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My Memories

My story begins in the cockpit of my Excaliber; a 32m, 20-metric ton, jump capable, long range heavy fighter armed with quad tachyon cannons, dual particle cannons, and 12 missiles plus the Temblor Bomb, a powerful seismic weapon designed to kill only one target: Kilrah, the home world and capital of the Kilrathi Empire, humanity's bitterest enemy for 32 long war-torn years.

My mission, along with 4 other pilots', to escort Col. Blair all the way to Kilrah's surface at all costs and also be the backup bomber should he be shot down...; as I barrel-rolled her on her back and salvoed my guns at the Vaktoth fighter's "six" and turned it into expanding ball of gas and debris, I keyed my comm and said, "Blair, you go on ahead! The squad and I will hold off these cats off while you 'burn on ahead to Kilrah and launch the Temblor! Don't worry about us, we'll be fine!"

"I hope," I silently add.

"Roger! Good luck and good hunting, Simba!" replies Blair.

At the corner of my vision, I saw Blair engage his 'burners and his 'cloaker, vanishing from sight and headed for Kilrah.

Then, directing my attention back to the fur ball we're in, I quickly spotted trouble coming our way in the form of 4 Sorthak super-heavy birds and 2 corvettes, so I engaged my 'cloaker and positioned myself at the Sorthaks' aft position and readied my Dumbfires and tach cannons, then decloaked and fired, nailing two Sorthaks and severely damaging the other two, suddenly my comm system beeped, indicating an incoming message but I ignored it for the moment, figuring that it wasn't important; I switched targets, pounding one of the corvettes until I hit something vital, causing it to explode in a massive cloud of expanding gas and metal.

The rest of the squad polished off the remaining Dralthi, Vaktoth and Sorthak fighters then swarmed the other corvette until it exploded too.

We were still in hostile territory so we formed up; it was then that I noticed that we lost two of our number.

"What the hell happened to Gun Storm and Heat Streak?"

"She was tangling with two Dralthis when a Vaktoth bounced her with a barrage of plasma fire and missiles, looked like a bad case of target fixation, she never saw him coming", replied Sandman sadly, "and Heat Streak kept the other two Sorthaks busy while we finished off the rest, but caught a couple of missiles and a barrage of meson in his engines and fuel tanks, he couldn't eject in time..."

"Roger that," I sigh heavily, "what your status, remaining ordnance and fuel?"

"Simba, Sandman, I got major armor depletion on all facings, engines medium damage, generators severely damaged, empty on all ordnance except the T. Bomb and at 45%."

"Simba, Switchblade, forward armor facing totaled, p. cannons shot to shit, tachyons a-okay, cockpit's seems to have a leak somewhere but shouldn't be a problem, shield generator light damage...I think, burners are kaput, navcomp fired, only got two missiles left plus the T. Bomb and at 40%."

I glance at my damage indicator screen and weapons screen, "Minimal armor depletion on all facings, zero damage on critical systems, five missiles left plus the T. Bomb and at 65%. Look, guys, face facts, you both are in no condition for another dogfight let alone another fur ball like the one we just came through. RTB right now. That's an order. You've done all you can, don't waste your life looking for glory...there's nothing more you can do out here. Go. I catch up with you two in a while."

I watch them orient their fighters in the direction of the hidden asteroid base, engage their thrusters, and engage their cloak, sighing in relief at their choice; I engage my own cloak and check the message that I ignore previously, then my blood ran cold; the message was from Tasha, via our secret communication arrangements in both Confed and Kilrathi space, telling me that she will be heading to Kilrah on the precise date of the Temblor Run to Kilrah!

I knew that by the time I reach Kilrah and try to head her off, Blair would have launched it and have destroyed Kilrah and the massive fleet in orbit around it, poised to break through the front line and drive all the way to Earth, but I have to try anyway so I turn my fighter around, brought the engines to full power and headed to Kilrah...

"I made it! Blair hasn't..."

Then Kilrah explodes...taking the fleet with it and ending the war.

