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<p style="text-align: center"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif">Chapter 1</span></p>
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<p style="text-indent: 0.5in"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif">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.</span></p>
<p style="text-indent: 0.5in"> </p>
<p style="text-indent: 0.5in"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif">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.</span></p>
<p style="text-indent: 0.5in"> </p>
<p style="text-indent: 0.5in"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif">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.</span></p>
<p style="text-indent: 0.5in"> </p>
<p style="text-indent: 0.5in"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif">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.</span></p>
<p style="text-indent: 0.5in"> </p>
<p style="text-indent: 0.5in"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif">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.</span></p>
<p style="text-indent: 0.5in"> </p>
<p style="text-indent: 0.5in"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif">"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.</span></p>
<p style="text-indent: 0.5in"> </p>
<p style="text-indent: 0.5in"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif">Once there the ships AI contacted her, "Captain, some of the crew are upset by your
announcement, and are trying to take more than is required. Shall I send them off into the
wilderness somewhere, with no supplies?"</span></p>
<p style="text-indent: 0.5in"> </p>
<p style="text-indent: 0.5in"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif">Captain Tarmac replied, "No just make sure that all the extra things they take makes it
back onto the ship in their proper places." "As you wish Captain" replied the AI. "Now, do you
understand what needs to be done by you AI?" "Yes, Captain I understand." replied the AI.
"Good I hope the next time you wake up, you'll have a better captain then me." Two planetary
cycles later all of the crew were off of the ship, some happier then others, and the ship buried
itself near the base of the mountain. All went silent inside the huge ship, and while the AI
powered down it wondered whether what the captain had said were true or even possible. But
that would have to wait until the AI woke, and who could tell when that would be.</span></p>
<p style="text-indent: 0.5in"> </p>
<p style="text-indent: 0.5in"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif">Ten thousand year later, the answer to that question would soon be coming. The date was
April 20, 2005, and Mike Anderson was just arriving home from school. Mike goes to
Burlington County College, in Burlington, New Jersey. Mike had just turned 21 and was still
had a little hangover from the night before. Mike isn't a heavy drinker, being last that night was
his first time drinking with his friends. He was hammered after two drinks, then when his friends
brought him home they took a magic marker and drew on his face obscene language and weird
hand gestures. Mike had a huge crush on his best friend and next door neighbor Emily Ross.
Through Mike wasn't movie star handsome, but he was attractive enough to deserve a second
glance. He was 6'2 with light brown hair and green eyes with a pale complexion. He wasn't
athletic either, but had plenty of muscles with squared off shoulders. Emily was a curvy blonde
with shoulder length hair and deep blue eyes. She had legs you could get lost in for hours at a
time and a medium size bust. Mike had kept his feelings about Emily to himself, and was afraid
what her reaction would be if he told her how he felt. Truth be told, Emily already knew about
Mike's crush and had her own feelings for neighbor Mike.</span></p>
<p style="text-indent: 0.5in"> </p>
<p style="text-indent: 0.5in"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif">After getting home Mike had watched Emily come over and asked if they could hang out.
Mike said sure, but he wanted to take his afternoon jog into Mount Holly and asked if Emily
wanted to come alone for the run. "Can I take a rain check on that run, I have to be back before
my dad gets home." said Emily. "Yeah, it's ok, I understand, maybe next time though." replied
Mike. Emily then strolled back home swaying her hips as she went. Mike thought, "I wonder if
she knows she does that intentionally." Then Mike went into his two-story house to change into
his jogging gear and after five minutes was on his way. Half a block from his house Mike
decided to change routine and turned down an old dirt road that had become over grown over the
years. Mike had always passed this road on his jogs and now he knew why. There were potholes
all over the place, trash littered the ground, and weeds grew like wild fire. Mike's pace was slow
going. He'd heard rumor's from kids, back in high school, how they came out here to party and
drink to their hearts content. Though, the kids did say there was something strange about this
remote area. Nothing definite, but just a feeling of being watched by unseen eyes. Mike now
knew what they were talking about. He too felt like he was being watched. He didn't feel any
hostile intention towards him, but he felt like he was being observed or evaluated. Mike just
shrugged off these feelings, and discovered a small deer trail leading deeper in to the woods.
Mike felt compelled to follow the trail</span></p>
<p style="text-indent: 0.5in"> </p>
<p style="text-indent: 0.5in"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif">He had been on the trail for no more than five minutes, when he came across the biggest
hole he'd ever seen. The hole was five feet wide, ten feet long and he couldn't see the bottom
from his vantage-point. Mike hadn’t heard any stories about this hole, but it looked freshly
made. Mike assumed that the hole could be the result of last summers' flooding. Half of
Burlington County's damns burst and flooded several homes and major roadways. It was
possible that the flood water unearthed an entrance to a cave system below. Mike thought it be a
good idea to turn around now and go home. But as he was turning to go, the ground underneath
him started sliding into the hole. The last thing that Mike remembered was rushing darkness and
fading light. He felt like he was flying, but knew he was falling. Then suddenly everything went
black, as Mike lost consciousness.<span style="font-size: 10pt"></span></span></p>
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