The Legacies

[Lepidatia]

The Legacies

*Note to reader, many of these stories might include strong language, and possible horror - The Universe is a dangerous place, especially when around the Lepidations - So you are warned.

Under a Deimosian Sky

It dawned, under a crimson sky laced with dark sunbeams, as Mars drew back under a flighting retreat. The morning was a cool 15 degrees C, as appropriated by the hidden weather grid, located under two miles of Galvanite bedrock.

Martin Hamish, stood, dressed in his combat Naval Gear, surveying the region near his home on the Yucatan peninsular. The river Avalon swept past, glowing a typical emerald green, as typified by its crystalline riverbed. On the other side of the river, lay Martin's Destroyer Helix, sitting in a quiet shipyard at the dawn of day.

Cpt. Hamish turned away from his view, and walked back into his apartment. He walked into the kitchen turning the multi-screen on as he entered.

"Good morning Cpt. Hamish" came the smooth female metallic voice of the apartment AI,Andrea, "you have one new message, would you like to view message?"

Martin looked over to the monitor, his face creasing into a grimace, Not the bloody General again!! Why can't he just trust me to command "Helix", he thought. Martin straightened his face and said "Receive message Andrea"

The screen flickered and then to his surprise his mother, Amelia Hamish, appeared on screen.

"Martin, this just a call to say to good luck, do the Guild proud, and is there any way that you can call over a repair officer, to my building, we've lost another wave converter, and the power is starting to flicker a bit. See you if I do. Love Mum"

Martin sighed, and walked over to the screen, opened up a mail pad. and sent a quick letter to the reparations guild, regarding his mother's flat. Once finished he turned over the channel to the news, where they were droning on about the political gibba gabba in the council of Elders.

After breakfast, Martin headed down to the ground floor (his apartment was on the top floor of a 40 story building) and headed out towards the teleport pad set next to the central canal. The City of Skye was a bustling metropolis with high rise buildings, grand boulevards and avenues, and neatly defined architectural styles. The shipyards were located to the south of the city, to the north lay the Vice Mountain range, a colossal range of tight craggy peaks more than two kilometres higher than Olympus Mons, down on Mars.

To the East and West of the city lay green farmlands which had a pattern of old England countryside. Beyond the Shipyards lay the factories, the refineries and the defence grid.

The street was in full bustle, when Martin arrived at the teleport pad, a circle of metal (four metres in diameter) with a series of three cuboid obelisks (five metres high, twenty centimetres thick) set around the circle, to which he stepped onto the circular base.

"Shipyard 19, Helix. Code 1290341" he said to one of the pad's obelisks, the pad and Martin flashed in a white light, and he was gone.

Moments later he reappeared in the same fashion out side the Helix shipyard. The Helix was a small ship of two hundred and fifty metres length, seventy metres high, twenty five metres beam, and carrying a small crew of a hundred and five. Armed with rapid fire Argon lasers, defensive Ion xasers and a single heavy plasma based Gauss cannon, she was the new breed of interceptor destroyer. She had three medium Ion Impulse drives, and a light gravity shield. Built for speed, she was elegant, graceful and sufficiently deadly.

Part of a fleet of nineteen destroyers, as well as fifteen gunboats, they were charged with defending Deimos. While a second, similar fleet guarded Phobos. Martin went on-board, and within a short period of time, had launched into low orbit, standing in defensive position, to meet the Martian bound House Fleets.

Ahead of the Deimosian defence force came the large fleet of the Houses Major of Mars. The ships of the Houses Major were Legacy BattleCruisers, large, sluggish craft carrying enormous fire-power, from twelve dual Armour buster gauss Cannons (six dual forward, six dual rear), and four heavy to light missile/torpedo tubes. The ships were modelled on the ancient battleships of old Earth. They were no match for the whip like destroyers of Deimos.

Martin sat on his bridge command chair, watching the movements of the warships, pale grey against the inky, star dotted void of the forever night.

"Helm, signal fleet. We're moving out." Hamish commanded, his eyes focused on the strategic deployment of the five Legacy BattleCruisers. The Houses had chosen a typical Delta V formation.

"Communications, Instruct all ships to enter a counter Delta Formation!" This was the best move to make, then at the last moment, when his fleet was within range, Hamish would then order the ships to break formation, and fly like starlings over Rome of old. They would move quickly around them avoiding any weapons fire, and firing their own weapons, to hit them with whip like precision.

When the battle commenced that is what happened, the destroyers and gunboats flew around the Legacies dealing some incredible damage (the plasma Gauss was having a better effect than a buster Gauss). Two hours later some three warships were down, the Helix, banked down over a legacy, firing its weapons at full power, as the Helix came to the midship point, it pulled up flared out, away from the Legacy, spun a hundred and eighty degrees, before letting loose another barrage.

Only this was Martin Hamish's only mistake.

The Legacy fired off a round, which slammed into the Helix. The Helix' hull buckled, explosions rippled across the ship, and Martin Hamish was falling.

Out of time, out of space, out of mind, a dark void to which he fell, as to comfort his failing mind he gripped on to his most cherished memory, his first memory on Deimos.

A cherry blossom, whose bloom was almost gone and leaves where working their way up, Hamish was standing under this tree, by the winding Avalon, breathing the cool scented air, as he watched the first guild ship land, he was standing there, an insignificant person, in an insignificant corner of the universe. Under a Deimosian sky sat he and watched the last of the blossoms, falling from a life before, glide unto a clear river, and to which they were washed away, lost to time and lost to fate, they fell unto an uncertain void.