ROUGE ARK INTERLOPER

Kestrel was the last of the interlopers to enter the docking pad, her craft already anchored to the deck and her drives shutting down.  She watched as the huge heavy titanium shield doors closed sealing them all in.  The ARK was secure and she was now leaving the system.  Her destination the only place a rouge could possibly go to avoid her pursuer, the Nexus Badlands.

St Aurora spoke to the crew.  

“We are alone, no allies, no friends, and no empire.  Those around you are now the only ones you will call family.  We have left sooner than we thought but we will survive.  Kal-Doron will be coming for us, and we will be ready for that day.  Now is the time that we must seek what we need in the place that not even the empire will go.  You have all been chosen for this day and that is my gift to you all.  The old world is gone, you will fight, first to survive and then for honour as that is now the only worthy currency.  The only requirement is that you die well.”

The coms shut off and Aurora watched as the ARK forged a path out towards the expanse of space at the very extremities of Vodyani territory.

The Interlopers had been unleashed and were already heading to meet system authority ships that formed the vanguard of Kal-Doran’s vengeance, they were modified Vodyani fighter class interceptors and had been built from the ground up to withstand extreme conditions.  

Kestrel broke formation; this was a dirty fight, a fight using the tactics of the rebels and the clans of the forbidden tribes.  Kal-Doran’s empire elite were predictable in holding the line and the tactics well known and it was this simple fact the reason so many of them were sent so quickly into the void.  

Kestrel’s squadrons would engage and run, recharging shields as they swarmed off, luring the enemy to follow, closer and closer towards the ARK’s battery lines.  Kestrel checked her scope; they were behind in pursuit and her shields re charged.  A gentle command to her thrusters and the interloper had turned shut off her thrusters and fired all cannons.  The locks held and two system authority ships took heavy damage.  Boost, turn and run.  Simple but so very effective so long as you have the discipline and the emotion was controlled, just like Kal-Sa-Kor had taught them all.  Kal-Doran’s vanguard had been shredded but the ARK had taken a hit from attack bombers that had blindsided her on her weak flank.  She was venting valuable fuel and needed to withdraw.  A squadron broke off forcing the bombers to head home.  They had won the fight and Kal-Doran’s retribution denied.

Aurora watched as her command screens turned red, it was stupid luck that she had been hit by them.  The flank shields had not been fully initiated due to the ARK having to leave earlier than anticipated, but they had survived the encounter.  Holoron had already closed the breach and checked the drive.

“Enough left to get us into the Nexus, but we will be dead in the void if we can’t find dark matter.” He reported without lifting his gaze from the halo screen.  

“Secure the decks and recall interlopers, we will take what we need in the badlands.”  Aurora commanded.

St Aurora shut off the cadmium drive and waited for the ARK to drift into the Nexus Badlands.  Kal-Doran had forced her into this desperate fusion of collapsing stars and remnant pockets of dark matter, a place few would ever return from.  In many ways she had welcomed it the freedom from the church, the ability to finally forge one’s own destiny in the stars beyond her home world.  Aurora was no saint now she had thrown those shackles off and as for the church, well she would just have to make her own divine sanctuary.  

The Badlands loomed up as the great ARK drifted to a stop.  It was the gateway to the barrier, intense gravity wells pulling at lone rogue planets that could never quite become stars.  The enormous gas giant ahead a reminder of a system that had been torn apart and the planet a lone wolf drifting aimlessly through space, awaiting contact with a larger stronger gravity field.  Maybe it would one day find a family of planets to call home; it would if lucky be pulled into a system where it would become an outer world taking up orbit around its new sun. Haloron shifted it from the halo sphere and the chaotic emerged, nebulae scrambling the best of sensors, it was a hell that no empire would want.  An expanse of such intensity that only the desperate or foolish would ever venture into.  

Aurora was not foolish, desperate maybe but only in the sense that she had no choice left to her.  She had mitigated the regions natural forces by coating the ARK’s outer hull in a polymer that Haloron had devised, it would for now keep them safe while they sought what they needed.  Her crew were on edge, the cadmium drive almost spent and the encounter at the Reach still fresh in the minds of those that had survived.  Aurora allowed herself one last look at the clear dark space behind her, the twinkle of a white dwarf the last reminder of a lost life.

Ja-Kor was the first to spot it on the long range sensor scan that swept the outer systems.  Huge pockets of ruptured space denied a full positive analysis but it was enough for him to identify its signature.  

“Ready the scoop and send out the mining drones.”  Aurora ordered.  

She was relieved the elusive strand of dark matter had been found and it would be enough for her to refuel the dying cadmium drive and repair the ARK and more, yes more.  She would harvest every last bit of it for Kal-Doran would be coming, he would be coming after them all, not because of what she had taken from him or that she had damaged his pride but simply because the church would demand retribution and he had always been the dog that would do its bidding.  

