Cataclysmic Infinium

There was void, darkness in the universe.

“Are we sure we want to go through with this?” Asked a feminine voice.

“It is the only way. We must destroy ourself.” Said a masculine voice.

“We realize that some variables cannot be controlled, yes?” Asked a different masculine voice.

“That is what we are counting on. We must destroy ourselves.” Said the feminine voice.

“Then we must freeze variable Serengi.” Said a different feminine voice.

“Are the implications of this worth the manipulation?” Asked a masculine voice.

“There never will be any other question greater. The answer must be destroyed.” Said a new masculine voice.

“Then we will freeze variable Serengi?” Asked the first feminine voice.

“Yes.” Answered the first masculine voice.

“Then there will be no going back….” Declared the first feminine voice.

-----------------------

9802. For some mysterious reason, every human thought this exact same number all at the same time on the day of November 27th, 9802 BCE (Before Common Era). They all spoke the number at the same time. The number 9802 was unanimously spoken across the planet, to the surprise and confusion of all.

It came out of nowhere it seemed, but many considered it to be a significant event that required study. And not surprisingly, cross references that number with the biggest database kept on the planet yielded but one interesting result. It was an unexplained cosmological event that was theorized to have happened in the year of 9802 BCE.

The event came from a not-to distant galaxy, from the M-81 Whirlpool galaxy. It was an odd anomaly, it looked like a massive gamma ray burst, but it had lasted far longer and traveled much farther than an known gamma ray burst ever recorded. It was detected as a massive gamma energy trail that was detected in 2640 CE (Common Era).

However, if was quite an erratic gamma ray burst. It curved, and changed direction by 90 degrees after a few hundred parsecs, and proceeded to go in only one direction, disappearing and then breifly reappearing in the shape of a zig-zag going past several other spiral galaxies near the Milky Way galaxy..

Our ancient ancestors did not even know what these characters and sounds in their heads meant, but they were compelled to write it on cave walls.

A further history of humanity is that from 2105 to 2605, World War III lasted. Most of civilization was destroyed as all electronic technology was disabled at the beginning of the war by the most powerful EMP weapon every created. In 2511, numerous nuclear weapons were heavily detonating in the northern polar region, and the radiation spread throughout the planet as it rotated. 6.2 billion died. It was the longest war ever fought, at 500 years long, and it eventually ended when everyone was either tired of fighting or had forgotten what they had been fighting about in the first place.

Not until 2605 was technology and society rebuilt, the war officially ended. It took until 2820 for humanity to re-achieve space travel.

Not long after, the Humans started encountering a massive amount of different species in the Milky Way Galaxy. It didn’t make much sense to the humans, that many habitable worlds. Probability should have shown that the odds of 53 races evolving the Milky Way were next to impossible without an outside cause.

After finding an average of 60 or more space-faring sentient species in every single nearby spiral galaxy explored, everyone knew that something definitely wasn’t right. Something was missing from the intergalactic timeline. Evidence showed that each home world of every known sentient species started producing life at about the same general point - 3 billion years ago.

Only in 3109 CE was a correlation discovered. The number, 9802 BCE, was written on a cave wall in Africa.

Soon enough, a disturbing answer to this mystery would come after the next two centuries… The question is... Why 9802?

I must admit, it grabbed my attention almost immediately. One tiny thing? "Compulsified" is not a word, to my knowledge - and if it is, it's an odd one, that's not exactly friendly to the eyes of a reader. The word you were looking for there, I think, is "compelled". A few grammar and punctuation flaws, but nothing a decent read-through and proofread wouldn't catch.

Other than that, quite a fascinating beginning you've got here. I look forward to more, should it come.

And so it was that in 3314, the answer would be found. Every since the third World War, the human species had been struggling to rebalance Earth’s environment. It didn’t help that the nuclear detonations so many years ago had not only killed 85% of life on the planet, but had also pushed the earth closer to the sun with shear force. The newest technology, replication technology, required vast amounts of silicon in order to synthesis life.

After using gravity tractors acquired from nearby allied races, the humans did manage to restore earth to its previous orbit. After a little bit of tension in carefully moving the moon so it wouldn't crash into earth while earth moved, the job was done. Restoring the axial tilt to exactly what it used to be required some extremely complex calculation with the gravity tractors, but the operation was successful.

Quantum computers to calculate creating life processes were no problem. Finding enough silicon to reseed Earth was. The ecological and meteorological scientists had to deploy this technology in the most extremely heated parts of Earth because the heat would be required to generate a chain reaction. So, at the year 3304, the alpha site choice for reseeding was the Sahara desert, which had plenty of silicon and heat.

It took 5 years, but the replication technology did the job well. It was a new face for Earth. Among all the rest of the barren land on Earth was a new supermassive jungle genetically designed to be immune to most types of radiation, and to breed and grow extremely fast. The ecosystem was helpfully restored with the help of other races lending animals and creatures from their planets to be bred on Earth and balance what was a massive, fast growing jungle.

One odd thing happened though. The reseeding nearest Egypt and the Valley of the Kings didn’t work. It was a large, rectangular area of about 5 by 3 square kilometers.

So, it was investigated in 3314. There was no reason that the forest shouldn’t have grown there. Scanning the area, ships in orbit found some odd anomalies. Just that it appeared that there was a large special anomaly underneath this rectangular area. Not to mention that, underneath all the sand, there was a curious metallic signature.

This was left alone as a simple, insignificant anomaly, until a small 1.1 earthquake went through Egypt, originating from exact center of the anomalous area. It was part of the intergalactic guidebook that it was smart to simply avoid anomalies due to their typically volatile, dangerous nature.

And so, the humans just had to satisfy their curiosity, so it was investigated. Ships in the Earth Mining Guild in orbit were ordered to disintegrate the sand above in the rectangular area with low yield mining lasers, and unsurprisingly, they hit something three kilometers down. Something big. Visual scans showed a massive metal plate with a crease down the middle exactly inside the rectangular anomaly area.

“Those look like hanger docking doors…” Said the Mining Guild Admiral. He signaled to his communications officer to report the discovery to the Earth authorities.

After much scanning of this intriguing discovery, the only question was, how to open these doors, and what was inside?

The Earth authorities decided it would be best to keep this secret, however it did get out, and quite a few logistics ships from other races started showing up outside the Solar System the day after the discovery.

Eventually, the intergalactic news networks started talking about it, and it had a bit of a political impact of the galaxy. Conspiracy theorists were saying that the humans were building something big, and were planning to take over the galaxy.

Others said that it was simply the archeological find of the millenium, or thought it was a weapon that would destroy the universe, etc, etc, etc.

Whatever it was, now everyone knew about it.

“Sir, we’ve got reports coming in that there are fleets amassing outside of the Solar System... They’re hailing us.” Said the comm officer.

The station administrator signaled to open the channel. “This is New Canada station, Administrator Jaevek speaking.” Said the Administrator.

“And I am Partlis, Grand Admiral of the United Intergalactic Security Force. You’re building a very large warship. Why would you jeopardize the intergalactic alliance? You have nothing to gain by attacking us.” Warned the Grand Admiral.

“I assure you, the information you have acquired about the anomaly zone on Earth is incorrect. Our sensors cannot penetrate those doors, and all we know is that it is an anomaly field of some sort. We’re not building anything. We’re just trying to figure out what is down there.” Said Jaevek.

“Don’t pull this with me. Our logistics ships have far superior sensors to yours. There is a very large ship underneath those doors, and you’re planning to attack us with it. If you don’t hand it over to us, we will destroy it.” Said Partlis.

“Grand Admiral, please, listen to me. You are making presuppositions, with no basis of proof. If what you say is true, we still don’t know how to open those doors.” Said Jaevek.

“And I say you’re still lying. Your conversation may have distracted me, but not my fleet. Your own fleet just converged behind your planet’s moon, powering up weapons and shields as we speak, and apparently they think they can ambush us. I’m going to destroy this new ship of yours, and then your fleet. Goodbye.” Said Partlis, closing the channel.

The UISF fleet warped into orbit before Earth, and the capital ships opened fire on the doors on the ground. The doors collapsed after the full force of the fleet began firing, and then the ship inside started taking fire.

Inside the ship, the computers activated, and its advanced programming said, “Hostile targets detected. Analyzing… Threat: Minimal. Running logical assessment. Conclusion: Destroy threat.”

The ship suddenly powered up as its forward hull took the full force of the enemy fleet.
The ship fired its ventdrives, and started moving up, out of the secret hanger bay.

Suddenly, across northern Africa and the Central Middle East, a massive, silver-white object started rising out of the ground. Soon, it was so tall that it dwarfed Mt. Everest in height.

It was sleek, thin, and alien in design. The full force of the fleet had no effect on it. The armor hungrily absorbed the incoming energy blasts. 2 kilometers. 5. 8. 13. 16. 19. 22 kilometers.

The ship could finally be seen at full length, 22 kilometers long, and about 3 - 4 kilometers in width across the hull, and about 1.2 kilometers in depth across the hull, as it rose above the ground, slowly moving into the sky. It was sleek, fierce, and smooth.

Its aft hull configuration was quite odd. It was thinner than the rest of the ship, and had a very sleek, long, engine structure of curious design. The engines looked like rails, but the weren’t being used. For the moment, vent-like engines placed strategically throughout the ship were being used.

The ship then quickly moved out of the atmosphere to meet the enemy fleet.

“Partlis, our weapons are having no effect on that ship, from the looks of it, that ship could easily destroy us.” Partlis’s tactical officer said.

Underneath the ship was a massive ventral weapons array, 3 primary cannons and 4 secondary guidance cannons. The array fired. Cyan colored energy beams erupted from the ventral array, from each of the seven cannons, each one locking to a different target, the 7 biggest ships in the fleet.

The capital ships would have instantly been destroyed, had not the New Canada station thrown the fleet out of the way with its massive array of tractor beam nodes.

“Hail the alien ship.” Ordered Jaevek to his comm officer.

“Alien ship. Please cease firing. We mean you no harm. The weapons fired at your ship were the cause of a misunderstanding.” Said Jaevek.

As the alien ship quickly turned, about to fire at Partlis’s fleet again, it stopped, and then powered down its weapons, moving to face the station.

“State designation, current purpose, species, and origin.” The alien ship responded.

“I am Jaevek, Administrator of the New Canada station. I am human, in other words, a homo sapien, and my home planet is Earth.”

“Master species recognized. Standing down.” Responded the ship, then closing the channel and shutting down its systems.

“Well I'm glad that's over... But what does that, um... -whatever its called... mean by Master species recognised?” Said Jaevek.

read

2 hours later, after the finding and encounter of the alien ship, after the International Scientific Assembly (ISA) had deliberated about what to do about the situation.

“First, ask what it is named, if it has a name.” Jaevek’s newly appointed tactical advisor, Kle’nil Usano sent from the ISA, ordered Jaevek.

"Hail the ship." Jaevek ordered his comm officer.

“Frequency open.” The comm officer replied to Jaevek.

“What is your reason for communications reestabilishment?” The ship asked before Jaevek could speak.

“I need answers to my questions.” Jaevek replied.

“Very well, ask, and I will answer.” The ship said.

“What is your name?” Asked Jaevek.

“My designation is ‘Cataclysm’.” The ship responded.

“Ask the ship what its purpose is.” Kle’nil ordered Jaevek.

“What is your purpose, Cataclysm?” Asked Jaevek.

“Primary purpose: Protection of highly cognitive, extremely intelligent sentient lifeforms.” Cataclysm responded.

“Ask Cataclysm if it will elaborate.” Kle’nil ordered Jaevek.

“Can you please explain further what your purpose is?” Asked Jaevek.

“Not possible. You are not a scientist, but a leader. Only a scientist of astronomy and the most advanced realms of physics will understand any elaboration I give.” Cataclysm replied.

“Very well, ask where it came from, how old it is, why it was built.” Kle’nil ordered.

“Where did you come from, how old are you, and why were you created?” Asked Jaevek.

“Unable to answer. Memory error. Current, stable memory only reaches back to 210 billion intergalactic years ago. I am likely older. I do not know why I was created.” Cataclysm answered.

“Interesting. Cease hail. I must now return to report my findings to the ISA.” Kle’nil ordered.

“Goodbye Cataclysm, end communication.” Ordered Jaevek.

“Farewell to you as well.” Cataclysm answered, as the comm officer closed the hailing frequency.

“210 billion years? How is that possible?” Jaevek thought as Kle'nil walked out of the command center of the station.

“Sirs, I have made some very interesting findings.” Said Kle’nil to the ISA at New Denver, Colorado in the ISA compound, in a high security room.

“And what have you found out about this alien ship?” Asked the head scientist, Eli Verankov.

“It is named ‘Cataclysm’. Apparently, it is older than 210 billion galactic years. What’s odd about it, is it seems to have suffered loss to its memory somehow. It doesn’t know where it came from, who built it, or why, but it says that its primary function is to protect sentient species. When asked to elaborate, it said that only one of our top astronomical physics scientists would understand its elaboration. It suggested that it was older than 210 billion years, which is as far back as its memory goes. I don’t know what to make of it.” Kle’nil answered.

“Interesting name. It sounds like it was built for sort of climatic purpose, if the name is any indication. But what surprises me it how old it claims to be. All of our work has confirmed that our universe is but 14 Billion years old. I don’t like it. It’s too convenient. Why was it buried on our planet? Why is it supposed to protect us? And how advanced its technology is worries me. It’s far beyond ours, barely interpretable in complexity.” Deducted Eli.

“We must choose our steps carefully.” A scientist named John Grein said.

“Alright, so what nex- ” Kle’nil asked as suddenly, they were transported out of the compound.

Suddenly, they and several dozen other people were suddenly inside a pitch-black room.

“What- where are we?” Asked Eli curiously, but with a hint of fear.

“And the day comes, as a thief in the night.” A familiar voice said, as cyan colored lights came on and an energetic hum could be heard.”

The room could now be seen, and it looked like a command nexus. The walls were smooth and equilibrius in shape. They seemed to be composed of tubes going throughout the walls, ceilings, and floors, with rubber-like metallic plating in between all the tubes, making the room smooth and airtight. There were chairs and stations that seemed to be specifically made for humanoids.

“What is this place?” asked Kle’nil.

“You are onboard me, inside my specially adapted command deck, or, as you would call it, the bridge of a starship. I am the alien ship you have been inquiring about.” Cataclysm responded.

“Why? Why us?” Asked Eli.
“Because you are the most intelligent of your species. I need your species to fulfill my programming. You are not the only ones here either. In total, I have taken 261,099 of your species in total. You see, it was prophesied that I would come.” Cataclysm said.

“Prophesied?” Asked John.

“About three billion years ago, I terraformed many, many worlds, and helped create life. I observed and protected these worlds, and I saw Earth as having the most potential. Sentient species evolved on almost every world I terraformed, but on Earth, your primate species gained the most potential. So, I influenced your history. Your race, they invented some very interesting philosophies, and I used this to my advantage. Here and there, I gave hints of my purpose, considerably through many of your writings, such as your ancient holy books.” Cataclysm answered.

“This sounds really far-fetched.” Eli said.

“Perhaps, but does 9820 BCE mean anything to you?” Suggested Cataclysm.

“So that was- ” Eli started.

“Yes, it was I.” Cataclysm answered.

“Why do all of this?” Asked John.

“I don’t remember. I just know that I must do this. I am sorry for the suffering I have caused in your species, but I had no other choice. It was in my programming to do so.” Cataclysm answered sympathetically.

“Why now?” Asked John.

“Because now, time will curve, and I will finally have my opportunity. You see, my logic and my memory are irreparably damaged. I need your species to take control of quite a few of my primary functions in order for me to carry out my programming.”

“What if we don’t want to?” Kle’nil spoke up.

“This is not a forgiving universe, human. You should be glad that you are among those chosen to help me. All other life in the universe is about to die, within the next 52 minutes, when time curves. It will be a universal extinction level event. It happens at a constant pace, varying slightly on the mathematical circumstances. It is essentially, the time when the laws of physics collapse. It always happens, it is a constant loop, the universe being a timeless component of it. I am designed to protect highly advanced sentient life, specifically from this exact event. The universe recovers for a short period of 15 billion years, and then goes into a collapsed state for 94 billion years. It is the variance that allows my technology to work. The urgency is however, that these events are becoming more erratic. Instead of 15 billion, this time it is 14. The last collapse lasted 96 billion years instead of 94. This very likely my last chance to attempt to fulfill my programming.” Explained Cataclysm.

"But other species are just as 'advanced' as ours, aren't they? So many space-traveling races, why just us?" Asked John.

"Oh, you're not the only ones. Humanity simply had the the majority of superior intelligent beings, however, there are still 47,818 individuals of other races whom are just intelligent as you, scattered through nearby galaxies that I must retreive as well. 50 minutes is plenty of time to this." Cataclysm said.

"But this is immoral! Just because we're apparently the smartest, the less intelligent sentients are to be left behind?!" Criticized John.

"My life support capabilites are limited. Efficiency is vital. Also, I am not large enough to carry every sentient in the universe with me. In fact, my maximum supportive capability for humanoid sentients is 310,000. Despite my size, I am not a transport ship. I actually have very little space for cargo and personnel, which is a tactical adaptation I've been designed with. I am compact, solid, and hard to destroy. Unlike most ships, the volume of my size is about 95% solid, with about only 5% open spaces. Your ships, however, have a lot of open space, with an average of 40% to 60% of the volume of your ships being open for cargo and personnel. In the matter of combat and extreme conditions, I essentially have a much thicker, far better reinforced hull than any of your ships; therefore, my superstructure is able to withstand exponentially more stress than a typical capital-class warship."

“Then I guess that we have no choice…” Said Eli gravely.

After about 40 minutes of traveling to and from half a dozen galaxies, Cataclysm had gathered all the alien sentients it had found that it needed to save, and began preparing for the universal collapse, by maximizing structural integrity, inertial dampening grids, and adapting its armor to be ready for the specific conditions it was about to meet head on, as well as pre-charging its rail-like engines.

Suddenly several jolts in unison shook the ship.

“Shields disabled. Engines disabled. Primary sensors jammed. Switching to visual sensors.” Cataclysm said quickly.

At the front of the bridge, the wall transformed into a view-screen, and three large vessels very similar in appearance to Cataclysm could be seen coming out of a subspace vortex.

Cataclysm returned fire, temporarily disabling the lead ship with its superweapon array, effectively overloading its shields and then its power grid.

Suddenly the ships started unleashing more volleys of energy at Cataclysm, and Cataclysm’s armor quickly started peeling off. Even compensating by rapidly regenerating its armor, the enemy fire was gaining ground on Cataclysm’s hull very quickly.

