The Icarian Legacy Collected Edition: Brave Souls - First Strike (Volume 3) (113 page)

He summoned what force he had and rose again blocking the next force lightning.

But he knew that it was over.

Ruin lunged and this time Lenir couldn’t stop him.

He tried his best and managed to block the first four strikes but the fifth took his arm and his light saber.

He felt the blade pierce his chest.

As life left him Ruin spoke.

“You told me to speak to the council. When the time comes you will be my message.”

As the Jedi died he could feel that his transformation was now complete. What began years ago the first time he felt the touch of the dark side was now finished.

The galaxy had a new Sith Lord and it would do his bidding.

As the Jedi fell Ruin turned and approached the twi’lek.

“Your wounds will heal.”

Yuthaara watched the Sith Lord. He knew what Darth meant. And he knew what this sith lord wanted.

Unquestioning obedience from all, and he knew that he will have his.

“Yes my Lord.”

Ruin turned and looked one last time at the dead Jedi.

“You have a ship.”

It was not a question.

“Yes.”

“Good, bind your wounds and then take his body. There are others out there. The time for hiding is past. We will reclaim what was once ours; I will have what is mine by right.”

“Yes my lord.”

“DO you bow to me?”

Yuthaara rose and looked at Ruin.

He could feel the dark force. It was stronger in him than ever before. He was a Dark Lord. He was a Darth.

He kneeled and bowed his head.

“Yes my Lord. I’m yours to command Darth Ruin.”

A smile appeared on Ruin’s face.

It took them almost half a day to reach Yuthaara’s ship. It was an old sith stealth corvette, long time pass its prime.

They took Lenir’s body with them.

Ruin said that he would be the message and he planned to keep his promise.

The stealth ship rose silently and disappeared from the planet and the system without anyone noticing it.

No one knew it yet but the forces of darkness where once again on the move.

And soon the Sith would be strong enough to strike.

                                        
Stargate Atlantis

                                   The return of hope

Prologue

8000 b.c 

2400000 light years from the Milky Way 

”This will be my final report.“

She froze at that moment and looked at the picture hanging on the wall of her cabin.

A much different woman was looking back at her from it.

The woman looked barely in her twenties, but the looks were deceiving. She was far older, her people had long lives. All Lanteans had.

Long blond hair was neatly stroked and was covering her shoulders. Full lips, and beautiful blue eyes, filled with confidence. She was smiling. She looked so filled with hope.

But the picture was of another time.

It was taken before the fatal contact of the scout ship Argea in the Kesselian Sector, before the contact with the enemy of her people, the enemy of all life.

She instinctively touched her hair. The hair was a mess just like everything else.

Her blue eyes now showed only despair, sorrow. The joy she knew she had back in those moments when the picture was made was gone now. There was only sadness now, sadness that filled her very soul. Sadness and pain, pain so great that she could feel it as it ripped her heart to little pieces.

Her face was now serious and haggard.

The blue eyes were suddenly filled with tears.

Someone would say that commander didn’t cry, and for the future generations, the civilizations that that would think of her race as the one that touched the very sky, the limits of creation itself, I would have been a surprise, but her reaction was normal for a human being that lived to see the end and destruction of all she ever knew and the death of everyone she knew or loved.

The tears came not because she was weak. They came because the loss was simply too big for a single person to be able to bear, too big for anyone to contemplate. It was to devastating for any person that felt it and saw it to be able to stay the same as before.

Trillions dead, all that knowledge, all history, all the achievements that were made in the last several million years, it was all gone, gone in less than a hundred cycles, in the blink of an eye. 

But her greatest pain was not for those that died, it was for those that lived, for their descendants. For those whose fate was now worse than death itself.

The Wraith looked at the humans the same way humans looked at cattle. They were their source of food, the source of their power, their life force.

The memory of the way they fed made her shiver.

“Lantea is dead.”

That thought replayed in her mind over and over.

She knew from the history of her people that it was not the first time that her race had suffered a disaster like this. Only then the enemy was a disease that made them flee the same galaxy where the ships under her command were heading now.

Her destination was the galaxy her people called Avalon. They were heading towards the ancient home, the ancient home of her people, of Atlantis, the planet that each Lantean knew, the world her ancestors named Terra, Terra Atlantis.

But what had befallen her people now was much worse, and it was far more painful.

It hurt more because it was the result of their over confidence, their pride, because they were not prepared, and because they were too passive. It hurt much more because this loss meant the loss of all future generations in this galaxy, and not just the generations of her people, but of every other race.

The reason was simple.

The Lanteans had achieved the pinnacle of civilization a long time ago. They were at the greatest heights of this part of existence and were already starting to enter the next one when they discovered the way to ascend. The ascending was open to all and it was already well on its way long before the war came. It was a gift that was now withheld from those left behind. That was the greatest loss of all.

