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Txslnghrns

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  23. Will this new home have a fan fiction page? There was some really great content previously. Here’s a sample of one I really liked from back in the day... WORLDS WITHOUT END REDUXAct ICHAPTER I.In the endless void between the stars the mile-long form of astarship moved silently, its chalk-white surface in perfect contrastwith the infinite night. The almost casual motion of this ship andits two escorts was quietly observed. Star Destroyers, a powerfulfront-line ship for the Galactic Empire, and a source of terror acrossits territory. The recent arms race with the guerrilla movement tooverthrow their leadership had continued to push their weaponstechnology further. It is this short time right now when that Empirewould be at its strongest, when they have their most advancedtechnologies and an intact chain of command."Yes," said a voice with satisfaction, unconcerned with suchphysical limitations on sound in a vacuum. "This will do nicely."When those words were spoken, a change took place that was tobe felt across the universe. In some parts of the galaxy, somespecial individuals noticed inexplicable feelings of uncertainty anddread. For the two remaining masters of the Force, each the polaropposite of his counterpart, it produced a disturbance unlike any theyhad ever experienced in their long lives. And while these two werewont to agree on anything, both could sense the potential doom thathad come into being.On the other side of the universe a hopelessly mismatchedbattle was about to come to its inevitable conclusion. One was theFederation Starship Voyager, which has been cut off from its peoplefor over five years. Its opponent was a gigantic ship belonging tothe Federation's greatest enemy: the Borg. Unlike Voyager, it washeavily-armed and effectively shielded, and there was no doubt whowould be the victor. But as it happened, this single battle betweentwo rather insignificant ships was in fact the most important one inall of history, although neither side knew it."Any signs of other vessels in the vicinity," asked CaptainKathryn Janeway, commander of Voyager. "Negative, captain," Ens. Kim replied. "No other vessels inrange of our sensors." The ship rocked under the impact of another Borg weapon."Direct hit, Deck 12," reported Lt. Tuvok at Tactical. Janeway's first officer, Comm. Chakotay, stepped to her side.In all crises he was her closest advisor. Unfortunately, there waslittle to offer under the present circumstances. "Maybe there'ssomewhere we can hide," he offered, "at least for a little while. Giveus a chance to patch the ship together." The ship was struck again, and below in Astrometrics, Seven ofNine was hastily examining their sensor readings. The fact that shewas a Borg herself was only relevant in that she knew what she wasfighting to escape. If there was any irony in her mind being pittedagainst the hive collective that had trained her it was lost on her."Anything that can provide some cover?" Janeway asked over the comm."Nothing yet, captain," Seven replied, her voice even despitethe anxiousness of the moment. Seven was not one to panic, regardlessof the situation. She was adjusting the long-range sensors in thevain hope of finding something when her console beganto beep for herattention. She tapped the panel and her brow furrowed in momentaryconfusion. "Captain," she said, "Sensors have picked up what appearsto be a wormhole less than five hundred thousand kilometers fromhere."The ship shuddered again, and Seven could feel the explosivedecompression despite the room's seal. They wouldn't last muchlonger. "How the hell did we miss that?" Janeway asked. "It'spractically on our doorstep.""I'm not sure," Seven said, looking at the readings. "But itis a wormhole." She continued tapping the panel as she analyzed thereadings. "Stable, but I have no idea where it leads." Seven'sstomach twisted as the inertial dampeners failed for a fraction of asecond. She passed the coordinates on to Navigation."Away from here, and that's good enough for me," Janeway said."Alter course, Mr. Paris." Voyager turned tightly, and the cube altered direction topursue. Not long after, space opened up and swallowed both of themwithout a trace.Standing on the main deck of the Star Destroyer Incaciad,Admiral Thrawn gazed at the space beyond. His crew was far too busyensuring the smooth running of the ship to pay much attention, andeven less time to wonder what he might be looking at, or thinkingabout. It was a pointless exercise anyway; few could understand allthat went on behind those alien eyes, and yes he was alien. Hisascent to his current rank did nothing to change that fact in theminds of the Imperial Navy, although it mattered little to those underhis command. Whatever feelings they might have for non-humans weresuspended for the grand admiral, and newcomers to the ship werequickly educated in that fact by his crew. It takes extraordinaryeffort to overcome a prejudice; but then, there was nothing ordinaryabout Thrawn.As it happened, he was thinking about the future, and how thegalaxy was going to change soon. The Empire was constructing a secondDeath Star at Endor, supposedly more powerful than the