Tzintchi watched impassively as Asukhon moved another three Prior pieces off the board and put them on her scoring table, while meanwhile Reigle continued to add zombie pawns to her forces.
“You’re overstretching your ability to command your forces Reigle,” Tzintchi pointed out.
Grinning rottenly, Reigle asked, “Are you saying I should spawn more overlords?”
Rolling his many eyes, Tzintchi replied, “Very funny, but we’re not going to that reality for the time being. You still have to find a good place for our little British Invasion game.”
“Asukhon is still bickering with me over that one little place because even though there is all this disease she argues that because they’re angry diseased maniacs they should fall under her overview,” Reigle said.
“You’re just bitter that I’m winning this game,” Asukhon replied as she tallied her score.
“Priors are cheap. Sooner or later they’re going to drop a battleship on your head or throw a bomb through a gate and then where will you be?” Tzintchi pointed out.
“I’m not the only one with plans my dear,” Asukhon stated slyly. “Again, you’re just bitter because you’re currently in dead last.”
“Quite. But when I get my agent on to Earth then by the rules I can send another one into Pegasus, alone. Not only that, but the Tau’ri forces have some of the best warships in the galaxy, and the SGC has some hugely high scoring pieces as personnel. Plus the industries and population of Earth makes it a lucrative position to build an army from,” Tzintchi pointed out.
“He’s teching up instead of rushing like you two,” Mislaato said as she moved her piece amongst several pyramids and stalks of corn. “As am I, but I’m moving faster than him.”
“Speaking of technology, we need to test the Stiletto at some point. Do we enter it here or in some other location?” Tzintchi asked.
Frowning, Asukhon said, “It is only a frigate in need of a shakedown cruise, and this reality has weapons capable of damaging it. We will eventually enter the Stiletto into this game, but for now we need something a bit easier to check for any potential problems. How’s about… here.”
Asukhon waved her hand and the board shifted. Looking at it, Tzintchi frowned and said, “That’s a lot of gods in play.”
“They don’t care,” Asukhon said with a shrug.
“They should be condemned in any case,” Reigle said quietly.
“Oh?” Tzintchi said while examining all the pieces, a small grin forming on his mouths.
“They have not the decency to call their own apathy what it truly is, and they confuse inaction with righteousness. It annoys me that they think of themselves as followers of you when they truly belong to me,” Reigle explained.
Laughing at that, Tzintchi said, “Ah, lovely sentiments as always dear.”
“Besides, these guys will be easy enough to crack while still offering just enough challenge to warm up on, which is to say that we will massacre them without it being entirely effortless,” Asukhon said.
“Always with the massacres my dear, always with the massacres. Very well, we shall test the Stiletto in this reality. Shall we be business-like or approach it like a game as with the others?” Tzintchi asked.
“A game dears, a game. The Stiletto should be able to take on fleets of nearly any size in that reality, but where is the fun and learning in that? No, if we truly wish to practice in anticipation for the C’tan, we must hone our skills appropriately. Let us pretend that the warships of this reality are equivalent to ours ton for ton and act accordingly. The game will to be to score as much as possible before a final battle is forced, one where the Stiletto would be outgunned if it were here. At that point we end the charade and leave that reality and the shattered hulks of its space ships behind,” Mislaato suggested.
“I like it,” Tzintchi said.
“You do both realize that ton for ton the Stiletto out masses most fleets in that reality with its armour, let alone the rest of its equipment,” Asukhon pointed out.
“It will be a big battle,” Mislaato said with a shrug.
“It might boot the gods of that place out of their complacency,” Reigle said.
Shrugging, Mislaato said, “We’ll just promise to leave them alone, they all seem rather isolationist. Hmmm… they could even prove useful to our game. The Necrontyr can call upon their gods to help them; we should not leave such things out of the equation.”
“Agreed,” Tzintchi said. “Also, despite the fact that they have been chomping at the bit for actual combat, neither Toji nor Kensuke will be assigned to this mission. Despite the low risk, they are too important at this stage of the game.”
“Agreed,” the three goddesses said.
Tzintchi picked up a small model of one of the ships from this reality. It was such a fragile thing really, but by the standards of the locals it had done much and earned itself a legendary name. He then drew forth from the ether a model of the first ship to exit the slipways and compared them. By their standards the Stiletto was just that, a thin blade meant for stabbing at the kidneys of the enemy when they were not looking. To those it faced it would be a behemoth nearly twice as long as their ships and nearly a hundred times as massive.
The fight would be interesting to watch indeed.
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen. You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
Oh man, if this is what I am thinking it is going to be, then I am REALLY going to enjoy this.
"If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little." -George Carlin (1937-2008)
"Have some of you Americans actually seen Football? Of course there are 0-0 draws but that doesn't make them any less exciting." -Dr Roberts, with quite possibly the dumbest thing ever said in 10 years of SDNet.
Multiple Gods?
A ship that "earned" a Legendary name?
I'm thinking Galactica.
Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
I also would bet on Star Trek. The line about confusing inaction for rightousness screams Prime Directive, and there are a ton of god-like beings in Trek, especially if you count the various one shots.
"I want to mow down a bunch of motherfuckers with absurdly large weapons and relative impunity - preferably in and around a skyscraper. Then I want to fight a grim battle against the unlikely duo of the Terminator and Robocop. The last level should involve (but not be limited to) multiple robo-Hitlers and a gorillasaurus rex."--Uraniun235 on his ideal FPS game
"The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant compared to the power of the Force."--Darth Vader
The Stiletto was a marvel of engineering, designed and built within the first twenty years since the ascendance of the gods as a test bed for the merging of Imperial, Eldar, Chaotic, and Angelic technologies and systems. While no where near as cobbled together as say the construction of the Prometheus by the Tau’ri in a neighbouring universe, to a certain extent the only thing holding the damn thing together was a concerted, active raping of the laws of physics by various daemons and a bit of the WAAAGH inherited from Gork and Mork. It was, at the moment, an unsightly blend of adamantium, wraithbone, and biological components, at least to the sensibilities of the builders. Outsiders with no knowledge of what an ugly kludge it was might be fooled though.
