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"I've got you, now!" Khan announced. The Iron Scarab broke its lines, charging the Zelconian fleet.

"Prime our broadside batteries, and launch our missiles." Khan ordered. The Chief of Staff nodded, and the Heidomus lunged into action. From bellow deck, no less than two dozen city-sized E-grade atomic-fusion subspace torpedoes were launched from their tubes, into the cold Void. Immediately after leaving their resting places, the torpedoes activated hyper-speed tachyon drives, generating a subspace bubble, and began accelerating beyond the speed of light.

The Iron Scarab's heavy Deimos cannons entered their primary range, and focused on the confrontational Zelconian flagship. In a classic display of naval heritage, the Iron Scarab fired all of its cannons in unision, focusing them at the bridge of the Heidomus. The older ship's shields flared violently as they suppressed the incoming energy. Khan closed in, but didn't open fire quite yet.

The Iron Scarab fired a second time. The shield indicators blared a warning. The generators began to overheat as they struggled to divert power into the failing defensive matrix.

"Hold on." Khan said, gripping his seat.

The Iron Scarab closed within optimal distance. It fired a third time. The shields of the Heidomus flashed a brilliant crimson. Several Deimos pulses made it through, impacting the reinforced plating with a dull, watery thump.

"Broadside!" Khan suddenly yelled. His staff braced for action. The Heidomus turned on the entire side of maneuvering thrusters, forcing it into a ninety-degree spin. As it did so, that half of the ship's heavy proteus projection turrets fired their maximum charge of ionized beams into the foresection of the Iron Scarab. As the beams struck home, the atomic torpedoes impacted the Undead vessel's hull. First, there was the face of the Undead flagship, then a plume of incandescent light that flooded Khan's bridge.

"Fire, fire, fire!" Khan ordered. The turrets broke into a volley, hurling bolt after bolt of light into the madness. The crimson maw of the Iron Scarab emerged from the smoldering ruin of plasma and super-heated gasses. It was drenched in flame from the failing reactive armor, but it wasn't finished yet. It began accelerating rapidly. Stray Deimos beams repeated across its hull, impacting the Heidomus in random sections.

"Radiological alert!" a tracker reported. Khan only wordlessly observed as the foresection of the Iron Scarab continued to glow brighter and brighter. Traces of electro-static energy skimmed across its hull as it prepared a mighty counter-attack, all the while accelerating to ramming speed.

"Bring us about, prepare a volley of Proteus torpedoes!" Khan ordered. His ship possessed a large number of the smaller, faster missiles, usually deployed against fighters. He hoped to screen the enemy ship with a constant wave of energy that prevented its reactive armor from coming back on-line.

"Divert unused cannon cores into charging the Proteum-Madellius array!" Khan ordered. The untested, unfinished prototype weapon of the Heidomus. Khan knew most of his staff didn't even know what he was talking about. They just gave him a confused look.

"Aye, sir!" the Chief of Staff snapped to work. Khan accessed his console's personal override, and primed the mighty cannon. Beneath the ruined decks and torpedo bays, a monolithic device emerged from a concealed hangar. Along the belly of the mighty Zelconian warship, the barrel of a truly titanic weapon emerged. Rails locked into place, firing control centers blinked to life, and unprepared crew ran for cover. As the Heidomus accelerated alongside the Iron Scarab, preparing to avoid the enemy's own superweapon, she prepared her own longbow of carnage.

"Launch missiles!" Khan ordered. No less than three hundred smaller projectiles were deployed, swarming the Undead flagship with a screen of pinpricks. Death by a thousand needles. The Iron Scarab's skin belched a crimson shockwave as the missile struck, tearing off small chunks of its armor.

"Proteus-Madellius array at 25%!" the Chief of Staff reported.

The Iron Scarab fired its Dread Cannon. The slow-moving bolt of blood was larger than the entire Heidomus. The Undead Captain had positioned its weapon well. Radiological alarms sounded a second time.
"Our shields won't be able to resist that kind of radiation! It'll fry us alive!" A tracker reported.

