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"Chief Scientist, Neikhia, get your people ready to go. We are about to have company. Do you still have those mercenaries you hired earlier?" The Resurrection Frame stepped clear of the stasis housing, its repairs completed, it glowed with power.

The Chief Scientist appeared annoyed, several tentacles flailing, with the commanding tone of the armored form. But once the Major had activated the Frame,  it was clear who was now in charge. "Yes, Major. There is still one company of thirty with a supplementary group of Corvans acting as support fire teams."

"Good, we'll need them. Get your people ready. Leave everything that isn't necessary for your research. I assume you have a plan?"

"It is not ideal, but I believe the answer can be found at the Malcanari Rift. Our intelligence operatives tell us there are a series of outposts that are used to manipulate the destabilizing quantum signal used to keep the rift closed. These stations will be found within a light year of the anomaly. It is believed these outposts were actually created by the Precursors. We would only need to take control of one, maybe two to prevent the signal from being effective."

"How many people will you need for your exploration? Our ship will not carry more than a couple of extras, assuming I still have a crew at all." The major's turned his face toward Essver, Chuntra and Wex who had not moved since the two had related their tale and he had stepped into the Frame.

"We have three ships and we will deploy them with the remainder of our forces to the other stations, the more of the signal we can stop, the better." Neikhia turned a bright orange indicating a satisfaction with his planning. The Major did not counter the order.

Having recently recounted how they came to be involved in the hunt for the Major both Chuntra and Wex looked back at the Major in the glory of his fearsome armor, Wex defiantly, Chuntra apologetically. "We are sorry, Major. We did not know what to expect once you were reunited with your Resurrection Frame. You seem so very different." Chuntra was changing colors rapidly indicating her confusion and inability to regulate her current state of mind. Wex stood quietly and let her speak for the both of them. "To be honest, we would be honored to continue to fight with you. It is clear to us now, Bogumil knew of what he spoke, when he said you were our best chance of understanding the threat of the Nox. Command us."

Essver simply nodded his assent, as he had for the decades the three of them had worked together. There was never any doubt of his support.

The Frame stood quietly for a second and then a softer, less modulated voice came out of it. "I am the same man I was before I stepped into this technology. It does not make me something different. I have come to rely on your abilities and was hoping you would stay. The weeks ahead promise to be the most challenging of our time together. For a few days, I will be remaining in the Frame, so that my neural network can be backed up, and any further repairs completed. Being without the Frame so long has compromised my health and it will be a many days before I am back to full strength. I will need you, now, more than ever."

Turning to Biyu, "Pilot, Traveling Light is enroute, repaired and restored and she will need you. I need a flight coordinator, can I count on you?"

"Of course, Major, to hell and back if need be." She continued, "Scientist Neikhia, I need one of your people to take me to the surface so I can get a place for the ship to set down and get your gear together. Teela says she will arrive in fifteen minutes and the Danikans will be right behind her about six or seven minutes. Pack light, get your crews in the air. We will work out an escape plan."

Neikhia gestures and two of the technicians begin grabbing boxes full of data crystals and leading the Pilot to the surface. "Will let you know when we are ready, Major. Master Wex, Ambassadors?" The five strode off toward the surface in a brisk fashion.

The Frame strode clear of the platform where it had sat imprisoned and walked up behind the Chief Scientist. "Now that we are alone, Neikhia, What are you not telling me? I have the distinct impression you still have secrets. I am not a patient man right now, so please spare me any further lies."

Neikhia turned toward the Major and puffed himself to his full size. The Major's lack of response caused him to immediately deflate and turned all three eyes away. "I have not lied to you Major. But I have not told the complete truth. There are many other elements to this story that I could not reveal without letting the others know the hopelessness of our situation." Neikhia turned to the Major and reflexively shuttered.

The Major leaned close to Neikhia and whispered."Tell me everything."

Onboard the Command cruiser, the Admiral, rarely seen on the command deck floated impatiently while the captain and his crew completed their telemetry and preparations to engage the Danikan pirates. In addition to the pirates, the Lorus-class attack gunship detected escaping Lorissi was detected on the same heading as the Danikans. This means their target is close. 

With the effectiveness of their last jump they were positioned to jump directly to the small habitable moon of the fifth planet in this system. With only one operating jump gate, the Danikans tiny ships could not possibly hope to out run the fleet and escape back to the empire. Their ships are only system-capable preventing them from being able to out-maneuver or escape once the fleet's smaller and more nimble frigates lock onto their signals. The age of the Danikans vessels ensure they will either surrender or flee, combat against the Corvan Fleet would be suicidal at best.

"Five minutes until we drop out of interstellar warp, Captain." The astrogation officer was recalculating the drop points against the subspace eddies trying to drop out of warp as close to the moon as possible.

The Captain depressed his comm speaker for a ship-wide broadcast. "All sentients report to your battle stations. Activate condition one defenses and ship readiness. Activate all fluid-tight seals and compartmentalizations. All weapons batteries take your targeting from your gunnery leaders. All brace for combat actions."