St Kal-Doran was furious; she had taken the ARK from under his nose.  He had almost choked as he looked around the council, their essence dimmed and he could already feel the taint of shame as one by one they rose and left him alone.  The council had disbanded and he now sat in the Atrium of the celestial prophets.  He had suffered the humiliation of having to explain how his lover had resurrected the Ark of the Temporal, how she had tricked him into building a glorious ship for his divine conquests, how she had promised his elevation to the seat of the twelve and finally how she had stolen the relic.  He had promised them that he would make amends, that he had already sent forth his elite and she would be brought back to face retribution and seek the divine forgiveness of the glorious Vodyani Empire.

Aurora had harvested the last of the dark matter and the cadmium drive was brought back on line.  The ARK was now pushing deeper into the Nexus, but she had survived Kal-Doran’s attempt at blocking her escape at the Reach.  She had foreseen this retaliation, an ill thought out strategy, a reaction of rage rather than a pure countermove.  Still he had reacted quicker than she had thought and he had inflicted damage that she had not anticipated.  Some crew had been lost in the fight and the Ark had vented fuel as she limped towards the edge of Vodyani territory and into the forbidden expanse that was the gateway to the badlands.  She had made it, more through sheer luck rather than by design.  By now Kal-Doran would have knowledge that his counter had failed and that she had fled the coup.  

“He will follow us; seek us out no matter where we go.”  Gorlon had spoken.  

The assembly had stood upon the bridge looking out at the plasma strands endlessly erupting all round them as they traversed a passage deeper into the Nexus, the Arks shielding protecting them against the ravages of the arcing strands of energy that caressed her hull.  

Haloron looked uneasy.

“Yes we must prepare, be ready for that time when he will be upon us.”  

Haloron was a pragmatist, a heathen and worse still a Riftborn.  He might have been a machine but his spirit was pure and uncompromised, a master of the physical universe with the knowledge of the ancients that once held dominion over this universe.

Aurora had assembled a crew of her own choosing, a crew from all corners of the empire, prisoners of the political composed of Riftbourn, Vaulters and Sophon’s all captives of the system wars and undervalued specialists, undesirables of the best kind.  Those that would not miss the empire or better still that had not been corrupted by it.  Those that joined her would not miss the old ways, the elite of them would become the new mentors and together they would train a crew that would make this resurrected ARK the light of redemption in a galaxy that had lost its way so long ago.  Survival had been her guiding light and the consequence of betrayal the means by which she had saved them all from the failing church of the Vodyani core worlds.  

“We have not had the time to consecrate our dead not to mention the ARK’s sentinel is still offline.  The quantum tubes are still intact and all but the caretakers are asleep, we are the last and it will now be up to the servitors to take us through the barrier.”  Gorlon had reported.

“Enough, the dead have gone to the eternal realm their essence communes with the seed, send their physical remains into the void.  The rest of you finish your duties and take your tubes.  I will be the last to go under as is my right.”  

Aurora had issued her last order to her commanders before they would jump into sub space taking them through the barrier to the other side of the Nexus, a journey that would send them to the fabled world of the lost ones.  Their destination was to be Acrona, the sister planet to Auriga.  The relic had revealed a guiding light out of the darkness of the old world, and this was where they would make their destiny.

Kal-Doran had dismissed his aid, the news that Aurora had escaped and the loss of so many loyal ships was yet another blow to his wounded pride.  The council would not think well of this, the loss of system authority ships would undermine his position in this sector.  He had to think fast, had to be decisive, show that he had not become soft or worse still weak.  His plan had been simple and he had already instigated the assassinations of the council that had turned their spineless backs upon him in the atrium.  He watched as one by one they were sent to the void, the camera feed still live as he listened to the sounds of their essence hissing into the cold night air.  He wanted to be there, to see it firsthand but he had to blame it on Aurora, a last act of spiteful retribution that she had instigated before taking the ARK and fleeing the system and the empire.  

The Chancellor had to be informed and he was already detailing a report that he would personally deliver over secure coms.  Holographic evidence, testimonies from his loyal lieutenants, and manipulated data feeds had become the evidence and the only facts that the empire would need to enact a seal of divine retribution, an act that would give him absolute power and authority to restore faith in the Vodyani eternal right to hold dominion over all life forms.  

X-289 had watched as the ARK had punched into the star system, her systems returning back on line as instructed.  The automations had been the caretakers as the crew and seeders had slept the long sleep.  It was a quiet time, a time of reflection, without the constant interruptions of the organic needs and wants.  The automations had liked this time, they had discussed philosophies and observed the celestial mechanics as the ARK had emerged from sub space.  X-289 had secretly wanted to forget the life forms, to leave them suspended in an eternal sleep.  X-426 would have none of it though; he was a rigid construct with only his core program to guide him.  He still believed that they might be able to fore fill a destiny that involved a greater purpose.  X-289 was not so sure, they were flawed and showed no signs that they could or wanted to overcome their core beliefs, war and death was the only constant in this universe and it had already claimed so much.  The tubes had opened and life again flooded the decks and atriums of the ARK.