The ship’s name was well deserved as it was long and thin by the standards of the ships to come, but it was still a little over a kilometre and a half long and approximately two hundred metres wide, although the armoured, triangular bow of the ship was a bit wider than the rest of the ship. There had in fact been some discussion as to whether or not to name the ship the Dart or the Arrow before the Stiletto had won out. The enormous ram prow was smooth and sharp except for the torpedo launchers and the Eldar pulse lance they had managed to fit within that ran nearly the entire length of the ship. Behind the ram prow the main body of the ship was a collection of armoured “ribs” that added structural support while giving some protection to the various weapons emplacements mounted along the sides, before terminating in the bulge at the back that was the main drive systems.
All in all, the ship carried an absolutely ridiculous amount of equipment, one of the biggest reasons the designers were unhappy with it. It was a frigate with a punch equivalent to a light cruiser. Okay, the torpedoes were undersized, and the various technologies employed allowed for a great deal of miniaturization, but the thing was still over equipped for its size. It had shields and holoprojectors, and it carried the blessings of all four gods. The thing was absurd.
Then again, when the gods demanded a test bed for the blending of the various technologies, you didn’t exactly tell them no. At least they had been reasonable enough to wait for the testing of the nova cannon until the shipyards were capable of building ships of a more reasonable size to mount that sort of thing.
Of course, the presence of reliable Warp taps in the form of greatly modified S2 engines, jokingly called S3 engines, and a plasma reactor meant that they could just support the power needs of the engines, the pulsar lance, and the shields. All other systems were drew their energy from individual S2 engines or clusters of S2 engines for some of the more power intensive systems. The one thing the engineers all felt happy about on the project was the fact that now that they had the S2 engines working reliably their high power to volume ratio meant that they could put a lot of back up systems in place. The Stiletto could take a tremendous amount shit kicking and still keep firing.
And that was before the biological components were factored in. While mostly hidden from the rigours of space, the fact that the bio components were of Angelic origin and reinforced by Reigle meant that they could take nearly as much punishment as the wraithbone components, if not the adamantium ones, and the regeneration meant that damage control to those components was automatic and frightfully fast.
The interior of the ship was of course the sort of nightmare one would expect from a ship built to the glory of Chaos gods, featuring the sort of techno-organic feel that would scare crap out of most people. With all the S2 and S3 engines drawing energy from the Warp, Tzintchi had found it trivial to warp the interior in a non-Euclidean way that made anyone not permitted aboard doomed to become hopelessly lost. Mislaato had produced a haunting psychic siren that would not only mess with the heads of anyone trying to get inside, but with most people, especially psychics, within about a light second of the ship. Aside from strengthening the entire ship with her own brand of endurance, Reigle had also made sure that all the organic components could excrete her own brand of the Destroyer Plague. Aside from ensuring the general blood thirst of the gunners, Asukhon had made sure that the security and boarding teams were all dedicated to her and thus would be walking blenders in the close combat of ship boarding action.
The crew, aside from the various daemons bound to the structure of the ship, were all drawn from the cream of Earth’s crop, including a squad of Space Marines from each of the six extant chapters, giving the Stiletto a little over a half company’s worth of the best soldiers Earth had to offer, as well as covering most of the specializations. The Sons of Toji and the Sons of Kensuke had each sent a veteran tactical squad; the Bearers of Reigle had sent their only Terminator squad; the Reavers of Asukhon had sent an assault squad, not that they had many marines that weren’t geared towards some form of assault; the Whips of Mislaato had sent a heavy weapons squad; and the Heralds of Tzintchi had sent a psychic squad.
All in all, the ship was such massive fucking overkill for its first assigned mission that the captain found it downright funny.
“So these are the things that the gods wish us to practice upon?” The captain asked.
“Yes ma’am… err… sir… uh… what exactly should I call you?” The rating who had handed the data slate to the captain asked in some confusion.
Chuckling, Captain Rong-Arya said, “The convention is to use feminine pronouns to comply with the host body. Now, return to your duties.”
Thirty-one years ago in the remnants of post Second Impact Shanghai a poor family gave birth to the girl Rong Xun, who was just starting to be recognized by the government as a child prodigy when Third Impact occurred. While her education initially faltered in the ensuing disaster from the loss of two in three people and she nearly perished from starvation or violence several times, she managed to preserve and survive until the first armies of the gods had stormed across the Sea of Japan two years later and pacified the region.
As she cowered in the remnants of a bombed out hovel, soldiers and daemons and Marines massacring the “armies” of the warlords who had taken control of the city, the great god Tzintchi had himself identified her as a psyker and had her brought back to Japan for training with her gifts.
Around the same time the only officer in the Indian Army who had seen both Second and Third Impact and lived to tell the tale decided to officially announce that he was throwing his lot in with the new gods. A cagey old bastard by that time, Arya Prayang received great favour from the deities for not only making the right choice, but preserving much of the industry and population under his area of control by not engaging in petty fighting like so many other places on the planet. For that he was elevated to the rank of Divine Marshal Arya, Governor of the Province of India.
When he had died ten years later due to long term complications of a wound suffered during the Unification Wars, instead of being consumed by one of the gods, his soul was instead elevated to the level of Daemon Prince. For a time he was quite happy with his new existence, but soon the itch to get back into the material world for an extended period began to prick at him and he asked to bind with a host.
Around the same time the now adult Rong volunteered for the daemonhost program to further her own career as an officer in the military. While her initial application requested that she be bound to a Black Pharaoh or possibly a Valkyrie, when told that a former Grand Marshal turned Daemon Prince was interested in binding with her because of her scores, she had immediately jumped at the opportunity.
The process had been painful for both involved and dangerous for Rong, but in the end Rong-Arya emerged, thrice bound daemonhost, with both minds left intact and functional. Rong was a brilliant tactician and skilled precog, while Arya carried enormous reserves of power and more cunning and logistical insight than most other people on the planet.
The saying went that old age and treachery beat youth and enthusiasm every day. Of course, no one had ever anticipated the utter lethality of the combination. Of course the transcendent intellect and the ability to see the future weren’t exactly hindrances in the whole officer material thing. At first Arya had been a bit annoyed by the fact that he pretty much had to go through officer school and climb the rankings again, but once he realized how much fun screwing with superior officers was he got along just fine with the system.
And now Rong-Arya was a captain aboard the first ship to be built on Earth, a great honour and opportunity and if they could accomplish this mission properly then they would surely be on the fast track to become the first admiral in the fleet. Also, with the rise in rank and skill had come the unshackling of the bindings upon them as Rong’s body grew powerful enough to contain Arya’s power. At long last with the promotion to captain had the last binding been removed from the pair.
