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Attention! This the fifth and final installment of "The Randall Chronicles." This won't make any sense unless you start from book one, "The Sacrifice." Having said this, I am proud to present:

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The Nightmare

Part 3

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by Uberlisk

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Blurry brown clouds swirled around... Blackness rained down from the sky... Strange shapes writhed in the background, their cries, moans and wails echoing throughout the barren land. He tried to block them out. Tried to resist the pain... Failure. He had failed... again.

Travis Randall watched the gruesome scene around him in solemn detachment. It reminded him of a nightmare he had dreamed on the eve of Chau Sara's infestation. But this was no dream. This was the all-too-real aftermath of his foolish gamble. The clouds were made of dust and sand from the tiny Horadrian moon, stirred into the air by the bloody conflict. The blackness was a storm of ash and smoke, drifting down from the atomic cloud that loomed in the distance. And the writhing shapes... Well, they were the broken, tortured bodies of his enemies and comrades alike.

One of the bodies was unique. It refused to writhe in pain or scream in agony, and simply lay there, at Travis' feet, frozen in time while the world around it disintegrated into ashes. Martin Stransk, the insane, sadistic developer of the Drogan Empire's most heinous weapons, would never stir again. Upon the moment of his capture, the short little man had grabbed a Symek voltage rifle. With a swing of his arm and the pull of a trigger, Martin had ended his own life.

This should be success... Travis thought. After all, it had been the mission of his Symek Legion to hunt down Martin Stransk and end him, thereby ending the Drogan Empire's mad quest for power. This victory should have made Travis proud. It should restore his confidence in his strength as a leader. Instead, it just made him confused and afraid, and he recalled the words Martin had said before his suicide.

"There was peace, Randall. Peace that you just broke!"

A shiver crawled up Travis' metal spine. Was Martin right? Travis had planned the man's death as a way to smother the flames of the terrans' insanity, but had he been correct? Or would this just add fuel to the fire? Travis' brain felt cold, as if he had miscalculated a formula in his lab. No, this was worse. This was a miscalculated formula with the power to rip the galaxy apart. What would the terrans do, now that their leading strategist was dead?

"What have I done?" Travis whispered, looking across the burning, carnage-strewn desert around him. There was a whirring of engines behind him, and a captain Legionnaire stepped over the bits of flesh and metal to where Travis was standing.

{Sir!} The captain said with his mind. {The Eclipse has detected Drogan Warships approaching from Nidhogg. They're moving fast, so we only have a few minutes. Shall we resume combat tactics?}

Travis stared up at the smoky sky. "No..." He said. "No, Martin was right! We had peace! PEACE!! And I had to go and start a god damned WAR!!! And for WHAT!?!"

The captain looked shocked. {But sir, we have-}

"I said NO!" Travis yelled. "I've spilled enough blood today! We leave immediately! Get the wounded on board, and then we leave this blasted place!!"

"And the dead?" The Legionnaire asked aloud.

Travis scowled and inhaled deeply.

"Leave them."

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My apologies for the late posting. The last chapter of part 2 showed some shocking (and unplanned) changes in the character of Martin Stransk. Stunned by these changes, I became quite dissatisfied with my immediate plans, and rewrote these next scenes multiple times. I finally stumbled upon a method I liked, and i hope you will like it as well.

finally the wait is over
how did randall start the war?
wasn't he just exploring space and didn't stransk attack first to impress procet
oh well great addition anyways

Glad to see you finally posted, we've been waiting.

YESSSSSSSSS!!! the wait is finally over for the next part!!!!! i hope you post quicker next time uber or else..........................

He wanted to kill Martin to end the "evil" mastermind in the Drogan army, however he miscalculated the fact that the Drogan empire will see from their view that Martin was going to fight Randall to stop him from invading Drogan territory, which was not Randall's intention. But because the Drogan empire was watching the fight, they are now thinking that Randall pulled the first trigger, making Martin the hero, and Randall the villain. Eventually, sending their fleet to hunt down and kill Randall and his small band.

Edit: 4th to post to this lovely fanfiction !

on 14/6/10Quote by chowmein123

He wanted to kill Martin to end the "evil" mastermind in the Drogan army, however he miscalculated the fact that the Drogan empire will see from their view that Martin was going to fight Randall to stop him from invading Drogan territory, which was not Randall's intention. But because the Drogan empire was watching the fight, they are now thinking that Randall pulled the first trigger, making Martin the hero, and Randall the villain. Eventually, sending their fleet to hunt down and kill Randall and his small band.