first. Ratherredundant in Thrawn's estimation; a planet-destroying weapon's onlyreal benefit was in overwhelming planetary shields, which the firstDeath Star was quite capable of doing. Even then, in practicalmilitary terms it wasn't a terribly effective weapon. Perhaps toeliminate the center of your enemies' leadership or to terrify apopulace into surrender, but what good, in the end, was blowing up aplanet you want to conquer? The Death Star was useful, but the extraeffort was a bit of a waste in Thrawn's estimation.According to the secret communication, the Death Star'sconstruction was behind, and Darth Vader and the Emperor would overseethe final stages of construction in person. Yes, the Emperor wasleaving the impenetrable security of Coruscant to personally observethe construction of an inoperable and defenseless battlestation.Seemed rather obvious a trap, but the Rebels had been sufferingseveral setbacks, and the Emperor's rather obvious trap did have aparticularly attractive piece of bait. He considered who might becommanding the Imperial forces; probably Piett. Not a bad commander,but not a very brilliant tactician either. Thrawn was just considering some attack scenarios, were he incharge, when he heard one of the crewmen speaking to Captain Jarrol."Sir, two ships have appeared on our scope." Thrawn turned around and looked down towards the young man.There was almost a sense of casualness about the way he acted. "Out ofhyperspace?" "No sir," the crewman quickly responded to Thrawn, "they justappeared out of nowhere." "Indeed," replied Thrawn, still nonplused. "Let's have alook," he said as he stepped towards the control station. He didn'twaste time telling the crew to raise the shields; they knew what heexpected of them. He examined the ships for several seconds. Theywere clearly alien, and they didn't share any similar designs. Thesmaller ship was visibly damaged, but if the larger cube-shaped vesselwas responsible, it showed no interest in making the kill just yet."Admiral," Jarrol said, returning from a quick discussion withhis deck officer, "we have an intruder on board. Engineering.""I assume you're not referring to a rebel spy.""No," Jarrol said. "According to witnesses it appeared out ofthin air.""'It?'" Thrawn replied. Jarrol offered him the datapad andThrawn looked at the intruder. Mechanical components, but obviously aliving thing. "A cyborg," he said quietly."It made no threatening motions," Jarrol continued. "But whenit didn't heed instructions it was shot. They're taking it to theinfirmary to study it."Thrawn looked up from the datapad to the two ships beyond thewindows. "So," he asked no one in particular, "which one did you comefrom?""Sir, we're receiving a hail from the cubical vessel," anofficer reported. The sudden voice was chilling, as if a millionvoices were speaking as one in some horrible chant. "We are the Borg.We have analyzed your defensive capabilities and judged them to beinadequate. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will addyour distinctiveness to our own. You will adapt to service us.Resistance is futile." On board the battered remains of Voyager, Captain Janeway rosefrom her chair. "Hail them again." Lt. Tuvok sent the message, but... "No response." "Captain," Harry Kim said anxiously, "the Borg have beamedover to the alien ship, the center one." "How many drones?" "One." Ens. Kim checks his instruments. "They must have beamedover while their shields were still down." Janeway turned to her first officer, unable to hide herconfusion. "Why would they not answer our hails? If they werehostile, why haven't they fired? If they're peaceful, why ignore us?""Perhaps their communication technology is incompatible with ours," heoffered. "We did receive energy readings earlier which may have been acommunication device," Tuvok informed them. Janeway turned, her hand stroking her chin. Finally shewalked towards the turbolift with a quick gait. "Analyze thosesignals, see if you can communicate with them. I'll be in engineering- we still have a ship to put back together." Thrawn watched the Cube advance. It was certainly big, butthere was no visible sign of any armored defenses, a rather oddconstruction given the appearance of the cyborg below. "Flank them,"Thrawn ordered, and the Kartinian and Lucinda advanced on the Cubewhile the Incaciad moved into position. "Have the fighter crewsstanding by," he ordered, "but don't launch until my order.""Commander," Tuvok said, "the energy signal the Borg sentearlier was similar in nature to the one we received from the alienvessels. It might be their method of communication.""Look at modifying our communications equipment to broadcastusing those signals," Chakotay said. "Whatever their intentions,we've got to warn them before the Borg try something.""Looks like we're too late for that," Tom Paris, Voyager'spilot, said as Chakotay's attention returned to the screen. "It'sheading right for them."Chakotay took a deep breath. "Let's hope they learn quickly,"he said quietly."Use the Ion Cannons," Thrawn said, his voice with a steeledge to it. "Perhaps we can take it intact."Silvery-blue beams launched from the three star destroyers,washing over the Cube's surface. It was clear that they were strikingthe ship itself, but there