Lost Empire Ch. 109

0001 - Tempro

0003 - Conner- Thomas

0004 - Norice - Sesa

0011 - Adam

0097 - Ace - Zimmel

0098 - Lucy

0100 - Derry (father ship)

0101 - Shelby (mother ship) - Derrick

0122 - Maleen

0125 - Lars

0130 - Gillese

0200 - Ellen

0201 - Jake

0222 - Helena

0250 - Tendra

0280 - Frela

0301 - Rodrick

0321 - Hardy

0403 - Johnathon - Hartwell

0499 - Henry

0505 - Craig

0660 - Realla

0661 - Raff

0667 - Marco - Brown

0778 - Jan

0798 - Celeste - Shelby (human)

0805 - Toran

0808 - Radella

0881 - Handrax

0882 - Teal

0888 - Clara

0908 - Tara - Mara

0921 - Tomack

0995 - Kyle

0996 - Tesal - Ara

0999 - Zan

1000 - Sherry - Lucie (only other one that can prime all ships)

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Ungrown - unnumbered

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Rescued from Tendraxians

so far bout 66 left

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1 on Shelby in re-gen (hospital ship on Shelby)

2 on Derry in re-gen

5 on ellen

3 still on Sherry

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Known and OR numbered

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0501 - Thaddeus

???? - Lena

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The big man turned back to Derrick a little angry, "So now you threaten us?"

"No, but if you wish us to, then we can," Derrick said. "Oh, and for your information, your weak shields won't stop us. Target the power node outside the city."

The big man smirked 'til an explosion sounded at the outside of town. "What in the hell was that?" the big man asked.

The mousy scientist looked up from a pad he had and looked stricken. "Sir, it was the largest power node outside the city."

The big man gulped and turned back toward Derrick, "We will never surrender. You'll have to kill us all and leave this a lifeless ball."

Derrick sighed and shook his head, "We don't want your surrender, nor is the lifeless ball gonna to happen. We just want to enter into negotiations."

The big man started to smirk, then he thought of all that had happened. "For what?"

"To become a part of the empire again," Derrick said. The big man and all there, all of their mouths dropped open.

The big man's mouth was only open for a second, then it turned into a smirk. "Why in the hell would we want to do that, huh? The empire left us alone to the ravages of the pirate consortium."

Derrick's Holo-gram smirked as he stated, "Yeah, betrayal has a tendency to do that on all ends. I am the last of the original royal line."

This, of course, had the effect of shocking all there as their mouths hung open again. The big man sighed as he had heard things like this before.

"Not sure that I can trust a man that won't appear in person," the big guy said.

"I apologize for that but after a few assassination attempts, the Palace A. I. won't let me," Derrick said with another smirk.

The big guy started to laugh 'til Mary shocked the hell out of him with the probe. After the man spasimed for a few minutes, he got off the floor with an almost crazed look.

"You really expect us to," then he stopped when there was a crackling of electricity before him. He gulped as he nodded toward Derrick, who grimly nodded back.

"Never fear," Derrick said. "I have felt it also, before I was made emperor. She is nothing if not fair."

"Thank you sire," Mary said a moment later. "I have always strived to be so. Also," she turned the probe to the big man. "I do not take disrespect toward the emperor lightly, so please remember this."

The big man nodded rather nervously. "Unfortunately, I can not speak for everyone, only this country."

Derrick sighed, it was going to be like that, he just hoped that the third person was in a friendly country. He had been surprised when the knowledge that there was another one out there was revealed.

"I think that we need to contact all the major countries to get this rolling. I am hoping that we don't have to put down another evil group," Derrick sighed.

"You've had to do this before?" the big man asked. To which Derrick nodded.

"It was a huge collection of pirates, was. They decided that we weren't a threat, before we destroyed their base and ships. I believe we took over a thousand prisoners, "Derrick said.

There were more than a few gasps when Derrick revealed this tidbit of information. The big guy was on the phone immediately with as many leaders as he could reach at one time.

All were shocked and were ready to comply except for one that laughed at Derrick. That was 'til Mary launched two missiles that destroyed both their power centers.