The road they were on now was a one way trip. She knew deep in her heart that no Lantean will return to the galaxy that they left behind, the galaxy she called home.

She knew that no one will ever read her report as well, because after the hyper drive failed the speed the maximum they could reach was light speed. There was no way to break the barrier. And with that velocity the distance was simply too great.

Avalon was 2400000 light years away. The expanse between the two galaxies was just too big. Even the road back was impossible, as they already crossed more than 600000 light years from the moment they broke the barrier and left the galaxy they called home.

No this was a one way mission, a trip in to the future in the endless void between the two galaxies. No one knew even if the cryo pods would last that long.

She looked in the mirror and she wiped her tears with her hand.

She took the pad and continued writing.

“Captains log, final entry, date twenty three days since the fall of Lantea.

This will be my final entry in this diary. It has now been twenty three days since we left Pegasus, twenty three days since the moment we started on this path. Seventeen days since the day we broke the barrier and entered the intergalactic void between the galaxies.

In the last eleven days every ship has suffered defects of our hyper drives. All efforts to repair them have failed, so we were forced to continue our trip at sub light speed at 0.99% the speed of the light. From the fifty six ships that started on this journey, forty two will carry on. As of this moment there are fourteen Aurora class battle ships, three cruisers, and twenty five civilian transport ships…

Total population at current is eleven thousand seven hundred and three, just under twelve thousand from population that numbered in the trillions.

It is my hope that some of the other fleets managed to leave the galaxy. Every member of the crew deserves the highest praise for their dedication and super human efforts considering the situation. All efforts to establish contact with other ships have failed up to this moment. That leads me to the conclusion that this fleet was the only one that made it out.

Before we exited the galaxy we received news that the evacuation of Atlantis was under way. The city is submerged at the bottom of the ocean in the vain hope that one day in the future some of our descendents will come back to reclaim what was once our greatest achievement.

I have no information about the battleship Tria that was headed towards Lantea. It is my hope that they made it in time or if not that they managed to flee the galaxy. I have no doubt that Helia will make it.

The last of the crew members of Ilias and the other ships are now in their cryo pods. Soon I will take my place among them as well in the vain hope of the day that we will be found or will reach our destination.

The fleet is now under control of the artificial intelligence of Ilias.

This is the final report of the commandant of the Battleship Ilias.

EONA LARIS.”

As she spoke the last words she sighed. It was the final thing that was left to be done, her final task, before she left herself in the hands of fate.

She stood up and arranged her hair and her uniform in front of the mirror. She exited her cabin and went directly to the bridge. She cast one last look of bridge and the chair that was her home for the last seven years. Her eyes spoke the words that she couldn’t say, they spoke her goodbye.

She walked for several minutes through the empty, silent hallways. She enjoyed the silence but she also missed the days when these corridors were filled with people and life. It took her a few minutes to reach her cryo pod.

The virtual simulation was disengaged and the cryo sleep was total for everyone. It was needed because no one knew how long it will be until they were found. She and everyone knew that there was a real possibility that this trip will be endless.

Without saying a word she entered her pod and several seconds later Commandant Eona joined the rest in their sleep.

The last surviving members of a lost civilization were on their trip to eternity…

Forty two ships silently sailed through the endless expanse between the two galaxies.

They silently sailed towards the future.

                                           
Chapter One

It was five months since the day Atlantis returned home. Five months in which the constant work on the damaged section of the city continued.

Woolsey watched as three puddle jumpers landed in the Jumper bay.

The hangar that housed the jumpers was located at the very top of the city's central tower and it was the main transit area since the city returned to Earth.

He shivered as he remembered that day and the battle with the wraith super hive. It was still fresh in his memory both it and the memory of how close Earth came to utter disaster.

Woolsey knew that it was not the first time. Twice before alien armadas came close to destroying the world that was, in a way a beacon of light in a very dark galaxy. But neither the Goa’uld, nor the Ori represented a danger like the Wraith. And both of those factions were now gone.

Not completely but they were neutralized enough that it was hard to believe that they could threaten Earth, or the galaxy for that matter again.

But that was not the same with the Wraith. The enemy that was responsible for the great tragedy that was still happening in the Pegasus Galaxy was a very real threat, a threat that had to be answered.

The massive hive ship was destroyed but the implications that it brought now served as a wakeup call for everyone on Earth. It brought home the real danger that the Wraith represented. And it brought several new nations in to the community of countries that knew of the Stargate program. That fact didn’t make some of the members of the IOA happy. But they had little choice considering that several darts and in the case with the Balkans a courier ship landed all over Earth. And it was hard to deny that they were not aliens considering the dreadful casualties suffered from the people that had to fight the warriors they carried.