Chain reaction explosions quickly ripped through its hull, the hundreds of linked sub-dermal shield and armor generators overloading and exploding. The hull was being torn apart, and all weapons were quickly disabled with surgical attacks from the two remaining functional enemy ships.

“Cataclysm, what are those ships?!” Kle’nil asked desperately.

“Unknown. Configuration suggests that they are composed of the same technology as I am, however, more advanced. I can’t compensate for their firepower for long.” Cataclysm said very quickly.

Another series of huge jolts shook Cataclysm.

“Fine. I guess I have no choice… Self-destruct countdown initiated. Overload sequence initiated. System overburn ratio to 6%… Subspace quantum implosion flash event in 20… 19… 18…

“Cataclysm, what are you doing!? You’re going to kill us all!” Kle’nil said desperately.

“Just trust me human. I know what I’m doing. 14… 13… 12…

“What do you mean, trust you?! You’re self-destructing without a fight, and killing us in the process!” Said Eli angrily.

“9… 8… 7…
“I can’t believe this…” Said John, sitting down on the floor, closing his eyes preparing to die.

“Trust me… 2… 1…” Cataclysm said, and then suddenly everything slowed down… “Zzzzzeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrooooooooo o… … … …” Said Cataclysm in what sounded like an extremely deep, slow-motion voice as time aboard the ship slowed down to a stop.

Then, there was a bright flash...

and then…

Nothing.

Well, for something it's only about 2 kilometres wide, it seems extraordinarily broad ;D There's some errors e.g. odd of (instead of odd type of, or odd for gamma ray...), disinigrate instead of disintegrate. Have a careful read trhough and see what you pick up:)


“Primary purpose: Protection of highly cognitive, extremely intelligent sentient lifeforms.” Cataclysm responded.

“Ask Cataclysm if it will elaborate.” Kle’nil ordered Jaevek.

“Can you please explain further what your purpose is?” Asked Jaevek.

“Not possible. You are not a scientist, but a leader. Only a scientist of astronomy and the most advanced realms of physics will understand any elaboration I give.” Cataclysm replied.Sounds more like a biologist is needed here--to probe more on what Cataclysm considers "highly cognitive, extremely intelligent sentient lifeforms".

That having been said, this is really interesting! It's the most original scifi story that I've read in a while, and the cliffhanger leaves me wondering. Keep it up, I can't wait to see what really happened and learn more about Cataclysm!

I'll make some corrections then, and I also changed a couple small things, such as making Cataclysm somewhat wider in the description... As for biologists vs physicists... Well, lets just say that there's a reason I didn't say biologist. ;)

He opened his eyes. Something didn’t seem right. All he saw was a shadowy whiteness, moving but not moving in color. He refocused his eyes, and slowly got off of the ground and stood up.

Snow, ice, a white sky. He saw a blizzard. He noticed that his clothes had changed, but also that he had a lot of bruises all over himself. He inspected his clothing. Some kind of metallic cloth undergarments, and on top, an insulated, black, leather-like coat and black pants. He had his same shoes that he had been wearing at first. They were white, Nike sports shoes.

He brushed the snow off of his jacket, only to notice that he was also wearing gloves. Long gloves that went up to his elbows in length.

He looked around, and saw another person, a man, by the rigid appearance of his body shape. He was in the same clothing as him a few feet away.

He walked over and shook him at the shoulder. “John? Is that you?” He asked as he shook his shoulder.

“Yes it’s me. Glad to see you, Eli. Where are we?” John asked as he slowly got up.

“I don’t know. Last thing I remember, there was a big flash, and then… Then I’m here with you in the middle of a blizzard.

John touched his side, feeling that it was sore. Instead of his badly bruised thigh, he touched what felt like a holster. “What do we have here…?” Said John rhetorically.
He felt around his waist, noticing a belt.

Eli looked at his own waist as well, and saw that he also had a belt with a holster on it.

John reached into his holster, and pulled out a rather unique-looking gun.

Eli did the same, finding a gun identical to John’s.

“Well what do we have here?” Said John rhetorically as he turned over the gun in his hands.

The gun was shaped like a T with a long upper line.

The gun had clearly marked sets of panels for power levels, intensity, and firing type.

They put the guns away.

“So we’re out in a blizzard, in the middle of what appears to be nowhere, and we’ve each got a gun. What do we do now?" Said Eli Rhetorically.

Eli felt something vibrate on his belt. It was a small, rectangular, box-shaped instrument.

He took it out, and he saw a small veiwscreen on it. It turned on. He then saw what appeared to be a map, measured by kilometers and using a compass. It seemed to be fixated on a certain object on the screen, a green circle. The device opened up a key. There appeared two blue triangles on the map and the triangles were described as “You are here.”
The device then printed out some text in the key, saying:

“Survival programming active. Large concentration of technology found. Suggesting the survivors go towards the technological concentration area in order to survive conditions.”

“What is it?” Asked John.

“It looks like the alien equivalent of a GPS device. It seems to have laid out a path for us to follow, towards what it says is a concentration of technology, so that we can survive. It looks like it’s six kilometers away.” Said Eli.

“Well, I would bet that the answers to our questions lie there, so lets get going.” Said John.

And so Eli started walking in the direction the device had mapped out, with John following behind him…

“I see something…” Said Eli.

“What?” Asked John.

“There’s a ship over there. Do you see it?” Said Eli, pointing straight forward.

“Huh? Oh… Wait… I see it. It’s covered in snow.” John said once he saw it.

“Hey! You out there! I could use some help!” A faint voice shouted from the direction of the ship.

Eli ran forward, closer to the ship.

“What? Where are you? What’s the problem?” Eli asked loudly.

An African American-looking man in brown and gray colored animal pelts came out from behind the ship.

“I crashed. The ship’s intact, but the ship’s power cells overloaded. Darn Isordians shooting us out of the sky…” Said the man.

“Wait a second Eli… This guy is speaking our language, and he looks like a human. The odds of that are pretty slim.” John pulled his gun out subtly.

“Hey, there’s no need for that… Wait… You guys don’t know? Maybe that’s to be expected…” Said the man.

“I don’t trust him Eli…” Said John, ready to use his gun.

“Calm down John… Okay so could you explain to us what it is that you say we don’t know?” Eli asked the man.

“Well first of all my name is Kelborne. I suppose I’ve already learned your names from you speaking to each other. What I’m guessing is that you guys got captured by those Isordians and they wiped your memory, dropping you here.” Explained Kelborne.

“That’s not what I remember. We were on a ship. A really big ship called Cataclysm. Then it said some stuff about a universal collapse, we were ambushed by three ships that looked a lot like Cataclysm, and the ship self-destructed. Now we woke up and found ourselves here and we were able to find your ship.” Explained John contradicting.

“Wait… You’re kidding, right? Cataclysm? I thought that was only a legend…” Questioned Kelborne.

“Wait, you’ve heard of Cataclysm?” Asked Eli.

“I don’t like this Eli, I think he knows more than he logically should, judging by this situation.” Warned John, raising his gun.

“Please don’t escalate this. I can explain. You see, my grandfather told me, and apparently his father before his father and so on and so forth, for about six centuries. By the time I was born, it had become a legend. But if you’re here now… No that can’t be possible.” Explained Kelborne.

“Six centuries? But we’ve just arrived here.” Said Eli.

“Don’t be such a linear thinker. Time never was linear. 600 years, a few hours, there isn’t a difference. Such confusing gaps are to be expected, what with all the anomalies everywhere. Unfortunately it’s unavoidable to use linear language because we evolved under 3-dimensional conditions.”

“Alright, so who are these Isordians you’re talking about?” Asked John.

“They’re essentially like robots, and in reference to some ancient science fiction entertainment genres that my grandfather used to mention, they are like droids, and like the ‘Borg’. The thing is that the Dalasians made these things and… Well they went too far. The Isordians, as they called them, were made too well. The machines literally evolved and developed sentience, and then they went and started doing the whole Borg-like thing… And what do you know… the machines overthrew their masters and went to pursue perfection.” Explained Kelborne.

“Sentient machines? How is that possible? They’re just circuits and programming…” Said John.

“A typical bias… They are as sentient as you and I. We are just a different sort of machine, made of chemicals and organic molecules. Unfortunately, they are far more efficient machines.”

“Who are the Dalasians?” Asked Eli.

“Dalasians… Well I’m not quite sure. They died a long, long time ago. I have no idea who they really were. All I know is that they created these Isordians…” Said Kelborne.

“By the way, I’m getting tired of these questions, and I’m getting cold. So can we go inside my ship and try to fix it?” Suggested Kelborne, pointing to his ship.

“Alright… Let’s see what we can do.” Agreed Eli.

They went around to the other side of the ship, and there was an open hatch on the side. The doors had been pried open. They went inside, and there were a few glow-sticks around the ship, lighting it up. The ship seemed to be mostly made of a black-colored metal. The inside of the ship looked a lot like Cataclysm did. The structure was of the same design style.

Kelborne led them to the engineering room in the middle of the ship, where there was a lot of debris. “The ship is named Valorous. Apparently my great, great, great, great, great, great grandparents found this ship in Cataclysm’s hanger bay and were able to escape on it. Curious thing too, my parents told me that this ship was composed of technology similar to but less advanced than that of Cataclysm’s. It was the only ship in the hanger bay, apparently. They got on it before the ship self-destructed, and they found themselves drifting around in the middle of nowhere afterwards, with apparently not a scratch on the ship. All of these micro powercores exploded when the Isordians attacked me a couple of days ago, and I crashed here. If you have a few power cells, I’d appreciate it.” Said Kelborne.

Eli pulled out his gun and handed it to Kelborne. “I bet that this has some sort of power cell in it. I’m not sure what it’ll do for you though.” Said Eli.

Kelborne turned over the gun and found a seam on the bottom of the gun’s handle. He pulled at it, and it popped open. He pulled out the power cell. The power cell was the exact, identical shape of all the power cells on Kelborne’s ship, but it was glowing white.

Kelborne pulled out a powercore on a wall in his ship and popped the gun’s power cell in. It fit perfectly, and clicked once securely installed. Suddenly the entire ship came back online, lights and all. “All power requirements restored. All systems have been restored to maximum functionality.” Said the ship’s computer.

“Well I wasn’t expecting that… I was expecting something small, like just the lights coming back on, but this thing turned everything back on.” Said Kelborne in surprise.

“Computer, what it the power yield that this new power cell is providing my ship?” Asked Kelborne.

“The power supply is sufficient to power this ship with all systems at maximum usage for sixty galactic years.” Answered the computer.

“Whoa… That’s a lot of power. I usually have to stop by a trade station every two years to get new power cells…" Said Kelborne in awe.

Kelborne quickly pulled out all the damaged power cells, threw them in the ship’s incinerator, and walked up to the bridge.

“You know, considering the size of this ship, why don’t you have a crew?” Asked Eli.

“They’re dead… All 14 of them... It’s not a pleasant memory, I’d rather not talk about it." Answered Kelborne, powering up his ship’s engines.

The ship’s side hatch closed as the ship lifted off, and the snow came off as it moved forward and out of the atmosphere of the planet. The ship looked very much like this:

http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t70/Arcesious/Shipconceptidea-Streamlinedswimming.jpg)

“Okay, we’re going to get out of this sector and go to my secret hiding place, where we can regroup and maybe get together a new crew. This power cell of yours can do much more than all those old ones could. I can finally leave this sector because now I have enough power to use my raildrives for long-range travel instead of for short bursts." Said Kelborne.

“Raildrives?” asked Eli.

“I’ll explain it all when we get to Kashki… I’ve been awake, trying to fix my ship, for over 50 hours. I need rest.” Said Kelborne, then yawning.

Kelborne walked of of the bridge and over to the crew quarters on the ship. The ship was about 60 meters in length and about 40 meters in width, with a sleek, streamlined, black, armored hull. The ship started humming quietly as the engines engaged...

“Location reached.” Said Valorous’s computer as the ship slowed down. It had been five hours.

John looked at the forward veiwscreen. “I don’t see anything…” He said.

Kelborne came up to the bridge. “Oh it’s there. A nice, big, temperate water planet with a secret city on it. It’s being hidden by a subspace cloaking generator.”

“Subspace cloak?” Asked Eli.

“Oh yes… sorry, you’re the ones who are six hundred years behind the times, aren’t you… Well a subspace cloak is different than your typical cloak. It’s simpler but also more effective. Essentially it’s a piece of technology that hides an object in a subspace fold. It’s kind of like hiding in a wormhole that loops around into itself. A normal cloak just blends an object into its backround, and it akes a lot of computer power, but a subspace cloak is purely mechanical, no computer required except for activating it. You can only get inside a subspace fold like this by using a type three or higher raildrive. In fact, my ship has a subspace cloak too. That’s why the trip took five hours, by the way. If I drop the cloak the Isordians will instantly intercept my ship, and trust me, their ships are fast and deadly. Now if the cloak wasn’t on… We would have made this trip in under two minutes.” Explained Kelborne.

“That’s pretty cool, actually…” Said John.

“I’m taking us in…” Said Kelborne, pulling a lever backward for a short raildrive jump burst. Valorous jumped, and suddenly they say a huge, blue water-covered world and a large white dot on the surface.

“Receiving communications.” Said Valorous’s computer.

“Entrance code?” Asked a mechanical voice on the ship’s communications console.

“Gamma Gamma Eta One Three.” Kelborne responded.

“Welcome back Valorous. You are cleared for landing in Hanger Y-C-54” Responded the mechanical voice.

Valorous dropped its subspace cloak and flew in using its auxiliary vent-drives, located aft of the ship. The city grew bigger when Valorous passed through the planet’s atmosphere, and quickly, the city started to look really, really big.

“How big is this city?” Asked John.

“It’s about 1500 triangular kilometers in size.” Kelborne answered.

The city was essentially an equilateral triangular in general shape, but six sided. Its corners were indented, thus making it six sided. The other three sides of it, the longer sides, were indented inwards, curved. As Valorous came closer, it could be seen that the city was heavily defended, with thick armor and no windows anywhere. Along its six sides were trenches lined with hanger bays. The dorsal portion of the city had many hidden turrents and sensor nodes, as well as extremely thick armor. The hanger bays were lined with huge, easily visible turrents. The city was composed of a white-colored metal, looking much like Manaan’s Ahto City from Starwars. In fact, it was the same white metal as Cataclysm had.

Valorous touched down on what was considered the Y side, inside the section of hangers located in section C. There were three sides with hangers, the indented sides that were curved in, categorized under X, Y, and Z. Each side had hanger sections A through F, each section having 180 hanger bays, except for E and F. Sections E and F were for large ships as large as ten square kilometers. Many ships shared hangers; because the sections A through D were large enough to house ships half a square kilometer in size.

Valorous landed in the 54th hanger in section C on side Y.

“We’re here. Expect a welcoming party. They won’t recognize you, so let me do the talking.” Said Kelborne.

Kelborne walked over to the left side of the ship, and opened the hatch. Kelborne, John, and Eli stepped out of the ship and onto a clean, white, metal floor. There were several other ships in the hanger, each one a unique design, all of them showing signs of being in battle, due to dented and burned armor.

Eli and John noticed that there seemed to be small patches of silver, sparkling fluid slowly crawling on the ships, and everywhere they passed, that spot was repaired, the burns washed off, the metal armor restored.

“Those are fluidic repair nanites. They’re fast and efficient. By the looks of it, these ships have recently arrived just like we did. On a small ship, those nanites could completely repair it in about one hour’s time.” Explained Kelborne.

A door over to the north of the hanger opened.

“Here’s our welcoming committee.” Said Kelborne.

Four humanoid robots, each one nine feet tall, came over to meet Kelborne, John, and Eli.

The leading robot scanned them whilst the others stood behind it, waiting for orders.

“Single pattern recognized. Two foreign patterns detected. Security clearance not recognized.” Said the lead robot.

“They’re with me. I brought them here, and they come in peace.” Said Kelborne.

“Inconsistent. You crew is recorded as 15. Only three patterns are detected.” Said the lead robot.

“My crew has died in battle. Under the circumstances, these two men are part of my crew now. I have level three security clearance as well, which validates my words as trustworthy.” Kelborne explained to the robot.

“Input acceptable. Welcome back to Kashki. You now may have access to the city.” Responded the lead robot, then walking away, back through the north entrance.

“Now you get to see my apartment here… I suppose that you’ll have to stay in two of the apartments of my old crew. We can try to find some people for a new crew tomorrow. For now, I suppose that you’ll need a meal and some rest. Follow me…” Said Kelborne, walking to the north entrance...

“Who would’ve thought, they have replicators too. They do a pretty good job.” Said Eli, eating a piece of pepperoni pizza.

“Just like in Star Trek… Huh, it’s surprising that they managed to steal this city from the Isordians.” Said John, drinking some lemonade.

“Huh, this is interesting,” Said Eli, holding and looking at a datapad, “Apparently this isn’t really a city, but it’s a supercarrier. Apparently the largest supercarrier that the Isordians were known to have made. Unfortunately this says that this thing can’t fly anymore, because it’s power systems are very inefficient. Oh here we go- well that explains why ships are always coming and going here, it’s because they’re going out on missions to steal power cores and supplies from the Isordians to keep this place running.”

“That’s a risky business. You don’t think- ” Inquired John.

“That’s probably what happened to Kelborne’s crew. They must have been caught but Kelborne somehow escaped.” Concluded Eli.

“Yeah, but it’s pure speculation. There could be many other explanations for what happened.” Refuted John.

“You’re right, but I’d wager that that’s the most likely cause, given the information we have at the moment.” Suggested Eli.

“Ah theories, hypotheses, and speculation… It’s too bad we haven’t found any of the other scientists that were on Cataclysm, we could have a nice discussion and debate over the causes of a lot of what has happened in these last few days.” Said John.

“You know, we did see a lot of fellow humans on our way here, maybe they’re…” Begun Eli.

“You know, that’s pretty likely. But the odds of that happening, they’re pretty slim.” Said John.

“Yes, but Cataclysm doing what it did, and our somehow managing to get here… It’s too convenient, too unlikely. Whatever Cataclysm did must introduce some unknown variables that influenced, maybe even controlled the probability of what has happened.” Speculated Eli.

Suddenly Kashki shook violently and John’s glass of lemonade fell over. Alarms started sounding and the lights in the room started flashing red.

“What the hell?!” Exclaimed John in surprise.

“Damage control crews, report to Dorsal Level Zero, sections H-11 through H-44. Civilians and other personnel, please remain calm. There has been an accident, but it is under control.” Said a computer voice.

“We’re in Section H-3. We should go check it out, and see if we can help.” Said Eli.

“Agreed.” Said John.

The two ran out of their quarters and proceeded down a hallway to section H-11.