A young sub-commander calls up the system holograms and begins the predictive assault against the Danikens. As the Admiral expected, its outcome was a foregone conclusion to the predictive engines. Their light corvettes were converted from system corvettes left here over five decades ago when this area was part of Bel-ha space. Their weapons while powerful compared to the civilian ships they were designed to police, were no match for the armors, shields or defense systems of true military ships.

As the local conflict caused the main stargates in the surrounding space to shut down, the Bel-ha retreated from the area, deeming it simply too resource poor to bother with, despite its popularity as a tourist destination. Local police forces tended the region for a century or two until local crime corrupted the police and military station here. The Bel-ha left the region in the hands of their uplifted charges, the Danikans, but the Danikans were susceptible to corruptions and when left without the influence of their Patron were inclined toward less-than-savory behavior. As long as their actions did not cause an undue loss of life, by the Bel-ha standards, how they maintained order was, relatively speaking, their business.  Such criminal scum would have been exterminated in the Imperium but this area was outside of his jurisdiction, technically speaking. This would not stop him from destroying them if they interfered in Empire business.

"Captain," began the sub-commander, "based on the designs of the Bel-ha Police Corvettes in our database our predictive engines indicate a ninety five percent probability of success with only light casualties in our frigate fleet. We will be able to solidify those numbers once we are able to get full scans of the enemy ships to understand local variations in the ship designs. Even with considerable modifications, their hull sizes and power plant limitations still place their power output beneath even our smallest ships."

"That said, sub-commander Tha'al, we shall assume the most powerful configurations possible in our current database, and prepare for the worst case scenarios. We shall offer them one opportunity to surrender. After that, terminate with extreme prejudice. Nothing matters more than capturing the traitor, Majoris Wilks. Baring his capture, he is to be destroyed along with his ship and co-conspirators. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Captain," echoed across the command deck from all of the officers present. The Captain turned toward the Assault commander's station.  Commander Kreltan, do you have a team ready to drop to the planet?"

Kreltan was a veteran of two centuries of warfare and his body had been genetically altered for combat. Large bony ridges covered all of his tentacles and his gripper arms were larger and stronger than most. His eyes had hard nictating membranes that covered them all the time, giving him an even more menacing appearance to the common Corvan. The most unnerving thing about him was his lack of color transition. Kreltan maintained the same color no matter what answer he gave, no matter what kind of conversation he had. He was completely immune to the Corvan skill of color-interpretation because he never changed color. Even his voice seemed colorless to anyone but another extremely ancient Corvan.

The Admiral listened intently. "The team is prepped to fast-drop to the surface. Transit time, four minutes. Each Elite is super-gravity trained and wearing heavy armor. Each has had experience in combat against the various species of the Humani, the Subaki and standard Mercenary tactics. If any of the Danikans are there, they will be factored into our combat predictions and annihilated. I will be leading the assault. If the rebels are there, we will capture them. If they resist. We will destroy them. We await your orders, Captain."

The Admiral thrummed the water in approval of Kreltan's report. Then he added "Commander, if it possible, we would prefer the traitor alive. Stress this to your team. He, and his sponsors of the Resurrection Program, need to be taken to task. The program is a violation of our spiritual beliefs and has only been allowed since the Humani have the support of their reptilian brethren. If we can show signs of duplicity on their part, that program can be halted politically." 

Kreltan paused for only a split-second, just long enough to let the Admiral know he did not like the idea. "Your will be done, Admiral. To Serve the Empire!"

"To Serve the Empire, Commander. Carry on."

Third eyes were all focused on the interaction between these two veteran warriors of the Empire, each having served longer than almost any others in the fleet, and each commanding the loyalties of their troops with fanatical zeal. But there was no love between them personally. Each did their best not to interfere in the dominion of the other. All ground operations were under the control of the Commander when he was on the ground. Commander Kreltan was a legend amongst assault teams in the entire empire. A warrior dedicated to battle above all else. He was assigned to the Admiral's fleet nearly one hundred years ago and they were friendly once.

 
Battle-brothers, they destroyed enemies of the empire for nearly seventy years. Narrow escapes that became the stuff of legend are still told in quiet corners when either of them are around or especially when the two may be in the same room. Their friendship had become strained when an Imperial world infected with an alien parasite had to be destroyed by orbital bombardment. The Commander believed the world could be saved and attempted to redouble his efforts to destroy the parasite which painfully consumed their hosts from the inside.

The Admiral did not agree and forced the Commander to leave the world. Unknown to the Admiral at the time, this world held the entire clan of Kreltan. The Admiral could not allow the infestation to spread. They had already lost two dozen worlds before finding the latest spawning point of the alien horde. It was the right thing to do. It was the humane thing to do. Kreltan hasn't changed color since that day nor spoken again to anyone outside of their duties since that time. He vows to never allow a world to fall to Extermination again.

The Admiral hoped that would never be the case as well. But he still missed his old friend.

The battle against the Danikans in space lasted approximately one hour. They had maximized the output of their Bel-ha corvettes. This made them the equal of only the smallest of frigates in the fleet. Eighty percent of the pirate fleet was destroyed. The remainder surrendered and powered down their shields, armor and weapons. The Admiral dropped with the Commander and his crew, both wearing Relic Armor covered with numerous campaign badges of their adventures together. In their armors, it was almost impossible to tell the two of them apart.