The leader started to yell at Derrick, telling him that he had no right. That was 'til Mary exploded a third missile beside the building he was in, making the whole thing shake.

Sadly, Mary soon found that the third person was also in that country. The leader started to smile evilly as he tried to make a deal.

Mary warned him that the next missile was aimed at him. Oddly enough, several soldiers walked in and arrested the man, dragging him away screaming.

Derrick sighed again, he'd hoped that they wouldn't have to aggravate the situation. He hoped that they had a trial for him and not straight out execute the man.

The rest of the leaders rapidly agreed to joining the empire. Derrick nodded as several more of the Eig's were suddenly in orbit.

"As a peace offering, I have several ships loaded with grain and other supplies to ease your conditions. We hope that this will usher in a new era for your planet," Derrick said. All that were there and on the screens agreed, as Derrick had a draft already made up that they all signed. They all received and signed a copy that Mary Kept.

Then the real work started as the food was offloaded to each country. Then Mary started to search again for the one that she had detected before.

It was two days later that she was afraid that the person had died or been taken off the planet. Finally, though she found him, though he wasn't in that great of shape.

She'd sent a probe to talk to him but found that he was unconscious. Mary had to ask Derrick if she could IMT the male to the med-bay to save him.

No sooner than Derrick said yes, the youth was in the med-bay. A few moments later, the new leaders from the country whose leader had laughed at Derrick started to complain.

Mary saw the look of disgust that Derrick had when the new leaders started to demand. Mary's voice broke into Derrick's conversation, "under regulations set down by the first emperor. I will destroy all of you for using a youth as a bargaining chip. I am an A. I. and I have no problem destroying all of you. So," here, Mary dramatically paused. "Should I just destroy all of you, or are we to come to an amicable solution?"

There was an immediate yelling and screaming as the leaders were warned. Their own systems that they were targeted by some major destructive weapons.

Derrick almost smirked as he saw that they were suddenly agreeing to disarm, somewhat. "We will know if you decide that we are of no threat to you any longer."

Derrick clicked off as he headed to the med-bay where a young male was in the bio-bed. Derrick flinched as he remembered being in one a few times, himself.

"Mary?" Derrick asked as soon as he walked into the med-bay. "How bad is he?"

"I am detecting several broken bones and severe malnutrition. I am working to stabilize him, but he is in very bad shape as his systems are so weak," Mary said, almost emotionless.

Derrick nodded his head as he felt his anger start to climb. He had an almost wicked smile on his face as Mary informed him that the former leader was still alive.

An idea formed in his mind as he decided that the male needed to be tried by the people that he had terrorized. Mary discussed it with all his officers, Mary and Shelby.

In less than an hour, they agreed to Derrick's plan as a planetwide announcement was made. Again, the former leader started to scream that the empire had no right to interfere with the planet.

Several of his own soldiers slapped the hell out of him as they showed that all countries had agreed and signed. The former leader sneered at the accord, saying that his name wasn't on it. He was again slapped and punched as he was told that he had been apposed.

The best thing though, was when he was told that he was to stand a planetwide trial to determine his guilt. He was also told that at that time his punishment would be.

He again started to scream as the guards beat him up again to shut him up. He was then thrown into the worst cell that they had.

Derrick sighed as that unpleasant business was part concluded. He then turned to the displays of the invading fleet, he just wished he had a way to disable the replicant ships.

He suddenly had a thought as he contacted the ships he had nearby. Within a few minutes, at least ten ships were at the outer limits of the Cregon fleet's sensors.

Derrick smiled as he gave the order for three ships to fire several missiles. The Cregon queen started to scream as the alarms on the ship went off.

She was still screaming when the alarms suddenly were silent as the missiles disappeared. Less than a minute later, she screamed again as the missiles reappeared and hit five of the replicant ships.

Her mouth was hanging open as the missiles took all five, almost completely destroying them. They also managed to take out no less than five hundred of her attack/troop ships.

She stared at the destroyed replicant ships, then her face went into a hateful scowl. She then tried to kill all of her bridge crew, which almost included her first.

Somehow, most of the bridge crew had managed to depart the bridge, saving their lives. Her first had also managed to get those who escaped to safety as they left.