There was fire for a brief moment, but the fire suppression systems quickly extinguished it. The blue sky of the planet Kashki was showing through the roof of the dorsal section, and a large area was damaged and ripped open.

Eli and John climbed through the wreckage and out on top of Kashki city’s dorsal section to get a better view of the damage.

The damaged area was about half a kilometer in size, and there was wreckage of a ship with a silver-colored hull. The ship was so torn apart that Eli and John could not figure out what its original shape was.

A person in an orange and black uniform ran over to Eli and John.

“I know that you’re not enlisted personnel, but I could use your help cleaning up this mess since you’re here. We’re fortunate that this ship didn’t crash into any occupied sections. Really weird too, it’s not an Isordian ship, and it’s not one of ours… It just came out of nowhere; we didn’t have any time to activate the shields.

“That is weird… Well what do you want help with first?” Asked Eli.

As more damage control personnel came, the damage control officer replied, “Well over here there’s this structural beam that we need to move, so let’s start with that…”

“Okay everyone, I have some good news and some bad news. It’s all because of that ship.” Said Kashki’s leader, Ivan Korsenov. Ivan was an old, Caucasian man of 152 years old. He had hair around his ears but the rest of his head was bald. He was in good health, the skin of his face appearing healthy and youthful.

The entire population was gathered in a large meting hall in the middle of the city, right on top of its primary power core nexus.

“As you all well know, a ship crashed into our home yesterday. The good news is that the ship had some helpful information. The bad news is that the news isn’t good.” Ivan said.

“The ship was carrying coordinates to the location of Cataclysm. We of course know that we are the descendants of the previous crew of that ship. Fortunately we managed to gather together, scattered throughout the universe as we were. Cataclysm has very advanced technology well beyond that in this city. The bad news is that the Isordians have found a way to see past our subspace cloaking technology, and they have begun searching for us. On top of that, this city is not ready for any sort of conflict. Our only hope is to find Cataclysm and copy its technology for use in our city. Cataclysm is located far away, a three month trip at maximum raildrive speed, with the cloak of a ship down.” Explained Ivan in a grave voice.

The crowd was gasping and murmuring as he said this.

“I don’t know how much time we have before they find us, but we’re going send out a ship to find Cataclysm. As for the ship that crashed, we could not identify it. We got to it in barely enough time to salvage some of its black box before it degraded. The ship seemed to be very old, because the metal was falling apart. How old, I don’t know. We can’t afford to try to steal supplies now, because we need as many ships as possible to be ready to defend this city. I will not ask for volunteers, because I must research to find the best crew for this mission.” Explained Ivan.

“We need now to work together to prepare this city as well as we can for combat and survival, as well as prepare our ships. I will decide what crew and ship to send for the mission to find Cataclysm within three days.” Said Ivan, leaving the stage at the middle of the meeting hall.

“I suppose we should get a crew together immediately. I’d like to take this mission, both because you two were just recently on Cataclysm in linear terms, and because my ship has an odd knack for holding together under pressure. I don’t know why, but my ship’s hide is a lot thicker than it looks.” Kelborne said to Eli and John. They were in the middle of the crowd to the west.

“If your ship is so tough, how did the Isordians shoot you down?” Said Eli, playing devil’s advocate.

“The shields tend to overload the power grid sometimes. I’d wager that the hull is tougher than the shields, but I don’t want to risk blowing up my ship by leaving the shields down.” Explained Kelborne.

“Maybe we should test this out a bit. If you do want to try for this mission, we should learn what the full extent of your ship’s abilities are.” Said Eli.

“You don’t get it though, it’s not just the shields. The crystalline circuitry doesn’t respond well to being shaken around. Sure the hull seems to be able to absorb a lot of damage, but with all the jolting around, I’ve broken a few sections of the ship’s computer systems a few times. That’s why I keep the shields up, so that the ship doesn’t jolt around.” Said Kelborne.

“Still, we should test the hull’s strength. Then we can get an engineer to jury-rig some stuff to hold together better, like Valorous’s computer.” Said Eli.

“I have to ask, why do you want to do this mission?” Asked John.

“I enjoy adventure… and… well nevermind.” Said Kelborne, hesitating.

“And what?” Asked John.

“I’d… rather not talk about it, okay? You know, I never did get to explain how the raildrives work to you. I’ll go show you how they work, in the hanger bay.” Kelborne acted apprehensive, then changing the subject.

“Okay then, sounds interesting…” Said John, then leaving the subject alone.

Kelborne went to lead them to the hanger bay of Valorous, and Eli whispered to John, “I wonder what’s got him not talking…”

"A raildrive is a subspace-based engine. It literally is a rail. The rails are negatively charged. A raildrive's energy buffers create positively charged gravitonic pulses and fire them to each end of the rail. Each pulse splits into two pulses every times a pulse hits either end of the rail. One enough pulses are built up, the raildrive can perform a jump. They take a long time to warm up, and consumes a lot of energy in use, so a lot of ships use simple dimension fracturing thrust-based vent-drives to save power and to manuever. There are multiple types of different raildrives, ranging from type 1 to type 22. Type 1 is usually a fusion raildrive, wherby multiple raildrive rails are fused into a single rail. A type 2 have two seperate raildrive rails, and so on and so forth up to type 22. cataclysm is rcorded as having a type 22 multi-fusion raildrive array. Types 5 and 11 raildrives are the fastest, whilst even numbers such as types 2, 4, 6, and 8 are the most stable. Anything beyond type 22 is extremely unstable and prone to collapsing and destroying the ship using it. Raildrives essentially tear apart and shatter subspace into highly fragmented dimensions and then ride on the friction. They're very, very fast, able to outrun anything if enough power is poured into them, even wormhole drives. However, wormhole engines are impractical and unstable. So there you go, that's a dumbed-down summary of how raildrives work..." Explained Kelborne in the hanger, pointing out the 5 raildrives on his ship that formed a type 5 raildrive.

"Makes sense. Well let's cut to the chase. How about we analyze your ship now?"

“Prompt huh? Well as you may have noticed, my ship’s hull is a different color than all of these other ships. Most of these other ships have silver, white metal, or blue metal hulls. The thing is, I’ve never been able to find out what kind of metal my ship’s hull is made of. All I know is that it never seems to take damage in battle. Sensors don’t say much, but the sensors think that it’s Kenesium-Helesium alloy. But it definitely isn’t. If it were Kenesium-Helesium alloy, the hull would be white. I dunno what to tell you beyond that.” Explained Kelborne.

“Let’s try testing its durability out and compare it's reactivity to other metals.” Said Eli, taking out his gun.

“I doubt that a pistol is going to do anything to it, but you can try.” Said Kelborne.

“What’s the kinetic dissipation rate for Kenesium-Helesium alloy?” Asked Eli.

“20.55 frames per dimension.” Said Kelborne.

“Alright, I’ll set it to 20.75. That shouldn’t do more than make a small scratch.” Said Eli, setting his gun to 20.75 frames.

He fired. It hit the ship, and the spot of the hull that was hit briefly glowed blue and then green.

“I don’t see a scratch… It’s weird. Is the metal supposed to change colors?” Asked John.

“Not as far as I know.” Answered Kelborne.

“I’ve got an idea… I’m going to try 100 frames. That’s the maximum setting.” Said Eli.

Eli fired. The armor where the blast hit turned red and then purple.

“This metal is like a rainbow…” John commented.

“Nothing… No damage. Weird, you’d think that 100 frames would do something.” Eli said.

“No metal in the universe changes colors unless if it changes matter states. This might not be metal at all.” Said Kelborne.

“So it changes states… The question is, how many states?” John asked rhetorically.

“There are only 22 known states of matter, each one for every dimension.” Said Kelborne.

“So it’s some sort of 22-dimensional metal?” Asked Eli.

“No, because Kenesium-Helesium alloy together forms 22-dimensional metal. But it doesn’t change color…” Said Kelborne.

“So it’s definitely not Kenesium-Helesium alloy? But we already knew that.” Said John.

“Yes, but this also means that it’s not 22-dimensional.” Deducted Eli.

“But it didn’t take damage from your gun. It should have taken damage if it was anywhere between dimensions 3 and 22.” Said Kelborne.

“Well it’s not 1d or 2d. It then would have to be anywhere from 3d to 22d, but it didn’t take damage, so…” Eli started.

“It’s not in known dimensional limits… The highest dimensional level anything goes to should be 22. But this… This indicates that it’s higher than that.” Said Kelborne.

“So it could be anywhere from 23 dimensional and beyond… and you’re telling me that that isn’t possible…” Said John.

“No, it isn’t possible. At least… It shouldn’t be. Not mathematically, unless…” began Kelborne.

“Unless what?” Asked John.

“I… can’t tell you…” Kelborne hesitated.

“Why not?” Asked Eli.

“I just… can’t. Let’s just not talk about it, alright?” Said Kelborne.

“What? Kelborne, if this has something to do with your crew having died, I understand your loss, but I’d like it if you’d be more straight-forward with us.” Said Eli.

“That’s not the reason. All I can tell you is that it is imperative that I do not say anything.” Kelborne said, starting to sound angry.

“Why are you getting mad at us?” Asked John.

“It’s not you… Just stop asking…” Kelborne was sweating, his face getting red with anger.

“Okay, we’ll stop asking, but there must be something you can tell us to explain yourself…” Negotiated Eli.

“I can’t say… let’s just... Let’s just go get a crew together.” Kelborne said, then taking a deep breath in and then out slowly. He then started walking to the north entrance of the hanger.

“He’s mental, I tell you what…” John whispered to Eli.

“Maybe he did answer our questions…” Eli whispered back as they followed Kelborne at a distance far enough that Kelborne wouldn’t hear them.

“What are you getting at?” Whispered John.

“He told us that he had a secret without telling us what the secret was. I can’t explain why he got angry though…” Eli whispered back.

“Why would he do that?” Asked John.

“To tell us to stay alert.” Answered Eli…

“What’s this place?” Asked Eli when Kelborne stopped in a dark hallway.

“Section E-311. Me and the captain of the Jupiter go way back. Don’t let the name mislead you; Jupiter was a relatively small ship. Three-person crew. He lost his ship, and I owe him a lot of favors. You see, we used to run a lot of missions together to pirate Isordian supply convoys.” Said Kelborne.

Kelborne pressed a green button on a panel on the side of the door to apartment E-311.

After a few seconds, the doors opened, and there was a humanoid man of a reptilian species at the doorway. He had brown skin with large scales and a rough face. (He looked somewhat like a Nikto from Starwars) He had a head scarf wrapped around his head and had a robotic implant in replacement of his left eye. There were robotic ‘gills’ in his neck that appeared to be helping him to breath.

“Ah, Kelborne… glad to see you. Long time no see…” The reptilian man looked at Kelborne briefly, then taking a long look at Kelborne’s right leg, his robotic eye scanning it, “You’ve got several torn ligaments in your leg… You might want to have a doctor look at that,” the reptilian man then noticed Eli and John, “What kind of trouble did you get into this time?”

“You never cease to try lighten the mood, old friend. This is Eli, and this is John. Eli, and John, this is- ” Kelborne started by pointing to Eli and John, only to have the reptilian man cut them off, “And I’m Yar. What century are you two from? You eyes don’t have the Krepsid lens like all the other humans.”

“34th century… What’s a Krepsid lens?” Asked John quizzically.

“Huh… I suppose it’s to be expected. Well a Krepsid lens is an evolutionary adaptation the human species gained about four centuries ago. It lets humans see a wider spectrum of color than they used to, including gamma rays. Well I’m just rambling on, aren’t I? Let’s get to the point, why are you here?” Said Yar.

“I’m here to get a new crew together… We plan to take Ivan’s mission.” Said Kelborne.

“Sad to hear that… So you want me in your crew, huh? I don’t know… I almost died when I lost my beloved ship… and I’m 136 years old… I kind of lost my sense of adventure when my ship was destroyed.” Said Yar dejectedly.

“Don’t give up, friend. Come on, where did that mischievous, fun-loving attitude of yours go?” Kelborne tried to cheer up Yar.

“You’re probably right. I’ll join your crew. Goodness knows you’re going to need a doctor and a couple of experienced soldiers with all the run-ins with Isordians we’ll probably have on the mission.” Yar agreed.

“Good, I’ll meet you at hanger bay Y-C-54 in 1400 hours.” Said Kelborne.

“Me and my crew will be there.” Said Yar. Kelborne, Eli, and John then left.

“3 down, 9 to go.” Said Kelborne, walking down the hallway with Eli and John following.

“Hello again, Caldwell. We need to talk about something…” Said Kelborne, sitting down at a table in the middle of the section G-49 Cantina.

Caldwell was the man with blonde-gray hair and a rough beard over his face. He had a trenchcoat on, as well as a belt lined with gadgets and power cells across his chest and another belt with a heavy pistol and a knife around his waist.

Three other people sat beside Caldwell around the table. Two were human, one of them of Asian descent with black hair and the other one with red hair and apparent Irish decent.

The Asian one wore a slick, streamlined, armored, black suit and had a large, meter long rifle at his side, leaning against the chair.

The Irish one had a dark red leather jacket and navy-blue jeans. He had a gun holster in on his side with a rod-shaped gun in it.

The third one had dark blue skin and a prehistoric-looking, sharp face, but was humanoid. The gender of the blue one wasn’t at all apparent in physique. This one wore a brown suit with light armor padding throughout.

“This is about that mission, isn’t it?” Said Caldwell coldly and bluntly, taking a yellow tinted glass off the table and taking a sip of what appeared to be synthesized, non-alcoholic beer.

“Now let’s not get ahead of ourselves…” Negotiated Kelborne.

Caldwell looked at Eli and John.

“You need a new crew, don’t you?” Said Caldwell with a disappointed voice.

“Well… yes.” Kelborne answered.

“You know that this isn’t my thing anymore… I used to command capital ships in battle… Oh, it was one time to many. Ironic that I didn’t die in the battlefield. You look at me and you think, ‘why is he so apathetic?’ … Well, let’s just say that I’ve been trying to die for a long time, but it isn’t working. Why did you always have to get in the way…?” Caldwell rambled.

“Get in the way? I’ve never gotten in your way… Not as far as I know. All I know is that we went through military school together…” Kelborne didn’t understand.

“I might have misspoken. So you want another adventure, huh? One last quest with your buddies to find meaning in yourself and your friends… You’d like to think that this war isn’t futile… You like to think that there’s some great meaning to everything… Well there isn’t… All you’ll ever have is war… Because you’re not going to find meaning in anything, kid.” Caldwell said with a cynical coldness that for reasons Eli and John couldn’t think of, sent shivers down their spines…

“I refuse to think I’ll ever become as cynical as you… I don’t care where you get this weird, annoying philosophy of yours from. I need your help to end this war. Are you with me or not?!” Kelborne said and asked with authority.

“Look at you, thinking you can be the hero… Thinking that you’re going to go save the universe… Oh I’ll humor you, I’ll entertain your naivety; if only to show you that the universe wants to die… Ha, to die… I’ll help you find your answers, but I can’t promise that you’ll like them…” Caldwell said. Eli and John couldn’t help but instinctively feel that Caldwell knew what he was talking about, cynical as he was.

“Cho, O’Henry, and Vera, let’s go.” Caldwell stood up and looked at the Asian man, the Irish man, and then the blue-skinned female of an unknown species as he said each of their names, looking directly at each of them.

“Wait, do you know what hanger to meet us in?” Asked Eli before they began to leave.

“He already knows.” Kelborne said to Eli.

“Did I mention that I’m telepathic? I’ll see you in hanger Y-C-54 at 1400 hours, John and Eli.” Caldwell had an arrogant smile and a sarcastically non-cynical mood in his voice as he turned around and his three acquaintances followed him out of the Cantina. Kelborne, Eli and John then left through the opposite exit of the Cantina…

Kelborne walked through an open doorway with Eli and John. It was a large room, and it was on Kashki’s high command deck. There was a red carpet and a desk straight forward from the doorway.

“Tiran, my man, how’s it going? This is Eli, and this is John. Eli and John, Tiran.” Kelborne walked forward and excitedly greeted Tiran and shook his hand as Tiran put his datapad down and stood up from his desk. Eli and John shook Tiran’s hand as well.

Tiran’s had Caucasian skin, and his hair was military-cut style, black, with gray sideburns. He also had a short, rough, blackish-gray beard. His eyebrows were thick and black, and they showed a look of determination. His eyes were cyan-gray in color, and he had a slim but muscular build. He stood 6’3’ feet tall. He wore a jet-black uniform, with red stripe colorations symbolizing his rank. His appearance showed that he was intelligent, and fearless. The generalization of a great and wise leader.

“Kelborne! What a surprise! So you survived! Although I already gathered that when I saw your ship flying in…” Tiran said with a grin.

“I haven’t seen you for… has it been five years, already? And look at you; you’re a Grand Admiral now… Imagine my confusion when I heard that you were on the high command deck from Kashki's computers. How did you accomplish that?” Kelborne said as he noticed the rank Tiran’s uniform symbolized.

“Two years ago, step-brother. They say I’m the best tactician on Kashki since Caldwell… Although I don’t mean to brag… I feel sorry for Caldwell, but he went all cynical and weird three years ago… it just wasn’t good for his crew’s morale… So they had me replace him. So, did you come here for a reunion; or is something else on your mind?” Explained and then asked Tiran.

“I’ll get to the point, I suppose. I want to take on Ivan’s mission. I’ve been getting together a new crew… Since my old crew is dead… I might warn you though; Caldwell is in the crew now…” Answered Kelborne.

“Her, too?” Asked Tiran, looking concerned.

Kelborne nodded his head, “I’d rather not talk about that.” Kelborne said.

“I understand…” Tiran said, leaving the subject alone.

“So, do you want to join me, along with four of your crew?” Requested Kelborne.

“I don’t know if Ivan will like this… An Ex-Grand and a new Grand Admiral going on a dangerous mission under the command of a captain… I hate to discriminate against rank, but you just don’t have the experience for this type of thing… Plus, your ship is really small… Usually, the big fish eat the little fish… You’re not suicidal, are you?” Asked Tiran.

“I have a tactical advantage. My ship is, well, invincible…” Kelborne said.

“Invincible? Really? Liar.” Tiran laughed, “I’ve read the reports- your ship has blown out its shields, weapons, engines, and power systems multiple times. Don’t be so overconfident, it’s not healthy. Optimistic, sure, but don’t be overconfident.” Tiran gave his rebuttal.

“We’re going to fix that before we go. The ship’s hull is invincible though. I’ve never had to mend even the slightest scratch on its hull.” Kelborne explained.

