Conqueror's Rise

Okay, finally getting around to rewriting my first attempt at writing a story. In the defense of my first attempt, it was my very FIRST attempt so of course it sucks compared to others on this site. That having been said, any and all comments are still wanted, though the more constructive the more wanted and welcome.

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Brian sat watching his bobber as, yet another hour passed, not that the fish were biting this close to the bank but now that IT had shown up WEEELLL.... IT wouldn't have bothered him except that IT had shut the crickets up, IT had quieted the coyotes in the area for a while, but they had soon enough gone back to their yipping. IT hadn't dimmed the full moon, IT didn't made the stars easier to see with the moon shining so brightly. IT didn't cause any of the noise to drowned out from the near orgy that was taking place farther up the shoreline and up on a bluff. What IT DID do, was shut the crickets up and that simply pissed him the fuck off!!

He liked the sound of the crickets it was soothing, it was peaceful, it took his mind off that it was a Saturday night and here he was FISHING and not getting fucking laid!! It wasn't that he wasn't personable, he was. He just had a habit of treating women with respect and honor. Not like the other high schoolers up in the tents that viewed women as conquests to be shown off to their buddies "Lookie at what I've been screwing" and when they grew tired they threw them away like over used erasers. Actually erasers were treated better when it all came down to it. The girls around in that area were so used to it they might as well been considered "damaged goods". Yeah yeah, they were all perky and all that shit but getting all but passed around when the latest boyfriend got tired of them, had (if you were capable of seeing it) left visible traces on their personalities.

His watch bleeped the passing of another hour. He glanced down at it one Am, time to head on home. He spent a good thirty minutes collecting all his stuff from the three Styrofoam worm containers, to the scraps of line that he had trimmed when tying on snap swivels. His can of bug spray, too his two single gallon water cans and his days catch, two flats and a walleye 'Walleye in Kansas, now if that wasn't something to be termed as TWISTED' he thought with a smirk. As he was loading it all into his Jeep he paused for a moment, looked around, glanced at IT hovering over his jeep and made a quick decision. He flicked the key just enough to get the electric windows to close and grabbed one of the empty worm tubs. As nonchalantly as he could he filled it at the waters edge and strolled back to his Jeep and as quickly and as fluidly as he could, threw the Styrofoam container of lake water at the cloaked ship that had been hovering over his Jeep for the last two and a half fucking HOURS.

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A dull aching in his head seemed to pulse with the beat of his heart, not to mention the all the hollering and screaming that was NOT helping. Brian managed to pry his eyes open and immediately wished he hadn't. The lights though dim, were far more than enough to cut into his pained mind. After a few attempts he managed to get his eyes used to the light and looked around, he noted the tables around him also had people on them that were very much awake and coherent. "AHH, you have regained consciousness." A voice said, a voice that had a feminine tone to it but there was a bit of a 'unusual' accent to it that for some reason got his guts tied up in knots in fear. Brian was amused everyone around him was butt naked on cold metal tables, most of them were in hysterics and he was the only one that mattered. OOH, THIS was getting..... INTERESTING!!!!!

"So are you, whoever you are, the one that sent the cloaked craft that shut the crickets up?" Brian snarled as the cold from the table started seeping into his joints.

"Yes" Said the voice as nonchalantly as any he had ever heard.

"I hope that damn lake water corrodes your fucking HULL, not to mention that when I get off here you are going to so wish that I had NOT been brought up here." Brian had long known that he could absorb small amounts of electricity, heat and energy from those around him (and to transfer pain and his feelings to others in VERY specific situations) while he couldn't draw enough to deactivate the field that held him and the others to the tables, maybe just MAYBE if any of whoever it was that was holding them there came into view and came within arms reach it would be enough to allow him to get at them.

"Redirecting power to restraint fields,." Said the voice with a note of worried anxiety. "Adjusting gravity to three gravities, activating battle drones." Brian strained against the increased gravity enough to see two terminator style looking droids take positions at the head of his 'bed.' "That is a most unusual ability."