was no noticeable effect, not even on thesensors."Cease fire," Thrawn said. There was an unusual tone to hisvoice, as if he were about to make a chess move right into a trap thathe could feel was there but couldn't quite see. "Turbolasers," heordered.While the message was relayed to the stations Jarrol steppedover to Thrawn's side. "Shall we launch our missiles as well?" heasked.Thrawn didn't answer at first, he just stared at the image ofthe cyborg on his datapad. "No," he said finally. "And no fighters.Just fire our lasers and let's see what happens."Due to the sheer size of the Borg Cube the star destroyersturned their ships so the heavy turbolaser batteries on their dorsalside could all be brought to bear, much like it did during a BaseDelta Zero. That much firepower could normal eradicate all life on aworld in little time, and with the rate the plasma bolts tore throughthe tritanium hull of the Cube it seemed that would be the case hereas well.But for the Borg the purpose of the attack wasn't to fight, itwas to learn about this new species. Their scans had revealed newtypes of technology, and what little information their lost drone hadgathered indicated that there was some that could be of use to theCollective. Because even though they had been cut off from the hivemind, the Borg never for a moment deviated from their purpose: toconsume technology and cultures that would increase their ownperfection. That it would involve their own destruction wasn't even afactor.The Voyager bridge crew watched in amazement as the cube wasslowly torn to pieces by the aliens with few retaliatory shots oftheir own. The last time they'd seen anything like this--the onlytime actually--was Species 8472. It was clear that Chakotay wasn'tthe only one thinking that. "It doesn't look like the Borg haveadapted yet," Harry Kim observed. "I don't think they'll get the chance," Chakotay said as acorner ten times Voyager's size broke off from the main mass of theCube.Paris swiveled nervously in his pilot's chair. "I hate to bethe pessimist here," he remarked, his eyes glued to the screen. "But,I have a feeling they're not going to just ignore us after they'rethrough with the Borg."Chakotay had been thinking the same thing. "Any progress,Tuvok?""I believe I have the answer," Tuvok said, "but I am unable tosend the response.""Was the comm system damaged?" Chakotay asked as he camearound to the tactical panel. "Negative. But there is a powerful distortion field that'sblocking our ability to communicate.""Some kind of energy noise," Harry Kim said. "It's playinghavoc with our sensors as well. I think it's coming from those alienships."Any further discussion was halted when the Cube ruptured in aseries of smaller explosions as individual power distribution nodesfailed. Random debris scattered across space, buffeting Voyager withshrapnel. Mercifully the shields held, but as they watched the threeships responsible close on their location it was clear that was wherethere good fortune ended.It was fifty thousand lightyears from where the battle justended to the Imperial capital of Coruscant, but for a master of theForce distance was something that happened to other people. TheEmperor hadn't moved since he had summoned Mara Jade hours before. Hismeditation was so deep she wondered if he would ever return. It wasclear why she had been called here; with Vader overseeing constructionon the Death Star she was the only one left who could feel that he wasstill alive. Even this deep there was no mistaking the powerfulimpression he left on the fabric of life, a neutron star on the rubbersheet that was the Force. Despite herself Mara jumped when he spoke."There is a great disturbance in the force." "Yes master, you have told me." She tried to disguise herfear. There was something different about him, but she was afraid toprobe it for fear of rebuke or, even worse, actually discovering whatit was."No, not that. No mere Jedi can do this. This issomething... alien." Mara Jade had received little training in the Force, so shecould only wait while her master pondered what he'd felt. He seemedto reach a decision. "You will remain here with me on Coruscant." That hadn't been what she'd expected. "But, I was to killSkywalker." "He is no longer a cause for concern," the Emperor saidflatly. "We must prepare for an even greater challenge." He stood upand reached out for Mara. "Come." Mara climbed the steps and thenknelt before him. "Are you prepared to give up the life you have leduntil now? Will you leave that person behind, if it meant limitlesspower at my side?""Yes, my master," she said. Immediately she felt her mindstabbed. It was hate, a cold hate, a hate that was born fromisolation in the frozen stars, a hate weaned on pain and nurtured byabandonment and isolation. It was a hatred so black it consumed thelight, boundless and barren, it allowed no room for pity or mercy orcompassion, but it offered a strength that Mara could never haveimagined.It had been an instant, and it had been forever, but thesensation ended and Mara found herself panting on the stairs to theEmperor's throne. "Rise," he ordered, but with a touch of friendshipto his voice. "It is time to begin your training, my youngapprentice."
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