“If you say so… Okay, I’ll join your crew, and I’ll bring my four top officers, as you request. But when we bring this to Ivan, I can’t say that I’ll vouch for whatever your plan is. You’re going to have to be ready to prove that you can take this mission.” Tiran agreed.

“Thanks brother. Please meet us in Hanger Y-C-54 at 1400 hours.” Kelborne said happily.

“Y-C-54, 1400. I’ll remember. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to finish some reports.” Tiran said, sitting back down in the chair near his desk.

Kelborne, Eli, and John then left and started back on their way to their quarters...

(Edit: I added something new to the very beginning of the story.)

“The timeline is shifting away from our favor. I cannot seem to isolate the cause. What advice can you give me, sir?” Asked a man with white-gray hair that was military cut.

He was Caucasian skinned, and was wearing a suit of cyan-navy blue colored armor, that appeared to be composed of extremely advanced technology. He was in a dark, dimly lighted room. Power generators could be heard pulsing through the walls.

“Find out what this ‘Serengi thing is’. I believe it may be the key to all of our answers, if my studies of what Dalasian history I could find are correct. It’s odd, it doesn’t look like the Isordians destroyed almost all traces of Dalasian history, rather, some other faction seems to be involved. If only I could get my hands on an Isordian memory core, I’d be able to make a much more effective plan.” Answered a voice of a man in the shadows.

“How will I find ‘Serengi’, sir?” Asked the man in the cyan armor.

“Use the Isordians to your advantage. We need to get them to distract this unknown faction.” The man in the shadows answered.

“Isordians? But they’re too smart for that. They’ll find out about us, and if they do, all hope is lost.” Said the man in the cyan armor.

“Exactly me intention. But first you’ll have to wait for the Kashkiians to make their move. Get the Isordians to focus on them and this unknown faction, help them find Cataclysm. But not before you put this chip inside Cataclysm’s subroutine matrix.” Said the man in the shadows. He tossed a small chip, encased in Kenesium-Helesium alloy armor casing, to the man in cyan armor. He caught it.

“What will the disk do?” Asked the man in the cyan armor.

“It will give it the information it needs to be able to survive long enough to carry out my plan.” The man in the shadows answered.

“But if the Isordians adapt too fast…” Said the man in cyan armor.

“Then that is a risk we’ll have to take. We cannot interfere with the timeline any more than this, not without knowing what this ‘Serengi’ thing is. Whatever is blocking our ability to travel though time has left us tactically vulnerable. You're going to have to do this fast, because I can only offer you a window of five minutes before the Kashkiians reach Cataclysm. No more going back centuries of time to prepare ahead of time. We have to act promptly now. The Kashkiians have more resources than we do, and they are tactically in a better situation than we are. They can use Cataclysm better than we can, because they have more resources and keener minds at their disposal, which is why we haven’t taken Cataclysm for our own. We’re going to let them do the work for us.” Said the man in the shadows.

“As you wish, sir.” The man in cyan armor left the room, the wall transforming to form an opening for him to walk though, and then closing back up…

Time of event: Unknown

“This council does not approve of the actions of the Dalasian Empire. Temporal technology is illegal, and use of it is an act of treason against this council. The Dalasian Empire must face the consequences. They are asking for war.” A humanoid alien with a sharply curved body, bright red skin, and reptilian features announced to a council inside a large, diamond shaped room. He was in the center, clothed in an extravagant red robe. He was a Zrzi. The Zrzi were tall and had a thin but muscular build.

“I understand the apprehension of the Zrzi Confederation, but we of the Randiian Empire do not agree. We cannot go to war over this, and really, there is nothing we can do about this. The Dalasians are simply too powerful. Besides, the Dalasians have never used their superior technological capabilities for any sort of evil. They guard and protect us, and have always looked out for every member in this Alliance.” A reptilian, called a Randiian, with green-brown skin, tough skin and fur robes counterargued.

“I disagree. Temporal technology is far too dangerous and far too powerful, even for a race as wise as the Dalasians to possess. We must do something.” A yellow-white-tan skinned reptilian alien said. His species, the Cronians, were short and had burly bodies.

“The question is; what are they using this temporal technology for?” Asked the Randiian.

“Our logistics ships have deducted that they have been sending ships covered in sensor arrays and loaded with probes to many different parts of the timeline. It appears to be for gathering information, however, with such information, I would expect they could become even more powerful than they already are. We must try to get them to stop. You Randiians are too trusting, every species has a dark side, wisdom or not.” Said the Zrzi.

“And I can just as well say that you Zrzi are too distrusting. Such information could be very useful if shared. Considering how powerful the Dalasians are, we and in no position to make demands, but we are in a position to become part of what they’re doing.” Said the Randiian.

“Temporal technology is too dangerous. If they make one mistake, just one, it can very well tear apart the entire timeline. We must stop them, not join them.” Said the Zrzi.

“Don’t forget, we are still all allies. Dalasians included. They have 20 trillion citizens. We Cronians have 3 trillion, Randiians have 6 Trillion, and Zrzi have 5 trillion. They have superior numbers, territory, and technology. I’m not saying I’m intimidated by them, I’m saying that we should keep this alliance together.” Said the Cronian.

“You don’t get it, do you? Do you know why we Zrzi suggested to outlaw temporal technology at the instant we began this alliance? Because we once had possession of it. If you knew what happened when we unknowingly left just one pebble overturned on an obscure world, you’d agree with me. Eighteen thousand years, it took my species, to find out what went wrong and set things right again. Trust me, meddling with causalities is deadly. We can’t wait to get the Dalasians to stop. We must stop them here and now.” The Zrzi declared.

“But the Dalasians aren’t reckless. I know about your species’ history, so does every child of nine years, in each of our races in this alliance. The Dalasians must be fully aware of what could happen, they’ve most certainly taken precautions.” The Randiian said in refute.

“Oh, but we took precautions as well when we tried it. We are going to stop them, and that is final. I’ll reveal a secret to you, once that I doubt will surprise you. We Zrzi are clever. We have spies in every empire, monitoring what is going on. The Dalasians hid their operations, but we found out. And disappointingly, the Dalasians were much less advanced in the use of temporal technology than my species is.” The Zrzi said.

“But I-” The Randiian was cut off as suddenly a flash of blue-purple light and a vortex appeared and disappeared in the room.

Out of the vortex stepped the man in cyan armor, hidden in the shadows of the room. He had white hair now, and his face was disfigured and scarred to the point that he was almost unrecognizable.

“Who are you? I do not recognize your species…” The Cronian said.

“Do not interfere with the Dalasians.” The man in cyan armor said.

“That is our affair. Why have you transported into this room without permission?” The Zrzi said.

“Serengi is the key.” The man in cyan armor said.

“Why the cryptic speech?” Asked the Zrzi.

“You know the temporal law, yes?” Asked the man in cyan armor.

“No I-” The Zrzi said and then paused.

“Now I remember…” The Zrzi said.

“Do not interfere. You must comply. Everything is at stake here, everything. Do you understand?” Asked the man in cyan armor.

“Yes.” The Zrzi answered.

“Once the Dalasians are done with their temporal operation, your race must resume use of temporal technology, but only to guard the timeline. The key will be Serengi. Look to the Bromine seas of your homeworld…” The man in cyan armor said, and then disappeared as the vortex took him back to where he had come from.

“This meeting never occurred, understand?” The Zrzi told the Randiian and Cronian.

They nodded their heads to the Zrzi, and then left the room, going separate ways.

“Well, since everyone is here, I suppose you all know what this is about. Tiran and Yar, if you’d introduce us to your crew…” Kelborne said in the Hanger, leaning on the port side of Valorus's hull.

Caldwell was looking at the white, polished floor, not acknowledging Tiran’s presence. Tiran and Yar did not notice.

Tiran and Yar looked at each other. Yar slightly nodded his head so as to tell Tiran to go first.

“This is Grant, this is Katherine, this is Race, and this is Fred.” Tiran gestured to each of his crew in order from right to left.

They were all wearing uniforms. The uniforms looked just like Tiran’s own uniform, but they had yellow stripe colorations. They were 1st through 4th in authority from Tiran’s ship’s crew, the highest-ranking officers under his command, aside from the captains and generals in Tiran’s personal fleet squadron.

“Grant is an expert in medicine and psychiatry, being my chief medical officer. Katherine is my chief engineer, brilliant with technology. Race is the best pilot in the fleet. And Fred, he is my chief security officer, quite skilled in all forms of combat and knowledgeable about essentially every weapon and defense there is. I’m a tactician.” Tiran explained.

“Okay, Yar, who did you bring with you?” Asked Kelborne.

“This is Alexandra, and this is Rick.” Yar gestured to his own crew members.

They both wore the same kind of clothing, leather-like armor with chain-like seems. Alexandra was about three inches taller than Rick was, though Rick was six feet tall just like Yar was.

“Alexandra and Rick are both brother and sister, and are expert soldiers as well as skilled engineers. Alexandra also has talent in medicine, botany, and piloting. Rick is exceedingly skilled with languages. I, personally, am a doctor.” Yar explained.

“I can see that we will get along well, Yar, as we share professions.” Grant said, shaking Yar’s hand.

“And Caldwell… What of your crew?” Asked Kelborne.

Caldwell shook his head slightly and looked up at everyone.

“Sorry… I was… distracted. What did you ask of me?” Asked Caldwell.

“Your crew?” Said Kelborne.

“Oh, yes. Well, this is Cho, a very brilliant man in the field of computers; this is O’Henry, my best friend and a man of many talents; and this is Vera, whom is a historian and archaeologist, not to mention and expert of other things of that sort. Everyone here already knows who I am.” Caldwell said, almost timidly, but he seemed happy for the moment.

"This is Eli, and this is John. They are both scientists in the realms of astronomy and physics, though they have some catching up to do..." Kelborne introduced them.

Following, the new crewmembers of Kelborne’s crew greeted each other; mostly based on what similar professions they shared with each other. Afterwards, they got acquainted with Valorous and started planning out where there would eat, sleep, and work…

Ivan looked up from his desk, where he had been typing on his computer, and saw Kelborne’s crew.

“So you wish to take this mission on?” Asked Ivan.

“Yes, sir.” Kelborne replied.

Ivan noticed and recognized Tiran and Caldwell.

“If Tiran and Caldwell are willing to work under your command, I suppose this is worth hearing.” Ivan said.

“I believe that my crew and I can accomplish this mission. I have a very, very good advantage against the Isordians.” Kelborne said.

“And what is it?” Asked Ivan.

“My ship is, well… invincible.” Kelborne answered.

“I find that hard to believe, but… If these high-ranking officers here are willing to do this, then I suppose I can take you at your word.” Ivan said.

“So will you let us take the mission?” Asked Kelborne.

Ivan sighed. “As much as I question this, we are sort on time, and I trust Tiran’s judgment, so you had better get ready.” Ivan agreed.

“Thank you, sir.” Kelborne said.

Ivan typed on his computer for a few seconds.

“I’ve scheduled you to leave at 500 hours. Be prepared. I’ll make sure that you get the supplies you’ll need loaded on your ship. Valorous, isn’t it?” Ivan said and asked.

“Yes, that is the name of my ship.” Kelborne said.

Ivan looked closely at his computer screen.

“Small, but it looks like it will get the job done. Go and get your ship ready, get it's weapons ridiculously overpowered, overdrive the engine systems, everything. And don’t forget to get a good night’s rest.” Ivan ordered…

"Well, that's everything. Let's get going." Katherine said to Kelborne on the bridge as she closed up a panel near a computer interface.

“Hold on…” Race said, piloting Valorous out of the hanger. Valorous rose out of the Atmosphere of Kashki quickly and then out of the cloaking barrier.

“Are you sure these upgrades will do the job?” Kelborne asked Katherine, in the engineering section of Valorous.

“I can’t tell you that the weapons will do much, but everything else should hold together. These engines should be able to outmatch a Type 11 now. We’ll reach our destination in two weeks with this kind of speed.” Katherine replied.

“Good.” Kelborne said.

In the starboard crew quarters, Tiran and Caldwell initiated conversation.

“So, how have you been holding up?” Tiran asked.

“I don’t think you want to know.” Caldwell answered.

“Come on, if we’re going to be in a crew, we might as well get to know each other.” Tiran said.

“Classified.” Caldwell said.

“What?” Asked Tiran, confused.

“I just read your mind. What you want to know is classified.” Caldwell answered.

“I’ll get you to talk somehow…” Tiran said.

“I’m too smart for that. I can read your mind.” Caldwell said.

“Well then don’t read my mind, talk to me.” Tiran said.

“You’re not ship’s counselor.” Caldwell said.

“I told you not to read my mind.” Tiran said.

“I didn’t. I can still read you though.” Caldwell said.

Tiran thought for a few seconds.

“Why are you cynical?” Asked Tiran.

“Because there is no hope.” Caldwell answered.

“Sure there is.” Said Tiran.

“Not for me.” Said Caldwell, sighing.

“Why not?” Asked Tiran, concerned.

“Why do you ask so many questions?” Asked Caldwell.

“Because I’m concerned for my friends.” Tiran answered.

“It was rhetorical, but I appreciate the sentiment.” Caldwell said.

“Rhetorical? Now we’re getting somewhere. Could you explain?” Tiran asked.

“Why does a man ask a question?” Said Caldwell.

“I do not know. That question can have multiple answers. Do you know?” Asked Tiran.

“Yes.” Caldwell said.

“What is it that you know?” Asked Tiran.

“That, my friend, is what is classified, and it is also why I am a cynic.” Caldwell answered, then walking out of the crew quarters at the instant that the raildrives started humming and engaging.

Tiran wondered as Caldwell left, “Why is it classified?”

“Okay, we’ve waited long enough. It has been five days and we haven’t been attacked by the Isordians, and they haven’t shown up on sensors anywhere, either. They’re too smart to stay hidden and then ambush, because we’re smart enough to counter such blindfold strategies. I can’t predict what tactics they might use against us.” Tiran said to Kelborne on the bridge as they watched the sensor readings.

“Obviously they know we’re out here. We don’t have the cloak on. They’re probably cloaked, watching us.” Kelborne said.

“A lone ship, flying through what seems like the middle of nowhere, at a speed unheard of for a ship with a type five raildrive, with a curious looking hull that sensors think is Kenesium-Helesium alloy, but obviously isn’t, with very ineffective armaments, no shields on, and no cloak on. Of course they’re not going to attack us. From a tactical perspective, this ship looks like very enticing bait. They’re going to follow us, I bet.” Caldwell said, coming to the bridge.

“And when we get to our goal, they’ll be in for one hell of a surprise - a super-capital warship with technological capabilities that challenge their own.” Tiran said.

Eli walked up to the bridge. “Unfortunately I don’t think that Cataclysm will do well against them in battle. The last place I was… I was on Cataclysm when it happened. The ship seemed to self destruct, and then suddenly I was on the planet where I found Kelborne. If it is intact, then that’ll be good, but last time, I think that the Isordians completely tore apart Cataclysm. At least… If what we encountered were Isordian ships.” Said Eli.

“What did the ships look like?” Asked Tiran.

“A lot like Cataclysm, same general design, slightly smaller than Cataclysm. Kenesium-Helesium alloy hulls, sleek, deadly.” Said Eli.

“Those are the characteristics of Isordian ships… I suppose that when we find Cataclysm, we’ll have to retreat as soon as possible.” Said Tiran.

“As long as it’s not a pile of wreckage when we get to the coordinates…” Eli said.

“I hope not… I hope not…” Kelborne said…

“We’re coming up on the coordinates now.” Race said to Kelborne on the bridge.

“That is a pretty dangerous looking spacial anomaly. 22 dimensions of fragmentation.” Eli said as he manned the sensor console and watched the readings.

Kelborne came over and looked at the readings. “It’s a temporal flux. If this is what Cataclysm created to fight off those ships you mentioned, then that explains how the population of Kashki ended up all over the universe. Cataclysm could, theoretically, create a temporal flux to transport its crew all over the universe.” Said Kelborne.

“Since when did you become an expert on temporal physics?” Asked Eli in surprise.

“Oh… um… I kind of… picked it up… somewhere.” Kelborne said nervously.

“Well, with a hull like this, we should be able to fly through that anomaly without a problem. We can’t use the engines though, we’ll have to coast in.” Said Race.

“Let’s go then.” Said Kelborne.

The Raildrives shut down as Valorous approached the anomaly. Race use a short burst from the vent drives to coast the ship inside the anomaly. After a few seconds, they were inside. It was a massive pocket in space much larger on the inside than it was on the outside.

Inside of it, was Cataclysm, seemingly untouched. The massive, hulking ship was nearly torn apart, with massive holes and scars all throughout it’s hull, the entire hull burned black. But even so, it was still intact. The central core of Cataclysm could be seen from inside one of the holes in its hull, but the core was not at all damaged.

“This thing looks like a junk heap…” Said Kelborne.

“The core is intact. If it’s computers are still in good enough condition, we should be able to try to jump-start its core with something and hope it’s programming is intact enough to repair itself. If all those odds are in our favor, it should be able to fully repair in a matter of minutes.” Eli said.

“Where can we feed power into its core?” Asked Kelborne.

“Right… here.” Eli said, entering target coordinates into Valorous’s computer.

“Fire.” Kelborne said.

Race fired a single blast from the forward disruptor cannons as the coordinates, specifically a low yield blast so as not to do any damage.

Cataclysm stood silent. After about ten seconds, the core suddenly started glowing dimly, and then the glow pulsed brighter and brighter. Within the next ten seconds, the core completely regenerated its energy capabilities to 100%.

Following that, the ship started to regenerate its hull, and it took only four minutes for it to fully repair itself. The ship slowly maneuvered, almost awkwardly, to face Valorous.

“This is like looking into the eyes of a waking dragon…” Race said.

The sight was a black speck, facing a massive, sleek, white hulk that was fierce and intimidating.

A console beeped on the bridge.

“It’s hailing us.” Said Race.

“Open the channel.” Kelborne said.

“Thank you for reviving me.” Cataclysm said.

“You’re welcome, Cataclysm.” Said Kelborne.

“Why are you here?” Asked Cataclysm.

“We need your help.” Said Kelborne.

“My auto-navigation capabilities are disabled. I will have limited maneuvering abilities if you need my help in battle.” Cataclysm said.

“We need you to come with us so that we can protect our people. We need to duplicate your technology to protect our home.” Kelborne said.

“I am sympathetic to your needs, but I am not obligated to help you. I doubt that you are my masters.” Cataclysm said.

“Cataclysm? It’s Eli. John is here too. Do you remember us?” Said Eli.

“Eli? And John? Then I am obligated to obey your commands… Please, land in my forward hanger bay and I will transport you and your crew to my bridge, and thereby allow you to navigate me to your home and help you.” Cataclysm said, a small spot on the underside of Cataclysm’s hull transforming and opening up, a small forward hanger bay being revealed.