Her first just shook his head as he watched her rage on the bridge, killing only two this time. He still didn't have the necessary strength to oppose her yet, though he was closer.

Derrick smiled as he saw that almost half of the Cregon ships that were replacing attack ships were destroyed. Though this only slowed them down a bit, they were still making ships.

He shook his head as he saw that five hundred attack/troop ships were gone. This was barely a drop compared to the almost three million ships that they had heading into the galaxy.

Less than a minute later, a portal opened as Norice and Conner slipped through. "From what I can see, the mission was successful?" Derrick asked.

A happy and laughing Thomas and Sesa answered. "Yes sire, we managed to destroy five of the twelve replicator ships. Here's to hoping that it slows the bugs down," Thomas said.

"From what we detected we also got a fair share of the surrounding ships sire," Sesa said.

Derrick nodded as he stared at the two smiling Captains. "Alright, just wish we had gotten more of them but for now it will have to do. I am afraid that they will be on guard for anything like this again."

"Sir?" Thomas said as he was looking at his wing mate. "Captain Sesa might have an idea about that, but we'll need a bunch of calculations about it."

Sesa looked embarrassed as she hesitantly launched into the idea she had thought of when they were attacking. Derrick was rubbing his chin as he listened to what she had to say.

When she finished, he had a wide smile on his face as he was nodding about all of it. "Mary?" he asked.

"I have already started calculations on the suggested problem. It will take at least five hours before I have a partial answer for the both of you," Mary said.

Derrick nodded as he looked at Sesa, "We should have an answer at that time. I will contact you when she has finished it."

Both Thomas and Sesa nodded as they clicked off. "I just hope that this will help," a worried Sesa said.

"You need to talk to your friend?" Thomas asked as he could see that Sesa was indeed worried more than she should be.

Sesa just nodded as Norice contacted Tesal, a familiar face appearing. "Ara!" Sesa shouted when her friend appeared on the screen.

"Hey Sesa," Ara said, a look of concern on her face as she could see the stress Sesa had. "What's wrong? I can see that you have a lot on your mind."

Sesa then went over what she had suggested to the Emperor, then her worry that she was going to be removed. "I mean I just got here, and I spoke to the Emperor, I love it here, I am so afraid."

Ara tsked as she spoke up, "Sesa, there are only eight of us, I highly doubt that they will remove you. Besides, it is a sound idea though," they went on for an hour discussing any changes that they might have.

Derrick was smiling as he listened in on their discussion, letting Mary take in all the corrections that they had. Mary was actually able to reconfigure the estimations, and it was done in four hours.

When he called Thomas and Sesa after Mary confirmed, Derrick gave Sesa command. The plan that she and Ara had come up with was approved a hundred percent.

Derrick had also had all ships updated with the personnel matter transport. It was what had saved Brown, and he wanted it on all ships, Mary especially had it on Shelby.

Derrick sighed as he went over the three planets with enemies, the threat of Risen plus the Cregons. For now, Risen was in the asteroid belt collecting resources.

It looked like the Cregons had stopped for now, trying to beat the debilitating ripalon energy. It appeared that at the moment the planets with the enemies might be the most critical.

At that moment, he had thirty-five ships, though only thirty-two could fight. He was afraid that it wasn't going to be enough, as he had one in orbit about Delcron.

At the moment, Shelby had only the one hospital ship in re-gen. Apparently it was by far three times larger than Tempro, very huge indeed.

He hoped that the destruction of the Cregon ships might delay their invasion by a week or more. Well, that and the fact that the ripalon energy interfered with their ships a lot more.

He hoped that the idea that Captain Sesa had come up with worked as well as Mary thought it would. He had gone over all that he could, trying to find a way to defeat the Cregons more efficiently.

Well, he thought, this was a decisive hit but not a true victory. He was hoping that this might cause demoralization of the enemy, though they were bugs and thought differently.

Derrick shook his head, no matter how easy or hard a mission, he and his never seemed to have an easy time. It was almost as if the universe was happier, the harder he and his men had it.

He looked over all the information that they had about the three enemy planets within the empire. It appeared that the Cregons, Vorlons and the Xetherans were racing to gain space first.

