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Second Chances - An Earth & Beyond Emulator Novel, Prologue


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[attachment=2478:SiobhanSabura.jpg]Second Chances - An Earth & Beyond Emulator Novel, Prologue

by Pakkrat

Prologue
If it could be termed such, it was midnight in the Ruins of Jove City. The Reclaimer time-marked his entry through a forgotten airlock that was so aged and disused that he had been forced to use a handheld hydraulic spreader to shift open the outer doors after manually releasing the outer lock. Thankfully the airlock had a manual system of actuating the airlock as there was no power flowing to this wing of the Ruins.

Just outside the superstructure, quiet amongst other debris, free-floating cable lines and conduits, was his Sentinel ship, the "Apotheosis". All the docking facilities were either destroyed many years ago, were watched by system patrols or guarded by the low-life squatters that had infested the Ruins. The Reclaimer had been forced to pull up to this section and power down his vessel.

It was a useful trick of the Sabine Order Sentinels to make use of their Powerdown holographics systems in order to disguise their vessels to appear as a destroyed hulk or floating hunk of debris, anything to feign incapacitation and thus be overlooked by anyone taking interest in a Sentinel's doings. The ship was flat black in color with only the red-tipped vanes and fins. The holgraphics projectors worked on their own power to make the ship look destroyed and long decayed over time. It would take some serious interest in the 'hulk' and a concentrated scan to detect that the derelict was really a powered-down vessel hiding in the wreckage of the Ruins of Jove City.

The Sabine Order Reclaimer had exited his craft in a space suit and strung a line from it to the airlock. There he had forced his entry into the Ruins. The superstructures floated in eternal free-fall orbit about Jupiter whose 'eye' storm watched silently over the abandoned city-now-memorial. The local Jenquai authorities and citizenry of Jupiter sector refused to enter their memorial, the Ruins, in respect for the dead of the Gate War. The once-grand and spectacular space station city was eerily silent from the outside as the ancient Earth graveyards where the deceased were laid to rest.

The Gate War had been long over, the three races of Jenquai, Progen, and Terran having come to armistice and then peace treaty lest humanity set itself back millennia with mutually assured destruction. Jove City was a reminder now of the horrors of war. Only occasionally did pilots come near to the Ruins to pay their respects and be reminded of sacrifice and atrocity that war brings. The wrecks of huge capital ships, both sleek Jenquai Maru vessels and the bulky, armored hulks of Progen Pax warships lay dark and silent further out from the Ruins of Jove City.

The Reclaimer set his forearm vambrace's journal to record his passage into the Ruins. He glossed over his own name on the tiny screen of the device. Tervanus "Wrecks" Rex, First Charge Reclaimer stepped from the second door of the airlock as quietly as he could. He left the inner door open for he planned on only being here for a short while. He knew where he wanted to explore after having clandestinely perused the Jenquai archives at the newer, nearby space station Jove's Fury in the same sector of space. Acting as some Progen explorer historian, Tervanus Rex had asked to contemplate the Ruins by looking into the deck plans of the old City. Not very alerted to a Progen who was respectful and inquisitive, the Jenquai archival staff permitted him to study the pre-Gate War blueprints. Perhaps he was appreciating the beauty and aesthetic of Jove City before the destruction had forever marred it.

Thus the Sabine Reclaimer illegally stole into the Ruins with a clear route in mind and guided by his copied deck plans. He did not intend to use it, but his utility belt was home to his impact slug-thrower pistol. There were rumors that the Ruins had become an unauthorized hovel shantytown for Terran vagrants, looters, and squatters. The Ruins were ever-so-slowly being picked clean by the Terran rats looking for anything that would purchase them another meal. If one came too close to the Reclaimer, well he had a silencer attached to the gun barrel to keep such close encounters private.

Rex looked about at the avenues, long-dead buildings, shattered superstructures, and wreckage that none had cleaned or repaired in all this time since the Gate War. The Ruins were still ruins even if they were scantily inhabited. He checked his map again as he turned a corner. Still his entry had not been detected.