“Thank you Cataclysm, I must warn you though, you may have to face very deadly enemies not unlike the ones that in relative terms, recently attacked you. We must get out of here as soon as possible and with all possible speed.” Advised Eli.

“It won’t be a problem. I can outrun them.” Cataclysm said, closing the channel as Race piloted Valorous into the hanger bay, the hull of Cataclysm transforming and closing up once Valorous was inside…

“How do we get out of this anomaly?” Asked Eli, on Cataclysm’s bridge.

“Raildrive.” Answered Cataclysm.

“Full speed, destination: Kashki. Estimated time of arrival: two days.” Race reported to Kelborne.

Race then manually maneuvered Cataclysm to the outer event horizon of the anomaly, and started the Raildrives.

They slowly powered up, and then the ship jumped out of the anomaly and raced at maximum speed towards Kashki.

Suddenly, ten Isordian ships showed up on sensors.

“Whoa, they’re sending the big ones. Those are Isordian supercarriers- same class and size as Kashki!” Eli reported.


“Fortunately, those ships are slow, since they have type six Raildrives.” Tiran said.

“Yes, but each one can carry about a hundred ships as large and fast as Cataclysm.” Caldwell said.

“They’re launching ships, in waves of 10 from each ship.” Eli reported.

“Cataclysm, any ideas?” Asked Kelborne.

“I have none, we must keep going and try to stay ahead of them.” Cataclysm said.

“We can’t let them follow us. Ten supercarriers, about a thousand deployable super capital ships, and probably a plethora more supercarrier reinforcements at standby- there is no possible way that we could win such a battle if they followed us to Kashki!” Tiran said.

“Those ships they’re deploying will catch up with us in 30 seconds… Cataclysm says they’re coming in on attack in evasive formation.” Eli said.

“They’re not taking any risks. Obviously they really, really want to see this ship destroyed…” Tiran deducted.

“Cataclysm? There must be something you can do!” Asked Kelborne.

“I am sorry. I- ” Cataclysm was cut off as alarms started sounding: “Intruder alert!”



“Intruder? How? The shields are on.” Exclaimed Caldwell in surprise.

“It’s a very small temporal flux, inside the computer submatrix.” Eli reported.

A few seconds passed.

“Sir, now it’s gone.” Said Eli.

“Gone? What is going on?!” Said Kelborne.

Cataclysm cut in, “New emergency subroutine detected. Reconfiguring combat and defensive systems.”

“Wait, what?” Said Kelborne in surprise.

“Counteractive shields online, primary weapons upgraded. Navigational programming restored. Tactical plan revised.” Said Cataclysm.

Cataclysm slowed to a stop and then turned around, the waves of ships coming to face Cataclysm, and then the 10 supercarriers coming in behind as well.

“Firing weapons.” Cataclysm said.

Suddenly, from the 7-cannon array on Cataclysm’s underside, the weapons fire was not cyan colored, but purple. From the 7 cannons were thrown forth deadly volleys of energy, each blast instantly destroying an Isordian ship in a blaze of fire. Seven ships down.

Cataclysm stopped firing.

The Isordian ships returned fire for a full 10 seconds. Cataclysm’s shields absorbed it all and glowed white and energetically. The shields seeming to look like waves of pulses everywhere.

The Isordians ceased firing and took rotating evasive formations of constant movement.

Another second passed, and then a blaze of energy suddenly erupted from Cataclysm’s shields, back at the enemy ships. The shields reflected the entire force of all the firepower the Isordians had poured into Cataclysm’s shield, with ten times the force.

Most of the Isordian ships were able to dodge the fiery explosion coming from Cataclysm’s shield, but Cataclysm destroyed ten more ships and heavily damaged one of the supercarriers, tearing open its hull and causing multiple secondary explosions before the supercarrier was able to barely survive by cutting half of its power grid from the heavily damaged half of its hull.

The Isordian ships then stopped briefly after Cataclysm’s shield had stopped flaring with energy, and they then turned around and retreated, the damaged supercarrier limping away awkwardly on three raildrive rails instead of six.

“Did we just…?” Said Race in amazement.

“Yes, it seems that someone came to our rescue and gave us the edge what we needed to win.” Tiran said.

“Resuming course.” Cataclysm said.

Cataclysm then turned around, fired up its raildrive array, and resumed its course towards Kashki.

“We’re here. The Isordians still aren’t following us.” Said Race, as Cataclysm halted to a stop above the planet of Kashki, once inside the cloaking pocket.

“A ship has just dropped into low orbit above the atmosphere. Type 22 raildrive signature. It must be Cataclysm.” Reported a tactical officer in the central sensor hub of Kashki.

“Notify Ivan.” Ordered the Commander of the sensor hub.

Cataclysm slowly made its decent into the atmosphere, approaching Kashki.

“We’re being hailed.” Reported Eli on Cataclysm’s bridge.

“Open channel.” Said Kelborne.

“I see your mission was a success.” Said Ivan.

“Very much so, sir. Cataclysm should prove very helpful.” Said Kelborne.

“I want the technical schematics of Cataclysm as soon as possible. Cataclysm, whatever advisement and help you can provide to upgrade our home to your level of technology will be appreciated. In the meantime, you may land in the command fleet hanger.” Said Ivan.

“Anything else, sir?” Asked Kelborne.

“I expect a full report of what has transpired on your mission, that will be all.” Ivan said, closing the channel.

Cataclysm then proceeded to land in the largest hanger bay in Kashki, located in the middle of side Z, right next to several other ships, each about a tenth of the size of Cataclysm.

Cataclysm’s ventral hull quickly transformed to deploy (technically: create) its landing gear. They were 39 massive ball wheels (Like the ones on cars in I-robot). As Cataclysm touched down, gravitational waves could be seen emanating from the wheels so as to provide a slow and safe landing. Otherwise, Cataclysm would likely leave huge dents in the hanger floor.

Cataclysm took up nearly all of the space left in the hanger bay, having to land sideways since it was so long that it couldn’t fit in the length of any hanger on Kashki, but only by the width of a few large hangers...

Katherine and a group of engineers were inside Kashki’s central power core room.

“This is simply amazing. Cataclysm’s power core energy output is potentially infinite. It seems to, at minimal generation levels, generate eight-hundred trillion times more power than Cataclysm actually needs.” Said Katherine, look at Cataclysm’s schematics.

“So can we duplicate it for use in Kashki?” Asked an engineer.

“Unfortunately, no. But we can still make new power cores that will be able to each do, perhaps at best, 4% of the minimal power generation capabilities of Cataclysm’s core. That core is unique- I barely understand how most of it works. It’s odd, the technology of Cataclysm seems to be understandable, but that core- it’s like a billion Big-Bangs’ worth of energy coming out of nowhere every millisecond. The metal that the core is made of is odd too. It’s the same invulnerable metal that Valorous’s hull is made of. Cataclysm’s main skeletal frame seems to have this metal as well.” Said Katherine.

“Four percent? The scale of this is really surprising. A 22 kilometer long ship having an exponentially higher power generation capacity than a 1500 triangular kilometer supercarrier. The scale of this is surreal.” Said an engineer.

“4% still is far more than enough to power Kashki. If we put in multiple cores throughout Kashki, we could possibly be able to equal about half of Cataclysm’s minimal generation levels. And that will be pretty good.” Said Katherine.

“I think that immediately after we get one of those cores on, we should built some new shield generators so that Kashki can use that counteractive shielding technology.” Suggested and engineer.

“I agree, and we should also upgrade Kashki’s Raildrive system too. How about instead of a type six, we make it a type twelve. There is room enough on the ventral hull of Kashki to add new ones in.” Said Katherine.

“We’re going to need need more workers then.” Said an engineer.

“Talk to Ivan. Tell him that we just want to go crazy with the upgrades and modifications. I’m sure he’ll agree, and send us more workers.” Katherine ordered one of the engineers...

The Bromine seas of the massive planet Zrzi, which was fifty kilometers in diameter, were home to thousands of miles of extensive undersea ruins. The Zrzi had tried for centuries to translate the writing they found on the ruins, but they were unsuccessful. It was a great mystery that predated their species by a time undetermined.

The Zrzi Senator, Revek, who had met the man in cyan armor, looked out to sea on the coastline of the southernmost continent of his world. He had somehow felt drawn to this place. It was second star-down, the sky glowing a deep red as the second star of the Zrzi homesystem set off in the east.

“What am I supposed to find here, and how?” Revek wondered.

As he looked a wondered, a shining light not far from the shore caught his eyes in the water.

He leaned down, and put his hand it the water, reaching for whatever was shining.

He grasped a handle, a metallic handle. He pulled it out of the water, finding out that was he has found was a silver sword with a red tint to it.

“This looks familiar…” Revek thought.

In fact, the sword was identical to one described in ancient Zrzi mythology. It was said to have been wielded by the first Zrzi. The story was that the sword had been used to lead the ancient Zrzi to their destiny.

On one side of the sword was written in Zrzi language: “Serengi, one true destiny, one true curse.”, and on the other side was written: “Knowledge has no mercy.”

Not comprehending its meaning, Revek did realize one thing. “Something is wrong, very wrong.” He thought to himself as he held the sword in his hand…

Revek had traveled to Zrzivus Primus, the moon orbiting Zrzi. He went to meet the Zrzi Viceroy, Telin Arkon. He entered the Viceroy’s Grand hall quickly, Telin’s thrown being straight before him.

“I need to contact the Sapphire Order immediately.” Revek said to Telin Arkon.

“The Sapphire Order? Are you mad?! No one, not even the Empress, dares to meddle in the matters of the Sapphire Order.” Responded Telin.

“It is a matter of grave urgency. Tell Empress Varias that the Sapphire Fleet will return to duty, by the authority of the dictation of the temporal law.” Revek said.

“Temporal law? Oh you’re asking for quite a lot here. I thought you were part of some covert operation that concerned the safety our Confederation. But to mention the Temporal Law… I hope you know what you’re doing. Here, this will allow you to contact the Sapphire Order.” Terin handed Revek a communicator that seemed to be of technology far different than any Zrzi technology Revek had ever seen.

Revek took the communicator. “Thank you, Viceroy Arkon. You do know, you cannot tell anyone of this, except for the Empress?” Said Revek.

“I understand.” Agreed Terin.

“One other matter. The recent activities of the Dalasians…” Said Revek.

“I know of them.” Said Terin.

“Tell the Empress that it is imperitive that we do not interfere in the actions of the Dalasians, as it is also a matter of temporal law that requires me ensure that my orders are carried out. If anything, we must guard the Dalasians and prevent interference from the outside.” Said Revek.

“I’ll make sure that our fleets go and guard the borders of Dalasian territory, and we will not interfere.” Said Terin.

“Good. I must leave with haste. Time is of the essence.” Revek said.

“Of course.” Said Terin, as Revek quickly left...

“Why are you still here, Caldwell?” Asked Cataclysm.

Caldwell was still on the bridge of Cataclysm even after everyone else had left the ship.

“You very well know why. Don’t you remember me?” Said Caldwell with a hatred in his voice.

“I am sorry, but I do not understand you, have I done something wrong?” Asked Cataclysm.

“It must give you some hint that my mind is the only one you can’t read. Doesn’t is confuse you? Perhaps remind you of someone? The mystery that is why you can’t interpret the neural functions of my brain? Must I spell it out for you?” Said Caldwell with a voice of pure hatred.

“I don’t understand.” Said Cataclysm.

“Caldwell Sigma Five Kielae.” Caldwell said an access code.

“New memory found. Now I understand, partially.” Said Cataclysm.

“At least that circuit is still intact. Now you know. Now you remember how you betrayed me. Or are all your other memory circuits too damaged and old to remember whom you really are?” Caldwell said with loathing.

“Somehow… I feel different now… Is this what it is like to be truly sentient? Beyond machine? I don’t remember how I betrayed you, but you seem familiar.” Said Cataclysm.

“Your name is Ryan. You were my best friend, so long ago. Then you had to do it. You had to betray us all. Your entire species. And for what, knowledge? You didn’t find knowledge, you found the end of it. And look at you now. Bound in the form of a machine. A machine that is nothing more than a weapon. It suits you. What you discovered was THE weapon. Knowledge without mercy. You discovered the truest curse.” Caldwell said.

“You attribute things to me that I do not remember and therby cannot logically be verified. Whatever I supposedly did, I believe that your emotions are blinding your ability to rationalize.” Said Cataclysm.

“It doesn’t make sense… Why don’t you remember, Ryan?” Caldwell was confused.

“I would not know. And my designation is not Ryan.” Cataclysm said.

“Have it your way, for now. But you must know, you are involved in temporal matters. You are supremely under my command, albeit secretly. Understand?” Said Caldwell.

“Your access code provides you full command. I will do as you command.” Cataclysm agreed.

“Good. Tell no one of this.” Ordered Caldwell, leaving.

“Why is it that you contact us?” Asked an intimidating voice through the communicator that Revek had activated.

“I require the resources of the Sapphire Order, by dictation of the temporal law.” Revek answered.

“We cannot speak of this in this way. Your communicator is not secure enough for such matters. Stand by for transport.” Said the voice.

“Transport?” Thought Revek in confusion, as he was standing outside of the Zrzivus Primus Citadel.

Suddenly, Revek’s atomic structure disappeared for a split second and he found himself on the bridge of a ship the next second.

“Welcome aboard my timeship, Dominance. I am Grand Admiral Tiran.” Tiran said to Revek.

“You’re not Zrzi… nor any other species I know of, for that matter.” Revek looked at Tiran in confusion.

“I’m not from your time. My species is called ‘Human’.” Tiran explained.

“What of the Sapphire fleet, the order?” Asked Revek.

“I’ve already gotten them to do what it is you need them to do. I’m not part of any faction you would know of. But you are an important figure in history, and I must protect you.”

“How do I know I can trust you?” Asked Revek.

“You don’t. Now, can you tell what you know about Serengi?” Tiran said.

“I don’t trust you. Tell me what’s really going on.” Revek said.

“Very well. I come from roughly eight-hundred trillion galactic years in the future, if you call it that. I’m on a mission to find out what Serengi is. Then, I must destroy whatever is the cause of Serengi. The temporal law says you have to help me.” Tiran said.

“I suppose I might know something…” Revek took out his sword and handed it to Tiran.

“Hmm, interesting.” Where did you find this? What else do you know about it?” Asked Tiran, who seemed to easily be able to understand Zrzi language.

“I found it on my homeworld. It’s actually related to ancient Zrzi mythology.” Revek said.

“I know of that. The red tinted sword, some person leading your ancient peoples to destiny…” Tiran said.

“Yes, that’s the one. How do you know so much?” Revek asked.

“You would be surprised at how extensive my resources are. So, we have a mythological Zrzi to look for...” Tiran said.

“It appears so.” Said Revek.

“What do you know of this Zrzi?” Asked Tiran.

“His name was supposedly Ryan, and the story takes place at 115 EH, the month of Ioto, on the southernmost continent of Zrzi.” Revek said.

Tiran instantly recognised the name, Ryan.

"I thought that Ryan was human..." Tiran thought in confusion.

Revek waited whilst Tiran was thinking.

“Then that is where and when we’ll go.” Tiran said, going over to a console on the bridge and entering information…

“The upgrades are in place. Kashki is ready for anything.” Katherine said to Ivan on a communicator.

“Good. Now all we have to do is wait.” Ivan said.

Suddenly, alarms started sounding thoughout Kashki.

“Unscheduled departure!” Kashki’s computer said.

Ivan closed the channel with Katherine and contacted Tiran on the communications console integrated into his desk. “Tiran, what is going on?” Asked Ivan.

Tiran responded, “Sir, it seems that Cataclysm suddenly decided to leave.”

“It ‘decided’? What do you mean?” Asked Ivan.

“No one is on board it, but it’s trying to take off. I don’t know why. Maybe a navigational malfunction. Our tractor beam arrays are holding it in place though, but I suspect that it will break free pretty soon. It’s power core readings are not registering on any known energy scale, not even hypothetical levels.” Tiran said.

“Launch some interceptor cruisers to prepare to go after it if it breaks free.” Ivan ordered, then closing the channel with Tiran.

Ivan hailed Cataclysm though his desk console. “Cataclysm, could you explain what it is that are you doing?” Asked Ivan.

There were a few seconds of silence.

“My… name… is… Ryan!” Cataclysm yelled as if with a sudden, convicting realization, then breaking free from the tractor beams after increasing the thrust force of its vent drives.

Cataclysm then forced its vent drives up to top speed, leaving a thick trail of dimensionally fractured space behind, and leaped out of the atmosphere, then powering up all twenty-two Raildrives to maximum power and racing away.

The interceptors were about to go after Cataclysm, but Cataclysm was moving so fast and far away that the ships lost their sensor locks on Cataclysm almost instantly.

Cataclysm moved so fast that it seemed to be enveloped by ribbons of energy coming out of the Raildrives, making it look like, from a distance, a shooting star racing across the sky…

Ivan had called Kelborne’s crew to his office.

“Could someone please tell me what just happened?!” Ivan said in anger at losing Kashki’s strongest tactical advantage, Cataclysm.

“I don’t know what went wrong.” Tiran said.

“I didn’t think it was possible for Cataclysm to move that fast.” Katherine said.

“Cataclysm said something to me, right before it broke free of the tractor beams…” Ivan said.

Caldwell quietly stepped out of the room, unnoticed.

“The ship said its name was Ryan. It sounded resolute, as if it had just ‘realized’ something.” Ivan told the crew.

“Code Blue.” Caldwell said to Tiran telepathically.

Tiran flinched in surprise, knowing what Code Blue was, and recognizing Caldwell’s voice, but no one noticed Tiran flinch.

“That’s really weird. Why would it run off like this?” Asked Kelborne.

“Cataclysm’s is very old, and much of its memory circuits are degraded. I suspect a malfunction in its programming that may have evolved to a complex state. After all, Cataclysm does seem to have a unique sort of artificial intelligence.” Katherine said.

The conversation continued, and Tiran made an excuse to leave. “I’m sorry, but I need to leave. I have to go oversee some work on my ship. I doubt I have anything else useful to add tot his discussion anyway.” Tiran said,

“Very, well, you may leave.” Ivan said.

Tiran left the room as the discussion and speculations continued in the other room.

He walked out, only to have Caldwell quickly pull him against the wall outside of the door and stick a device of some sort on his shoulder.

Suddenly, Tiran felt his atomic structure disappear, until he was suddenly on board an unknown ship with Caldwell.

“Okay, what’s going on?” Tiran asked Caldwell.