From what Derrick could see, their equipment was far behind what they now had. He had managed a few more probes to each planet cloaked as he watched them.

"Mary?" he asked as she appeared with him watching the three planets. "Is there any way that the probes can damage the ships that they are building?"

"A few pulse cannon shots might reduce them to scrap, though I am afraid that they will know the probes are there. Might I suggest that they fire and move at the same time," Mary suggested.

Derrick nodded as he watched all three planets as pulse weapon fire destroyed several ships. Almost immediately, most of the probes were destroyed.

Derrick smirked as he saw that Mary was already launching several more probes. With luck, those that were destroyed would be replaced in about twenty hours.

Well, he thought, they were now aware that the empire knew that they were there. With them still unable to leave the planet, Derrick knew that they still had time.

Now he thought they still had the larger problem to deal with. He saw that Risen was still in the asteroid belt gathering ore and minerals.

A sigh escaped his lips as he then turned toward the Cregon fleet that was near three million ships. Definitely the biggest problem for now, that was for sure.

On board Norice, Sesa was still running through her plan. She had convinced Thomas to bring her friend Ara into this with her ship Tesal and their wing mate Kyle.

It seemed that more ships made the Cregons a lot more cautious than, with only four. All four of the ships that were for this mission had the new shielding on them.

Derrick had checked and saw that the new shielding was over seven-five percent more effective than the old shields. All of this was factored in as Thomas, Kyle and Ara appeared near where they had been before.

It seemed to be effective as they started to fire several missiles and particle beams. The approaching attack ships seemed to fly to their destruction as if they didn't seem to care.

Sesa appeared on the other side of the debris field as she started to destroy the closer replicant ships. It was after she took out the fourth that she got a warning.

"Shit," she shouted as she started to pull Norice away from the field.

"Major damage detected, readings indicate only a minute of trans-warp 'til failure. Suggest leaving now to gain a third of the distance to the Imerial world," Norice warned.

"No shit Norice, get us the hell out of here! Contact Captain Thomas now," Sesa said.

"Frequency open," Norice said.

"Cap! Got a minute of trans-warp pick me up, would ya?" Sesa said.

"Roger that," Thomas said as he and Ara watched as Sesa and Norice vanished into a flickering portal.

"Get us as far as you can, I am so sorry, Norice. I didn't mean to make you as incapacitated as this," Sesa said.

"No need to apologize prime it is indeed an honor to fight with you," Norice said.

It was almost a minute as Norice started to vibrate, then it got even more violent. There was an explosion a great distance at the back, then Norice dropped out of trans-warp after a minute, twenty seconds.

Less than twenty seconds later, Thomas and Ara and their ships appeared. "Now activating fire suppression system. Major fire in trans-warp drive, fire out hyper-warp is also damaged," Norice said.

"Yup," came Thomas' voice. "Looks like the fire is out though, I am detecting a lot of damage."

Sesa nodded at the visage of Thomas and Ara, "Sorry, I only got four, I was sure I got the fifth. I didn't get confirmation that the fifth was hit."

The visage disappeared as Thomas showed her the fifth replicant ship she'd been firing on. She smiled as she saw that it had exploded not long after she went to trans-warp.

"I'd say that you blew the shit, out of five of the seven left. Let's see them make that many ships, especially after we destroyed as many as we did," Thomas chuckled. "Drew them to us.

Derrick's visage appeared a moment later, "I am sorry sire," Sesa said as she bowed her head. "I only managed to get five of the seven."

Derrick nodded as he looked at the figures of the destruction. "It appears that the five you took out also took out another five hundred more." He turned to Thomas and Ara, "It also appears that the both of you took out another ten thousand more."

Both Ara and Thomas's eyes were raised in surprise. "I wasn't aware that we got that many sire," Thomas said a bit in shock, then stared at Ara.

Derrick smiled as he fingered the single star in his pocket. "I wish for all three of you to present yourselves before me when you return. Get her home, the both of you," Derrick said to Thomas and Ara.

Both saluted as a yellow tractor-beam latched onto Norice. Then both the other ships opened a portal and they all slipped in.

