Dimension

-Part 3-

Five years.

Five years ago, Carson was finally granted a glimmer of hope.

Even as a powerful corporate figurehead, he was routinely operating on worlds that had fallen into such decay they hardly counted as civilized anymore. Every day it seemed, he found himself more sickened by what humanity had become.

Five years ago, all he felt was anger. Anger at the Union for failing its people, anger at the Republic for ruling as oppressors, but most of all he felt anger at humanity as a species. He was furious. Since day one they had disturbed the balance of Carok, and while he commended those who fought against the destruction of the natural world they were far too powerless to do any real good.

Now it was a mix of emotions. He no longer blamed humanity - they were, at the end of the day, not responsible for the mistakes of their ancestors, as grievous as they may be, and the incursion of humans into Carok was an act committed out of dire necessity. Now, the burden of restoring two galaxies and opening a gateway into a third fell on humanity's shoulders, as the only dominant species left in Paragon or Carok, and Carson felt no animosity towards helping them achieve that ambitious end.

None of that changed the fact that Paragon was a dying galaxy, and Carok was only just hanging on.

Carson stared out the viewport of Tempest. A dozen meters in front of him was the marine frigate that would assault Aurora Flare. Four teams of twenty marines were about to sell their lives.

A dozen meters to the right of the frigate was a massive warship, a Clonn-class holographically projected by a dozen networked holodrive generators welded to the frame of a much smaller Ocaris-class heavy cruiser. They would provide the "distraction." Not that a Clonn-class was particularly dangerous to a puddlejumper, but with any luck, the marine frigate would be given the chance to slip through.

The whole operation was projected to take an hour.

"Thirty seconds to jump," the operation master reported.

Five years ago, Grand Admiral Kuznetsov's shuttle had blasted off the deck of Tempest's hangar, leaving the schematics of the Aurora Flare behind. An hour ago, he had transmitted the fire control recognition codes through a secure channel.

Five years ago, Carson was given a spark of hope.

Now, it was up to him to light the torch.