The Emperor's Escape by James Ahlschwede
 
     The porcelain white galactic cruiser eclipsed the rusty red planet as it turned to 
fire on the small unmanned craft that crawled away in escape at barely 2 times the speed 
of light. The DCS Conqueror slowly began to match the speed of its imperial prey; 
although it could eventually move at up to 50 times the speed of light, it was slow in 
acceleration and in maneuvering. This was no real boon for the prey, however, the slow 
speed of the escaping hydrogen mining ship meant that the Conqueror could take all the 
time it wanted maneuvering and never be unable to catch up. Commander Krey sent a 
message to the people’s representative on Rispin Prime, the Emperor’s destruction, and 
the death of tyranny was imminent. 
 

     Emperor Constantine, Version 127.2, rubbed the burn marks on his arm- he’d not 
escaped without difficulty. As the Conqueror slowly began to bear down his small escape 
craft,  he regained his composure and plugged the ship’s interface into his robotic 
equivalent of an eye. He was instantly relieved as he set his tiny craft on a collision 
course with the star that brought life to the Olbreen system. 
 

     “He’s gone mad.”, said second in command Winchill as he confirmed that the 
Emperor had adjusted course to collide with the Olbreen sun. 
 

     “Don’t anthropomorphise,” insisted Commander Krey,” he’s malfunctioned. It 
doesn’t matter, we’ll chase him into the star if we have to. Set course to match.” His men 
followed their orders and the pursuit continued. The blasts from the main guns of the 
Conqueror continued to miss by a wide margin as the tiny ship stayed outside of range at 
which it could be easily vaporized. 
 

     The Emperor brought his ship to a sudden stop at the edge of the star’s corona 
and quickly turned about so he could counter the effects of massive gravity threatening to 
pull his ship to a solar demise. As his ship’s sensors indicated he was in firing range of 
the Conqueror’s guns he dumped his cargo and, now unencumbered, rocketed back 
towards the Conqueror and out of the solar system at 35 times the speed of light. 

     Just as Winchill’s sensor reading began to register that Emperor’s ship was 
headed back towards them, the super compression chamber that had held the hydrogen 
miner’s contents (roughly the same amount of hydrogen already contained in the star) 
released its contents. It was as the Conqueror was turning to peruse the Emperor that the 
Olbreen sun quickly went supernova, destroying the Conqueror and killing the 40 billion 
sentient citizens of the system. 

     The Emperor set a course to meet up with his forces in the Rark system; perhaps 
now he could restore peace to the universe.  

 
Issue 9
The Archive
[Issue 9
[Archive]
 

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