Though darkness reigned here in the Ruins, silence had yet to win over the lamenting creak and scrape of the bulkheads. The Ruins was still singing its woeful death-throes to this day and a metal-on-metal screech like a ghostly wail heralded his view of the Jenquarum Council Chamber building ahead. The sound sent a chilling warning up the Reclaimer's spine as he gazed at the sacrilege inflicted upon the once-holy site. The symbol of the Jenquai race was long blasted by artillery and was in pieces on the steps of the building's entry way. Huge holes penetrated its walls. Not one pane of its crystal windows was intact. Their colors were mere glints of shards on the grounds outside the building. They sparkled feebly at the touch of the Reclaimer's flashlight beam as he panned it about in the dark. Another squeal of metal sung another lament as the Reclaimer entered the destroyed Council Chamber.

It was here that the then-Primarch of the Progen Republic had entered after seeing the brutality, savagery, barbarism, and dishonor of the Progen Dog Soldiers, warriors bred for sheer combat, levied against the peaceful citizenry of the City after its siege. The Primarch, leader of the entire Progen race, had entered alone and re-emerged with his ceremonial sword still wet with the blood of his own general still dripping. He had executed his own warlord in disgust for what had happened here. The warlord's head was rumored to be left on a pile of other heads of the Jenquai victims of the occupation. None knew what had transpired between the Primarch Tyr and Dahaka Khan "the Tormentor", warlord general of the siege of Jove City.

Tervanus Rex was the first Sabine Sentinel in all that time to enter the shattered Council Chamber. He swung his light about to confirm his solitude there. He was on edge as the Ruins continued to protest with its creaking and scrapings, a noise to set one's nerves to full alert. Hence it was a shock when his beam found the piles of dead and decaying heads and skulls in the dark of the inner chamber. Khan must have decorated his throne room during the occupation. There were too many to count! Truly this was a memorial of horror. The Reclaimer steeled himself from his emotions in the mantle of his duty in the First Charge.

The body of the warlord was soon found some distance away from the final resting apex of a mountain of heads of Jenquai heads of men, women, and children. The Dog Soldiers under Khan's command had spared none in their feast upon the City. Rex studied the scene about him. There was some action here. His training as a Reclaimer helped him dismantle and reverse the actions through the room at the last moments before the execution of the Tormentor of Jove City.

Primarch Tyr had entered through the front and had barely moved as he spoke to his subordinate general. Words lost to time and in the echoes of the death song of the Ruins, Rex puzzled through the actions. There seemed to have been a duel, a melee, of hand weapons. Tyr had moved very little as the general employed his signature glaive, a wicked and brutal polearm, about the Primarch. Khan had circled the leader and there were blows as the Reclaimer found blade fragments and torn armor and uniform in the immediate area.

Near the body was the deadly weapon of the Khan. Irreverently, Rex lifted its heavy shaft and played his flashlight beam over it. The serrated blade was still sharp and every bit deadly. Then he knelt down next to the body, specifically searching for the general's own armored forearm vambrace personal data assistant computer. The battery in it was long dead, so the Reclaimer produced a new one from his utility belt and tool kit. It required an adaptor and some minor adjustments, but the Reclaimer soon had the PDA functional again despite the two wicked blade cuts on its housing. The tiny display soon lit up and rebooted.

The general, Rex determined by the vambrace's lack of entries, did not keep good records of his life. There were no log entries other than telemetry codes of actions that the log kept automatically, a daemon program that ran constantly in the background of the unused PDA. In that log, Tervanus Rex saw the code with which his Sabine Order was concerned. It was a confirmation that the Khan's gene-map, a complete copy of the general's genetic code along with his personality and even his memories were perfectly preserved some hours before his execution by the Primarch. The gene-map was then ejected from the armor and set aside, according to the log. Khan had absently followed practiced and ingrained training to the preservation of his gene-map, true to Centuriata mandates. His gene-map was somewhere here in the Ruins! Rex nearly jumped at this realization. Such a find was far more valuable than any Proconsul Warrior he had ever reclaimed in his career. It was also the most volatile artifact in this unholy graveyard. He merely had to find where Khan had ejected it and see if the small cryo-canister had preserved the gene-map's integrity through the years.