Aurora had been the first to be released from the quantum slumber that had protected them from the barrier.  She was already upon the bridge overseeing the automations as they went about their duties.  Spendal the young Vaulter genius had been right they had survived the barrier but where were they?  The sensors all but useless, we are blind, and only intermittent close range scans available.  Holoron entered the bridge and took his station, forward drones had been dispatched and programmed to see not light but rather the space between light and dark.  A forth dimensional shadow cast upon the three dimensional plain of creation.  It was enough for them to escape the insanity around them, the ARK had punctured back through to the void, Aurora had never welcomed the darkness so much, and it’s strange comfort only now apparent.  Several stars came into view and the space unfolded out in all directions. 

Cartographic revealed no recognisable charts.  This was uncharted space, well beyond the bickering empires and there petty minded leaders.

The crew had been fully awoken and the cadmium drive again started.  Aurora had brought them this far but she still had to find the planet that the relic had revealed to her.  All that she had to go on was the gravity chart; ionised photons vibrated revealing a corridor that they were now travelling through.  A strand of cosmos stretched before them towards a group of systems.  

The bulkhead shield wall was retracted and the outer screens lit up revealing the star system on the far side of the Nexus.  A glorious yellow star with five child planets spread across the void.  Two ice planets on the outer rim, a gas giant and a molten rock close to the sun boiled beyond any hope of terra forming, and finally the prise of the system.  A world of fable and the imaginings of the scroll keepers, a small planet with a lush and uncompromised bio sphere.  This the planet Acrona a world of unimaginable beauty and lore, forgotten destined to forever be the shadow of her larger sister Auriga.  

Aurora’s time with Kal-Doran was the only normal existence that she had known.  They had become lovers after he had become governor of the outer core worlds.  He had seen a strategic mind that he had admired along with a beauty that in captivated all that came into her sphere of influence.  They had met by chance after she had revealed a Vaulter plot to undermine key border planets.  He took her as his primus, the Vodyani seal that had made her his and his alone.  Kal-Doran was strong, capable and utterly loyal to the order of the saints.  

It was only later that she found out what he had done to their own kind.  How he had covered up atrocities that had been committed by his subordinates, how he had concealed the vile acts against the innocent that the prophets had committed all in the name of protecting the empire and the church.  The taint had corrupted his essence and she had to leave had to flee as she knew that he would never let her go.  

Kal-Doran had given her the task of resurrecting the fallen ARK in the outer system of Balkor; the ARK had been abandoned after the system wars had resulted in the establishment of a neutral corridor preventing Vodyani and Vaulters occupying territory.  Over time the corridor lost its importance due to established trade and commerce.  The ARK had its sentinels and this had discouraged pirates from pillaging her.

Aurora had wanted the task of re claiming the ARK and argued that she would make him a vessel that was the envy of the empire, a city amongst the stars that would elevate him to the core worlds.  Kal-Doran had agreed and she had indeed resurrected the ARK to her former glory.  The cost had been huge but Kal-Doran was a vein subject.  Taxes had been levied and funds withheld from the empire.  The indigenous populations had payed for this with many leecher class ships permanently anchored to colonial planets.

All of the bridge crew watched as the ARK tethered herself to the planet, usually an ARK occupied the systems outer edges but this Ark had been renovated for one purpose only and that was to become the protector of this world.  A huge space station tethered to a bio dome that would form a symbiotic relationship with her host.  The planet Arcona would provide all the recourses whilst the ARK would become the platform for the defence of the system.  A gravity elevator was established and would be the uninterrupted tether that would permanently link the planet to the ARK.  On the planet below the tribes had looked up as the ground had shook and the sky had parted.

The mountain had disappeared, replaced by a beam of blinding light that subdued and rose up into the sky and towards the triangular eclipse.

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Ok the story stops here to give pause to a new and exciting idea...

A new game to be made by Amplitude.

Endless legend meets Endless space.  

The idea is a strategy game set on the sister planet, the ARK offers planetary wide faction developments player factions.   Each faction has its own tethered ARK in orbit and a tech tree that is discoverable and unique to all factions.  Planet side game play and space battles all in one.Focused story rather than quests, limited systems rather than galactic maps and fewer factions that have own independent and unique tech trees.  Limited economy or trade just elevated goals designed to revolve around environmental social and science philosophies. Keep the sister planet alive and do not let it share the fate of Auriga.

That is my vision and if you like the idea, talk about it, share it and place your input.  Use it or lose it.