 
The conflict with the mercenary force took another hour, as they were well dug in and had terrain on their side. Once the Imperium forces began to do considerable damage, the Mercenaries surrendered, as was their right under the Galactic Military code. They would be treated fairly with dignity and after being ransomed by their Mercenary Guild, returned to service. In the meantime, their contracts would be purchased and they would fight for the Empire. Standard delaying tactic on the part of the rebels.

The Admiral moved through the remnants of their headquarters which aside from the rushed nature of their departure, showed no sign of fear or distress. As if the fleet had been expected. 

Two communications technicians were reviewing the outgoing transmissions attempting to figure out who the rebels were in contact with but all message logs were destroyed. Only one message remained in the queue. The Corvans began to listen to the message and after a few seconds deactivated the message.

"Admiral, begging your pardon, you will want to see this. I recommend a classified status immediately."

"Send it to me, I will be the judge of its status."

"To the commander of the Imperial Fleet, I greet you and salute you, by the standards of our Imperial Treaty between Empires ratified in the Sjurani Accords. This information is classified and can only be accessed by using your Imperial codes, unique to command officers of fleet vessels. I have encoded it in this way because I believe this to be a threat to the Empire at large. You will require two command officers to access this datastream."

 
"All of you, out. Kreltan, I require your assistance and your command key."

Both of them strode to the command holo-display in the station as their subordinates grab any remaining technology and returned to the surface. Neither has stood this close in nearly a decade and their discomfort would be noticeable to any who knew them. But they were both professionals and as they entered their command signatures and used their command signet bracers, neither was prepared for the horror of the recordings of transformation of normal Corvans into the atavistic monstrosities created by the alien quantum signature. 

The recording continued. "Officers of the Imperium, my name is Major Thomas Wilks. I am an Elite and in service to the Resurrectorum, part of the branch of the Corvan Assault Military. I understand I have been flagged as a rebel and likely a traitor, but I promise you this: what is being done here, is being done by your government. I do not pretend to understand what it to be gained by it, or who is perpetrating it, but I am duty-bound to stop it.  Analyze any data you find here, as best you can. I have ensured all of it has been left behind for you to study. The Chief Scientist and I are on our way to stop it. Knowing the Corvan Military as well as I do, you will be focused on your honor and serving the Empire. Do so. Prove what this data says is true and there is only one way to do that. Understand, this signal will affect nearly every Corvan in the Empire.  I have included the recording of the signal as well. Once you verify it, you will have no choice but to follow me and stop this from happening. We are not hiding from you. You will know where to find us."

The hologram of the Major grows larger and the camera zooms in close on the face of the Major as he makes the armor transparent. "Do not try to stop me. The lives of billions will hang in the balance. You will have another completely different mission. When the signal is activated, it will destabilize the program that has closed the Rift for millions of years. Preliminary data from the Rift monitoring system shows thousands of ships held in flux by the program. You can figure out the rest. You have two choices, hunt for me or stop the enemy from coming through the Rift. Choose wisely. Either way, if you come after me, I will not hesitate to kill anyone or anything else that keeps me from destroying the quantum array that will emit the Atavistic transformation."

The camera goes off and a stream of visual information, including coordinates, shield variances and gene sequences are displayed along with a variety of other information neither officer can decipher.  And then the audio continues. "Now, I know what you are thinking. Why am I telling you this? It is not because I have any particular love of the Corvan Imperium, because frankly, I think you could do better. But you could do worse, and this would be much worse. The truth of the matter is, I would hate to be wrong and fail and allow millions of enemies to flood into our space from what arguably may be another more technically-advanced universe."

There is a long delay before the Major continues. "I am telling you this because I need support and there is no one else I can turn to. I need your help. I cannot force you to help me, but I will do what I was trained to do; stop all enemies of my Empire, foreign or domestic. Yes, humans have not been members of the Imperium for long, but I believe in what the Imperium stands for in theory, even if we don't always live up to it in practice. Humans have simply wanted to give back to the Imperium and now it appears we may have more to offer than you thought. But we don't have much time. Within the data pack are favorable shield calibrations against the Q-signal. If you have time, I would suggest you experiment with others, the rebel scientists believe it may help offer your crews resistance against the signal. I would implement them if I were you, unless you fancy spending the rest of your life as one of those things. The Rift is fifteen days away for me and about twenty for those massive beasts you fly around in. Hunting me, or helping me, don't be late."

There is a momentary pause. Then the Major speaks one more time. "Oh, and if you call the Corvan Homeworld hoping to get support, remember this, The Corvan homeworld is the closest star system to the Rift in the Empire. Our scientists believe anyone who is living on the homeworld in the last six months has already begun their transformation since they were within the range of the test signal. Since the first test signal, the government has only stepped up their efforts to expedite the progress of the Q-array. So if you call for help, you may find yourselves branded traitors, as well. Good luck, in whatever you decide to do. End transmission."

End of Part II

'Revenant: Resurrection' © Thaddeus Howze 2010. All Rights Reserved