Jump 161: Homeworld

Jump 161: Homeworld

Location: Kharak
Age: 122
Identity: Drop-In
Scenarios: The Long Journey Home, Horrors In The Dark, Stories Of The End Times
Drawbacks: [+1000] Sparse, Hunger, Maker's End

[300/2000]  Unbound
[400/2000]  Capital Ship (Carrier)
[1600/2000] Sajuuk Blueprints
[Free]      Progenitor Dreadnought
[1800/2000] Advanced Phased Telemetry
[2000/2000] Naggarock Conversion Beam
[Drawback]  Infection Beam
[Scenario]  Kadeshi Multi-Beam Frigate
[Scenario]  Bentusi Ion Acolyte
[Scenario]  Progenitor Dreadnought

And so, the Mothership attempted its hyperdrive test and was, briefly, under the impression that it misjumped. Unfortunately, they found the wreckage of the Khar-Selim, and the Turanic raiders who were left behind to attack anyone who might have come behind. The Mothership was in sufficiently good condition to repel the attack, however, and its fighters and bombers began to press the attack on the Turanic carrier.

This is where things went horribly wrong, however.

A hyperspace gate opened and the attackers broke off, concerned over what they thought were likely to be reinforcements. But instead, it was a small craft, one that seemed out of control, spinning crazily on its axis, and in the end corkscrewing into the carrier and colliding with its hangar deck. The fighters and bombers began to press the attack, only for a garbled transmission to beg in the name of Kharak to keep distance - and the carrier's lights flickered, its engine losing power, sickly green tendrils overtaking it and looking much like it had spontaneously contracted cancer.

That same broken voice implored the Mothership to return to Kharak, that if they were here the planet was surely under attack, but that Old Man S'jet had ensured the pirates were no longer a threat. And so a somewhat confused, but highly concerned, Mothership returned to Kharak and found that it was indeed under attack. But its defenses had... MOSTLY... held. Atmospheric deprivation warheads had been launched at the planet, but only a pair of them had gotten through and impacted near the uninhabited south pole with multi-gigaton force. The Scaffold had been damaged, the dwindling planetary defenses still actively engaging a half-destroyed fleet. Fortunately, the Mothership put paid to that in short order with a wave of salvage corvettes.

Kharak was saved.

Kharak was doomed.The southern half of the globe was slowly being consumed by an immense firestorm, and it was estimated that it would be a matter of days before temperatures in the northern hemisphere would begin rising. Weeks until the conflagration grew to the point that the planet became totally uninhabitable. Whatever the missiles were that had hit Kharak, they'd assured its certain death. And so instead of the Mothership being used to seek Kharak itself out, instead it rapidly fabricated resource collectors and proceeded to strip every mineral in the Kharak system to build a truly massive fleet of ships to evacuate everyone who still remained on the planet's surface.

At the beginning of the Mothership's crash program, Old Man S'jet returned, overjoyed that Kharak had survived the bombardment, dismayed that the planet was doomed. While he couldn't meet the Mothership's research team directly - fused to he now-twisted looking carrier as he was - he could provide information to them to roll out a cryogenic preservation process for everyone but essential crew members. And once the Mothership had made a trio of Kushan carriers, they were able to manufacture frigate-class vessels that could hold a fifty thousand frozen souls apiece.

From there, all that could be done was the Mothership scouting the way to a new home for the survivors of the horrific attack. Perhaps Hiigara... but any world would suffice, in the end. Old Man S'jet joined them, but somehow misjumped - they continued on their way, but would not meet him again until they reached the Gardens of Kadesh. There they found his carrier joined by an ancient dreadnought, but this too was wrapped in green - with the time that had passed, the carrier had changed as well, and they looked more wrapped in vines than veins. And the two vessels were facing a massive needle-like vessel, actively engaging with them, explaining that he had been subverted by something from outside and could not join their fleet without it killing them all - that his intelligence inhabited both vessels, that whatever crews they'd had, they were a part of his mind now. While the idea was disturbing and caused a few of the Mothership's command crew to be physically ill, it tracked.