And the one person that I ever loved...

Tasha...

Noooo...!

"Noooo...!" I scream loudly as I wake up from my nightmare, scaring the hell out of the bridge crew on duty aboard TCS Eagle's Vision, belatedly realizing that I had dozed off.

Holy shit! Damn it! @#*$>! came the surprised shouts of the bridge crew, well, all but one anyway, my XO, First Fang Kirha hrai Ki'ra, a friend/blood brother (of sorts) of mine from my days as a POW and as Tasha's personal servant/slave/guardian, looked at me with a somewhat bemused expression on his muzzle and asked, "It's about her again, isn't it, old friend?"

"Yes, it's about her again..."

"Go to the holodeck and go vent your frustrations on some simulated targets, it will do you good."

"Yeah, maybe you're right...no, have my crew chief prep my Thunder Wolf for launch. I just need some time alone. Kirha, you have command while I'm away." I said as I stood up from my command seat at the bridge's center and walked toward the turbolift.

10 min. later, fully equipped with pilot kit and gear, I walk into the not-so cavernous shuttle bay located at the rear of the engineering section of the Explorer-XC class; a modified sister-class of the stock Explorer-class which carries enhanced shields, armor, weapons and ship systems plus it also has a cloaking device, in fact, the whole battle group is equipped with them; and towards my awaiting Thunder Wolf; a 40m 35 metric ton ultra-long range advanced escort/interceptor armed with twin gatling 'smasher' cannons, dual pulse nadion cannons, triple pulse phasers, and quad tachyon cannons plus a mixed heavy load of light-medium torpedoes and missiles; her old battle-scared appearance now replaced by a factory-new gleam, I sighed to myself on how easy it is for machines to be restored and repaired while the heart requires time for its wounds to heal.

As I climbed the boarding ladder into the roomy cockpit, noticing that my crew chief had already preflighted and powered up 'Star Hunter' for me, so I seal the canopy and spool up my fighter's four powerful PW759-7a drives, waited for the blast shield to fully extend, then punched my drives to full power and engaged my 'burners; I exited the bay like a slug from a rail gun then pitched up until I was 150000 klicks aft and above the Eagle's Vision, giving me a fairly panoramic view of the ship and the battle group escorting us for this black op.

At the same time, I mulled over the messages from Confed HQ informing of recent and severe compromising of secure data files of several secret and black projects, one of those files was my project, but according to Intel, my project was not in danger of attack, sabotage, or theft due to our position in deep space but experience has taught me to always take Intel's predictions with a grain of salt, not that I'm worried enough as it is, not with the first temporal test jump to begin in less that a week from now.

If successful, I may have a way to return to the past and save my beloved Tasha; if not, the only hope that has sustained me for the last 8 years will be gone forever...

5 days later, aboard TCS Lexington, 0800, Sept. 9, 2148, in conference room 1...

I sat at the head of the conference table, waiting for the various ship captains, XOs and dept. heads to settle in, before I brief them in their roles, responsibilities, and ship positions in the imminent temporal test jump, less than eight hours from now, naturally, some of them were still skeptical about this time travel/alternate reality theory and being about to travel to and fro said theoretical locations, so I had to explain to them the reasons for this project: To find out whether or not time travel and alternate reality travel is attainable or not plus to explore the alternate realities we discover along the way without interference or discovery unless the situation warrants it or under the task force commander's orders...within reason of course.

Lex's captain, Capt. Roger Steele, asks, "So where does the battle group fit in all of this, seems like an awful lot of combat power just to protect an EXC (the nickname of an Explorer-XC starship)."

"Thanks for bringing that up, Capt. Steele. The primary reason why this battle group was assembled for is to safeguard the only two Space-Time-Dimensional Drives in existence and its developers, not the Eagle's Vision itself; the ship is only the transport, power source and data recorder."