Now they sat upon the command throne of the Stiletto and watched as the final preparations for launch were made with burning eyes. Smirking, they said, “Lieutenant Striker, please adjust power flow to the number four engine down by 0.4%.”
“Yes ma’am… huh… we were just starting to get a slight resonance in that engine,” the piloting officer reported.
“I know. Please make a note and have it sent to high command. They want to know about everything that happens, especially potential equipment problems,” Rong-Arya ordered.
“Done ma’am. Final docking clamps are now away, and we have clearance to leave the yards,” Lieutenant O’Hare, the communications officer, said.
“Excellent. Bring us out of dock with manoeuvring thrusters and then engage main engines at 1% until the yards are clear of our engine wash, at which point I want us brought up to 75% thrust,” Rong-Arya ordered.
“Aye-aye ma’am,” Striker acknowledged as he fired the manoeuvring thrusters that accelerated the frigate at a gentle 0.1G for two seconds before cutting off and letting inertia carry the ship the rest of the way out of the slipway that had birthed it, carrying it out over the brilliant blue orb that was Earth. Once free from the chaotic jumble of ever growing space stations and work platforms the enormous conical exhaust ports at the back of the ship began to glow a weak blue-white as charged particles were hurled away at ludicrous speeds. Almost immediately the ship leapt forward and began to rise away from the planet.
A few short minutes later Lieutenant Striker reported, “We are now clear of all orbital structures, increasing power to 75%.”
Where the thrusters had only been glowing feebly before, now they flared into brilliant life and the Stiletto shot off like a shell fired from a cannon, accelerating rapidly towards the speed of light before relativity started to kick in.
“Message received from the science ship Iliad. They send their greetings to us and praise the gods for what we represent,” O’Hare reported.
“Send thanks to them and apologize that we cannot assist with the repatriation,” Rong-Arya ordered, causing a grin from those in the know. There had been much talk of asteroid mining for ship construction in the past two decades, but first they had to get the science of nudging about the huge chunks of rock down first. Thus the Iliad had been given the tasking of figuring out how to do that by moving 617 Patroclus out of the Trojan node and into the Greek one, and visa versa for 624 Hektor as part of a “repatriation” project that would finally end a little bit of nomenclature confusion amongst the Trojan asteroids about Jupiter.
“All systems functioning properly captain,” Striker reported.
“Very well, slowly bring us up to full thrust, I want to see how the engines handle it,” Rong-Arya ordered.
“Aye-aye, ma’am. Bringing us up to 80% thrust,” Striker said as he entered the order to increase thrust. As the ship continued to increase its acceleration, all went well until they reached 95% thrust, at which point the deck plates began to rattle ominously.
“Report!” Rong-Arya ordered.
“We have a resonance build up in engine four,” Striker replied.
Frowning, Rong-Arya thought for a moment before they said, “Increase power by 0.5% every ten seconds until the resonance ceases or we reach full power, at which point kill all power to the engines.”
A little less than a minute later and the shaking stopped along with all rumble from the engines. As power had been increased the shaking had only become worse until finally all power was cut.
“We cannot engage our engines to full power, this I find troubling, especially as our mission will take us into combat. I want to know not just why engine four is resonating, but why only engine four is having this problem while on low power idle or at 95% power or greater,” the captain demanded.
“The engineers are already working on it ma’am,” Striker commented as he poured over the various read outs at his station.
“Message has been received from high command. They note that we have stopped due to engine trouble, but say that the Stiletto is already overkill for the mission and 90% engine power should be sufficient,” O’Hare reported.
Precognitive superiors were always amusing, as Rong-Arya liked to show. Nodding, they said, “Very well, the engineers have three hours to examine engine four before sending off their findings to high command for further analysis. After that point we will carry on with the mission.”
Three hours later and a hole of sickening blackness opened up and consumed the Stiletto, carrying it into the Warp where the will of the gods opened a path through the multiverse to their destination.
By some coincidence or malicious design on the part of the gods, the Stiletto dropped out of the Warp four hours later almost on top of one of the few ships in the universe bigger than it as it was making a routine stop to gather fuel for its reactors from a gas giant.
“Huh… I thought those guys weren’t supposed to be in the operation sector of space. I hope we didn’t drop out of the Warp in the wrong location,” Rong-Arya commented.
“Star charting report that we are in the correct sector,” Lieutenant Burke, the navigator, reported.
“Then these boys are far from home,” Rong-Arya noted while examining the read-outs for what would have been considered an ork warship with odd aesthetics back home. It was like a huge conglomeration of piping and conduits and cables and other such things packed together into a cube three kilometres long on each side.
“Receiving transmission ma’am, frequency modulated radio signal with probable visual and audio components. Looks like we don’t have compatible communications gear otherwise,” O’Hare said.
“Can we translate the signal into something useful?” Rong-Arya asked.
“Audio only for now, still working on the video component,” O’Hare said.
“Let’s hear what they have to say then,” Rong-Arya replied.
There was a brief moment of static before an oddly modulated voice said, “We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ship. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to serve us. Resistance is futile.”
Raising an eyebrow, Rong-Arya commented, “Confident little bastards aren’t they?” Thinking for a moment, they summon forth their full daemonhost might before announcing, “We are Chaos. Raise your shields and give us a good fight. We will sacrifice your souls to our gods. Your culture will burn. Resistance is amusing.”
There was a short pause before the reply arrived, “Chaos is irrelevant. Fighting is irrelevant. Souls are irrelevant. Gods are irrelevant. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.”
“They are powering shields and weapons ma’am,” Lieutenant Xavier, the sensor officer, noted.
Dropping the creepy echo, Rong-Arya ordered, “Full power to weapons; bring us about to line up the pulsar lance on them.”
The bridge crew immediately snapped into action, the ship thrumming into combat mode as shells were loaded, capacitors charged, and torpedoes were readied. Hymns and chants rose up amongst the crew as promises of spilt blood were made to the gods. The various daemons bound within the systems began to cackle with glee as the prospects for slaughter grew.
“Shields are at maximum strength, holofields are active, all tubes and cannons are loaded, and all beam weapons are charged,” Commander Ichiro-Faust, the tactical officer and a fellow daemonhost, reported smartly.
“Fire the pulsar lance, half charge, and surprise me as to where exactly you hit. I want them asymmetrical,” Rong-Arya commanded.