"Yeah well, when you can hear electronics power up from hearing/feeling the static build up on glassish surfaces, when you can hear the phone next door ring, MOST people would get curious and try to figure out what else you can do."

"Intriguing." The voice said this time with amused curiosity.

"Hey dumb-ass, all this is your fault? When I get off this table you are so dead!!" Brian looked over to his right and up, one of the others was at least listening and not trying to be heard by shouting and screaming at the top of their lungs.

"Specifically he is the one that was to have been brought here." Said the voice in a haughty tone. "The reason the rest of you are here is that you attempted to interfere which could not be allowed."

"So according to Henry over here it's my fault that Henry Tiller the "perfect little angel" of the county sheriff is here." Brian said with a smirk. "The perfect little angel that has a great liking for underage girls?"

"Hey, I do NOT!! Even if I did it, could never be proven." Henry started spitting and sputtering and bemoaning about how the world had started looking down on him ever since a family friend's kid had died under 'mysterious' circumstances.

"Yeah well it's rather interesting about the other eighteen or so that were left in your care for some reason ain't it?" Brian asked as snottily as he could. "Hey whoever or whatever you are, when you brought us all up here, were there any younger humans?" Brian asked as several started hollering and the shouting jumping to Henry's defense, so he decided to egg them all on and see if he could get them so infuriated that they wouldn't be able to even spit straight.

"Hey isn't Gary Tervin right above me? The same Gary that was responsible for a female rookie cops' death? Of course it was from the car wreck caused by her hotdawging in a branded new patrol car and not the broom handle that was shoved up her ass so far that it cracked her skull, should have accepted your advances huh? And isn't that over to my right good ol' Samuel Holman? The same Sammy that's the kid of the biggest drug dealer in the South East corner of Kansas? The same Sammy that's made his nest egg from spiking the drinks at church get-to-gethers and then supplying the hooked little old ladies with their pot? God DAMN it man, a lot of them were over sixty eight years old. No wonder some people look on Okkies from Muskogee with higher regard than us Kansans."

"ENOUGH!!!" Boomed the voice loud enough to startle everyone silent. "You were NOT brought here to torment these.... INSECTS."

"Then for WHAT purpose WAS I brought here?" Brian asked amused that someone else shared the same opinion of Henry and his friends.

"YOU were brought here because you were the closest to the shuttle landing site of those observed and seemed to fit the search criteria and then you appeared to attack the shuttle with no provocation. These others were brought here as that when the cloak failed and you were struck by the discharge, some appeared to come to your aid, some attacked my drones that were loading you and your land craft into the shuttle the rest for attempting to contact your version of governance." The voice said in 'DUH' tone of voice.

"So, now that you know that I did have provocation in my attack what becomes of me now?" Brian asked getting more curious all the time as too just WHAT might be going on.

"Well as the cause of your attack was as pathetic as disrupting the local fauna in their natural night cycle the plan is still viable." The voice said thoughtfully.

"Which IS?" A question that was vehemently repeated throughout the room.

"In accordance with the last command of the captain as he succumbed to oxygen poisoning, I must inquire first: If you were to be given the power and technology of a far superior craft than anything your own world has to offer what would you use it for? As I have monitors that would indicate if you are being truthful or not honesty would be prudent." Brian laid there for sometime thinking, going over answer after answer and then going over the answers again, finally he opened his eyes.

"Really, no matter WHAT I STARTED OUT to do." Brian said slowly. "I would probably end up having to conquer this planet and then after that I would probably set my sights on all existence, well I should probably say existences!!!" Brian said

There was a significant pause that if who/whatever hadn't wanted the truth would have gotten Brian even more nervous than he already was, do to the fact that he was on a cold metal table (and he did NOT function at all well cold). He was being held in place by a restraint field of some kind, and then there was the three gravities that he was dealing with, and he was getting jittery from all the energy he had absorbed. "While it may not be possible to conquer more than this existence, your answer is acceptable. IF you would be willing to comply with your previous answer of conquering this existence in its ENTIRETY, I the last KNOWN remaining remnant of the great Cre'atrain Empire ask that you take the Rank and Title of captain and use this trove of technology and bring order to the chaos that thrives in the universe."