Most of the captains and XOs shuddered at the thought of considering their ship as expendable, most of them had friends who had fought, bled, and died on them, for them, their ships are their home away from home; a place where bonds of friendship, camaraderie and love, all forged in the crucible of war, are made, kept and cherished for the rest of their lives.

"So, Simba, what the bloody hell makes these two Space-Time-Dimensional Drives so damn important to Confed HQ anyway?" queried Capt. Francis Talbert, his Brit accent somehow underscoring the importance of the question; I also served under him during the 1st and 2nd Enigma Campaigns where I prevented him from making the biggest mistake of his life, but that's another story.

I answered, "What I'm about to tell you all is completely and utterly top secret, all right?"

I get nods in response. "Good, the materials used for the STD drives are primarily constructed of Selitarium-56, Ultima-lithium, and Novariumtridilitate plus some Annihilatorium..."

"What?!" came the simultaneous outburst of several captains.

"and Philtarium-biselitate crystals."

"Weapons-grade materials are used in constructing these two drives?!" gasped Talbert in disbelief.

"Yes, we discovered that when energized by a particular type of energy, quantum-temporal energy, a rift opens in the space-time continuum which led us to believe that if assembled properly these materials could be used in temporal and alternate reality experimentation and exploration."

"So that's why..." Steele breathed, awestruck.

"Yeah, you're all here to ensure nobody can steal 'em, reconvert the drives back to their original components and be used as weapons again." I said sadly and heavily.

"Damn, good buddy," came the Texan drawl of Capt. Robert Clancy of the Sovereign III Heavy Assault Cruiser TCS Warhound, "if y'all put it that way, how could we say no? Besides, we'all owe you one anyway for pulling us off boring patrol duties near the Inner Colonies with the only excitement being them occasional pirates and corporate saboteurs flying about makin' trouble for honest folk, shee-it, talk about death by boredom."

I couldn't help but grin at Robert's communal answer for the group, judging by the amount of grinning by the others, I'd say the same rang true for them as well.

"Right, now that we got that problem out of our system, here are positions I want you in during the test; the Lex, Tiger's Claw II and Terra's Shield, our only three available carriers, will form a triangle with the Lex at the tip, Claw and Shield at the sides and the EV at the center, while the rest form in a compact diamond formation with the super battleships Iowa and Chicago at the flanking tips; Enterprise, Andromeda and Solar Storm at the forward tip; Warhound, War Scythe and Lion at the rear; and the Dagger- and Excaliber-class destroyers will flank the battleships and carriers..."

"Hey, what about the Defiant- and AsMC-class corvettes, not to mention the Strike-class frigs?" asked XO Samantha Carter of the Panther class light cruiser Lion as she raised her hand.

"I'm getting to that, so no worries OK? As I was saying, the Dagger- and Excaliber-class destroyers will flank the battleships and carriers; the frigates and corvettes will form a triangle above and below the outside diamond tips and that's basically it. Oh, yeah, by the way, we're going to have 6 other ships join us just before test time, the TCS Archer, Bulwark, Protector and Ticonderoga, Aegis-class cruisers, and Voltaire and Salamander, Nebula VII-class cruisers."

As I was saying all this, a holoprojector show 3D representation of the battle group's formation and position but what it didn't show was what the STD drives would do when activated for the first time and that was what really worries me, but I didn't dare let it show on my face as the group lively discussed the pros and cons of the formation I had shown them but judging from the amount or lack thereof of any significant argument, I'd say I pretty much sold them.

20 min. later, I end the meeting and had the other captains return to their ships so we can begin the test in the shortest time possible.

6 hours later...

"All ships in position, at yellow alert status, all systems operational and all stations report readiness at full capacity, General." reported Kirha at T minus 2 hours to system activation.

"Short range sensors report no activity aside from our escorts; long range...wait! General, long-range sensors just detected 14 ships headed in our direction! Receiving IFF data now...sir, four of them are Aegis-class cruisers and two others are Nebula VII-class cruisers; the ships pursuing them register as 20 year old cruisers, destroyers and...an escort carrier?!"

