Beyond - Legends THE NEW IMPERIUM - The Return, Part 9: "Ancients Waiting"

SUMMARY: As the New Imperium recovers from its tragic loss at Mizar, Xar arrives in Altarin'Dakor space to find the ancient Warlord Zalaria, with whom he has fallen madly in love. But what he finds is not what he expected, and he will be thrust into a desperate struggle for freedom and survival. Bren's search for the Warlord Akargan turns up unexpected results, and Maarek Stele, captured by the enemy in the Battle of Mizar, awakens on a mysterious new world, and ahead of him lies one of the greatest challenges of his life...

Expect a new story to be posted every week or so (there are 21 stories completed already, 3 still in-progress). These stories feature Maarek Stele and Kir Kanos, as well as a host of completely original characters. The majority are all-original.

If you want to read the other stories in the New Imperium Plotline ahead of time, you can go to http://www.newimperium.org and get all the resources, artwork, maps, and extra info that you might want. This epic series has been going on since 1997 and is building toward a climactic ending with the remaining stories. NOTE: as the earlier stories were written years ago in my youth, please understand the quality may not be top notch, but you will find the skill level increasing rapidly as you continue reading through the series.

A final note: I would love to have other contributing writers to the storyline. If you read through the Plotline and find you would like to help by either writing side stories or doing artwork, please do contact me. We would love to have more people join in the NI and also to post on our boards anytime. Thanks!


*Formatting issues may make it harder to read on the message board. This story is also available online at* http://www.newimperium.org/archives/Chapter9.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Prologue



?It was a dark time for the galaxy. The ancient ones were waiting for us.

They watched, and listened, hidden movements unseen by mortal eyes.

It was the calm before the storm. It was the hour of the Great War.?



Scrap of poem written after

the Second Great War.

Discovered on the Ruins of Varnus.



Shuttle Firebrand

Deep Space

Inside The Great Rift
1900 Hours



The Lambda-class shuttle emerged from hyperspace, its small, graceful body a mere speck in the massive void of deep space. The Great Rift, as it was known, lay between the main galactic disk and the shuttle?s destination, one of its spiral arms. Other arms had rifts, many going by similar names, though this one, locked within the vast depth of the Unknown Regions, was one of the widest. The rift was over a thousand light years across at this point, with hardly any star or planetary systems to offer even the briefest rest or respite. Spacefarers didn?t travel the Rift, instead choosing to move around it, going up the spiral arm from its base. The Rift was impassable, some said. Others attested to horrible space monsters, or things that would swallow a ship whole. Some stories recounted that the void between clusters was filled with black holes, and that was the reason no one had ever returned. The latter claim, at least, was true, in that no one in the known galaxy traveled the Great Rift, and of the few that did, none ever returned. Except, it seemed, the Altarin?Dakor.

Sitting idly at the controls, a man named Xar Kerensky, formerly Grand Master of the New Imperium?s Jedi Order, hunched forward in his seat, watching the navigational map as his ship ventured further and further away from known space. Odd, how it had turned out. He was far beyond even Mizar now, the furthest known system in Epsilon Sector. His own home planet of Varnus was off the map, beyond view. He thought it ironic that he was probably the only person from the New Imperium to see the shape of the Galbagos Nebula from its other side. Still, it loomed behind him like a massive wall of cloud, impenetrable.

He ran a hand back through his unkempt, dark hair, fully aware that he hadn?t been taking enough