Chapter 1

The galaxy has been at war for over a quarter million years. The emperor has been fighting a losing battle for some time now, but still believes that his technology and his people will prevail. Emperor Shinza's empire stretched out to encompass nearly one third of the galaxy, sending out ships filled with sleeping colonists, hoping that one day that they wake up to find a pristine planet just waiting to be colonized. The reason why they hoped was for a very simple reason. That the emperor wanted to expand his territory, but certain fanatical sects wanted to slow down this progress and save all the money that went into exploring. Slowly, but surely, ships began to disappear. They were presumed either lost or destroyed. Too much area to search and not enough ships to cover the territory they already held. For one reason or another, sabotage was always involved. But our story doesn't start here, no, it begins in a star system with a yellow sun and nine planets.

Lt. Saran orbited around the single moon close to the only inhabitable planet in this backwater system. His fighter managed the routine grid search for the tenth time in the last half cycle. The planet below was uninhabited and could support life without complication. Saran was scanning for available resources to repair the damage done to the main ship. Saran remembered exactly what happened that stranded them here, under orders from the empire they were suppose to scout out systems that could be colonized or made available to colonize by terra forming. While in cryo-sleep, someone tampered with the navigation system and when the crew finally emerged from cryo-sleep they were not where they were supposed to be. They were literally thousands of light-years from the nearest imperial outpost. Help would not be coming anytime soon.

The captain of this ship ordered that the navigation systems be checked and found out why they were so far off course. The part of space that they were in, was heavily unexplored, and had no idea where home may be. Captain Tarmac had heard rumors of sabotage and ships disappearing, but it still shocked her that it had happened under her watch. When the chief engineer reported that they could still turn around and backtrack their flight path out of this system, Tarmac gave the order to do so. On their way towards the systems edge however, a shuttle launched from the landing bay, it's sub-light engines at maximum. Then Tarmac commed the shuttle and ordered it to stop or be fired upon. The AI suddenly informed the captain that weapons had just gone offline, and a small explosion took out their sub-light engines. They only had enough back power to head back in-system and reach the habitable planet. The person on the shuttle, commed them as they were leaving the system, said, "I hope you enjoy your stay", and went out of sensor range. That was a little over half a solar cycle ago.

Saran and the rest of the crew held little hope for being rescued, or of finding the materials needed to repair the ship. The materials needed were unreachable under the third planets' surface, they simply didn't have the required mining equipment to reach the material. They had little or no options left to them. Eventually they would have to stop and move on with their lives, but they still had hope. Saran turned his fighter around and headed back to the ship, noticing how sleek his fighter was in the yellow light of this sun. His fighter was nine feet long with a ball shape cockpit at the rear, and an almost triangular needle like nose. The sub-light engines gave off a faint blue glow as he made his way towards the planets surface.

As Saran landed his fighter in the landing bay, he noticed all the techs and flight crews running around securing everything down. For Saran, this was a normal activity, but what made it strange was all of them wore the same facial expression. It was the face of panic and fear. As he opened the hatch to his fighter, he heard the blaring klaxon and over the comm system he heard, "Attention all personnel report for a general meeting with the captain in five time units, that is all." Saran knew that this was different from all previous meetings, for the captain had come to a decision about their fate. When he arrived at the galley, it was packed with standing room only against the far wall. All the faces around him were anxious and nervous at what his captain had to say. They didn't have to wait long. The captain approached the center of the galley and began to speak, with a somber expression on her face.

"I'm not going to lie to you," Tarmac spoke at once, "we will never be able to leave this system again within our lifetimes." At this remark the crew began to murmur all over the ship until she spoke again. "So what we hope is one day our decedents will be able to repair the ship, someday, but until that time we will leave the ship and hide it underground near the base of the near by mountain. The ship's AI will then shut down all of the systems and go into sleep mode, until such time, when one of our decedents comes back to discover their heritage." Everyone in the crew just looked at her like she'd grown a third arm, including Saran. They knew it was coming, yet it was still a surprise. "All personnel will lockdown everything on the ship, and will take the bare minimum with them in order to survive. That means no advance technology, just in case our decedents don't suddenly stumble upon it lying around somewhere. We will be leaving in two planetary cycles. That is all." At this point the captain left the galley and proceeded to her quarters.