Vigilant

[Rik Idannian]

Deep in uninhabited space, lightyears from any star system, something...

Someone...

Awoke

[Rik Idannian]

The Pellaeon class star destroyer had seen better days. All systems had been shut down and they had been shut down in the middle of nowhere. Isolated, hidden, and silent. The destroyer called Vigilant, quiet as a tomb, was not a tomb. It was more akin to a garden in winter. Or a storehouse full of seeds. Or… maybe it was something quite different.

In the heart of the sleeping vessel it’s master woke.

The chamber was sparse yet spacious for a warship. Its walls were lined with slabs of stone with armored figures set in relief and in the center of the room, above a raised dais, sat the Emperor.

His body was emaciated, his hair long and white. It floated upward in the zero g as he sat cross-legged on thin air. He seemed a dead man. A floating corpse in the wreck of his flagship. But, when he, at last, opened his eyes one could see that all that was keeping this man alive was the force of his will and stubborn immovability of this individual. And the Force. Such a connection that had not been seen for hundreds of years. His eyes were as vibrant as lightsabers. His gaze was piercing to the uttermost. This man was not only powerful, but discerning, and definitely should not still be alive. But alive he was. For a single purpose.

The Glory and Perseverance of the Fel Empire.

[Rik Idannian]

The Emporer reached out his hand. The Force surged to his will. On the wall facing him, control pannels lit up like tiny stars in the blackness. Two of the armored figures, one on each side of the chamber's only door started to glow. First red, then orange and yellow, and continuing on to a blinding white. The two figures stepped forward a single step, now free from the freezing embrace of the carbonite, and knelt on bended knee heads bowed and fists to hearts.

Hail Emperor!

The corpse of a being before them did not deign to reply, either to his knight's loyalty and devotion or to the newly restored artificial gravity. Beneath the knights' knees they could feel the ship's reactor begin to hum once more.

Knights Errant. The Emperor wheezed. His once rich basso was only a fraction of what it was once to the hearer but it carried no less weight or impact on the soul. The Emperor's will and power stuck his knights like a hammer causing their crimson armor to rattle and knees to quake though his voice was barely louder than a whisper.

It is time. After all these long years. I have found him! Go. Bring him to me. Bring me this Rik Idannian. Bring me my Heir.

Hail Emperor!

[Rik Idannian]

Claxons droned and red lights flashed as to two armored knights-errant marched down the corridors of the steadily awakening flagship. The hallways were lined with statues. Each figure wore a visage of grim determination almost as if their last conscious thought were of loyalty and devotion to a cause far higher and grander than their own lives or personal desires. Each form began to glow as the knights passed, awakening to their master's call. Gunnery teams, bridge crews, pilots, marines, engineers, infantry, logistics personnel, gally cooks, and more woke to the will of their Emperor. Still, the knights-errant marched on. Their destination? The Imperial Raider Corvette thrumming to life in the main hangar.

[Rik Idannian]

Figures in crimson armor boarded the corvette. One tall and lean, the other somewhat shorter but far more muscular. The tall one was grey and scarred from numerous battles. The shorter one was fair-haired with green eyes but those green eyes held far more depth than his youthful face told. This one had seen much, and suffered much over his short life. They were both grim-faced men of action willing to lay down their lives for their Emperor. The tall one gipped a peculiar crystalline cube in his armored hand and as they entered the bridge the crew stiffened to attention, honoring the Emperor’s Knights-Errant.

Helm. Said the older as he slammed the cube on the navigation console. Take us out. And plot a course using the data from this holocron.

Aye, sir. The helmsman replied.

Outside Vigilant, a jet black vessel could be seen issuing forth from its belly. It quickly angled toward the correct vector and disappeared into hyperspace with a thunderous boom