Exactly! I'm pleased that someone can understand my confusing story-telling. Most of all, I'm sooooo happy that there are readers who have stuck with my story all the way to the very end! (Well, at least till the last book - You could still abandon me I suppose. lol)

Now, for another installation! As I said, this section has been written and rewritten multiple times, but I think the final version is the best so far.

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A storm of glowing embers obscured Gloria's view as she descended into the Horadrian moon's atmosphere. She let the Krokodeelah's scanners take over while she gazed at the still-glowing mushroom cloud in the distance. The yellow and orange light poured in through the starship's windows, illuminating Gloria's face and reflecting off her teary eye. The sensors indicated that the main battleground was not yet radioactive. There was still hope.

Flying behind the dark-green form of the Krokodeelah were twenty other Dominators in starship mode, painted with the generic red and black of the Drogan Army. Their long-range shock cannons were poised to for the attack, even though there were no enemy forces in sight. The ships broke through the thick layer of ash and smoke into the semi-clear sky below.

Fires and windstorms were raging across the war-torn landscape. The acres of sand surrounding the atomic cloud had been melted into an ocean of black glass. Wreckage and corpses covered the ground like towering piles of garbage. Gloria gave the order to disperse and search for surviving Drogans, and the other Dominators flew off in different directions. She stayed on course, using her good eye and all available scanners to search for a more specific target.

At last, she saw a lead. The unmistakable wreckage of a Battlecruiser's hammer-shaped command bridge. She sped her agile ship toward the burning hulk of metal, and then transformed the vessel into it's long-legged walker form to touch down on the land. She took a second Geiger-count, and then dropped through the tubular hatch, slid down the metal ladder, and landed on the charred ground.

Ashes crunched under her feet as she walked toward the smoldering wreckage; sending little clouds of black dust into the warm breeze. Gloria pulled her powerful sub machine gun from its holster and clasped it with both hands. She stepped into the darkness of the command bridge's steel skeleton, weaving between the maze of broken beams and battered plates.

She came to the remains of the command console. The array of buttons and displays were ruined, and lit by occasional bursts of sparks. The room was slightly burned, but it was less damaged than the rest of the battered wreckage. Another glimmer of hope flashed through her mind.

There was a creaking sound to her left, and Gloria noticed the door of a data vault swinging loosely from its one remaining hinge. Something silver sparkled within the dark metal cabinet. She knelt down and looked within the safe. There was a metal picture frame inside, but the flames had burned whatever image it had contained. She moved the frame aside and sifted through the cold ashes. Her hands came across a heavy object, and she pulled it out of the vault. It was Martin's sawed-off shotgun, the name 'Beatrice' lovingly carved into the stock with cursive letters. The weapon was in remarkable condition, with only a few shallow scorch marks on its wooden pump handle. The shotgun was loaded, with a large magazine of ten additional shells attached to it. Gloria holstered her SMG and lifted the shotgun into the air.

She stood and looked around the command area. The door to Martin's weapon room was open, and his HellBat armor was missing. Her eye moved from the damaged armory and to the viewport above the console. The wide panel of transparasteel had been cracked and shattered in several places, but at the center was a very unusual fracture. A smooth, circular hole around three feet in diameter had been melted through the panel.

She stepped closer to the hole, and saw that the transparasteel had been melted from the inside. This could only mean one thing. Martin had used his plasma weapons to melt the hole, and he escaped from the falling wreckage with his jet packs. It was at this instant that a glimpse of sunlight flashed through the clouds of smoke, and reflected off a shiny metal object about a hundred feet away from the console. Gloria focused on the object, and she recognized the bright red color instantly. Her heart skipped a beat, and she charged through a huge gash in the room's floor. She ran through the skeletal ruins until she reached the outside.

She jumped and ran across more smoldering piles of metal or corpses. She climbed on top of a Brute's towering carcass, avoiding the bloody spikes that covered its armored head and shoulders. She cast a quick glance around the battleground until she saw the red armor again. She jumped off the Brute and ran toward it, nearly tripping on the sand-covered corpse of a HellBat. She stepped around another dead Brute, and then she saw him.

Gloria fell clumsily down to her knees, her face in a state of anguish. Martin's neck had a gruesome gash extending up the right side of his face. His right ear was completely destroyed, and there was a ragged hole at the base of his chin. She lifted his motionless head up with her left hand, and wiped the ashes off his face with the other. She pressed her fingers to his throat, feeling for any sign of life. At first there was nothing, and then... A pulse.

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WHAAAAAA!!!!!!!!! what the crap, man, if someone shoots himself in his own face HE IS MOST LIKELY DEAD!!!! -This is a public anouncment, the zombie uprising has commenced- either that, or she is crazy and starts thinking he is alive.... which i don't think fits well with your world, uberlisk.... sigh....