And then he spoke further, explaining what he'd pieced together - that the Kadeshi and the Kushani were both once one people, exiled from Hiigara. That the evil that had drove them into exile had come for them and attempted to destroy their home, only barely repelled. But that he was going to see to it that the home world was reclaimed and the evil thrown down, for he had seen beyond this universe, had been changed but knew what had to be done. And that the emperor, the leader of the Taiidan, employed a vessel that was falsely cast in the image of Sajuuk - he whose hand moves what is. Hence why no one else in the galaxy dared oppose his people. And if the emperor was unopposed, he'd surely come for them next.

Karan S'jet later realized that this was the turning point, when it changed from a mere expedition into the Old Man's crusade, but the Kadeshi flocked to his banner, and in the wake of everything that had happened his words resonated with the Kushan fleet as well. But the Fleet proceeded from there, and after leaving the nebula, they found a ghost ship that tried to usurp control from anything larger than a corvette - only for the Old Man's ships to strike it with a green beam, watching those vines wrap around it, control returned to those ships. And the unoccupied derelicts around it were struck by the same beam, added to his control.

A strike was made against a Taiidani base, only for the fleets to find a Bentusi trade ship under attack by the Taiidan - which was rapidly wiped out to a man. The Mothership had met the Bentusi previously, but they had not expected to see three fleets now operating together. The Bentusi trade ship gave a full accounting of the history of the Hiigaran exiles, and further information and technology was traded between the groups. And so the fleets inexorably drew closer to Hiigara.

The final battle between the fleets would have been anticlimactic, if not for the emperor's possession of the faux Sajuuk. Three fleets with differing technologies, and even then they only barely destroyed the emperor's final weapon. Somehow he'd incapacitated Karan S'jet, and so the tactical hyperspace jumps that the fleets had been using weren't possible. And so instead, the whole of the fleet arranged itself into a massive wall, advancing toward the orbiting fleet and megaship. The battle was short... but only because it was three full fleets of ships. Had it been anything less, the faux Sajuuk would not have been overwhelmed, would not have had hundreds of ion cannons and thousands of missiles pounding it at once, would not have had Old Man S'jet throw his dreadnought in the way of the primary cannon to shield the rest of the fleet.

Only once the massive ship was destroyed did the Galactic Council arrive, to declare an end to the war. During all of this, Kharak managed a near-complete evacuation, even if its culture underwent massive changes as they resettled hundreds of millions on Hiigara. Karan S'jet was able to set foot on the homeworld, but Old Man S'jet instead disassembled his fleet, leaving only his carrier and dreadnought, and elected to rest in orbit of Hiigara's angel moon and rest.

And so he did for years, sleeping through the Taiidan civil war, until a rebel splinter faction chose to strike at Hiigara in a suicidal charge. They were of course repelled, but a mining vessel belonging to Kiith Somtaaw caught the Old Man's attention and he chose to tag along while they mined; he thought it would be good to stretch his metaphorical legs, as it were.

And all was well until they encountered an artifact that had been drifting in space. One that infested their ship in a manner frighteningly familiar to those who had seen certain parts of the war for Hiigara. The Beast, as it was called, was entirely different from him; brutal, primal, and ravenously hungry for more ships to add to its fleets. The Somtaaw persevered, in the end, and the Old Man aided them but spent much of his time hunting down larger threats to prevent potential landfall or to spare Bentusi trade ships.

And once the dust had settled, once the Somtaaw had ceased to be mere miners and had instead become known as Beast Slayers, he chose once more to rest - this time for nearly a century.

He was awoken once more by an invasion force striking at Hiigara.

It seemed that a nomadic group of raiders had absorbed other clans and gone on a holy crusade, in their eyes. They'd swept through the Taiidan, they'd absorbed the Turanic raiders, and now there was only the Vaygr. And their brilliant idea to attack was through an apparent hole in Hiigara's defenses near its angel moon.

This, as one could assume, did not go according to plan. Considering that a particular dreadnought bisected Makaan's fleet carrier and rendered him to dust, the Vaygr legions spread across space, seeking to carry on his vision without him. This ended predictably, of course; Karan S'jet returned to a newly rebuilt and upgraded Mothership, sought out and eventually located the true vessel of Sajuuk and brought it back to Hiigara in triumph.

As for Old Man S'jet...

Well, he was last seen poring over the ruins of the mothership that had built Sajuuk itself, and musing about restoring it to explore beyond this galaxy.