The UCAS Daemon flew through the night, heading the UCA right wing, the broad lance division, named so for their ancient broadside technique, allowing one hundred ‘big barrel’ ion cannons to face then enemy from each ship within the division. Every gun was now blazing, intersecting and passing enemy fire, the Sovereign federation was fighting well, too well. At the Daemon’s helm stood Captain Pierce. Sending orders abroad, and overseeing the battlefield from his vantage point. His position quickly became a disadvantage, there was something wrong with the scanner, an anomalous energy reading was headed straight for his ship. The captain realized that the scanner was working very well, up until the moment when the anomaly collided with his ship. Both cutting the main power, and hitting the ship with a wide spread burst of kinetic force, pushing it swiftly away from the front lines. In the chaos and the red emergency lighting, a scene from hell was painted in every corridor, in every chamber. Crew who were connected to the ships intelligence via a cybernetic neural link now lay on the floor, their rather dead look was juxtaposed against their violent tremors and jagged movements as electricity pulsed through their very flesh, giving them a twisted animation. Captain Pierce moved quickly, blocking their shuddering bodies out from his thoughts, he reached for the fully equipped escape pod. The pod was a self powered unit, containing long term life support, offensive and defensive weaponry and a pre programmed core AI. The pod fell into space, and finally all fell into black. Pierce’s world was slowly illuminated, as the curtains of his eyelids rolled back to reveal something equally as dark. He regained consciousness, slowly, like a resisting river, memories of awaking in his pod, and of the low life P.O.ST, and finally of the little man who stood in front of him while the world turned into sleep.
Now he awoke to the sound of distant machinery working furiously pricking the edge of his hearing, above him was a solitary bright light. He was strapped to a table, over the wrists, torso and knees. Turning his head revealed more darkness, more nothing.
"Where am I!", he demanded, "I am Adam Eggart Pierce, Captain of the UCAS Daemon, flagship of the Broad Lance Division, I demand release and return to my escape pod".
"You are not possible, you simply aren't" came an answering voice, cold as ice, it was the voice of the small balding man, however it was now chillingly calm. "You may be wearing the uniform of a dead soldier, and piloting an antique vessel, however I refuse to believe you are 'fresh' from what is known as the eclipse, or the final skybattle between the UCA and the Sovereign federation".
"I don't care for your beliefs, I am Adam Eggart Pierce, Captain of the UCAS Daemon, flagship of the Broad Lance Division, I demand release and return to my escape pod", there was silence.
"Yes, im sure you are, but we will just check shall we", the voice had a sneer in it now, as if the man was talking to someone lower then him, someone not quite as smart as him, "Gerb, take a sample, check it against our lovely database of the captains past". Gerb, a man as broad as he was tall, approached Pierce, who found that being horizontal was the maximum movement that his body would allow, his gears in his head kicked into a higher gear. What was the smaller man talking about, this was no time to be dealing with someone who was clearly exquisitely mad. His ship had been downed, but he needed to find an UCA outpost, find out how the battle ended, and where he could return to the front lines. Gerb reached down, and took a sample of his blood via a hyperdermic needle, no doubt to input his DNA into some sort of system.
There were clicks and electronic woops from a nearby desk, then there was silence. The particular silence of people not capable of currently finding their own tongues in order to speak. Finally a now cracking voice broke the silence with a sound that started as a choking noise, and ended in something similar to a blue whale. The bald man rushed at Pierce's table, "What is your name! Say it in full!",
"Adam Eggart Pierce, I have already spent three weeks off the frontlines, now release me, and bring me to a comminications array".
The man stared at a light coming from something Pierce couldn't quite see. He stepped away, back into Pierce's line of sight, his face was white, it looked sunken and hallowed. He turned, his eyes almost, completely white. "H..ho...How long were you in that escape pod?", Pierce took in the sentence, the mans arrogance was gone, it fell to what appeared to be fear and almost a look of respect.
"I set it to three weeks of stasis while i navigated to the nearest outpost, but i woke up off course and came here, why? What is this about?". The man wandered back to his screen and mumbled to his assistant, "Give him the antidote", before raising his broken voice. "Mr. Pierce", the mister was unexpected, and caught the captain off guard, "Come and have a look at this, Gerb is administering your antidote as we speak". Pierce felt movement flowing through his body, like sunlight flowing over the mountains and through the valleys of his physique. he raised himself, now he could look around the room properly, it was mostly bare, made of a rusting metal, beams ran openly across the roof and walls, there were a few tables made of stone, and a set of shelves with boxes stacked neatly within. There was a screen behind the table, and furthest away from the room's one door, Pierce approached it, and as he looked down, saw himself.
It was his own personal profile, it was devoid of an UCA ensignia, or any other company or official watermark, however it contained all the information one would expect to find.
Martial status: Engaged.
His precious Sylvie, the memory of her gently flowing hairhiding her face and her soft laugh was always on the fringe of his mind, after all he thought, ever soldier should have something to fight for. Rank: Captain.
His years in the UCA had been a blessing, however difficult, Pierce had been promoted again and again based on his ability to form a strategy in almost any situation, and what some called his "golden boy glow".
Age: 156 years old (Earth rotation).
And the world spun. Pierce didn't move, his brain attempting to calculate the possibilty of the display infront of him. His universe cracked open, as he recalled through the muzzy thoughts of hypothermic reawakening, his pod's co-ordinates were far out of his sector, out enough, that at drifting velocity it would have taken........one hundred and thirty years.