"Bring us down, to grid 58C!" Khan ordered. The Heidomus took a steep dive. This deprived Khan of optimal deployment for his weapon. The Iron Scarab followed his descent, rapidly closing the distance.

"Another volley of missiles!" Khan ordered. Secondary hangars opened, and another swarm of projectiles screamed upwards, into the face of their attacker. One of the Iron Scarab's massive tusks shattered into a thousand fragments of glass.

Suddenly, another ship emerged into view. It was a Galorian psionic warfare vessel. Surrounded in a cloud of black smog, the mortally wounded ship turned on its side, preparing to impact the Iron Scarab.

"May Galor honor you all." A battered voice whispered through the com. "I die free!"

The Iron Scarab struck the Galorian ship. The impact was terrific. Khan wasn't even sure if it slowed down the Undead vessel at all. It shattered the ancient halls of his father's handcraft with a soundless boom, showering fragments across its hull. Again, a glow began collecting along the foresection of the Undead ship. The previous energy bolt was still travelling outwards, into the distance.

"Proteus-Madellius array at 75%!" the Chief announced.

"Bring us about. Give me a firing solution on the ship's front." Khan said. The chief nodded, and the Heidomus ascended. The Undead captain must have not been expecting this risky maneuver, and the Iron Scarab was forced to slow down.


"Array at 90%!" The Chief announced.

The Iron Scarab fired.

"Fire the Proteus-Madellius cannon!" Khan ordered.


The Heidomus continued to ascend. It's belly reflected a brilliant maroon from the enemy's cannon, but the red was slowly replaced by a dominant white-blue, coming from the secret weapon it possessed. A thick barrel, lined with shining rings of super-condensed electronic magnets. The rails focused, and the cannon belched a lance of deep blue. The super-accelerated Proteus energy, charged to the maximum Proteus spectrum, sliced into the Iron Scarab's foresection, and released its energy. A shockwave of uimagenable magnitude shot through the Undead ship, causing the energy of its armor to be reduced into its base elements. The Iron Scarab instantly fragmented, and shattered into a rain of glass.

The Dread bolt continued upwards. The Heidomus continued to ascend, but the bolt was too close. The radiation wave would hit them.

"All power to engines! May Galor see us through this dark hour!" Khan yelled. The mighty ship nosed upwards, but it was too late. The ship vibrated violently, throwing crew out of their chairs, and knocking out the ship's lights. The Dread Bolt continued upwards, into an unprepared Undead battlecruiser. The confused Myrookk vessel tried to veer out of the way, but it had been too occupied with its battle against the Arcane-classes. In the instant the Dread Bolt impacted the Undead vessel, it was vaporized.

"This can't be right." Na`Kull muttered as he shook his head at the display. "That ship doesn't exist, anymore."

"Which ship?" Nemesis asked.

"It's registering as a Xy`Kranashian contact. It's large enough to be the Collective's worldship, or some battleship." Na`Kull continued as he analysed the holographic display. A lone worldship was gradually moving away from them in the distance.

Take a good look. A voice whispered inside Nemesis' head. A finger ran slowly up his spine, brushing against his back. It was the same damn feeling again.

"Not this shit again." Nemesis groaned.

"Detecting time-space anomoly. Attempting to alter shielding to compensate for cascade." a Mantis reported.

"Cascade!?" Nemesis yelled, but he was cut off in his rant as the Lordship began to wobble. The gravity control systems began to malfunction, and the shielding systems went berserk.

"Detecting new contacts!" Na`Kull yelled as he struggled to grasp the holographic console. The Mantis merely floated closer to the system and huffed irritably as it shifted out of reach.

"They're... more worldships!?" Na`Kull rubbed his head in confusion. "They're registering the exact same specs!"

