Begin Again In Marvel

POV Commander Talia

STC: "Project defense shields, fuel systems, engines all systems accounted for."

(AN: STC stands for Space Traffic Control. )

Patrol Ship: "Roger that."

Talia: "Has everything passed inspections?"

Salenic: "Yes ma'am. The most recent patrol has returned and is sending their report now."

Talia: "Put in on my screen."

I read over the report, and we did not learn much. We had been hearing rumors of a possible threat that the Kree were preparing for. The enemy they were supposedly preparing for was in our direction.

'I keep telling the senate that it isn't a Kree trick. There is something out there I know it.'

Once I go over the report I file it away and focus back on making sure the space station is prepared for battle should it come to the Varn System. Captain Salenic gets my attention.

Salenic: "Ma'am the troops have been on near-constant alert. They are becoming restless and want to stop the constant drills. The most recent report clearly shows that there is nothing out there."

Talia: "The fact that we haven't seen anything is what worries me. My contacts have confirmed the Kree Empire is nervous. They aren't trying to trick us. Something is out there. And my gut is telling me that something bad will happen soon. My gut has never been wrong. You should know the value of gut instinct for a spacer."

Salenic: "Yes ma'am I do. But the men are..."

Talia: "Let them complain. But I will not lower our guards! That is final!"

Salenic: "Yes, Ma'am!"

Suddenly an alert goes off.

STC: "Radars picking up large unknown objects."

Talia: "All personnel, man your battle stations!"

STC: "Enemy ships approaching! Commencing takeoff."

Talia: "Get me the numbers! How many are we facing?"

STC: "It's over 400 ships mostly of battleship size! We are also picking up a massive contact in the rear."

Talia: "Send a distress signal! We need reinforcement."

Salenic: "We are being jammed! We can't get any signals out!"

Talia: "Damn it. Then we will hold the line to allow the civilians to get to their bunkers. Launch all our ground forces."

STC: "We have lost the mobile defense cannons!"

Talia: "All ships are to hold off the enemy for as long as they can. Protect your families and the Constitution of Zeth. We will never fall to these invaders!"

I listen to the battle comm and try to coordinate as best as we can but we were outnumbered badly and losing ships fast. One of our battleships blew up.

Fighter: "We're outnumbered! I need back... ARGH!"

We lose another fighter then the thing in the backline appears.

STC: "The readings are off the scale what is that thing!"

I push aside the operator and scream into the comms.

Talia: "Everyone destroys that vessel at all costs. If we fail the planet will fall immediately!"

Salenic: "Do you know what that is?"

Talia: "No but my instincts are screaming at me to run."

The vessel opens up and inside is a massive laser cannon. Everyone can guess what its target is and we fight even more desperately. One of our fighters manages to get close to it but they have no weapons left. They decide to crash into the main cannon hoping to disable it.

Salenic: "It's still... operational."

Talia: "Get to the escape craft."

Salenic: "What about you?"

Talia: "I will go down with my ship. They will suffer greatly if they want to get passed me. You must go warn the Senate. They must know that we are under attack."

Salenic: "Commander..."

Talia: "GO! That is an ORDER!"

The station shakes from a direct hit by the enemy's missiles. This makes Salenic wake up and start running to the escape craft.

'Godspeed Salenic.'

I take control of the station and activate its main thrusters. I knew the mass of the station would be enough to survive a lot of punishment before they could destroy it. The only hope for Salenic or the planet was if I could damage or destroy that superweapon.

System: "Hull integrity at 83% and falling suggested action is the evacuation of the station."

Talia: "I don't care! Put everything this station has into the engines. Set the reactor to blow. If I am going down I will take as many enemy's into the void with me!"

System: "Understood commander. This station will fulfill your last command."

The station shook as it took more and more fire. The enemy seemed to have realized what I was doing and was trying to stop me.

System: "Hull integrity at 41%. Time to target location, 31 seconds. Estimated probability of success 13%."

A massive explosion shook the station as we lost an engine. I was thrown from the command chair and I hit my head. My ears were ringing but I vaguely heard another system alert.

System: "STATIC... Override... Hostile... Error... Warning..."

I crawled to the screen and saw that someone was hacking the system to slow it down. I realized I failed and I activated the manual override to detonate the station now. We were right in the middle of the enemy formation.

Talia: "For the Republic!"

BOOOOOOOOOOOM

POV ???

The reactors blew up and many of our vessels were destroyed with shrapnel shooting everywhere. I checked the condition of the Cracker and found it to be functional.

'It does now decrease the likelihood of the weapon firing without error to 72.8%. That will do. This is merely a test nothing more. I must refine my strategy. The organics resisted far more than predicted. The resistance increased by 88% once the Cracker was shown. They defended the planet desperately. Fascinating. Now I must eliminate the survivors before testing the weapon. No loose ends. I am not ready for full-blown conflict yet.'

I move the ships into a pursuit-orientated formation. I used the scanners to find and eliminate all remaining lifeforms. Once that was done I got the Cracker into position and began the charging sequence. Once done I fired the weapon.

[Image Here]

The planet shattered and I recorded the data and made sure nothing survived the attack.

POV Rio

As I was walking through my house I suddenly felt a massive wave of terror and anguish. It was strong enough to cause me to nearly fall over. I only staggered but then the wave went silent.