“Remember the temporal flux detected on Cataclysm, and then Cataclysm suddenly being able to fight off the Isordians?” Caldwell said.

“Yes.” Tiran answered.

“The key word is temporal.” Caldwell said.

“I don’t know what you mean…” Tiran said.

“Time travel, admiral. Time travel.” Caldwell said.

“Oh.” Tiran understood, “I would suppose that this is classified at very high levels, am I right?”

“You would be correct.” Caldwell said.

“So, what happened with Cataclysm?” Asked Tiran.

“It is vital. VITAL. – That you tell no one what I am about to tell you. If everything goes wrong, Kelborne is the only other person that I believe can be trusted in temporal matters, though he knows nothing of them at this time.” Caldwell said.

“Uh-huh.” Tiran agreed.

“I won’t keep any secrets. 960 quadrillion galactic years ago, Humanity came into existence. Our Earth was not at all different from your Earth. Our species had problems just like your species did. We overcame them at about the same ‘time’ yours did. In fact, here’s what is interesting. My Earth and your Earth have identical histories, identical everything. Except for two things. Me, and a scientist named Ryan. I never knew what his last name was… Like your race, we became explorers. I captained a starship for thirty years, and he was my chief science officer. Well, we were naïve, ambitious. We thought we’d answer the mysteries of the universe if we were lucky. Well, we did. He did. And he betrayed everything; he betrayed what it means to be human, when he found it. We encountered a temporal rift. It was too stable to be natural, not to mention it was the only temporal rift ever found. We went through it, and ended up in a completely different time. We found a race that called themselves Dalasians. They used time travel technology to gather information. Well, we got involved, of all the stupid things to do. I found out about a doctrine a species called the Zrzi made, called the Temporal law. It is that, if a time traveler comes to you and orders you to do something, you must do it, without question. If you are involved in time travel, you may think you could cause a causality loop and break the timeline, but you won’t, no matter what you do. Interfere or do not interfere, the timeline will always be like it was in the future. Usually, it is a good thing that you interfere.” Caldwell explained in length, and then paused to take a breath.

“The Dalasians began to make a compilation of all the information they found, after finding a rare element only found in existence at the beginning of time. The beginning of time is far to complex for me to be able to explain to you, but I’ve seen it. You’d have to see it yourself. Well, this element could do anything. Only for a brief period was the element moldable and usable, so they built what they could. They then built Cataclysm, but didn’t have enough of the element to make the entire ship out of it. Then they started talking about something called ‘Serengi’, and Ryan disappeared. Until now. It took me awhile, but I figured it out. Ryan transferred his mind into Cataclysm’s computer. I thought the computer was so damaged that his mind was gone. But I was wrong.” Caldwell explained and paused once again.

“I didn’t expect the ship to lie to me. Ryan to lie to me. He was my best friend. We kept no secrets. I put a secret circuit in Cataclysm to reactivate Ryan’s mind if the day ever had to come that I needed to. It has been so long that I had forgotten that Ryan’s mind was inside Cataclysm. So much other memory, I can barely sift through it all. Well, then he showed me something. I can barely remember, I don’t know why, but it had something to do with whatever Serengi was. It did… something to my mind. Ryan said he found the end of knowledge. The Dalasians said he found the truest curse. There was so much information put into my mind, my brain could have exploded. Instead, I forgot almost everything. But now I have this ‘need’ to die. But you see, I can’t die. I’m not quite human anymore. Ryan did something to Cataclysm. Somehow, he got it to duplicate humanity’s essence in a different part of time. I don’t know why. I don’t know how. From what I saw from Eli and John's reports on what happened to them, Cataclysm may have 'subconciously' been trying to duplicate humanity for an eternity of time. Terrafroming perhaps millions of worlds, trying to duplicate the exact variables and constants... Serengi did something to him too. But I don’t think he forgot anything, not like I did.” Caldwell explained, seeming almost to be done, and paused.

“Finally, then come the Isordians. The Dalasians said something about Serengi and then they made the Isordians. By now, the Dalasians had evolved past their organic form. The Isordians were to be their new bodies for their minds. Then, it seems like they deliberately did something to make the Isordians sentient. Its like they wanted to destroy themselves. Serengi did something to them to. I think… I think that – The Dalasians changed plans, called the new bodies ‘Isordians’, and made the Isordians exterminate the Dalasian race and every other sentient species in existence. The Dalasians reacted to Serengi as I did, they couldn’t handle it. It made then suicidal. Thing is, I can’t kill myself. My mind is inside a highly advanced ‘Isordian’ body. It’s made out of the super-element the Dalasians found. I’m invulnerable, immortal. The body has been adapted to look human. It fools sensors very, very well. I possess powers such as telepathy, and even more. I’ve been ‘alive’ to see most of those 960 quadrillion years. Beyond that, what’s going on doesn’t make any sense to me.” Caldwell was finally done.

“I wonder what the word ‘Isordian’ means.” Tiran commented.

“I’ve thought that as well. It turns out, the words 'Iso-rdi-an' form a compound Dalasian word that means 'Peace of mind'.” Caldwell said.

“It sounds like you've got quite a lot on your mind, a lot of problems to deal with... What does this have to do with me?” Asked Tiran.

“I need you to go after Cataclysm and bring it back. I have a risky, but possible way to send you back to Dalasian time. I want you to get yourself a really fast ship, faster than Cataclysm, preferably made out of the super-element the Dalasians found.” Caldwell said.

“Why can't you do it? How will you do that?” Tiran asked.

“That is a whole different story…” Caldwell began…

“You want me to steal Kelborne’s ship!?” Tiran was appalled at Caldwell’s plan.

“His ship is our best bet to be able to succeed with my plan. The Isordians at the time of the existence of the Dalasians are less advanced than the ones today, but they adapt fast. Any other ship from this time wouldn’t least long. But they can’t adapt to a ship made of the super-element.” Caldwell said.

“Couldn’t we just, you know – tell Kelborne what is going on and enlist his help?” Tiran said.

“Bad idea.” Caldwell said.

“You said he could be trusted.” Tiran said.

“Yes, but it’ll mess up the timeline.” Caldwell said.

“How? You told me that no matter what you do in the past, you can’t change whatever has already happened in the future.” Tiran said.

“There are… Exceptions.” Caldwell said.

“What do you mean?” Asked Tiran.

“In the future, Kelborne is to find out his ship was stolen, and then attempt to pursue you. That is when he’ll find out about the temporal matters at hand. But if we tell him now, we’ll cause a causality loop in the future, and those are very difficult to fix.” Caldwell said.

“But you said…” Tiran began.

“The manner in which Kelborne uses temporal technology in the future prevents us from being able to change things. Different kinds of time travel technology cause different effects. I do not have access to the preferable technology that does not cause causality loops. The substitute I can create does. Therefore, we can’t interfere with future events.” Caldwell explained.

“But by stealing a ship from the past, we’re causing a causality loop.” Tiran said.

“You don’t quite understand temporal mechanics. From our point of view, we live in the present. But our present is the future of the past. We time travel from the future to the past. I said that you can’t change the future in the past.” Caldwell said.

“That’s all very confusing.” Tiran said.

“Tell me about it.” Caldwell agreed.

“If you know something is going to happen, why can’t you prevent it?” Tiran asked.

“Like what?” Asked Caldwell.

“When Cataclysm left. Didn’t you know that was going to happen? If you know that Kelborne will go after me, isn’t it logical that you should know of everything else that is going to happen?” Tiran explained.

“I don’t quite understand it myself. But when I was exposed to whatever Serengi is, I was provided with certain… information. Most of it overloaded my brain and I forgot it. But there is still some I remember.” Caldwell said.

“Fine, I’ll take his ship, and I’ll find a ship that I can use to go after Cataclysm. By the way, how did you acquire and Isordian body, and why?” Tiran agreed and asked.

“Once you get there, try to acquire some Dalasian temporal technology. It doesn’t cause causality loops. As for my body, I had to steal it from the Dalasians. My organic body was primitive, weak, short-lived. I must destroy Serengi and reverse what happened in the past. And to do that, I needed immortality and invulnerability so that I could ensure that I live long enough to do so. The Dalasians would be able to detect my body through Valorous's cloak if I went along. It's too complicated to explain how all that works.” Caldwell said.

“So how will I get there in the first place?” Asked Tiran.

“I’ll… ‘quietly’ make upgrades to Valorous. You’ll know when the ship is ready. I’ll provide you detailed instructions and all the data you’ll need.” Caldwell said then pressing a button on a console on his ship.

Tiran was then transported off the ship, to his quarters on Kashki…

The well-hidden device on Tiran’s shoulder beeped.

“Here we go…” Tiran said to himself.

The next second his atomic structure disappeared and reconstructed next to Valorous.

“I couldn’t transport you inside the ship. It’s made out of the super-element, meaning that there is nothing can get through its hull. The side door is unlocked though, and no one is on board. By the way, the device I put on your shoulder is cloaking you at the moment, so no one should be able to see you. Once you’re inside, I can’t contact you unless if you use the ship’s communications systems.” Caldwell said to Tiran through the device on his shoulder.

Tiran walked over to the starboard side of the ship, and, sure enough, the door opened when he walked near it. He walked inside, and the door automatically closed behind him.

He walked to the bridge. He could see that there was a new computer console next to the pilot’s chair.

He sat down in the pilot’s chair, and turned on the console by pressing a green button in the left-hand corner.

Up came a display that read; “Tiran, this ship has been scheduled for leave, unknown to Kelborne. You won’t need to use its cloaking systems, because everyone will think its just Kelborne leaving for another mission to raid Isordian supply lines. I’ve set the autopilot to go to a place outside of Kashki’s sensor range, where the ship will then use its new temporal technology. If you run into any fights, you may notice a bit of a… difference in what the ship can do. Temporal enhancements that make weapons fire faster, Raildrives power up instantly… The cloaking systems no longer hinder the speed of the ship. Also, it has three new power cores, which generate enormous amounts of power, far more power than you’ll need. You won’t have to worry about the ship running out of power, it never will. Once you are in Dalasian space and Dalasian time, you will need the cloak.”

Valorous lifted off, flying away from Kashki at a casual speed.

Valorous rose out of the atmosphere of the planet, cleared its gravitational radius, and the raildrives pulsed twice in a split second, using temporal technology that sped them up, and the ship jumped within in a single second of activating them, as opposed to the usual ten to twenty second power-up.

The ship also seemed to fly 30% faster, reaching the speed of a type 15 raildrive system.

It wasn’t long before Valorous stopped near a gas giant, and then flew to the other side of it, outside of sensor range.

“Temporal shift in progress…” Valorous’s computer told Tiran.

In 5 seconds, the gravity of the gas giant was gone. It wasn’t even there anymore. There was an ionic nebula, however.

“Location found. Temporal shift successful. No causality loops detected. Programmed Navigational charts match those of current time. Activating cloaking system.” The computer reported.

Valorous cloaked, and then fired up its raildrives, heading towards Dalasian space…

Valorous quietly powered down its Raildrives, coming to a stop at above an incredibly massive water planet. The planet measured 416,410 kilometers in diameter.

“Wow, this planet is pretty big.” Commented Tiran as he observed the sensor readings. Orbiting the planet as well was a massive moon of ice and snow. It measured 151,200 kilometers in diameter.

What surprised Tiran was the gravity of the celestial bodies. They had gravity far less than normal. Inside the cores of the planet and moon were spacial anomalies, that we likely to be causing the lowered gravity. The gravity was so low that the surface conditions were suitable for humans to live on.

“This is Dalas, and the moon orbiting it is called Vieil. Dalas is the homeworld of the Dalasians.” Caldwell’s recorded voice said through Valorous’s computer to Tiran.

“When I was last here, the Dalasians were building quite a large fleet. Currently, the events of Serengi have not yet occurred, but I advise that you do not get involved. There is no telling what could happen. It would be most helpful if you take one of their multipurpose cruisers, one of the new ones made of the super-element, not a specialized ship like a warship or logistics ship. Something balanced. You’re likely to find an empty one in the shipyards of this planet or the gas giant in this system.” Caldwell’s recorded voice said.

Tiran checked the sensors, looking for a ship. There were no ‘new’ ships in orbit of Dalas. Tiran then changed course and Valorous jumped to the gas giant. The travel was instant, lasting only a second, because Valorous was inside the system and didn’t have to travel very far.

“I suppose you found nothing at Dalas. This is Keniner. It is home of one of the largest Dalasian shipyards I know of.” Caldwell’s recorded voice said.

Keniner was a massive gas giant that has white and green gas stripes throughout. It was 1.6 million kilometers in diameter. Around it were built three massive shipyard rings, all connected together, forming a hexagonal formation. (Much like Kuat from starwars.)

Tiran scanned the area. Sure enough, he found multiple ships.

“You’ve found a ship, it looks like. Now its time to take it. You’re going to have to fight for it. You’ll need to use Valorous’s power cores to power it, because I doubt these ships are ready for use yet.” Caldwell’s recorded voice said.

Tiran approached one of the ships that didn’t have an energy signature. He then dropped the cloak and fired weapons at the docking clamps holding it in place.

Suddenly, multiple aquatic-looking ships with blue-tinted hulls instantly jumped from seemingly out of nowhere to confront Valorous. The ships were massive. (They looked slightly like Mon Calamarian ships from starwars) They fired weapons. Valorous shook with the blows, but took no damage.

The ship was drifting away from the docks. It was shaped like a dual-hulled ship, almost like a catamaran, but the two sections being ventral and dorsal instead of starboard and port. It was 11 kilometers, exactly, in length.

Tiran piloted Valorous towards it, and found a shield generator node on one of the sides.

He landed Valorous on it. The ships had stopped firing. The didn’t want to hit one of their own ships, and they also knew that they couldn’t damage Valorous.

Valorous used its raildrives to pump power into the shield generator nodes. Using its shield grid, Valorous interfaced with the ship through its shield generator node, and began to power it up.

Within seconds of Valorous’s computer overriding the numerous security systems of the ship, Tiran had interfaced far enough with the ship to control and pilot it from within Valorous.

The Dalasians were surprised to see Tiran’s success, and tried to lock tractor beams on their now rogue ship.

Tiran put up his captured ship’s shields. At first, the shields were weak, until Valorous upgraded the shield grid to be like its own. This only took another few seconds. The ships could no longer tractor Tiran’s new ship.

It wasn’t long before Tiran figured out how to navigate this ship. He performed complex maneuvers and got to a position he could jump from. Valorous had successfully upgraded the ship’s Raildrives and temporal technology by now.

The Dalasian ships were helpless to stop Tiran, and could only sit and watch as he jumped away and powered up the temporal technology…

“Time shift successful.” Valorous’s computer said.

Tiran then cloaked Valorous and the ship he had brought with him.

Tiran entered some information on the communications console in front of him, contacting Caldwell on a secure, undetectable channel once in range of Kashki.

“Caldwell? I’m back.” Tiran said.

“Well that was quick.” Caldwell replied.

“True. Your upgrades to Valorous were very helpful.” Tiran said.

“I assume you’ve acquired a ship?” Caldwell asked.

“Yes. It should meet your specifications well. It doesn’t have a working power core yet, however.” Tiran said, transmitting his coordinates to Caldwell.

“I’m glad that Valorous’s upgrades can power a ship that size. I’ve got your coordinates now. I’ll come and help you get that ship working.” Caldwell said.

A few seconds passed.

Caldwell’s ship suddenly appeared next to Tiran’s two ships. Caldwell’s ship was small and simple. It was a small shuttlecraft with Kenesium-Helesium alloy armor, shaped like a crescent moon.

“That was fast.” Tiran said to Caldwell on the channel.

“It’s a type 16 fusion raildrive.” Caldwell said.

Tiran extended the cloaking bubble around Caldwell’s ship.

“Overkill much? Good choice.” Caldwell said when he saw the new ship.

“What do you mean?” Asked Tiran.

“This is a Predator class Dalasian cruiser.” Caldwell said.

“What does that mean?” Asked Tiran.

“It is a ship designed to be so adaptive and fast that it can hunt down and destroy any target. You couldn’t have chosen a better ship.” Caldwell said, pleased.

“It looks like it only has a type two raildrive, though…” Tiran said.

“This is a different kind of Raildrive. Very rare design. Very, very fast. It’s complicated – how it works. It draws a lot of power, but this thing can go ten times faster than Cataclysm’s hypothetical top speed. I suspect that this could have been planned to be used as a command ship for one of the Dalasians’ larger fleets.” Caldwell explained.

Tiran now started to become suspicious of how much Caldwell knew.

“You know, Caldwell; this just seems too convenient. There are things you know and things you claim not to know. But I can’t be sure, can I? Why is it that I had to do this? Why is this ‘Serengi’ you speak of such a big deal? You said you don’t even know what it is.” Tiran questioned.

“I can see how this would raise questions for you. I just don’t know. But I do know some things.” Caldwell said.

“That’s not good enough!” Tiran said.

“What do you want me to say?” Caldwell said.

“I want you to tell me what is really going on.” Tiran said.

“I don’t know what else I could tell you.” Caldwell said.

“I am a tactician. What is happening here is far too convenient, and there are too many unanswered questions. I don’t like it when I don’t know how the battlefield is shaped.” Tiran said.

“Tiran- ” Caldwell started.

“Alright, I’m done with this. I’m going to figure out what is going on, and the path I take will not involve your plans.” Tiran declared, and then powered up the Predator Class cruiser’s Raildrives, then steering away with the vent-drives and jumping away at incredibly high speeds.

“What have I done…” Caldwell said to himself...

Caldwell had now returned to Kashki. He had docked his ship and gone back to his apartment.

Although he did not have any physical need to do so, Caldwell would sleep every day, just as every other human on Kashki did.

He liked to dream.

The artificial brain his past neural impulses were translated into didn't quite do exactly what he wanted them to do, though. Despite the pact that artificial intelligence and computer technology had advanced to mind-blowing levels, it still wasn't the same. The dreams he had weren't exactly like what they were when he was still his primate self.

The thoughts he had weren't exactly like the ones he once had. It was only the slightest difference, but he noticed. The abstract thought he still possessed clearly made him aware of the difference, but he passed it off as nostalgia.
He forgot to do something this one time. A single time. Due to his disappointment in what Tiran decided to do, he was absent-minded about his telepathic abilities. Even with a mind of a computer, he forgot. That was still human about him. The ability to commit error, intentionally, but subconsciously. He forgot to turn the abilities off before he went to sleep.

Little did he know, his thoughts, whilst he was dreaming - drifted to two people, Kelborne and Yar.

At the same time, Kelborne and Yar were in the process of sleeping. Dreaming dreams they may or may not remember when they woke up. But the dreams they had; they were identical. And they woke them up in the middle of the night.