The entire ship shook as the massive laser weapon fired, impacting on one of the sides and moving up and over, cutting through the shields and hull as if they weren’t even there until eventually an entire corner of the cube simply broke off. Secondary explosions wracked both pieces, the detached corner eventually exploding into shrapnel, while the rest of the cube managed to get the fires and detonating munitions and reactors under control.
“They appear to be attempting to affect repairs ma’am,” Xavier noted.
“Amusing. O’Hare, please open a channel,” Rong-Arya said idly. Once he gave them the nod, they said, “We overpower you. Prepare to die.”
“Power is irrelevant. Death is irrelevant. We will adapt. You will serve us. Resistance is futile,” the Borg replied.
“Do they have shields active?” Rong-Arya asked.
“Negative,” Xavier replied.
“Commander Ichiro-Faust, please ask the Bearers to board them via teleporter and forcibly shut them up,” Rong-Arya ordered.
“With pleasure ma’am,” Ichiro-Faust said with a grin. Faust was a daemon of Asukhon after all, so the pair greatly enjoyed slaughter.
Ten minutes later O’Hare said, “Report from the Bearer squad ma’am. They say that combat there is like fighting civilians… arthritic civilians at that apparently. They grow bored and wish to return to the ship before they waste too much time.”
Rolling their eyes, Rong-Arya said, “Very well. Please turn to present the starboard broadside, and when the Bearers are back aboard obliterate these pests.”
As the bridge officers went about their duties Xavier reported, “Ma’am, I believe we have identified their method of communication, it appears to rely on sending signals through what we thought was a useless interface layer between real space and the Warp, a sort of subspace if you will. There is a huge amount of bandwidth being sent towards the other side of the galaxy, although it will probably take several years to arrive.”
“So they’re trying to tell their friends all of our little secrets are they? Well, that will end in a second,” Rong-Arya noted before looking at Ichiro-Faust.
“The Bearers are aboard ma’am,” the tactical officer stated.
“Fire the starboard broadside then,” Rong-Arya stated.
In an instant dozens of gigatons converged upon the cube, which had yet to bring its shields back online after the lance strike. It was sitting motionless relative to the Stiletto, meaning that it had absolutely no chance to avoid the awesome destructive forces hurtling towards it. For a brief instant there was a bright light, and then there was nothing but a rapidly expanding and thinning cloud of plasma tens of thousands of kilometres across.
“Let’s get out of here then, shall we?” Rong-Arya said in a bored tone. “Set course for the designated target and then enter the Warp.”
A few minutes later the Stiletto disappeared from the now uninhabited system in a flash of unreality.
Last edited by Academia Nut on 2008-06-08 12:35pm, edited 1 time in total.
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen. You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
Thirty-one years ago in the remnants of post Second Impact Shanghai a poor family gave birth to the girl Rong Xun, who was just starting to be recognized by the government as a child prodigy when Second Impact occurred. While her education initially faltered in the ensuing disaster from the loss of two in three people and she nearly perished from starvation or violence several times, she managed to preserve and survive until the first armies of the gods had stormed across the Sea of Japan two years later and pacified the region.
I think you meant Third Impact.
The process had been painful for both involved and dangerous for Rong, but in the end Rong-Arya emerged, thrice bound daemonhost, with both minds left intact and functional. Arya was a brilliant tactician and skilled precog, while Arya carried enormous reserves of power and more cunning and logistical insight than most other people on the planet.
First Arya is supposed to be Rong, I take it?
Nyehehe. Good stuff.
Fragment of the Lord of Nightmares, release thy heavenly retribution. Blade of cold, black nothingness: become my power, become my body. Together, let us walk the path of destruction and smash even the souls of the Gods! RAGNA BLADE!
Lore Monkey | the Pichu-master™
Secularism—since AD 80
Av: Elika; Prince of Persia
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen. You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
So, Shinji's playing Starcraft with his Chaos buddies? Damn good job
Dan's Art
Bounty on SDN's most annoying
"A spambot, a spambot who can't spell, a spambot who can't spell or spam properly and a spambot with tenure. Tough"choice."
Alright, awesome .
It's always fun to see some nice Borg slaughtering
Photography Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
Redleader34 wrote:So, Shinji's playing Starcraft with his Chaos buddies? Damn good job
Actually, if I'm reading this right, Starcraft-verse is also being considered for invasion.
Fragment of the Lord of Nightmares, release thy heavenly retribution. Blade of cold, black nothingness: become my power, become my body. Together, let us walk the path of destruction and smash even the souls of the Gods! RAGNA BLADE!
Lore Monkey | the Pichu-master™
Secularism—since AD 80
Av: Elika; Prince of Persia
Darth Yoshi wrote:Not having seen The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi myself (although I intend to), I believe that the SOS Brigade was a school club founded by Haruhi to investigate the existence of aliens, ESPers, and time travelers. As it turns out, the members of the club fall under those categories, and Haruhi herself has godlike powers over reality.
And when they call her godlike, they mean it. Haruhi can create and destroy whole existences at a whim-she has in fact already done so at least once, since the world she lives in Did Not Exist three years before the beginning of her Freshman year of High School. The only thing that seems to be stopping her from doing it again is the fact that in the very last episode of the series, Kyon kisses her while she is destroying the world and she restores it to make him happy or something. She does not realize that it was real, and thinks it was all a dream, but she wears her hair up to school the next day because he said it looked good that way right before he kissed her.
Bleh, I detest that series with an absolute passion, with the Infinity Gauntlet, Saber of Q and the Void of Akasha I'd skewer that b!tch into multiversal oblivion, or the 'Big Dip' for that matter.
This series has a decidedly more silly bent to it... although so did Thousand Shinji in the early chapters when it was more about PWNWTFHAX! and Shinji being a cackling maniac capable of throwing lightning and predicting the future, but then the gods decided to start dicking with him and his friends. To a certain extent I am just treating this as a side story to play around with the universes and beat the shit out of people who I think deserve it (the Ori pounding will resume in a chapter or two). If I do decide to take a dip in the angst pool again, it will probably have to do with the aftershocks on when canon Shinji meets Tzintchi at one of the lowest points in his life. But I'll probably have to sacrifice a dozen Priors and a couple Borg cubes to the Dark Gods afterwards as penance.
Also, I have plans to bring the Haruhi universe back in when (surprise surprise) Haruhi does something stupid.