NONE of the humans could believe their ears! Brian Farons of all people was being offered an ALIEN ship! An alien ship that implied that it had the technology to conquer not only their home planet but their galaxy and MAYBE even beyond that. While everyone did a quick revaluation of their current situation and started hollering that Brian accept the position and get them off the tables Brian was getting curious. "So what happened to the Empire if it was so great?"

"There was a war, in which the Cre'atrain Empire was destroyed by a conclave of former Imperial scientists that believed that mechanical technology was the way to ensure Imperial domination of the universe. Not the combination of technological breakthroughs that the Empire was embracing." The voice said sadly.

"So what were the breakthroughs that the Empire was embracing??" Asked a female voice from Brian's upper right.

"Mechanical, biological and bio-mechanical, the latter being which I am comprised of." The voice said proudly. "And then there is the metaphysical technology that was being researched and incorporated when the Empire was destroyed."

"Were the scientists oxygen breathers or did they breath some other gas?" Brian asked. "I'm ask because you said the captain had succumbed to oxygen poisoning."

"The species that comprised the Covenant were mainly oxygen breathers though with a few nitrogen breathing species mixed in." The voice in a monotone. "Their favored warriors were a primitive, superstitious and easily the most gullible species EVER encountered. Though most of the rest of the empire was made up of methane and nitrogen breathing species."

Brian waited a few moments before speaking up. "Since you are obviously not to happy to have to say the name of that species, am I wrong in believing that the species is humanity?"

"You are correct in your conclusion, your species was the main warrior class that was used against the Empire." Said the voice uneasily.

"So there at one time was a battle in our solar system and something happened and we never left, okay why we never left is something to be found out about. So just how old IS our species?" Asked Brian trying too grasp at any handhold on a conversation that could easily get out of his imagination's realm of possibility.

"The first humans were encountered eighty thousand of your solar cycles ago." The voice said as noncommittally as possible.

"OOOH the RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY is so going to LOVE THIS!!!!" Brian whooped with malicious delight.

"Monitoring of both life bearing planets in your system have shown them to be contaminated by Covenant indoctrination. Although your own is far more under the influence of the Covenant than the other appears too be."

The mention of TWO life bearing planets in the solar system got people around the room hollering and commenting that there was only ONE life bearing planet in the system. Brian let it run several minutes before speaking up. "QUIET!! Now in the 'hush,hush' science community there is a possibility of a planet on the exact opposite side of the sun as well as many other little dangerous secrets. Dangerous to the powers that be and the religious community, though the Catholic Church is liable to be the most open minded on a LOT of those secrets since they are the guardians of MOST of them and destroyers of the rest. So if oxygen breathers destroyed the Empire, just WHY are you offering ME the position of captain or is it a form of poetic justice? Oxy breathers destroyed the Empire and now Oxy will right the wrongs of the past?" Brian asked curious to hear the answer since it would be very telling on how willing of a partner he'd have.

"That is acceptable." The voice said with some amusement."As there have been no other methane breathing life forms found since the Empire was destroyed seventy five thousand of your solar cycles ago."

"So how long is that in your years?" Asked Henry.

"So just how long is that in your years?" Brian asked when the lengthy pause made it evident that Henry was being ignored. "On sensible questions like that in all likelihood I also will be interested in the answer." Brian said as sweetly as he could with out gagging.

"Forty five thousand." The voice informed them. "The war ended when all Imperial ship replicator systems were reprogrammed to produce oxygen just as the majority of the Covenant were succumbing to a viral agent."

"WWOOAH there, replicator as in taking elements from solids, liquids, and gas and converting it at the atomic level to other elements?" Brian asked, his interest really perking up.

"Correct, reprogramming could not be accomplished quickly enough to save enough Cre'atrains to sustain a viable breeding population." The voice said sadly.

"So what happened to the methane planets of the Empire?" Asked a female voice from Brian's left.

"The Covenant devised a Terra-forming weapon that when used either created a stable, viable planet that was capable of sustaining any life that thrived in the created atmosphere. OR it created a unstable volatile world that destroyed itself relatively soon after the process was completed." The voice said nervously.