Rex' cybernetic-enhanced hearing startled him from his revelation. There were sounds of human voices and many footfalls outside the Jenquai Council Chamber and they were approaching slowly. Pilfering Terran looters or perhaps treasure-hunting squatters forced to find something among the Ruins to sell for food, the Reclaimer guessed. He had to search quickly if he wanted out of this place undiscovered. He rose with the dead general's weapon and moved about quietly in the Chambers to search for the ejected cryo-canister. The Ruins once again cried out its metallic screech into the night.

It was set behind the chair of the Jenquarum Council chairman. The First Sephira's seat was still draped with the Khan's now-ratty cloak. He seemed to have claimed the furniture as his personal throne as he set his Dog Soldiers upon the citizenry. Just under a fold of the Progen red cloak's material was the hand-sized cryo-canister. Rex lifted it immediately to the protest of the whining cry of the Ruins. Did the squatters here ever have a quiet night here, asked Rex to himself. Turning the canister over, Rex beheld a half-shock. The single, green diode light still slowly blinked though weakly. It meant that the cryogenics in the canister were still preserving the gene-map inside after so many years.

Tervanus Rex recalled how the design of the gene-map cryo-canisters were designed to resist the rigors of deep space for many years in hopes of being reclaimed by the Sabine Order. This was so the Reclaimers could return the gene-map to the Sabine Order and have the Warrior re-iterated in hopes the fallen Progen would answer the Call Forward. Then he could be 're-born' with all his memories and personality intact up until the time the gene-map was ejected from the previous iteration's fall in battle.

The Call Forward was the process of this re-iteration and gene immortality of the Warrior caste of the Progen race. Traditionally it was reserved for the Centuriata, the Warriors, but technically the secrets of re-iteration were useable on any lifeform, but that was a secret kept by the Sabine Order as a stop-gap and chip to their own rise to power in the Progen Republic. So long as a gene-map was recovered, a Warrior could "answer the Call Forward" and live again to fight. It was the First Charge, the mandate of the Sabine Order to find, return and re-iterate the fallen heroes. It was seen as a scientific and almost religious duty in the Order. Immortality was virtually assured given the gene-map was viable and restored to a new life. Thus, the Reclaimers were charged with this duty.

And now Tervanus Rex had reclaimed quite possibly the most dangerous gene-map in recent history. That is, if he could exit the Ruins of Jove City without being discovered by the scavengers outside or any Jenquai authorities patrolling the Ruins' memorial. He quickly tucked the cryo-canister into a pouch for just such a find on his utility belt. Then he made haste for the entrance of Khan's "throne room". Lastly, he drew his pistol in one hand as he hefted the heavy glaive in his other hand. The sounds of the vagrants were coming closer.

Though Rex had deactivated his flashlight and tried to be stealthy, his exit was noted as a human voice questioned, "Ay, whooz dat?" It was a male voice and of an accent typical of humans that had been removed from galactic society for too long.

Another voice answered immediately, "Look, heez ah Progin. Hay, Progin!"

A female continued to ask of her fellows, "Wotz he got der?"

Rex tried to ignore the group that had spotted him and increased his pace, walking faster. But he could hear the drawing of makeshift weapons such as knives and sharpened metal shards vaguely resembling swords.

"Hay, Progin! Yooz not serpoozed ter be here. Diz our terf. Drop dat shiny and be off." The vagrant scavengers were almost upon him when Rex spun and pointed his pistol at the nearest Terran even as he kept backing away from the group. Though it was a superior weapon to their blades and even the woman's bow and arrows, he did not have enough ammunition to gun down the entire group even if each of his shots were lethal. Even in the dark, Rex could see that these haggard and poorly dressed squatters were cohesive enough to be a serious threat.

"Dat sharpie be wort' sumfin', Reez," said the woman who was already drawing an arrow seemingly unafraid of the gun Rex was brandishing.

"Aw hell," answered the gang's leader, "His 'hol' rig be worf taxin'."

Two large searchlight beams, powerful enough to stun the eyes lit the Reclaimer and spoiled any hope of an accurate shot. Bodies were heard dodging as his first round spat and missed. With a panic in him, Rex ran.