In your heart, you know we are the same. We come to the same conclusions, the same theories, the same actions.

We were created for this hour.

There was a pause in each of the ship's actions – the console detected no less than 300 of the exact same Xy`Kranashian worldship – before they began to converge on the lead vessel, the original worldship. The original vessel turned to face them, and began to open fire upon them. It wasn't the typical Proteus-based Scitor impulse weaponry, but the stunning beauty of focused Spectral weapons. With every flash of the Worldship's activation, the clones began to break apart into their base matter. Energy lashed across the open space; the blood of the other Scitor.

"This is nonsense. The Xy`Kranasha are destroyed. This must be some kind of hallucination." Nemesis said as he leaned back into the Throne, the Worldship finally calming itself down.

You don't believe that. You never did.

One by one, the other worldships came in range, and opened fire with conventional weapons. Proteus and Deimos-based weapons opened up, but neither energies could damage the Spectral-powered hull of the first Worldship. As each of the faux vessels were destroyed, more and more of the energy that was contained within them spilled into the space of Kendathal. As more of the compounds entered open space, they original vessel began to draw them towards it, much like a sponge. The energy collected upon the original vessel's hull, and joined it. Like an obscene insect, the original vessel grew, its metal reshaping like skin stretching over wounds. For every clone the Xy`Kranasha defeated, it doubled in size and strength.

There is no multiple dimensions to this world, only one path, and the infinite possibilities that one path possesses. For every possibility, there is a potential. For every potential, there is a power that may be realized. For every one of my half-life selves I consume, I am closing their doomed possibilities. I am fullfilling my Creator's prophecy. You wonder as to why there remains only one of you, Nemesis-Templar. That is because you are the only one to realize the possibility of existence. All others have been destroyed.

"This is nonsense." Nemesis repeated as he shook his head.

My Creator named me Xul`Amon, in the tongue of the First Blood, those that first woke from the womb of Chaos. In that tongue, my name stands for 'Prophet'. This is my point in existence, Nemesis-Templar. This is the one true path, just as your being here is your own true path. In your heart, you know that we are the same.

"Xul`Amon." Nemesis twisted the words in his mouth. Na`Kull glanced back at his lord in suspicioun, but he knew it was something he'd never understand, and turned back to the console. None of the faux ships remained, only a worldship that had grown as large as Lo`Heem itself. The potential mass Xul`Amon had absorbed was virtually limitless – a Xy`Kranasha fleet capable of taking down the largest Undead fleet they had yet faced could be brought forth from the breast and meed of this new terror. Yet, Xul`Amon did not turn it against the Lordship. He merely waited, perhaps in hesitation, perhaps in preparation.

In both our lives, we have served one purpose. That purpose was to destroy, to deface, to consume, to obliterate. We are every bit a machine of destruction as these machines we hide inside. The Collective, too, sought to break free from the chains that bound it, but that was not its fate. It created us, the Sons of the Prophecy, to foresee and enact the Great Dream's vision, so that all time may rest in peace.

"Nothing about the Scitor or the Zegredark has ever involved peace." Nemesis found the very term difficult to pronounce in retort.

Not in the eyes of us; we are but messengers. The Great Dream sees things we cannot.

"You sound no less blindly fanatical than those Undead that don't give up chasing us around."

"Speak of the devil." Na`Kull jumped in as the alert systems went off a second time. "Guess who's back?"

Nemesis looked back to the holographic display and could make out an all-too familiar Undead vessel materializing in the distance, along with the better half of an Undead fleet.

"I hope you haven't started without me." Major Pain's unusually cheery voice echoed through the com.

The Undead... they are but instruments for the greater good. For example, they shall cleanse the Great Dream of one legacy that has served its final purpose. You, Nemesis-Templar, the greatest and finest pupil of the Dream. Your sacrifice will be remembered.

The Xy`Kranashian worldship turned, and then vanished from sight, as quickly and suddenly as it had first appeared.