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen. You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
Captain Jean Luc Picard ran his hand over the armrest of his chair somewhat wistfully. While grateful for having the seat, it still wasn’t quite his. The Enterprise-E was a fine ship, but Picard certainly knew what Montgomery Scott had meant when he said that this was not his ship. His thoughts however turned in upon themselves as he realized that despite the fact that he had still not worn his own character into the ship yet, the most important thing towards making it home was the family that lived in it, and for that he thanked all of his lucky stars that the casualties from Veridian III had been as light as they had been.
“Sir, there is a message from Starfleet for you, coded private,” the communications officer on watch at the time announced.
Nodding, Picard said, “I will take it in my ready room then. Riker, you have the watch.”
Standing up, Picard went moved just off the bridge to his ready room. At the moment the door sealed behind him, there was a flash of white light and Picard felt his head and shoulders slump as he realized that no family was quite complete without the annoying uncle who showed up from time to time to disrupt the regular order.
“What is it this time Q?” Picard asked as his ready room chair spun about to reveal the impish cosmic being. Picard’s expression however transmuted from annoyance to apprehension and fear when he saw Q’s appearance.
Q was wearing the old standard Starfleet captain’s uniform, but it seemed inexplicably more sinister than it ever had before. The red of the uniform seemed off, almost as if it were achieved by soaking the fabric in blood rather than dye. The collar pips had also been changed, the circles replaced by small, abstract symbols that had the vague appearance of skulls. The communicator was completely different, an eight-pointed star that somehow seemed to squirm about if Picard took too long to look at it.
But worst of all was Q’s face. Gone was the near persistent smile, the look upon the face that said that Q was really just playing some big joke upon the puny humans. He had only ever looked like this when he was about to put humanity on trial.
Q said in the sort of dead serious voice, “I really must apologize for some of my earlier words Picard, humans aren’t quite as bad as I might have implied.”
Frowning, Picard said, “Somehow I a get the feeling that you have more to say than that.”
“I do, but the Continuum wishes to stay out of what is to come, and only our prior ‘friendship’ lets me get away with giving you a rather vague warning. Now, while intentional vagueness for the purposes of giving you just enough information to make it look useful in retrospect is part of my style, this time I would actually like to give you more to go upon if not for other circumstances,” Q said.
Picard felt something like a block of ice drop in his gut. This was completely uncharacteristic of Q and the Continuum, and while he was certain they would deny it, it almost sounded as if they were afraid.
“We are afraid, although not in a way you would understand,” Q said, plucking the thought from Picard’s mind and causing him to feel even more ill at ease, a sort of terror creeping up his spine at the thought of anything scaring the Q Continuum.
Elaborating, Q said, “There are things out there that you cannot imagine, things that would break your mind to even catch a glimpse of. Even if your crude senses were capable of perceiving the full glory of a Q, your mind would be incapable of understanding what you see. Most beings like this are… while not exactly benevolent, they see little to no need in interacting with lesser beings, or with other such groups. And then there are the others…”
Q frowned and then gestured to the computer terminal integrated into Picard’s desk. “There is a message waiting for you here that will lead you into a situation that will test everything you and humanity are made of, that will lead you to question everything you think you know. Not all that lurks between the stars will lead to some grand adventure where the sides are clearly delineated by black and white. And not all times will you find yourself standing on the side of the line you thought you were. Good bye Jean Luc, I hope we meet again.”
With a flash Q disappeared, leaving Picard feeling numb and weak about the extremities. He tottered over to his chair and dropped heavily into it. In all his encounters with Q, he had never left it with such a feel of doom. Q played pranks or tried to discourage him from what test was set before him, but there had always been a sense that they had what they needed to overcome. Q had not seemed certain that even he could deal with what he warned of.
Starfleet had known of various entities like the Q that wielded powers high above them for centuries, but they all seemed to have their own version of the Prime Directive that kept them out of the affairs of younger species. What if there was another group that did not behave in such a way? The thought of Q without restraint or even his own twisted sense of right and wrong sent shivers up and down Picard’s spine.
It took him a few moments to compose himself, before he felt the old courage began to seep back in. Q was a trickster with an often malicious bent to his pranks or trials, but so far they had always overcome. They had to overcome; there was simply nothing else to do. Time flowed on and forward, and so must they.
Opening the message from Starfleet, Picard quickly read it and he began to wonder exactly what the twist would be that got Q involved. There was a scientific research team in the Damocles Nebula that had gone missing a week ago and since that was less than a day out from their current position, Starfleet requested that the Enterprise try and figure out what had happened. It was probably just a mechanical failure of some sort, but the region was mostly unexplored due to a general subspace disturbance around the nebula, so there was a chance something worse had happened.
With Q’s dire warnings in mind, Picard had to fight for a moment to push down all sorts of imagined nightmare scenarios. He had a job to do; he would not let other factors cloud his judgement or the performance of his duties. He did wonder why the message had come over a private channel when he noticed that a small flotilla of Cardassian ships had flown into the nebula a few days after contact was lost with the researchers. It was somewhat suspicious even if the timing was wrong, and clearly someone in Starfleet Command was worried that there were other things afoot in Damocles.
Closing down the message, Picard left to make the necessary preparations to head into the Damocles Nebula.
Rong-Arya sat on their command throne watching the swirling patterns of the nebula on the main view screen. This area of space was strangely agitated, the Warp beneath it frothing with whip tide currents of energy that leaked over into real space, although it had been nothing they couldn’t handle. AT-field theory combined with Gellar field technology had produced remarkable refinements in protection against Warp storms, and it wasn’t like there was anything actually living in the Warp that wasn’t allied with them.
It was strangely comforting to them and many of the officers, the ones who had been to the Palace of the Gods as part of their academy training, a reminder of home. While the strategic consideration from the storms disrupting travel by any enemies had been the primary factor, the swirling cyan blues and bruise purples inflected with ribbons of baleful yellow had been an added bonus for making their base of operation this nebula.
As if listening in on their thoughts, the little bundle lying upon their lap squirmed and cooed happily. Stroking down the little one’s head, Rong-Arya asked, “How goes the clean up?”
“We should have the finished feeding the bodies into the nutrient processors within the hour, but scrubbing down the blood and anything the Bearers left will take a little longer,” Ichiro-Faust reported.
“Good, good. At least those fools will have served some purpose,” Rong-Arya said while beginning to bounce the child up and down on their knee.
