped his cape and physically thrown against a wall with such violent he was certain that ribs were broken. This was when the automated systems that functioned inside his new mask seemed to activate pumping refined oxygen and what he assumed were healing chemicals and adrenals into his body. Vader brought his hand forward and called on the darkness “impressive’ he conceded “most impressive, but you fight alone” his discarded lightsaber activated and lunged toward Im’pec who laughed loudly and rolled grabbing his sword and hitting the blade with enough force to send it flying into some power conduits.
Sparks erupted everywhere, the onlookers gasped as Vader guided his blade about, and the giant warrior met the blade each time with a counter, all the while laughing “Trickery and bravado?” Im’pec roared with laughter and turned catch the saber in his hand. Vader blinked within his mask, this obese fool had caught his blade and Vader could not budge it. What was wrong with him? Slowly he rose to his feet, taking in a breath “You are as blind as you are fat!” Vader said and with the force began to pull forward a series of craters and boxes, Im’pec side stepped several and cut another to pieces with mighty Star breaker then did the unbelievable! He tossed Vader his lightsaber. Both men stared at each other, through his mask Vader could see the fire burning in the other man’s eyes. Why did he hate those eyes so? Where was his power? “It comes to it Dark one” Im’pec said calmly “Do you see something in my eyes? Do you see it yet?”
“You see nothing,” Vader said coldly “Do I brother?” Im’pec shot back “For I see a dying fire behind a mask of death, I see a blade before me great and terrible! A once great warrior! How must have laid low your foes of old! I can see all the great battles! Where blades matched with blades, where a man of honor struck against the darkness! For his honor! For his peoples and for love”
That did it and Vader lunged forward, his speed increasing two fold as rage and regret surged through veins both new and old. He was a blur of blackness that met with the mighty Dahar master, their swords clashed together with such ferocity that those who witnessed this battle would later say that the ground below them sank and the force was so create that the very air around them had been pushed out. Im’pec brought both hands to Hov’ghor and drove it downward until Vader’s lightsaber was an inch away from the man’s mighty shoulders. There was a sudden spark, a roar of pain as Vader felt Lightsaber piece flesh, and his retaliation was swift. Swinging his blade forward throwing Im’pecs from the giants hand again, only this time there was no pause. Vader leapt into the air driving his blade forward, towards the giants head and throat when Im’pec side stepped some of his great beard caught fire, the flames causing Vader to smile ferociously, yes you would soon know the agony of the inferno! Vader would sever an arm or slash his throat but leave him alive long enough to partially burn to death. His thoughts ended when a powerful silver fist grabbed the lightsaber and pushed it to the side. Burning beard and all came down against Vader in a mighty head butt that sent the dark lord rolling on the floor.
Im’pec was laughing, patting the flames out and looking at his metallic hand that seemed to be only now cooling from the brush with the lightsaber. “Ahh yes! Yeessss brother! Rage! Rage against your enemy! Grow mad and grow drunk! Forget!”
Vader struggled to his feet, inside his helmet he tasted something he had not tasted in a long time, blood. His own blood! Im’pecs words however pierced him deeper than any wound he had ever received. Turning he walked forward his features numb and calm, internally however his body was utterly exhausted, he hurt more than he had ever hurt in years. “Pathetic” he thought, pathetic! This fight should have been over moments ago! Was this beast truly this powerful? had the barbarian thralls words rung true? Had Lord Vader become so lost in his rage and self-delusion that he had lost himself? No, he told himself he had no other choice, it was too late for him and he was nothing but a thrall himself.
Steeling himself against the coming onslaught Vader ignited his lightsaber and blocked another blow from Im’pec who grinned with his demented smile. “You are strong giant, but you underestimate the power of the darkside” “Fah! I care nothing for the power of the darkside! Show me that it is unwise to underestimate you!”
Vader’s eyes narrowed at that remark and he threw the fat fool back with such force Im’pec surely must have had ribs as broken as his own. Again laughter and Lord Vader raised his hand “There is a great bloodlust with you, much anger that I sense, it gives you focus” the ground began to shake the catwalk above them rumbled, straining to resist the power of the dark lord. Finally giving way it ripped from its place and surged forward “But you are still no match for my power!” those words, cracking through the layers of haze and hate echoed from a voice Vader had long forgotten and brought the metal structure crashing down around Im’pec.
Vader watched as rubble and dust settled then turned sheathing his lightsaber he began to walk forward towards the nearest Storm Trooper commander, together they would hunt down the remaining alien trash and Vader would burn this encounter from his mind and use the ashes of that presumptuous fool to drown the Dominion.
As he did so, the rubble began to move and Vader heard a voice in an ironic tone shout “It is unwise to lower your defenses” Vader only had time to twist himself turning away in vain, as a black blade collided with his face.