A communicator, there had to be one onboard this station somewhere. It was a mess, and my parents bodies sat at the end nearest the only one that appeared to be working. As I neared their bodies, I noticed how decayed they were, and this gave me an understanding to how long I was dead for. From the decay, I estimated that I was dead for at least a few years, maybe longer. They sat peaceful, dead, in the corner of the now destroyed station.
I began to configure the array to transmit a simple communication to their ship drifting out in space.
"You never were one to over-estimate me Allecto." I said to myself.
"I only tell you what is to come, not what you are to do about it."
"You've still not told me what I'm doing alive...that was a lot of energy I pushed through me, I should be dead."
"Should is a very flexable word Leo...the Nomad technology that was put into you was unique...it was done so that if you died, I could revive you once, and only once...I've brought you back with that technology, but now it can never be used again...use your second chance, and second live...more wise this time."
"So long as you live, my allies and friends can never know peace."
"You are the Harbinger..."
I stopped what I was doing and looked up, just as I felt Allecto leave my concious mind.
Harbinger...
The communicator blinked a response.
"This is the shuttlecraft...*static*...This is Sarah Mc*static* respond."
Sarah gasped as the console and fell back. She stared at the console and she looked over to Al who sat in a trance.
"Leo?" he said with a hint of hope. "No, that's impossible."
"Well, it looks like it's possible." Sarah replied to his doubting attitude.
"Tainted trap?"
"You saw what happened to their war ships as soon as Leo died...they can't have returned..."
"...unless Leo was alive, and Allecto with him..."
The two grew silent and looked at the small moon. They stared at the crater on the planet where the small station sat still surrounded by the strange blue mist as it had before. More than likely the Nomad technology still splintering into the space air around it. Al broke the silence.
"If we get close to him, will the implants kick back on...and...you know, activate the Nomads in our heads?"
Sarah turned and looked at him in silence.
"That's what I'm worried about. I've spent way to much damn time as a Nomad slave...almost 10 years. I'm not about to go back without a fight."
"Then we leave our long lost friend here on this rock to die?"
"He'll be fine. Cut the transmission, if we're noticing planets that means we're near some kind of relay station, start scanning for one."
Al looked one last time at the planet with reluctance and cut the comm. He began to scan for a relay station, anything to get them home.
The transmission was cut before I could continue. In my anger and despiration I began to hit the array, trying in vain to get it to work again, but nothing seemed to work. Was this some cruel afterlife? Doomed to live alone on some station, buried and unable to get word out to anyone...maybe it was right after all, that I would die alone, on this god forsaken planet, in this god forsaken station...
...God...
I was never really a man of religion. But when you have another chance, another chance to breathe air again, another chance to experence all of lifes mysteries once more, you tend to start thinking that there is...something there, if not just for a divine creation.
I began to pace the control room, thinking to myself as time went by. I thought about the possibilities of me escaping this forsaken station, buried deep under ground. Maybe by some chance...there was a way out. I began running through the possibilities in my mind. An emergency transport? Even if there was one, it was probably destroyed upon the station crashing into the ground. But what other chance was there? Even if the thing were venting plasma, I could probably fix it with the spare parts of the station.
That brought up another question, on what kind of planet had the station crashed on? The viewscreens in the control room were all either destroyed or offline. And power looked like there wasn't any hope of it coming fully on again, not after the crap load of energy I filtered through my internal systems. The only hope for me was to examine what my environment around me looked like, only then would I be able to truely see what I had useful to my person.
...only then would I know I had a means to escape.
"This coming from the woman who still believes Leo is alive." he said murmuring inaudibly under his breath. "So let me get this straight, you think that the Kusari government, has ties to Tainted...even if they did, I would know about it, you forget I was under their trance for years, years Shan. If they were in kahoots with Kusari, I would know about it, and Leo too, he would have said something."
"You idiot, you forget one thing, they had the technology to wipe your memories, remember? That's what made them so powerful in the first place. Even if you did know that they were under their "charm" or whatever you call it, they could have easily forgotton what you knew."
Takashi thought about it for a few moments before turning around and facing Shan.
"You're ability to nail topics on the head is uncanny. Ok, I'll look into it, but I can't dig TOO deep with out getting attention on myself. But remember, Tainted have been long dead-"
"Wrong again, several key members of Tainted have begun getting their implants back online, somehow...like me, but they have access to Allecto."
Takashi flinched for a second before realizing what Shan had just dropped. A f***ing bombshell.
"Leo." he simply said. "Could it be?"
"It is Takashi, and I've been saying it for years now. He's alive...
"But...where would we look? He's obviously not on, in, or around Sirius. If he were to be here, we would have seen him or heard of him." Takashi said looking out the window.
"It's a matter of stealth. If we know where he died at, we can figure out where he may be now." Shan said.
"Kurt." the two said at once.
* * *
*Zzzzzgt!*
"Damnit!"
"Sorry Shadow."
"It's not your fault Rag, matinence requires blood, sweat, and many times, tears."
"I'm still sorry."
"Kurt." Someone said from the other room. "You have a phone call."
"Who is it Hal?" Shadow asked.