“Well, other than serving quite nicely for our mission,” Ichiro-Faust noted.
“I would be quite happy to pick a fight with anyone that amoral any day. That it is our mission to slaughter these scum is merely a bonus in my opinion,” Rong-Arya noted.
“I agree, I mean, we’re supposed to be the forces of fucking evil out here, and even we were like, 'Get off your fucking asses and do something!’” Striker noted with contempt while at his station.
Shaking their head, Rong-Arya finally, with some reluctance, handed off the six month old girl, the only survivor of what once been the United Federation of Planets Research Station 6-Alpha-47B, assigned to watch the region they called the Damocles Nebula in general and the development of a native species dubbed the Syracusans by the crew of the Stiletto.
Emphasis on the word “watch”.
The atmosphere of Syracuse II was being rapidly stripped away by excess solar activity triggered by the Warp storms that plagued this region of space, and would result in the extinction of the Syracusans within about fifty years. Considering that the Syracusans were currently just figuring out the basics of metal working, they didn’t stand a chance.
When in surveying the region for the suitability of a base the Stiletto had discovered this world and the Federation research station stationed on the innermost moon, they had asked why nothing was being done for the natives.
The answer about the Prime Directive and it not being the Federation’s place to interfere had really pissed off the crew of the Stiletto, especially Rong-Arya, who had lived through two lifetimes of people suffering due to the apathy of others. The gods could be cruel, capricious dicks with a passion for slaughter at times, but they stuck to their followers and instilled the same sense of loyalty throughout all layers of society.
You don’t leave people in the lurch. You don’t betray people. And if you’re going to hurt someone it had damn well better be intentional.
To Rong-Arya, you didn’t sit back and let genocide happen, you either left people alone or you started a massacre supporting one of the sides.
The research facility was cleansed before they even had time to get off a report about a first contact situation, the only survivor being the only being under the age of majority and thus innocent of the crimes of the adults.
Then the Cardassians had shown up. They had been more along the lines of people that Chaos could get to like, but unfortunately for them they had soured what could have been a great new relationship when they discovered the religious aspects of Chaos and the fact that the Stiletto intended to transfer as many of the Syracusans off their dying world as possible. Apparently the Cardassians found such sentiments as being weak and immediately tried to bully Rong-Arya into a new deal.
Of the seven ships sent there, only one escaped the sudden change in the relationship dynamic and only then because there were only six squads of marines to go around. The one escapee was quickly hunted down and gutted before being left to drift as a hulk in the nebula at one of the choke points these ships FTL drives had to navigate, a warning to others.
In navigating the Damocles Nebula, the Enterprise had come across a drifting Galor class cruiser of the Cardassian Union surrounded by a drifting debris field that had most likely come from the section of hull that was completely missing, apparently punched out by weapons fire. There was also a cooled cloud of residue that had probably once been the main reactor for the dead ship.
“Life signs are negative,” the tactical officer reported. Picard did miss Worf, but his former tactical officer had been reassigned to Deep Space Nine shortly after the incident with the Nexus, along with a few others from his crew.
Beside him, Troi winced slightly as she held her head. Glancing at her, Picard asked, “What do you sense.”
Gritting her teeth, Troi replied, “There is nothing left alive here, but I sense an echo of pain and fear and… and laughter. There was a powerful, malignant presence here once Captain.”
Looking at the image of the drifting hulk, Picard asked, “Are any sections of the hull still pressurized?”
His fingers dancing across the ops station, Data reported, “Sir, there is insufficient atmosphere to sustain life, but the majority of the ship does contain a rarefied atmosphere indicative of a slow leak rather than explosive decompression. The ship may still have been pressurized as little as three days ago.”
Absorbing this information, along with the fact that the ship’s warp core had detonated outside its hull and Troi’s impressions it added up to one fact. “They were toying with them.”
“Sir?” Data asked.
“Whoever did this was not intending to kill the Cardassians outright. Any weapon that could punch through their hull like that could have easily been pointed at engineering and destroyed the ship instantly. No, they crippled the ship and then…” Picard let the thought trail off. Whoever did this could have done all sorts of things. They could have left the Cardassians there to die, but there was the risk that they could have done found some way to slip away.
Making a decision, Picard ordered, “Riker, take Data and an away team over to the ship and see if you can find any survivors hidden from our scanners or salvage some information from the computer on what happened here.”
“The Cardassians aren’t going to like us snooping around there, sir,” Riker pointed out as he got up to prepare for the mission.
“I know, but we can leave the diplomatic soothing of rumpled feathers for later, what is important right now is looking for survivors and answers,” Picard replied.
“Excuse me captain, but I think I need to seek medical attention,” Troi said while holding her forehead in pain.
“Of course, dismissed,” Picard said. He frowned as his counsellor fled for sick bay. If just the residue of whoever had done this, what would an actual meeting do?
---
Yes, I know that most of the guys in Star Trek are much closer to omnipotence than my guys, and could quite easily handwave away the Stiletto if it scared them that much, but there are reasons for Q being wary of them.
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen. You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
There's no reason they should be scared of the Stiletto, but provoking interference from the higher beings is to be avoided.
If they don't have a full read, then provoking the unknown is generally bad. If they do have a full read, then they have to wonder what the full power of the past gods might have put into play as contingency plans, considering they were willing to write themselves out of history in order to even have a chance at victory. Plus, of course, interfering themselves sets a bad precedent, and the Q civil war may be still fresh in their minds, or still building to occur, depending on where exactly the divergence in the time line is here(probably building now that I think about it).
I have to wonder about Q's little appearance. Was he trying to add to the warnings with his uniform? Give Picard a few non-verbal cues he could pick up on for later?
That is Q's way.
Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
Ha! I appear to be better at plotting than even I thought I was. The Borg cube the Stiletto blew up was the one from First Contact, so this part is set around 2373, which was around the same time as the Q civil war, so they would have a lot to be scared of should outsiders tip the balance of power one way or another.
And yeah, any time you go up against beings willing to erase themselves from existence 60 million years in the past so that they could be reborn stronger than before and fight their enemies, you pause a little and wonder if making these guys have a grudge against you is a good idea.