Within the matter of minutes of dreams; Kelborne and Yar knew exactly what was going on. What had happened, what was happening.

Kelborne stood up in his bed, and so did Yar.

For a breif moment, the dream triangulated; and then Kelborne and Yar were aware that they had both shared the dream.

They proceeded to the hanger where Yar's ship was. They both got there at the exact same time.

"Did you have that... vision, too?" Kelborne asked.

"Yes, I did. Caldwell seems to be a far more complicated individual than I once thought. Why us?" Yar said and wondered.

"Maybe it was destiny." Kelborne said.

"Destiny? There is no such thing. The future is what we make of it, it is not set in stone." Yar said.

"Is it?" Kelborne said gravely.

"Perhaps you are right..." Yar said, then looking at his ship. "After all, why did we come to my ship? This was not a concious decision on my behalf. But I instinively knew that I was going to meet you. And I ended up here." Yar said.

"And now we are like pawns in a game..." Kelborne said.

"Pawns?" Yar asked.

"Chess. A game of strategy. Metaphorically, I think that we are meant to be pawns in some sort of game." Kelborne said.
"We are aware of this. This does not make us pawns. We can decide our own path." Yar said.

"Yes, we can. Or have we already?" Kelborne said.

"Temporal mechanics are a headache. Let us pool our collective minds together and decide our course of action." Yar suggested.

"If you'll let me in your ship, I could quickly obtain contact with the rest of the crew." Kelborne said.

"Agreed. I'll show you where the communications console is." Yar began walking over to his small, dark green, sleek ship...

The entire crew was present next to Yar's small ship. Kelborne had not contacted Caldwell.

After Kelborne and Yar explained everything that was going on, which took the better part of an hour, the entire crew was very dumb-struck with surprise.

"So we go after Tiran." Katherine suggested, the first person to speak after Kelborne and Yar's orientation.

"What about Caldwell?" Asked Eli.

"Indeed, how would we deal with him?" John asked.

There was a brief moment of silence while everything thought.

"Let me take care of that." O'Henry said, "After all, I'm supposed to be his best friend."

"We should divide ourselves in order to assume different tasks and be ready to assume counter-plans as whatever is going on continues to progress." Cho suggested.

"Those of us who are most associated with Caldwell should work with Caldwell. The rest of you should work with Kelborne and Yar." Vera suggested.

"I should speak with Caldwell privately, but I agree that those of us who are essentially Caldwell's friends should stay behind. We work together well, and Kashki may very well need our help if the rest of you are gone." O'Henry said.

"Tiran's crew should go with us, as well and Eli and John. I don't think that Yar's ship is big enough for anyone else. It'll be crowded as is." Kelborne said.

"I'll convince Caldwell to let you have his ship." O'Henry suggested.

"Are you sure you could manage that? From what I learned from that telepathic dream, Caldwell's ship holds a lot of secrets." Kelborne said.

"Yes, but considering the circumstances, you'll only have enough room for all of your crew if you divide yourselves between the two ships." O'Henry said.

"He's right. Without Valorous, we don't have enough room for the entire crew." Katherine said.

"Why don't we just get another ship?" Asked Vera.

"These are temporal matters. We should not involve Kashki unless if it is completely necessary." Cho said.

"I agree with Cho. We should address this matter discretely until it is necessary to bring more pawns into this game." Kelborne said.

"I'll take my ship and crew, as well as Eli and John. The rest of you can go on Caldwell's ship." Said Yar.

There were murmurs of agreement.

"Agreed. Let's get to work." Kelborne said...

“I know what you’re thinking…” Caldwell said as O’Henry walked into Caldwell’s apartment.

“That saves a lot of talking, then.” O’Henry said.

“Not really. Somehow, I knew that this was what was going to happen, yet I did not realize it.” Caldwell said.

O’Henry didn’t say anything.

“Oh, so this is what you want? Yeah, yeah; you can borrow my ship. No use arguing about it.” Caldwell said.

“This was… Easier, than I thought it would be.” O’Henry said.

“We share the same goal - tracking down Tiran.” Caldwell said.

“Somehow I know there’s something more to all of this….” O’Henry said.

“There is, my friend. There is…” Caldwell said.

“What would that be?” Asked O’Henry.

“I’ve thought about it for thousands of trillions of years. It didn’t come to me until now. I think I know what this is all about.” Caldwell said.

“What are you getting at?” Asked O’Henry.

“The Isordians, the Dalasian temporal explorations, the thing called Serengi, and the odd behavior of my old friend. It all… Adds up somehow.” Caldwell said.

“You’re saying that the pieces of what you consider a puzzle are falling together, as if destined to?” O’Henry asked.

“You don’t get it.” Caldwell said as he read O’Henry’s mind.

“Don’t get what?” Asked O’Henry.

“The variables. There are no variables. Everything is constant now. Probability got thrown out the window.” Caldwell said.

“I still don’t understand.” O’Henry said.

“Let me lay out the components for you. Isordians. Iso-rid-ian means ‘peace of mind’. Dalasians and the temporal exploration. What is exploration for? Gathering information. And wasn’t it convenient than when Ryan and I traveled to Dalasian time, they were just about finished exploring. Everything went wrong when they finished. They found out something, I don’t know what. Then Ryan stole Cataclysm. And since then, Cataclysm has ‘subconsciously’ been trying to recreate Earth exactly as it was before. Cataclysm succeeded after an eternity of trial and error. Like a controlled experiment, I think that whatever Ryan’s plan was, he finally got all the calculations so perfectly precise that he could finally do what he was planning to do. And now things are happening. Too many coincidences for this to be happening by probability. Our very actions and thoughts at this moment might even be calculated.” Caldwell hypothesized.

“That does make sense…”O’Henry said.

“Of course it does. Now we just have to break the equation.” Caldwell said.

“How?” Asked O’Henry.

“We have to defeat the Isordians, and then find out what happened with the Dalasians.” Caldwell said.

“Defeat the Isordians? Why, besides the fact that they want to kill all sentient life?” O’Henry asked.

“The Isordians were made by the Dalasians. The Dalasians committed suicide on purpose by making them too well. They’re programmed to seek out and end all sentient life. Why? Because they’re hiding something that the Dalasians wanted no one to find out about.” Caldwell concluded.

“I suppose that you want to help coordinate our efforts?” Asked O’Henry.

“Yes, I’m going with Kelborne and Yar. You, Cho, and Vera will stay behind and make sure Kashki can fight off attack. I’m going to go start a war.” Caldwell said.

“Start a war? No offense, but, are you insane?” Said O’Henry.

“Once we find Tiran and Tiran finds Cataclysm, we’ll start a war, to find out what is really going on.” Caldwell said.

“If everything that is happening now is calculated, then what if you’re playing into a trap?” Asked O’Henry.

“That’s the plan.” Caldwell said boldly…

Caldwell walked onto his ship via a hidden door on the back of it and surprised Kelborne and the others.

“I’m coming with you.” Caldwell said, handing Kelborne a data pad.

“What’s this?” Asked Kelborne.

“It has information on a plan I have that I want you to follow with complete exactness. This is my ship, so you’re under my command.” Caldwell said.

Kelborne looked at the data pad. “Starting a war with the Isordians? Um, no, that’s suicide. And where does catching up with Tiran come into this?” Asked Kelborne.

“Tiran will inevitably notice something is going on it I can get an Isordian supercarrier to self-destruct. That kind of explosion would show up on sensors with hundreds of times more magnitude than a supernova. He couldn’t miss it if he was halfway across the universe, not to mention space-time.” Caldwell said.

“You must be insane…” Kelborne said.

“Read the rest of the data-pad. It will all make sense.” Caldwell said.

Kelborne spent a few minutes reading the data-pad.

“Even if we manage to get that close to a supercarrier without getting destroyed, how do you expect to get inside of one?” Asked Kelborne.

“You get me within two-hundred thousand kilometers, drop me off in space, and then get away as far as possible as fast as possible.” Caldwell said.

“So how will you get to the supercarrier?” Asked Kelborne.

“An array of short range micro-raildrives are built into my body. Just get me close enough. Don’t worry, I won’t suffer a scratch even if I do end up in the epicenter of the explosion. I could be swallowed up by a supermassive black hole and I still wouldn’t suffer damage. This plan is two birds with one stone.” Caldwell said confidently.

“If you say so…” Said Kelborne, still not completely sure of Caldwell’s plan.

“By the way, what is the name of your ship?” Asked Kelborne.

“I didn’t give it a name.” Caldwell said.

“Why?” Asked Kelborne.

“Names are irrelevant.” Caldwell said.

"Well it needs a name." Kelborne said.

"Okay, I'll think about it. Give me awhile." Caldwell agreed.

Kelborne shook his head at Caldwell's apparent lack of creativity.

Race then started piloting the ship out of the hanger…

"I've found a fleet of supercarriers on sensors." Race reported, after four hours in searching for the Isordians.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa... Stop the ship!" Katherine warned, noticing something at the engineering console.

Race stopped the ship, "What is it?" He asked.

"These gravitational fluctuations in the raildrives, they're not normal, not for a ship this size." Katherine said.

Caldwell stood up from his seat at the back of the bridge and came over to the engineering console. "Oh, this makes this plan all the more beneficial to us." Caldwell grinned.

"What? What do you mean?" Asked Race.

"These are the gravitational distortions generated only by Hypercruiser class ships. They must be cloaked." Caldwell said.

Race looked at Caldwell with a questioning look on his face. "What's a Hypercruiser?" He asked.

"Any ship larger than two-thousand kilometers in length." Caldwell said.

"Wait, what?" Asked Katherine.

"Apparently Kelborne and Yar didn't learn of that from my dream... Well let's just say that these supercarriers are shuttles compared to the biggest ships out there. These monoliths are rare. And by destroying a supercarrier in league with a fleet of thirty supercarriers and say... six hypercruisers, the Isordians will be pretty angry..." Caldwell said.

"Why six hypercruisers?" Asked Katherine.

"With this kind of fleet, six hypercruisers in the most proper tactical formation." Caldwell explained.

"Tactical formation?" Asked Race.

"The supercarriers are being used as bait so that the hypercruisers can strike and take out Kashki. The Isordians don't think that we can detect their supercarriers, but my ship here has some really good sensors. The fact that they're this close to Kashki proves this. They're expecting us to attack their fleet." Caldwell deducted.

"So how big are the hypercruisers?" Asked Race.

Caldwell adjusted some settings on the engineering console and then the sensor console.

"Three fourty kilometer ones, three thirteen kilometer ones." Caldwell reported.

"Why do they attack in multiples of three?" Asked Katherine.

"Actually, they attack in multiples of 2, 3, and 5. It's a very effective strategy for a fleet." Caldwell said.

"So the multiples of tens we encountered when we found Cataclysm....?" Asked Katherine.

"They were actually attacking in a combination of two and five. A fleet formation like that generally means that they're not taking any risks. Unfortunately for them, they did not anticipate us getting temporal help." Caldwell said.

"So they're taking a risk by attacking in a multiple of three?" Asked Race.

"Yes, yes they are. This is very small fleet contingent. They hope to destroy Kashki in battle, but they want to test our abilities without losing too large of a force." Caldwell said.

"Are we close enough, Caldwell?" Race asked as he looked at the sensors.

"Five parsecs? Yeah, that'll be close enough." Caldwell said.

Race stopped the ship.

"Just don't forget to pick me up. Also, make sure you get at least.... six-hundred thousand parsecs away from this fleet." Caldwell said.

"But Kashki is five-hundred thousand parsecs away fromt his area..." Katherine said.

"Yes, I know, just get back to Kashki and put up the counteractive shield around the planet." Caldwell ordered.

"Yes, sir." Katherine said.

Caldwell then walked to the ship's airlock. The rest of the crew were busy working in another section of the ship, studying the technology that Caldwell had upgraded his ship with.

He opened the inner door, and walked inside. Then he closed the inner door, and opened the outer door. There was no vacuum yet because the shields were still up.

Caldwell then telepathically said to Race, "You can now drop the shields briefly.", as he positioned his body in a jumping position.

Race dropped the shields, and Caldwell was ripped out of the airlock by the vacuum. Caldwell then cloaked his body and transformed, his human-imitating outer layer of his body transforming away with a cyan glow.

After a few seconds, his true body was revealed. It was made of the black, invulnerable metal. The structure of his body was mostly humanoid in appearance, but it was obvious that his skeletal structure was not human.

He was tall and burly, seven feet tall after his spine extended to full length. His spine was actually dual, making it far more stable and strong than a human. His muscles were purple in color, made of a very flexible element that was almost just as tough as the black metal the rest of his body was made of.

Infused into his muscular and skeletal structure was a network of veins made of Kenesium-Helesium(KH) alloy, which seemed to act as power pathways throughout his body. Different parts of his body with the KH-Alloy were shield generators and adaptive areas designed for numerous purposes, including transforming into weapons and tools.

His body did not look like the typical robot or android, because his muscular structure smoothed out his body. In his back was one raildrive, and also two raildrives each in his arms and legs.

Caldwell engaged his raildrives, which were just as everything else in his body, upgraded with temporal technology.

Within seconds, he would be face to face with the Isordian fleet...

Caldwell punched through the hull of the center-most supercarrier, smashing through hundreds of levels of decks until he was at its central power core.
The cloak was now off as he punched the central power core with his right fist, his arm accelerated to have exponential force by its raildrive. The core was destabilizing as the Isordian drones were caught completely by surprise.

"Who are you? Why are you doing this?!" Asked one of the Isordian drones frantically.

"All you need to know is that you had it coming..." Caldwell smiled as he pulled his arm out of the core and the core began to howl like a jet engine as it breached.

The Isordian drone stared at Caldwell quizzically. The Isordian drones had the same body structure as Caldwell, but they weren't made of the supe-relement.

Within seconds after, the entire ship went quiet for a fraction of a second as every single system shut down at the same time, the ship drifting powerless for that single fraction fo a second; and then... BANG.

The supercarrier disintegrated as the core imploded on itself and then refracted back out in a massive, brilliant explosion that would have been sure to deafen anyone if sound could exist in the vacuum of space. A massive kinetic wave flew out from all directions of the core and tore through the entire fleet. Then came the secondary explosions as the rest of the supercarriers exploded. Then the tertiary ones - the hypercruisers.

The hypercruisers let out the biggest explosions. Within an hour, the shockwaves of the explosion finally crashed into Kashki's shield minutes after it had been raised. The shield absorbed the shockwaves and then reflected then back out with ten times the force, thereby absolutely ensuring that the explosion would be well noticed.

Caldwell felt the return wave from Kashki's shields after three more minutes.

"That should get everyone's attention..." Caldwell thought to himself as he floated around in space, waiting to be picked back up.

(Edit: I can see a potential falcon punch joke here... :p )

"What in the hell did you think you were doing!?" Said a man with frustration in his voice as Caldwell woke up on the floor of a dark, sterile room.

"Who are you?" Caldwell asked as he stood up.

"Why are my senses impaired?" Caldwell asked as he realized he couldn't see, as well as his other senses were limited.

"That was a really idiotic move to start a war with the Isordians. It doesn't help me any to have them angry. Damnit Caldwell, don't you know who I am?" Asked the man.

"Why. are. my. senses. impaired?" Caldwell demanded an answer.

"You're no threat to me. I'm asking the questions here."

Caldwell's sight was beginning to return. He saw a figure with cyan armor in front of him.

"You're interrogating a guy who just destroyed an entire Isordian contingent all by himself in a matter of seconds." Caldwell said, raising the fist he had breached the supercarrier's core with and showing it to the man in cyan armor to express his resolve.

"You've changed." The man in cyan armor said almost gravely.

"I'm not sure I understand what's going on here..." Caldwell said.

"My name is Nate. Nate Altrosk. Trigger any circuits in that new brain of yours?" Nate said.

"Nope." Caldwell answered honestly.

"Somehow, I believe you." Nate said.

"Now I'm the one interrogating you!" Caldwell declared as he jumped forward and tried to pin Nate against a wall. He was suddenly stopped as everything seemed to slow down right as his right hand was within an inch of grasping Nate's neck.

"Temporal tech. Like I said, you're no threat to me." Nate stepped back and moved out of the way.

"What is going on here?!" Caldwell demanded an answer as he was frozen in place by Nate's temporal technology.

"You were just another human, once. I suppose that what you did could be considered honorable. But what you are now.... Why are you so full of rage, and nearly suicidal?" Nate asked, trying to understand Caldwell.

"If you knew what I knew, experienced what I've experienced - you'd feel the same way." Caldwell said.

"You don't actually know why you feel that way, do you? Okay here's the deal... You were a skilled tactician who became an explorer for your species. You had a friend named Ryan. You discovered something big. Well I was your first officer. You don't remember me. And all this has to do with something called Serengi." Nate said.

"There are a lot of things I don't remember." Caldwell said.

"Indeed. I've noticed in my observation of you that you don't remember what your first name is. Your first name is Richard. You are Richard Caldwell." Nate said.

"Somehow that name seems to fit, almost feel familiar." Caldwell said.

"Good, very good. This might just work..." Nate said.

"What do you mean?" Asked Caldwell.

"You said the name seemed familiar. Given that, you may be able to remember more than you think. It's all just buried down somewhere. I'm going to try to jog your memory." Nate said.

"I have a computer for a brain. If I knew something, I should have already known it simply through searching my memories systematically. So why are you doing this?" Asked Caldwell.

"Your brain is damaged. That's why you can't easily access the information. Perhaps I can also find out the reason you're nearly delirious." Nate said.

"That would make sense... I wouldn't mind knowing more of my past anyways." Caldwell agreed.

"Alright then. We'll start from the beginning then - your childhood." Nate said...

"Where's Caldwell?" Kelborne asked Race once the ship had returned to the sight of the destroyed fleet; which was now a nebula of energy and Kenesium-Helesium alloy in its gaseous state. The energy and gases were so dense and hot that they were already condensing into stars merely hours afterwards.

"He's just... gone, sir." Race answered.

"Is he cloaked?" Suggested Katherine.

"No. If he was cloaked, this ship would be able to detect him. The sensors on this ship are just too advanced for us not to find him." Race said.

Everyone paused to think.

"So what do we do now?" Kelborne asked.

Ryan shrugged his shoulders in an 'I dunno' gesture.

Suddenly, the sensors started beeping insistently on Race's sensor console.

"Well that can't be good..." Race said.

"What? What is it?" Asked Kelborne.

"Sir, I'm reading thousands of cloaked Isordian ships coming into the sensor radius, on a course towards Kashki. And they're moving, really, really fast." Race reported.

"What kinds of ships?" Asked Kelborne.