"What's the distance between the six cruisers and their pursuers?"

"6.5 million klicks and holding, transponders indicate that they have taken moderate damage to their sublight drives and light damage to their FTL drives, shields are roughly at 75% to 80% respectively, weapons are at 75% effectiveness, they were probably ambushed en route, but all other systems are at full capacity."

"Tell them to beat feet over here, double quick. All ships bring all available weapons to bear to cover the cruisers and fire at will!"

The battle group, as a single body, maneuvered to get overlapping fields of fire, then salvoed their guns in a blizzard of lethal energy, allowing the cruisers to reach safety and forced their attackers to withdraw to consolidate their forces.

"Capt. Ivanov, what the hell happened on your way here and where in space did those hostiles come from?" I nearly shouted into the comm.

"Sorry, sir, they were waiting for us in a asteroid field in system M3478 and tried to board us but gave themselves away when one of their ship overcorrected and crashed into an asteroid, which gave us enough warning to raise shields and neutralize their boarding crafts, then we made all speed here, I think they were intending to use our ships to get among you and steal the STD drives." answered Ivanov's distinctive Russian accent.

"Never mind, we can start the test now that your group's here, form up next to the battleships and stand by to initiate temporal test jump."

"Kirha, inform the scientists that we'll be testing the fighter-portable and capship version simultaneously. I'll fly point on Star Hunter."

"General, with all due respect, but are you sure that is wise? You could end up outside the target temporal area and be lost in time."

"Star Hunter is equipped with the new hyper-laser data-link system, isn't she?"

"Yes, but..."

"We don't have time to test both units separately, not with those vultures hanging around. No, we have to...must test both units now!"

Kirha must have seen the look in my eyes, because he quickly accedes to my commands, and responds with a curt "It will be done."

20 min. later, I'm outside in Star Hunter with the starfighter version STD drive attached to the T.7(mk.7 torpedo) hardpoint and XLR(extended long range) warp drive/slip drive pod linked up to my aft attachment points, then Kirha's voice came over the comm, "General, engineering reports a positive link up with you, can you confirm likewise?"

"Give me minute...yes, confirm positive data link with engineering and STD primary system, all starfighter systems and peripherals in the green and ready to go!" I report back.

"Roger that, data link confirmed and all systems ready for temporal jump. Switching to fleet wide comm channel...attention all ship, we will initiate temporal test jump in T minus 20 minutes, all hands, man your stations!"

Time slowly passed as we waited, my hands suddenly became cold and clammy, and I realized that I was nervous!

I was never nervous before, not even in my first combat patrol, but this isn't any combat patrol, this is an experimental jump into unknown territory, a place where there is no certainty, no sure thing, a place for new discoveries and new dangers, and a place where battle-hardened warriors would show fear of such a place beyond their understanding.

Nuts to this, I thought to myself, saving Tasha is what spurred me to push this project through, so I could somehow keep her from making that final jump to Kilrah, to prevent her death from the Temblor Bomb's destruction of Kilrah.

Then Kirha's voice cut through my musings, "All hands, prepare for temporal jump in 5...4...3...2...1...Initiate temporal jump!"

Little did we know at that exact moment, a quantum pulse wave, released by a nearby quantum black hole, swept through the battle group, doing no damage as quantum energy has no or little effect of the 'normal' universe, but it did something to the STD drives, what that was...we never found out, but the effect profoundly changed the our lives, forever...

From the rear view cam, I carefully observed the EV as she activated her STD drive and felt my STD drive engage as well, suddenly I felt a mild jolt, and then I saw a ball of white energy rapidly encompass the EV which then rapidly expanded to swallow the whole battle group.

All I saw white nothingness then darkness claimed me...but just before I became fully unconscious, I swear I could hear a gentle female voice saying, "It's time to come home, my little cub..."

To be continued...

The technology here is exactly the same to the tech in my 'Return of the Dragon Lord' series as is the universe themed around it.

Chakat Universe courtesy of Bernard Doove.