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen. You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
With a glow of light and a hum that was lost to the rarefied air, Commander William Riker and Lieutenant Commander Data along with a small detail of security officers, beamed into the remains of the Cardassian ship. Wearing heavy environmental suits, they were protected from the lack of oxygen while the phaser rifles in their grasp would protect them in case their sensors were wrong and something sinister still lurked in these halls.
Almost immediately after materialization finished the magnetized boots on their feet locked them down on to the decks, artificial gravity having failed long ago. About the Federation crew bits and pieces of the ship floated, loose detritus left over from the battle set free.
The first signs of conflict aboard the ship happened when a severed hand, frozen solid as life support failed, floated into view. Running a tricorder over it, Data stated, “It is Cardassian sir.”
Glancing at the hand, severed mid forearm, Riker asked, “What do you think caused that sort of damage.”
Peering at it intently, Data then replied, “The wound appears to have been caused by a rapidly moving serrated edge, possibly consistent with a device used for the felling of trees in the 20th and early 21st centuries called a chainsaw.”
Riker looked at Data funny before he asked, “You think a lumberjack could have done this?”
Making an approximation of a shrug, Data replied, “It was merely conjecture.”
Continuing on towards where their records indicated the computer core should be on a Galor-class cruiser, the team then found out that the invaders had been to the computer core before them. And that the Cardassians had made a last stand there, dragging various pieces of equipment in front of the door to form a barricade to try and hold off the attackers. Judging by the dismembered, exploded, and partially incinerated bodies, it had not helped.
Droplets of blood floated in the void like red hail that was throwing a tantrum and refused to fall, although on one of the larger undamaged walls a strange symbol, an eight pointed star, had been painted there in the gore of the dead Cardassians. Data was the first to ask, “Why are you all looking away?”
“What?” Riker asked.
“In the past thirty seconds you have looked at the symbol painted on the wall seven times, but you have not maintained visual contact for longer than 0.72 seconds. The other members of the team have had similar behaviours,” Data said by way of explanation.
Dumbfounded, Riker found his eyes slipping towards the symbol again, and while he found the mere thought of someone using another’s viscera for the purposes of graffiti repulsive, he did find that there was an almost intangible pressure trying to drive his gaze away, a pain at the back of his eyeballs that told him that there was an awfulness to looking at the symbol beyond the surface ghastliness of its creation.
Looking away, Riker then found that despite the pain, there was now a sort of siren song begging him to look back at the symbol, but this he fought. He now knew that the pain he felt was his mind’s way of telling him that there was something deeply wrong with the symbol.
Backing off, Riker ordered, “Data, scan that symbol, but be careful, it appears to be causing the rest of us pain just to look at it.”
Cautiously approaching, Data ran the tricorder over it before he quickly took several steps back in surprise and reported, “There is some sort of subspace disturbance associated with the symbol, a very powerful one at that too, although very short range so we did not pick it up with the Enterprise’s sensors.”
One of the security men examining the remains of the barricade suddenly said, “Sir, I am getting some rather unusual readings from these remains. I have evidence of high energy neutron and gamma ray bombardment along with ion implantation of deuterium, tritium, and helium. Sir, if I am reading this right someone fired a directed fusion weapon at this barricade.”
That raised some eyebrows. The smallest directed fusion weapons Starfleet knew of were mounted on star ships. A hand held version was ludicrous, not just in the technology it implied, but in the fact that anyone would ever feel the need to actually build something so overpowered as a hand weapon. There seemed absolutely no need in Riker’s mind for a personal directed fusion weapon.
And yet someone had vaporized this barricade with one.
Entering into the room containing the remains of the computer core, the team immediately began searching through the floating debris for any data storage units that had not been smashed, reduced to slag, or otherwise damaged beyond the possibility of salvaging data from it. The hunt turned up very little, although Data did succeed in restoring internal monitoring.
At which point everyone with a functioning stomach had to turn away from the monitor.
“It would appear that whoever was not killed in the initial combat action was herded into the cargo bay, where it was flooded with waste from the recycling tanks and they were then left to die. Judging by the pattern of infections, many of them had open wounds before the cargo bay was flooded, possibly from earlier fighting,” Data reported clinically.
“Switch it off Data, we’ve seen enough,” Riker said while trying to hold down his gorge. They had never seen anything so wantonly brutal in the entire history of exploring space. The Borg were fairly horrible, but at least with them there was a sort of clinical coldness to their actions. This was… this was savagery simply for the sake of it, the product of a sick, diseased mind.
Data interpreted Riker’s command as an order to switch to another point in the ship, this time the main cargo receiving area. This time one of the security men did throw up, his helmet flooding with his lunch before automated systems started drawing the liquid away from his face. Still, hacking up phlegm and mucus from his lungs, Riker immediately had him beamed away to the sick bay.
Of course, the transport would probably just cause further stress for the poor man.
The controls for the transporter lay scattered about, the safety interlocks all removed so it could be experimented with without the computer trying to automatically abort a transport into solid matter. The entire cargo bay was a tapestry of mutilated flesh, the product of the invaders beaming the crew into walls, other crew members, or just causing them to rematerialize wrong. Some of them even appeared to have survived for a time before being put through the procedure again.
“Commander, there are records here showing that two other cargo bays had recordings taken of them, although what exactly was recorded has been purged,” Data reported.
“Shut the whole thing down Data, we don’t need to see any more. I think we have what we need,” Riker said as they assembled together what little material they had gathered. He then signalled the Enterprise to beam them back.
Picard was deeply troubled by what his away team had discovered; especially the symbol that sounded suspiciously very much like the one Q had been wearing on his uniform. Had that been some form of subtle warning about the nature of what they faced. Still, despite what they faced, they still had a mission to complete, and so they continued further in to the Damocles Nebula and Research Station 6-Alpha-47B.
Dropping out of warp in orbit above the second planet in the system, they discovered six more Cardassian warships already in orbit, but they could immediately tell that the ships no longer belonged to the Cardassians.
For one every one of the ships had been painted with an eight-pointed star, and each one held a different collection of unpleasant looking sigils in addition.
“Captain, their shields are down and their engines are running on low power. I would guess from life sign scans that they are currently running on skeleton crews,” Data reported.
“Hail them,” Picard ordered.
After a moment, Data replied, “No response sir.”
Troi suddenly spoke up and said, “Captain! I sense-”
Whatever Troi had to say was cut off by her going into a sudden seizure, dropping from her seat as her whole body went into convulsions, froth and blood spewing from her mouth, her eyes solid white with pain. Another member of the bridge crew, a Vulcan, also dropped to the ground, and while not quite as bad, he did start screaming and desperately chanting out Vulcan meditation lines.