Gardevoir: "Rio are you alright?! Should I get Dr. Tsunade?"

Rio: "I am fine I just felt a massive scream in the Force as if billions of lives screamed out in terror and then were suddenly silenced. I fear something horrible has happened. Call everyone for an emergency meeting."

I recieved a call from Qui Gon. I quickly answered it. Gardevoir meanwhile ran to contact everyone.

Jinn: "Rio did you feel that?"

Rio: "Yes, something terrible has happened. I am calling an emergency meeting. We need to find out what happened. Did you feel where it came from?"

Jinn: "I am afraid not. But perhaps if we all combine our focus in a meditation we might be able to pinpoint where the wave came from."

Rio: "Then we will do that. Gather in the new temple we shall see what we can discern."

I get up from the wall and let Gardevoir know so she can inform everyone else. I then teleport to the temple. We made it on Gaia and it was made to reflect our connection to nature. Once I arrived I went to the meditation chambers. We had a rule to never teleport around the Meditation Chambers due to the sacred and peaceful environment it has. It seemed I was one of the first to arrive.

20 Minutes Later...

Rio: "Thank you all for coming. Now let us begin right away."

Ima-Gun Di, Shaak Ti, Ventress, Qui-Gon Jinn, and I all sat crosslegged with our backs to each other. We then entered a deep trance trying to feel where the pulse came from. The Palantir can find anything but it needed a general area to look in. I can't just ask it to search the entire universe at once. Entire star systems easily. A galaxy it would struggle with. An entire universe would take forever and would likely get us erroneous results. Thus the meditation.

A Few Hours Later...

Rio: "It's no use. I couldn't trace where it came from. Anyone else learn anything."

Ventress: "I might have felt a tiny trace out east but I can't be sure."

Everyone else shook their heads indicating that they didn't sense anything.

Rio: "Well East is better than nothing. Even if the only heavily populated Galaxies are to our East. But it's a start."

I teleport us all to the meeting I called. It seemed we were the last to arrive.

Rio: "So let me explain why I called you here."

One Explanation Later...

Seto: "That sounds exactly like what Obi-Wan described in A New Hope. Perhaps a planet blew up?"

Lex: "That could be the case but what really matters is what kind. Man-Made or Natural."

Faraday: "From what I have seen of the current technological level of this Universe I find it highly unlikely a planet-destroying weapon could have been made without anyone's knowledge. The logistics alone would make it obvious."

Tails: "And the power needed to fuel such a weapon would be hard to hide let alone make."

Yularen: "There hasn't been anything even vaguely related to such a thing even spoken about. No rumors or gossip. Nothing. Even the Empire at its height couldn't hide the Death Star completely. During my time in the ISB, I found many individuals who found the Death Star in one way or another. The resources, time, and energy that go into making such a weapon would be nearly impossible to hide."

Thrawn: "But there have been rumors of the Kree fearing an attack from their North. Perhaps this could be related."

Yularen: "While my network is not as expansive as I would like I do have some info on the area. To the North of the Kree is a small nation known as the United Nations of Fern. They are a democratic nation that is led by a President who is the head of a Senate. They are a heavily militarized nation that the Kree has made several attempts at conquering. The Nova Empire is guaranteeing UNF's independence. In recent years the Kree and UNF have been improving their relations. Then the Kree began moving a sizeable portion of their navy to the border North which caused relations to sour. Beyond that, I don't know much more. Not even the President's name."

Rio: "Do you think either of them has the capabilities to make a Planet Destroyer?"

Yularen: "The Kree could definitely do so but we would know about it not just because we are monitoring their comms but because the Nova would discover it and announce it to the Universe. As for the UNF. I find it unlikely. From what I understand they are not that rich nor do they seem to have the will to make such a weapon. Making such a weapon would cause them to become politically isolated. Not to mention getting a senate to not only agree to make such a weapon but also keep it secret is just not feasible. The more that know the secret the more likely someone will make a slip. A slip that would at least make rumors."

Rio: "I will use the Palantir to search all those Galaxies to our East. It may take a while but we should hopefully learn something. In the meantime use everything you can to learn anything about a planet's disappearance or destruction. It would be most likely a populated world but I imagine they would test it on uninhabited worlds first. Which will leave a trail. Someone has to know something. Find it."

With that final word, the meeting ends and we go our separate ways to do what we can.

-------------------

Authors Note:

This chapter is inspired by the Stellaris: Apocalypse - Release Date / Story Trailer. As for who the mysterious enemy is. Well, you will have to wait and find out. I did leave a few hints here and there. Just know even if you guess it will likely be wrong as I altered the enemy from their original design. But with a logical reason behind the change. Also to further expand on the Palantir. It can find anything but think of it as a computer. It can process a large amount of data. Like every atom of a star system to find what you want but the more area it has to search the more it struggles. Like running Minecraft normally versus running it with 8k Shaders. One can be run by most computers and the other will blow up your house for attempting to run it on anything short of a supercomputer. It can also work better the more Rio knows about what he is looking for. Like rough sizes, names, powers, and areas it might be. If he is looking for something but isn't certain what it is or where it is the Palantir would struggle to give good results. Until next time Ciao.