"It's Shan, and she has a bombshell of a question."
Shan held the communicator with Shadow on the other side, the two talked of how their past few years had been, with Shadow's dissappearance to Hal's recent pregenancy and Shadow's first child, whom he named Leonardo, after his brother. The two then began to speak of Leo, something they hadn't spoken of in several years.
"How can you know he is alive though Shan? There isn't any proof that he could still exist." Shadow pondered to himself.
"Several key members of Tainted have been managing to get their implants online. I don't know how or why, but they have. Several of them still believe in Tainted's goal, to become the supreme beings of the Sirius sector." Shan replied.
"How can we be sure they havn't figured out a way to tap into Allecto?" Hal chimed in. "I mean, it's plausable right? They're smart and creative, surely they know of how to tap into things they shouldn't be."
"Allecto is stored in Leo's brain, and even Rag, the computer system you herald so much, has said she can still detect Allecto on a very small basis. Have we already forgotton the events of several months ago? Where I could see a ghost program of Leo wondering around?"
Everyone grew quiet at this.
"We've all had difficult times Shan, even us, but sometime you have to realize that...Leo is gone Shan. If there are indeed Tainted members regaining their abilities to use Allecto, she's either revealed herself to them, or they've discovered another way to get those implants to work."
"Are you listening to yourself Kurt? You tried for almost a year to find your brothers body, and now you're just giving up?! Just like that?"
"Damnit Shan! I have a son now, and a loving wife. You can't expect me to jump ship as soon as there 'might' be a chance my brother is alive. You can't expect me to take a running leap of faith everytime you 'think' Leo may or may not be alive-"
"There is no may not damnit Kurt. He. Is. Alive."
"ENOUGH" Takashi boomed coming into the channel. "Kurt, if you don't want to help you don't have to, we have a theroy and we're willing to let it play out, if you want to help us, you know where my office is, if not, we will let you be. But even I'm begging you here. Events are playing out that have no explination...events that even I myself cannot explain.
"Leo is somewhere alive, and we think we have a way to find him."
I hauled myself up to look out the exterior window of the station. The surrounding landscape was barren...no atmosphere...no air...I opened up the door to the space port on the station and discovered only one ship. A small fighter wedged inbetween two support beams which fell. The fighter, which looked reasonably undamaged sat sideways inside the hangar. As I got closer, I noticed the left wing was somewhat damaged. The ship hadn't crashed into the left beam, the left beam had crashed into the fighter. The damage looked worse as I neared the ship. Several critical comonents of the fighter were damaged, mostly on the left side.
I activated my implants and threw the first beam aside with ease. I grabbed the other one and was able to move it a few feet but not enough to dislodge the fighter. I pulled with all my might and cursed when it would not move. I stared at the beam with frusteration and reached out to grab it when the world around me turned bright blue. I reached and ripped the beam from it's foundation with ease and threw it aside. The world returned to it's normal blue "haze" that the implants put off and fell to my right knee. I blinked twice and shook my head. I shook it off and stood up, grabbed the good wing of the aircraft, and drug it away from the wall...
...I began to rebuild.
* * *
Two Days Later
The ship was mostly solidified again. The frame was strengthened, the engines were opperational...the only thing missing was the Navagational systems and the stations were destroyed in the catastrophic collision with the planet I was now stuck on. I began to rip apart the station, looking for any spare parts. After a while I began to notice the air was thinning...before I wasn't using oxygen to breathe because I was dead...but now...
I had to hurry.
I quickly tore apart the center of the station and discovered something I had never seen before. A strange blue substance was tied into the systems of the station, and it looked to have a gash in the side. Below it was liquid that looked like it had been sitting there for several years. I took another glance at the object in the middle and realized it was once a Nomad. Now it was dead. I looked at it for a few more minutes and then shook my head and began searching for something else to help me. I was running out of time...
"Chosen..."
"Allecto?" I said to the darkness...but I was returned with silence...my eyes squinted into the darkness of the station and I slowly moved towards the ship
"...one..."
"That is the Nomad in the station, it's spirit still lingers here...it's calling out to you..."
I remained quiet...I didn't answer her...something much more was happening here...something much more was orchestrating these events...and I wasn't sure I wanted to know who...
Oxxxx...geen Lev...els Crrrriiiiitical said the stations alert systems. Wonderful.
"How long?" I said.
Miiiinimal time reeeeemaining...two minutessss...
A spark exploded in the hallway ahead of me and the lights dimmed a bit. The station was going to go. My movement around the station and my breathing has changed the oxygen levels of the station to dangerous levels. I had to move quickly.
"...one."
I boarded the small ship and stared back into the station. I hit the switch for the small fighter and recieved nothing. I looked back at where the nomad was in the floor and ran back to it. My implants kicked in as the oxygen levels started to dwindle down to critical levels. I reached down and pulled out a few wires and grabbed the implant that was connected to the nomad. My vision faded in and out and I felt a strange feeling of displacement.