“This is the bridge, we have a medical emergency!” Picard said while tapping his communicator and getting a hold of the bridge.
“This is Sick Bay, we have reports from all over the bridge flooding in,” Dr. Crusher announced.
At that moment space seemed to unfold and vomit forth a ship, a lurid device of black and white, shaped like an arrow or blade of old and of a distorted, organic Gothic architecture. Statues of dull metal dotted the hull and depicted half molten figures wailing out in agony or various demons and monsters of a more superstitious age doing unspeakable things to each other. The entire thing seemed to be a dedication to all that was loathsome and unclean in the universe.
They had undoubtedly discovered the cause of all of this suffering.
“Hail them,” Picard said angrily.
After a moment Data said, “No response sir, but we are picking up a frequency modulated radio signal originating from the ship.”
“Radio?” Riker asked incredulously. It seemed laughably unlikely that a ship that big and with a drive system that they had never encountered before would use radio for communication.
Thinking for a second, Picard said, “Can you display it?”
“It appears to be audio only sir, but yes, we can communicate with them like this,” Data replied.
“Very well, make it so,” Picard ordered.
Data hit a few keys and then over the bridge’s speakers a weirdly distorted voice said, “Repeat, we use very different communications gear, this is the closest similarity in equipment we have. Please respond.”
“Well that clears that up,” Riker mused, trying to add a bit of levity to the situation. It fell rather flat considering what these people seemed likely to have done.
“Ah… excellent. We will send you codec information for translating the video signals we use, but until you have those, allow us to introduce ourselves. We are Captain Arya-Rong, Unbound Daemonhost and client to Tzintchi the Nine Fingered and Chaos Undivided, respectively. We have command of the Stiletto, the ship you see before you,” the voice on the other end said.
“I am Captain Jean Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise of the United Federation of Planets and I ask you what exactly you are doing about this world,” Picard demanded.
“We have finished translating their video codec sir, we can have visual contact now,” Data said.
“I heard your underling, we are ready to transmit and receive whenever. As to your question, we are currently finishing the cleaning of the habitation modules and are beginning to ship over the natives from the planet below to take up habitation,” Rong-Arya announced.
Picard’s blood rain with fire and ice as he feared for the researchers who had been on the research station. He immediately demanded, “What of the people living on the station?”
At that moment the video kicked in, revealing Rong-Arya and the bridge crew of the Stiletto. Rong-Arya appeared to have once been a young Asiatic woman, but now a small set of vestigial horns kept her short black hair out of her eyes, which burned with intense yellow fire. Literally. Her uniform was made of some sort of leather bleached a stark white and cut to a curve hugging standard, set with several symbols, some of them what appeared to be rank insignia and service awards, while that same awful eight pointed star seemed to serve as the identifying symbol for her people.
Sitting about her were numerous crew set with extensive cybernetic implants that wired them in to their stations. The sheer sight of it made Picard recoil in horror at the memories of the Borg, although he quickly clamped down on the reaction.
“Ah… excellent, video. To answer your question, we slaughtered everyone guilty of inaction in the face of genocide on that station, sending their unworthy souls to whatever gods they believe in for judgement of their crimes. Their homes shall go to those who they refused to help,” Rong-Arya announced.
Picard blinked. He then practically shouted, “You killed them all! There were over a hundred scientists and support staff on that station!”
Rong-Arya shrugged, “There are over twenty million sentient beings on the planet below whose only chance of survival as their planet’s ecosystem is destroyed is advanced space flight technology, which do not have the time to develop.”
It suddenly dawned upon Picard what had happened. “You broke the Prime Directive!”
Rong-Arya snarled, revealing ferocious teeth before she spat out, “On my homeworld hundreds of millions of people died because no one cared to interfere after a disaster, and if not for the actions of the gods I probably would have eventually suffered the same fate as my best friend, which was to be gang raped at age eight! Entropy is a fundamental aspect of the universe, but it can be staved off with action. If all you do is sit around and say ‘It is someone else’s problem’ then things will only get worse. I will personally rip the throat out of the next person who spouts off to me about the Prime Directive and drink of their blood until their body stops twitching.”
Picard was shocked and appalled that this Rong-Arya could have compassion for others while also being so utterly amoral and vicious. Picard decided to try and different tack, “We have the Prime Directive for a reason. In the past when cultures of wildly differing levels of advancement have clashed, the lesser has inevitably suffered greatly for it.”
“So the loss of culture and the suffering of individuals during the transition are preferable to extinction?” Rong-Arya asked.
Picard said nothing.
“Now hear this Federation scum, and hear it well. We are Chaos. We are anger, despair, lust, and scheming given form and motion. We are righteousness, love, passion and hope given action. We are all things. We chose to help these people because we want to, because we can. We choose to slaughter our enemies like vermin because we want to, because we can. Now, you have a choice too. You can return to your Federation and return with supplies to help build these people a new home, or we can take it from you. You have 48 hours to leave, discuss things with your superiors, and return the answer to with our demands or we resort to force,” Rong-Arya said.
“Now-” Picard was cut off by the Stiletto firing a shot across their bow with their main gun. The majority of the beam actually missed them, but there was enough bleed off that the whole Enterprise was knocked about.
The tactical officer shouted out, “Shields are down to 40%!”
“Go Picard, tell your Federation of the glories of Chaos and the horrors of defying us. Oh, and my aides tell me that you fear our appearance, something to do with the Borg. Please take these as tokens of our appreciation then,” Rong-Arya said with a sneer before waving a clawed hand dismissively to someone off screen.
Immediately the air began to pop and bang with the appearance of heads being teleported onto the bridge through the weakened shields. They thumped and rolled as they hit the decks, and one wandered down to Picard’s feet, the single still organic eye set in the pale skin looking up almost pleadingly into Picard’s eyes.
The Enterprise retreated back into the nebula at full warp.
---
I think I will return back to Stargate for the next chapter, the idea being that every time there would be a lull in the action I'll switch over to other scheming.
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen. You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
"If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little." -George Carlin (1937-2008)
"Have some of you Americans actually seen Football? Of course there are 0-0 draws but that doesn't make them any less exciting." -Dr Roberts, with quite possibly the dumbest thing ever said in 10 years of SDNet.
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