Chapter 26: The Herald Interlude

The Call has been made and the Herald was about to complete the first part of the mission. He had been sent in advance to gauge the strength of this union and to secure the secret of the weapon that was able to defeat the Y’All. He had not been sent alone, but with him he had 300 mighty Y’All ships crewed not only by a new generation of Y’All warriors, but also by a large number of cloned beings, called the Kermac. It was decided that the Y’All should be led this time by an intelligent species with considerable Psionic talents. One thousand Kermac had been cloned of the old DNA that was still on file from the previous attempt to invade that Star spiral.

To destroy and obliterate any species that could be capable of being the host for the Dark One. It was simple, if the Dark One could not find a suitable host to reincarnate; the Dark One thus remained slain and defeated forever.

The other way to ensure the Dark One remained in limbo forever was to find the Twelve Token of Power and destroy them, make sure they could not be reunited, but to find these token was nearly impossible as they could be anywhere and not even the Lords of Light knew how they looked like or how to find them.

As the Uni were driven out of that Galaxy, by the old foe they had left the seeds for a new Universal collect behind on a world its natives called Koken. The Ker native to this world were destined to develop into the next Universal Collective, yet somehow they had squandered their holy task.

The Herald smashed one of his fists on the armrest of his seat. He would not have to be born so painfully if those cursed Ker understood what they had to accomplish and what they were destined to become. But thankfully the Uni had not set all hope on one species, but set up the Crucible so far away from that ill destined spiral star isle. The crucible was the birthplace of the Yah-ha Al, which meant Celestial Soldiers in the ancient language of the Universal Collective and recently had become the birthplace of the Herald. The survivors of the first invasion had passed on the name over many generations and the name had been changed during the passage of time, they were now known as the Y’All by their enemies and the name was synonymous with fear.

The Herald as confident he was on the surface that the Crucible would prevail and accomplish what the Uni had decreed. After all he had reported his success to the Crucible, but deep down inside he was anything but confident. He had only seen a glimpse of that Union. They had developed much faster and much stronger than anticipated. Not only did they possess powerful weaponry and shields, but everyone was able to communicate instantaneously across the entire Union region. He turned and looked at the crucified human hanging in the back of his ships command room. He was barely alive, tortured to great extend by the expertly skill of the Herald. “Tell me about your Union, Commander.”

The blood caked, swollen face of the man rose an inch and he mumbled,” Commander Richard Brady United Stars of the Galaxies Navy, born January 4th 4978 on Limerick, Service number 04014978-RB-938483329.”

“Your strength amazes me and yet it is wasted. At the Crucible we will clone your body and copy all your knowledge in that new brain without those impressive Psionic safeguards and your new self will freely talk. We do this sort of thing for a long time and we are quite efficient now.”

The Station commander of the Fornax Hub actually managed to put a painful grin on his swollen face.” It is your outfit that is fecked raisin face. You picked the wrong guys for a fight.”

“You keep saying that and yet you are here and you were unable to stop us.”

“A single Ranger dragged your ass in, shot your shit pile looking ship to bits and it took thousands of you to get a few hundred of us. Do the math you dumb brute, you’re fecked.”

The Herald looked at the neural map of the Commanders body, selected a nerve cluster and activated pain impulses of burning flesh in his brain. The Union officer finally screamed after he added a second cluster and he broke another tooth and sacked in his shackled. The Herald stimulated the Nerves again and made the Commander regain consciousness.

The Commander laughed. Then the tortured men said. “The truth is hard to swallow and you show your impotence against a single helpless man.”

“I said, tell me about this Union of yours. How many ships of this Barracuda Ship type do you have? How many of these mechanical combat soldiers?”