I stumbled backward and shook my head. The oxygen levels were dangerously low. I had to get back to the ship. I climbed inside and connected the device underneath the console and hit the switch again, I was rewarded with lights. I eased the small ship up off the station floor and angled it towards the door on the ship. I entered in the commands and as I depressurized the station, it rocked downwards and began to fall. I gunned the ship hard and caught the edge of the station as it was falling and made it out and into space.
"Navagation." I said and it brought up a screen of the entire Galaxy. "Woah." I said to myself. Several different areas lit up, including the research of Junko Zane and Edison Trent. The Hypergate Superhighway iluminated the screen followed by Sirius and it's Jumphole system. I had connected the stations...Navagation System? Huh. Odd.
"Guess I should-"
"...cold."
I flinched back as I felt that same feeling of displacement. I shook my head a few more times before going back to the console and reviewing some more data. I located the original place of the station, it sat right on a Hypergate interestingly enough.
"Show me where I am." I said and it zoomed out, showing me just outside of the Galaxy. "That's odd, I don't see...holy mother of..."
I was face to face with the Galaxy spinning in front of me, in prestine silence. I sat there for a few minutes. Staring at the beauty of it. "Amazing."
Home... the Nagvagation system took on a life of it's own and zoomed into Sirius. Your home... the map changed to a single star system. I felt a strange feeling of longing when it zoomed into a small blue and green planet in the third spot from the sun.
What it looks like now... the planet was gone, replaced by a massive blackhole. The words of whatever this was, was becoming more and more lengthy.
"What is this?"
...Sol.
"What is Sol?" but when I asked that, it did not answer. "What is Sol?!...look up Sol."
"Sol, humanities birthplace. Earth. Humanities evolutionary grounds. Where the Alliance came from when Sleeper ships arrived in Sirius." said the computer.
"That's right, I remember that from school. But that was over 800 years ago. What happened to Sol?"
"Unknown. No attempts have been made to contact mankinds orgin. No contact has been made from Sol either. Existance unknown."
I stared at the screen of the huge blackhole for a few moments longer and turned the screen off and flew back towards the station. It had fallen of a cliff but it's energies were still there, so it was easy to locate. I landed next to the station and put on the suit shoved in the back. I exited the ship and made my way over slowly to the station and wrenched open the door.
The power was on still...slightly.
"Computer are you still active?"
Silence. I was doing this manually then. I took out the drives in the main bay. The bodies of my mother and father were now slid far back to the back...and in pieces. I shook my head and returned to my small makeshift fighter and hooked up the drive.
"Display all information on Damm'Kavsh Hyperdrive Gates."
A huge list illumintated the screen, including one test ship designed by Tainted themselves. The ship looked a lot like this one. I ran a diagnostic of the ship and discovered...
I quickly took back off to space and checked every seal on the ship making sure it was all in tact. I opened the map and selected just outside of this "Sol"
"From my calculations Leo, we can only make two sucessful jumps, and that's pushing it. The second jump won't be too pleasant."
"I understand Allecto, thank's for your concern. But I want to see this for myself."
The mystery of the universe. A massive blackhole stood in front of me. The previous home of mankind...the home of mankind for hundreds...thousands of years. Wiped out. Destroyed.
...mistake
It kept saying the same thing now, even as I stared at what remained of mankinds birthplace.
"What do you mean mistake?"
...wrong place
"What?"
WRONG
"AH!" I grabbed my head and I felt a strange feeling. Memories. A huge ship, I was viewing what was happening. I saw old ships, ships from far before my time, far before technology had changed to what it was now...all of them, staying still, staring in awe at what stood before them. A massive nomad ship, bigger than the ones currently in Sirius. The ship fired a blue orb into the sun...and...
It exploded.
The shockwave wiped out every planet around it. Sol was destroyed. The Nomads destroyed Sol. They destroyed mankind.
"If you had this power, why not use it on us during the Nomad wars?!"
...was a...mistake...
I targeted Manhattan and began to activate the drive. I buckled myself in and targeted the planet on the navagation system. I narrowed my eyes and took one last breath.
"Jump"
---- Two Weeks Ago
If I had known what would happen...
I came out of the jump in a ball of flame. The resulting explosion that I was rocketed out of made my face peel back. I was moving too fast, I was spinning, but I could make out Manhattan's sleeper ship on the horizon, I was home. I held on to the ships console for dear life as I helplessly spun out of control. I reached under the console with strain and ripped off the navagation device, as I did so the power on the ship fluxuated and the ships alerons spun the other way, reversing the spin of the ship and taking me off on another path.
I started seeing tunnel vision as the Gee's were becoming too much for my human body to handle. I activated my implants and they went back a little bit, but I was still losing conciousness. I saw the ground rushing up to meet me, and navy positioned all over the place. I reached out and hit the jump button and vanished from Manhattan.
---- Present
I came back out in Bretonia, but this time I was far enough away that wouldn't cause a total freak out like last time. The ship was starting to fall apart. Engines were gone, shields were gone, the hull was coming apart, and I had no real choice but to take the ship to a station and abandon it. I took it to the Junker station in New London and disabled the engines (not before taking a complete schmatic of the designs of the engine and entire ship) I repaired what I could and sent it on an autoflight into the sun and purchased a new fighter.