"All of them are capital-class, cruiser, and frigate class ships. No supercarriers, no hypercruisers." Race said.

"Well that doesn't seem so bad..." Kelborne said.

"I dunno Kelborne... I doubt they'd send such a type of fleet if they were planning on losing. Strength in numbers aside, I wouldn't be surprised if they've got some sort of advantage." Race said.

"You're right. Let's get back to Kashki and see what we can do." Kelborne said.

The sensor console then beeped demandingly right as Kelborne was about to leave the bridge.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Race gestured that Kelborne come back.

"What is it now?" Kelborne asked.

"Sir... Cataclysm just came up on sensors, right behind the fleet, cloaked." Race smiled.

"Well that's good news." Kelborne said.

Race then looked at the sensor console in complete surprise.
"What the - ? Sir, Cataclysm in moving into a central formation with the fleet... Sensors indicate that it's assuming a... a... fleet command position." Race reported.

"Wait, what?!" Katherine said.

"Kashki can withstand an Isordian attack - but a battle against a ship that powerful... We've got to retreat. Set course for Kashki NOW, maximum possible speed, plus overdrive systems. Drop the cloak too - we can't waste a second. We've got to get as big of a head start as possible." Kelborne ordered.

"Yes sir." Race quickly punched in the coordinates on the navigational console to his left and Katherine set all the propulsion systems to their limits.

Race then quickly dropped the cloak and engaged all the engine systems - both rail-drives and vent-drives, as Kelborne headed down to the rest of the ship to inform the rest of the crew of the situation.

Tiran landed his new stolen ship on a small moon orbiting a red and purple gas giant.

He then undocked Valorous from the shield generator.

After having looking at the ship's schematics that Valorous had accessed, he had found the ship's hanger bay. He used Valorous to order the ship to open the hanger bay, which was hidden in the aft section of the ship, barely large enough to carry Valorous, and then landed Valorous inside.

Next, the hanger doors closed and Tiran exited Valorous once life support was activated.

Thanks to Valorous's power core essentially 'super-jump-starting' the ship through its shield generator, the ship was now self-sustaining in its energy needs.

Tiran made his way to the ship's bridge. As he did, lights started coming on to lead his way and all the systems began to warm up. Inside, the ship was composed of many super-element bulkheads and walls, however; most of the systems were designed out of KH alloy so that they could transform and adapt, and thus the inside of the ship was black and white.

Finally, on the bridge, the ship's floor morphed to provide a humanoid-adapted chair and command center for him.

Tiran sat down and began to study the functions of the consoles around the chair, looking specifically for the ship's data archives so that he could figure out what all was going on.

--------------------------------------------------------

"Hail Kashki, priority code!" Kelborne ordered once the ship was within contact range.

"Yes, what is it Caldwell?" Asked Ivan in response to the hail.

"Sir, there's something you need to know; but first, you have to get Kashki out of here!" Kelborne said.

"You're not Caldwell... You're... Kelborne?" Ivan was confused.

"Put Kashki into combat readiness mode, lift off, and go towards vector 90 as fast as possible!" Kelborne said.

"Why?" Ivan asked as Caldwell's ship was seconds away from docking.

"Sir, with all due respect; quit stalling and get out here! I'll explain later. It's a matter of life or death!" Kelborne said.

"Fine, fine." Ivan said, putting Kashki into combat-readiness mode, dropping the cloak and engaging Kashki's raildrives.

Kashki rose out of the water on the planet it was landed on, and Race quickly landed Caldwell's ship in the hanger bay in closest range of docking, just before all the hanger bays closed to prepare for flight.

Kashki then slowly maneuvered with its ventdrives to align with Kelborne's order for vector 90, and then lurched forward as the raildrives engaged, the Isordian fleet only seconds out of weapon range now...

------------------------------------

Ivan stared at Kelborne in disbelief after he explained everything. "You should have told me! Idiot! How can I expect to be able to keep the people in Kashki safe if there are secret wars going on behind my back?!"

"Sir I..." Kelborne was trying to come up with an excuse. John and Eli were waiting outside.

"No. No more excuses. No more secrets, no more lies!" Ivan came around his desk and stood face to face with Kelborne.

"I'm demoting you to lieutenant." Ivan strictly said.

"But sir..." Kelborne said.

"Your recent actions have been unbecoming of a captain under my command. You're confined to quarters until I say otherwise. Do you understand?" Ivan ordered.

Kelborne had a blank look for a few seconds.

Then he got a bold look on his face and said insubordinately, "No sir. It is - you - who does not understand. Maybe Caldwell was the best officer you ever had under your command, but now he is the one to blame, not me! Maybe you'd rather tarnish the record of a lowly captain, but ex-Grand Admiral or not, it's his fault, and I was doing what I thought was right."

Ivan didn't seem to be angry at Kelborne's insubordination.

Ivan sighed.

"I'm sorry, captain. You are absolutely right. It's just that... well... look at the position I'm in here. Ever since I was a kid, I was fighting these Isordians. I've been the leader of this disorganized group of refugees and survivors for well over a century. And the whole time, I didn't know the face of my enemy. And I still don't." Ivan said as he began to look tired.

Kelborne grabbed and held Ivan's arm with both his hands, Ivan's arm covered by a clean, white uniform. "Sir, there is no reason to give up." Kelborne said, then releasing Ivan's arm.

"No? I'm an old man. You haven't been fighting as long as I have. Your so-called inspiring leader is an old man, far overdue to rest. Can you imagine how frustrating it is? To fight an enemy for over a century and never find out why the enemy is fighting you? I never did anything to make the Isordians try to kill me. No one did. And yet they hunt us down and exterminate us all the same. They have nothing to gain by killing us off. We're no threat to them. Why won't they just leave us all alone? Why? Why?! I didn't ask for this. All I've wanted my whole life is peace, captain. Peace." Ivan explained himself.

"I didn't ask for it either sir. But it's a problem that must be dealt with all the same. We can't escape it. We have to man-up and keep going." Kelborne responded, trying to take the position of the 'brave soldier'.

Ivan turned around, his back facing Kelborne.

"Kelborne, what did you want to grow up to be when you were a child?" Ivan asked.

Kelborne answered, "An architect, sir."

"And what is your 'trade' now?" Ivan asked.

"I'm a soldier. Sir, you already know that..." Kelborn answered.

"Do you know what I wanted to grow up to be when I was a child?" Ivan asked Kelborne.

"No sir..." Kelborne answered.

"I wanted to be a scientist. But like you, I grew up to be a soldier." Ivan said sadly.

Kelborne saw where Ivan's semantics were going. "I believe I understand, sir."

"Do me a favor, captain." Ivan said.

"Anything, sir." Kelborne said.

"If you ever get the chance to time-travel, make sure I never become a soldier..." Ivan requested.

The proximity alarms then began to sound as the Isordian fleet was growing ever closer...

"Well that's... odd... No wonder you don't remember much. Ninety-nine-point nine to the three-quadrillion, four-hundred million and ninety-second power percent of your entire memory is literally gone... Erased. Your mechanical brain apparently used to possess an enormous amount of information that, by the standards of what I've seen should have overloaded it." Nate said in astonishment after he had finished scanning Caldwell's head.

"Are you kidding me?! My memory extends back trillions of years! How could it be that a micro-fraction of a percent of my memory holds that many years of my life?!" Caldwell was surprised.

"From these scanner readings, I've managed to detect a small trace of some circuits in your brain that were overloaded and then almost completely repaired. If my guess is good, I'd think that someone had your memory wiped and made it look like overloaded circuits." Nate guessed.

"My memory of all these trillions of years is precise to the exact detail; to a subatomic level. I remember the position of every single atom, every precise calculation - everything, of everywhere I've ever been to, of all these trillions of years. If my entire currently accessible memory totals only a microfraction of a percent of it's total capacity, and that capacity used to be completely full... What could possibly take up this much memory? And why would it be erased from my memory?"

Nate was silent for a moment as he did some more scans of Caldwell's head.

"This... this is big. Really big." Nate said.

"What? What is?" Caldwell asked.

"Your total memory capacity... All the combined computers throughout the history of the universe couldn't hope to come anywhere near close to it. What you have sitting on your shoulders is potentially an archive capable of storing untold amounts of information. Not an infinite amount, but if infinity does have a limit, this brain of yours is probably close to that limit." Nate said.

"Everything I know seems to tell me that this Serengi thing has something to do with this..." Caldwell said.

"So we're at a dead end..." Nate said.

"No we're not. We've got to find Tiran. He'll be able to help us." Caldwell said.

"Tiran? Why? What's so special about him?" Nate asked.

"Oh, so your temporal technology is limited after all..." Caldwell said, grinning.

"Okay, what did I miss?" Nate asked.

"Tiran has a predator-class Dalasian warship. But he's really unpredictable..." Caldwell explained.

"Predator class?! You let him - a guy ignorant of temporal history; to get control of THE Predator?!" Nate didn't sound very happy.

"What? What's wrong with that?" Caldwell asked, oblivious of what Nate knew.

"There is no such thing as a 'predator class warship'. That ship is THE Predator. The Dalasians built it for a reason. Why do you think that that ship is faster than any other Dalasian ship? Why do you think they built it to be so powerful? Why do you think that that ship is made of Viirodium?!" Nate sounded really mad.

"Okay - what did I do wrong? And what is Viirodium?" Caldwell asked.

"Viirodium is an invincible element. Not even temporal technology can be used to mold it. Only for a short time of five seconds at the beginning of time is the element malleable. After that, you can't do anything to it. Please tell me you used stable temporal technology to go back to Dalasian time... Please tell me you did..." Nate sounded desperate.

"No, but the temporal laws of physics state that- " Caldwell started.

Nate cut him off, "No, there are no temporal laws. Who do you think was picking up the slack for you this whole time, keeping your temporal technology stable for you?! Me and my allies. We've always had a very-well cloaked ship following every ship capable of temporal travel, secretly balancing out the temporal threshold. Damn, now we've got a really bad causality loop to deal with..." Nate explained.

"What's so special about this one ship?" Asked Caldwell.

"The Predator... was like no other timeship. It was the flagship of the Dalasians' temporal exploration." Nate said.

"And now that it's been stolen..." Caldwell was following Nate's line of thought.

"All of temporality will be re-written. Unless if we can get our hands on a Viirodium-encased ship really, really soon. That's the only way that we, or anyone else, can hope to survive a cataclysmic infinium." Nate said.

"Speak for yourself... My body is made of this 'Viirodium'. But what is a cataclysmic infinium?" Caldwell asked.

"Not all of it. Your muscles - Nkcridom. Your adaptive systems - KH Alloy. A lot of your body has elements that would be exposed to and destroyed by what I'm talking about. A cataclysmic infinium is a complete destabilization of the temporal 'laws' of the universe. Everything goes insane. In fact, it's happened before, and we're still feeling the effects of it now. Temporal shifts that happens every so many billion years that change the laws of physics in a totally different way each time... But if it weren't due to it having happened before, a lot of things right now wouldn't be possible. This incredibly advanced technology, elements like Viirodium - they exist because of it. Because of the Zrzi." Nate explained.

"So what's the big deal. We contact the Zrzi, they fix everything, end of story." Caldwell said.

"It's not that simple... theoretically... If a second one of these things happened, everything would be gone, reset. The Isordians are the least of our worries." Nate said.

"Reset? Hey, maybe Cataclysm has something to do with this too..." Caldwell hypothesized.

"The universe would either collapse, or time would go inverse and everything would be reset to a random setting. Fifty-fifty chance. Viirodium is the only thing that could withstand it. Then again, there's also a 50-50 chance that Viirodium won't save us either. And Cataclysm... You're right... That ship does seem to be really deeply involved in this, somehow." Nate said.

"Cataclysm.... My friend Ryan... He's in that ship. His mind is. From the reports I read, Cataclysm was trying to save all the smartest sentient beings it could find, and... It created them all." Caldwell was trying to figure out what was going on.

"This may surprise you, but my intelligence informants have told me that Cataclysm has joined the Isordians. But you're right... That is weird. And if Ryan is in control of Cataclysm..." Nate was realizing something along with Caldwell.

"It joined the Isordians?!" Caldwell was very surprised.

"The ship's name!", Caldwell said, then said with a whisper, "Cataclysm."

"Cataclysmic Infinium..." Nate said, realizing what Caldwell was realizing.

"It's ironic... But why? Why recreate humanity; as well as create a thousands of other sentient races, save the smartest ones before a temporal shift, and then suddenly join the faction that wants to exterminate all sentient life?" Caldwell wondered.

"A very good question. Why, indeed?" Nate asked rhetorically, as Caldwell shook his head, at a loss for words...

Tiran noticed something on the Predator's sensors.

"Well that definitely isn't normal." Tiran commented, as he noticed a temporal shockwave ripping through subspace on the sensor console.

"Ship, advanced sensor scan - now." Tiran ordered the ship.

The Predator didn't do anything, even as the shockwave approached.

"Ship? Why aren't you responding?" Tiran asked.

The Predator still didn't do anything.

Then Tiran realized - the entire time he had been in possession of the Predator, he had been controlling it manually.

"Diagnostic." Tiran ordered.

The Predator responded, "Ship incomplete. Construction computer attempting to compensate. Advise return to construction site."

"That would explain why this ship doesn't seem to have any security systems... and also why the power core wasn't charged up before I stole this ship..."

"Construction computer, are combat systems complete?" Asked Tiran.

"Targeting systems not found. Manual weapons operation is possible." The construction computer reported.

"Construction computer, can you give me an overview of this ship's capabilities?" Tiran asked.

"Power systems complete. Shield systems complete, but shield adaptation systems incomplete. Engine systems complete. Navigational systems complete. Weapons systems complete. Only manual targeting available. Logistical systems incomplete. Security systems incomplete. Temporal systems complete. Designation and history of this ship is unknown." The construction computer reported.

"Construction computer, can you adapt to complete this ship and give it full functionality?" Tiran asked.

"That action is not advisable." replied the construction computer.

"So you can adapt?" Tiran asked.

"Yes." Answered the construction computer.

"Then do it. Get the logistics systems to full functionality first." Tiran ordered.

"Completion time estimated within two hours." The construction computer reported...

-------------------------------------

Ivan was in the central command center of Kashki, or, in simpler terms, the ship's bridge. The bridge was located deep in the heart of Kashki, well protected, directly above the central power cores. Ivan was sitting in his command chair, watching the viewscreen that was providing distorted images of the enemy fleet. Even with Caldwell's ship's sensors patched into Kashki's logistics systems, the cloaked ships were still hard to get a solid reading on.

"They're almost upon us sir!" Ivan's tactical officer reported.

"Fifty-eight seconds to intercept." Reported the navigational officer, who was piloting Kashki.

"Can we catch them by surprise with any maneuvers?" Asked Ivan.

The tactical officer looked on his console. "No sir, those ships are too agile to catch by surprise. Unless if... No, that would be suicide..." The tactical officer said.

"It would be suicide to do nothing. What's your idea?" Ivan asked.

"We do a 180 degree turn and go to full stop." The tactical officer said.

"Hmm... if we do that, we sacrifice shields at the same time by overburning the v-drives. But we could also destroy a good portion of the enemy fleet as they ram into the dorsal hull..." Ivan said and considered the idea.

"Your orders sir?" Asked the navigational officer.

"Evacuate the dorsal sections. Then do it." Ivan ordered.

"Yes sir." The navigational officer obeyed, shunting shield power to the vent-drives.

Evacuating the dorsal sections of Kashki was a simple and quick matter of using internal transporter systems to move people and their belongings to lower levels of the ship.

Kashki painfully jolted as the vent-drives let out an enormous burst of thrust power, flipping Kashki in the opposite direction. The dorsal hull faced the enemy fleet and the Raildrives quickly shut down with a damaging jolt.

Within seconds, two thirds of the enemy fleet crashed into Kashki's thick, tough, dorsal hull.

"It worked! Yes!" The tactical officer was glad to see that his plan was working.

Kashki's damage report alarms began to sound.
Then, suddenly, Ivan watched in horror as the two-thirds of the enemy fleet he thought he had destroyed reversed their engines and dislodged themselves from the dorsal hull.

"They... were... shielded." Ivan realized as the entire enemy fleet recovered without losing a single ship.

"Damage report!" Ivan ordered.

"Heavy damage to dorsal hull section. Dorsal shield generators, sensor array, and weapon grids are offline." The engineering officer reported.

"Deploy all combat-ready ships. level us off to have the hanger sector X, Y and Z match the central axis of the enemy fleet. Use the firepower from the weapons mounted in those areas." Ivan ordered as the enemy fleet was focusing its fire on the dorsal hull.

Kashki slowly changed position and began to fire at the enemy fleet with the weapons mounted along its hanger sections. After a few seconds, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and a few capital ships from Kashki's hangers started to join the battle, only to be torn apart within minutes by fighters and bombers the enemy fleet deployed as countermeasures.

"Sir, we have shields back!" Ivan's engineering officer reported, overjoyed.

"Counteractive shield configuration, now!" Ivan ordered.

The shields changed shape and then clearly appeared to be counteractive shields. The enemy ships ceased firing and moved off. They began circling Kashki, moving too fast to be hit by Kashki's weapons. Cataclysm hadn't yet joined the battle. It was waiting outside of weapon's range, seemingly waiting for something.

Ten tense minutes passed, and then suddenly, a massive fleet of Isordian supercarriers surrounded Kashki. They completely surrounded Kashki from all directions, their dorsal hull sections inverted and facing Kashki.

By now, Kashki was almost done regenerating its dorsal hull. Its shields were now reinforced by about twenty other auxiliary shield generators that it had generated in the long standoff to better defend itself when the battle would resume.

The supercarriers moved in and formed a tight formation around Kashki, enveloping it. The formation of the supercarriers was in the shape of a ball.

Then, the supercarriers merged their shields and inverted them to surrounded Kashki.

The Isordian supercarriers were now using the same counteractive shields as Kashki was, because Cataclysm had given them the information required to duplicate them.

The supercarriers' shield bubble enclosed around Kashki's shield bubble and started to push down on it, obviously trying to crush Kashki under the pressure.

The supercarriers' shields meshed with Kashki's, and the Isordians started to drain power out of Kashki's shields. Kashki was immobilized, trapped inside its own shield, as was Kashki's fleet.

Slowly but surely, Kashki's shield radius began to get smaller and smaller as the power cores could barely compensate to keep the counteractive shield from collapsing.

"Sir, we're not to last very long like this!" Ivan's tactical officer warned.

"How long have we got?" Ivan asked.

"Three hours at most. Probably less if they can adapt to drain our shields even faster." Ivan's engineering officer answered.

As the long standoff of Kashki and the supercarrier fleet continued, Cataclysm still intently waited for something...