The chase went its way over piles of debris and wreckage. The gang's calls tried to herd the Reclaimer, but his superior health and training refused the wolf pack tactics. He was in far better shape due to good genetics and he easily started to out pace and outlast the pursuers. Twice, the woman lithe and nimble, tried a bow shot but missed only a scant foot from his backside. Rex assumed the scavengers did not want to damage any items he carried. In a macabre flash, he feared that the Terrans did not mind selling off organs which at his health would fetch a good price. That was Freespacer thought and the Reclaimer hoped as he ran that these Terrans had not degenerated that far.

Through skeletal buildings and under bridges the Ruins gang hounded the Sabine. Aided as he was by his vambrace, Rex made the airlock just as the group gathered outside, trying to decide who was coming in after the Progen first. He kept his gun trained on the bottleneck of the doorway as he tucked the glaive under his free arm to work the manual control. As the door slid halfway open, Rex emptied his silenced pistol in the general direction of the door, even as the burliest of the gang tried to enter it. Impact rounds went wild, but a single shot dropped the Terran purely by luck. Sounds of anger and arguments of tactics came from outside.

Rex stepped into the airlock and using the glaive weapon levered the door closed as it tried to jam. Sounds of a gang rush came as he pulled the lever to evacuate the air as he closed his space suit's helmet. Without suits of their own, the gang of squatters dared not open the door to the airlock. Un-pinning the hydraulic spreader, the outer was closed as he pulled his way along the line to the Apotheosis.

"Computer, return to full active status," commanded Rex to the ship. The power returned and ship lights lit as the holographic disguise outside was foiled and cut off. Seating in his bridge cockpit, the Reclaimer wheeled the Sentinel ship around and leaned on his impulse drive in a hard burn from the airlock. "By hook or by crook," he said to no one. Warping at this point would alert any nearby ships to his vessel's warp cone and wake.

On impulse drive, the Apotheosis made for the Progen capital ship hulk that records named Pax Altrox. At these low speeds, Rex could only pray to Jericho, the "father figure" of the Progen race that he made it to the Pax wreck undiscovered.

* * *

Her orders were to wait here, her Centuriata vessel concealed -as best as a menacing Warrior ship could be- inside the wreck of the Pax Altrox. It was not illegal in Jenquai space for Warriors to pluck trophy mementos from the huge derelicts, but such was looked down upon by the Centuriata Warriors. Let the Reclaimers do their job, she thought. She was thoroughly bored by the time the Reclaimer's Sentinel ship thrust into scan range of her ship. The reading that Rex' burners were on told her that he was in a hurry. Powering up her ship's engines, the Centuriata courier checked her systems as the Apotheosis approached.

The comm system registered a tight beam meant for her and its source. She thumbed a control on her left stick and listened.

"Courier, " began Tervanus Rex, the Sabine Sentinel who had hired her, "I have a package of the highest priority. Name your price and take it to the rendezvous point as fast as you can."

This alarmed the courier. Her vessel was not the fastest and certainly did not have the cargo capacity as just about every known vessel in the galaxy, so what was so small and yet had the Sabine so nervous as to need her?

"I'm sending it over via tractor beam," Rex declared. "Don't lose it, by hook or by crook. Understand?"

"Understood," she answered. Then the item, a small cryo-canister arrived and was shunted up to her in the cockpit.

"Then go and go fast," Rex commanded.

She burned her engine's impulse to make clear of the Pax Altrox. Her Centuriata vessel looked intimidating, but she had stripped it down for speed under the guise of a fully-armed and dangerous Warrior caste. With the star gate to Saturn sector plotted in her navigation console, she gripped the handle to engage her warp drive. As the wings of her craft folded under the hull, her ship, the "Kitten", formed its own warp cone and then shot from the area with a blast of its engines.

In her rear monitor, Rex' Apotheosis folded its sails, revved up and made for the Jenquai checkpoint just outside Jove's Fury station. She was to freewarp straight to the gate behind a long stream of low-Jovian orbit gas clouds that concealed her warp cone and wake. His ship quietly rejoined the swarm about the station and back into the busy society of the Crystal Age.

The Kitten burst forth from the last gas field's clouds and shot straight at maximum warp for the star gate. With a quick transmission to its rings, it opened and before anyone could notice, hail, or stop her, she was gone from Jupiter sector.

Edited by Pakkrat
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