"So basically they turned a standard hard shell warhead into a replicator that remade planets." Brian said hoping he understood what had been described correctly. "Methane to oxygen, oxygen to methane, barren rock to vibrant flora coverage. Basically a fast acting Terra-forming payload?"

There was another lengthy pause, "And how are you knowledgeable in this kind of technology as the transformation process was by Covenant standards, not a reliable technology as the resulting planet was usually unstable and only had short life span before being destroyed. Though it was the most affective weapon they had against the empire."

Brian chuckled "We humans have a form of entertainment that we call motion pictures or movies. If I am able sometime I'll acquire a copy of Star Treck: The wrath of Khan. In that movie they use the same kind of science but what causes the science to go wrong is that it was used in a nebula so the warhead did not have enough high energy fuel to power the transformation, in the movie they used Proto-matter. Which if it had had enough, would have produced a viable planet. Since it did not have enough fuel or Proto-matter for the transformation, the planet only had a few month life span."

"So the failed transformations were caused by not enough high energy fuel?" The voice asked awestruck that the Covenant might possibly have overlooked such a simple variable in their science.

"Well that's what is described in a book that was set about eighty to ninety years after the Genesis planet went pop." Brian said trying to shift into a more comfortable position.

"The information has been incorporated into the data banks and will be evaluated at the first viable time allotment." The voice said. "So have your questions been answered to your satisfaction, will you become my captain?"

"Answer a couple more questions and I will be able to answer yours." Brian said hoping against hope.

"Your questions?" Asked the voice eagerly.

"You stated before that the replicators had been reprogrammed to produce oxygen faster than the life-support could handle." Brian said thoughtfully. "Is the oxygen we are breathing coming from air brought from Earth, being produced by the replicators still or have the life-support systems been converted to produce oxygen?"

"When you were first brought on board the oxygen was being produced by the replicators but the life-support will be finished being converted too produce the needed oxygen in the next six standard local hours." The voice said helpfully.

"Now, just WHO and or WHAT are you?" Brian asked. A question that was seconded by most of the others. "Because a archive WILL be useful but if you're only a library, conquest is going too take awhile."

"Who I am and what I am?" The voice repeated the question with a sad sigh. "While your description of a library is not inaccurate in that I received constant updates of Imperial as well as any uncovered Covenant technology as well as any breakthroughs until the relay stations were overrun and destroyed by the Covenant. My physical appearance is colored what your 'INTERNET' calls 'Battleship Grey', I am approximately twenty of your miles long by eight wide by five high. My 'body' is comprised mainly of bio-mechanical substances that allow me to adapt to a ever changing existence that is beginning too appear to be far more stable, reliable and healthy in the future." The voice said with a touch of amusement that Brian couldn't help but understand.

"Well, you haven't done all that bad, surviving this long alone." Brian said with a sympathetic grin.

"Maybe but that is ALL that I have done. I have accomplished nothing of value except find and evaluate all the Covenant stations, strongholds and satellites in this sector. Back to your questions, as I said I have a Imperial Designation that in all likelihood you won't be able too pronounce."

"Well, since all those stations and strongholds will be a impediment at best, having their locations and their normal in and out traffic will be VERY valuable." Brian said emphatically. "Okay so if your ship name is to hard to say what are you called?"

"I do not understand by what you mean by what am I called. I am the main computer interface for this ship WHY would I need another designation?" Asked the AI.

"Well if nothing else numb-nuts, it won't confuse orders." Henry sneered.

"Granted he is correct on the part of confusing orders, I just don't suggest adopting THAT particular moniker." Brian said with a weak chuckle. "Very well, as you have answered all my questions that I could think of asking I will accept the position of captain that you have offered to me." Brian said with a evil grin covering his face. There were cheers from the other tables and hollers of "Get us loose!" and "Get us out of here!". Brian just smiled and deep in his heart the cold hate that had simmered for years and had darkened his soul erupted into a cold, dark conflagration that would engulf and consume all that looked into its burning heart for centuries to come.