A portal opened near the Imperial planet as the four ships slipped out. Tesal and Conner maneuvered Norice into place beside Shelby. They then IMT'ed Sesa aboard, moving to the Imperial planet.

All three of them were immediately IMT'ed to the throne room where the five other primes were waiting. The three stood up straight as they faced Derrick and human Shelby the Empress.

They were motioned closer as Derrick smiled and approached Thomas. "Captain David Thomas, for your dedication to the empire, I am promoting you to lower Rear Admiral of the fleet. I am also presenting you with the highest award of the empire, the Imperial Cross."

Thomas looked shocked as Derrick took the eagle and pinned a star on each shoulder. Thomas was almost gasping at the medal and the promotion.

Derrick then turned to the two captains, "I am also presenting new Captains Sesa and Ara with the same medals.

Both females had their mouths hanging open as Derrick put the star cluster medal on them. They were both somewhat in shock as they barely saluted Derrick.

Derrick and Shelby both almost laughed at the shock on the two captains' faces. They both turned and stood beside Thomas as he stared at his stars.

A moment later, the rest of the primes cheered and started to applaud. Derrick nodded as the three were congratulated, then the other five primes left for their ships.

Sesa sighed as she knew it would be a few days 'til she was reunited with her ship. Both Thomas and Ara nodded to her as she watched them vanish.

Risen was as bored as he could be being in the asteroid belt. He sighed as this was the only place he could get the few rare ores.

He'd managed to get his hull strengthened, his weapons were a little stronger but not that much. He could see that they were stronger than the pirates but not much.

He'd been over then a few times and only managed a ten percent upgrade. With the shields, he'd had a much better time increasing them forty percent, though not enough.

He had to have them a lot more to withstand the orbital batteries if that was possible. As it was now, he could barely survive one direct blast but be damaged almost as badly as before.

He had gone over everything, upgrading everything that he could. He was glad that the computer was twenty percent faster and had more power.

He sighed as it wasn't all that fast, but a little faster was better than nothing. It had helped him improve a good number of the systems, but he needed more.

The ship had three feet more to it, but the ore for that was taking a bit of time. Still, he thought the ship was improved a bit, now he needed more.

He sighed as he changed the repairs to add more to the computer, though this would slow his revenge. The indicators rose on the computer repair as he nodded, then laid down.

He awakened a few hours later as he found that the computer had almost doubled. He then groaned as he saw that the ore he needed for more was depleted.

He got up as he started to mine more ore as he set the ship to grow more space. It was several hours later that he found that the ship now had five feet more to the interior.

Onboard the Cregon flagship, the queen was again raging. There were fewer dead bodies than in past times, but there were still too many.

Her first, sighed as he had removed the recent bodies from her fit. It had declined a great amount 'til her several confrontations with the human emperor's ships.

He at first was afraid for her health, though as time passed he saw she was fine. Then he started to worry about having a fully functioning bridge crew.

He had managed to save the best so far, but this last time had been close. It had required him to expose himself to the danger along with the crew.

He again shook his head as he saw the amount of destruction that the queen had wrought. They needed to resolve this as soon as possible if the queen and her flagship were to survive.

He already had the engineers working at break-neck speed to solve their incapacitation in this area. They had moved quite a bit closer to a solution, but as of yet they weren't there.

He reminded himself that he needed to hurry them more if they were all to survive. He could see the queen pitting them against each other for sport and amuzement.

He also knew that she would include him and no one would live against him. He was by far the fiercest and most accomplished warrior that she had.

He shook his head as he felt that would bring far more attention on him than he wanted. Breeding the queen was indeed an honor, though the death that followed was not quick or pleasant.

He had heard tales of the days-long torture that the queen had inflicted on her older breeders. No, he thought, there was not as much honor for him as he had no family to pass things to.

He shook his head again, for the good of the queen's empire and that of her people, he had to act. A small smile came to his features as he thought it was very good for him also.

He entered a lively engineering space as he moved to the now main engineer. The Cregon male looked up, trembling a bit, "We need to find an answer quickly. The queen is starting to grow more than impatient," the queen's first said.

The main engineer nodded as he had all there redouble their efforts.