Woot a new Malak is rising for Revan to pwn! ^^

on 15/6/10Quote by Mandos

WHAAAAAA!!!!!!!!! what the crap, man, if someone shoots himself in his own face HE IS MOST LIKELY DEAD!!!! -This is a public anouncment, the zombie uprising has commenced- either that, or she is crazy and starts thinking he is alive.... which i don't think fits well with your world, uberlisk.... sigh....

Quoted for the truth, no way he's alive.

So Martin's face only got his right side blown off. Does that mean his throat is still intact? Or majority of it still intact with only his right cheek and his ear gone?

on 15/6/10Quote by Necron

OMG. You are so stupid uberlisk.

Number 1: People can survie amazing things. For instance, there is the famous case of the railroad layer who had a spike blown through his head and survived. He lived for two (or something around that) more years and his death was not related to the metal spike through his head.

Number 2: The human heart can beat up to 45 minutes after death. It is sort of a reflex, kind of like how a chicken can run around with its head cut off. Even though the heart is beating the body may still be dead.

Number 3: Even if the body isn't dead that doesn't mean that the brain isn't dead. As long as the bullets missed the basic reflexes, he could still be alive, abeit in a vegitative state. And vegitative states aren't as vegatative as they seem. In a recent article (meaning this year) nuralogists discovered that people who were thought to be vegatables could respond to yes-no questions, just in their brains. The brains reacted differently to yes and no. This means that the brain could still be function.

Number 4: HE IS THE WRITER! HE GETS TO DESIDE WHAT HAPPENS BECAUSE THIS IS HIS STORY! IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW UNREALISTIC IT IS AS LONG AS IT IS A GOOD STORY! SO DON'T BE SO NEGATATIVE!

So when he shot himself he must have more or less only grazed his face. Travis, shocked by Martin's actions as well as worried about the repercussions of what has taken place assumed him to be dead without a second thought. The question is, what will Martin be like now?

@Aduck- You mentioned the guy that got a railroad spike shot into his skull. He lived for a couple years, but his personality was drastically altered. He went from friendly, sharp, and hardworking to belligerent and foul-mouthed. Not to say that Martin will necessarily undergo a similar change, just an interesting tidbit. Nice rant btw ^^

on 15/6/10Quote by Necron

OMG. You are so stupid uberlisk.

Not only am I stupid, but I'm also crude and immature!

@Aduck1: Dude, seriously! Necron is right! Don't be rude and correct him with pointless arguments. Why can't you just accept that he is a very intelligent poster that has outsmarted everyone on this forum!? Do me a favor and don't even bother criticizing his ingenious observations.

@Everyone puzzled by Martin's pulse: You are all thinking martin shot himself with some sort of bullet-shooting gun like he would regularly use. Remember, he shot himself with a Symek-built voltage rifle, a weapon that he grabbed from one of his Symek captors. Naturally, Martin is not extremely proficient with this bizarre weapon, despite his practice during the recent battle. Essentially, the voltage rifle shoots a lightning bolt that connects with nearby enemies. Its targeting is adequate at medium range, but it gets disrupted at long OR very close ranges. If you're going execute someone with their head only 6" away from the barrel, then you must switch the rifle to 'voltage pike' mode, which requires direct physical contact with the enemy. If you melee-attack an enemy while in 'voltage rifle' mode, then it is prone to distorted targeting and misfiring. If Randall had been thinking clearly he would have remembered this, but as DorkMaster pointed out, he was shocked and distraught by the horrific idea of an all-out war with the Drogan Empire.

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Gloria's heart began to race. It wasn't her hopeful imagination. She really could feel a faint pulse on Martin's scarred throat. A jolt of fearful excitement rushed through her. She ripped the small medic's bag off her belt and pulled out a large syringe wrapped in plastic. She pulled off a loose portion of the crimson armor, peeled off the plastic wrapping, and shoved the needle into a vein in Martin's shoulder. She injected the high-dosage medical stimulant into Martin's feeble circulatory system, creating an instantaneous surge of energy throughout his failing body.

Martin drew a raspy breath through his ravaged throat. Gloria held his head up, trying keep his throat open. He pried his bloody eyes open and looked up at the figure in front of him. The light from the sun and flames illuminated her face and reflected off of her golden hair. She was smiling, and there were tears in her one eye.

"Gloria......" He wheezed softly, smiling up at her. "My angel......."

"Shh..." She whispered. "You need to rest..."

"Gloria......." He wheezed again, staring into her perfect, green eye. He slowly lifted his bare arm upward, and he gently stroked her face with the back of his hand. "Let's dance, my angel.... Let's dance into the sky..............." His eyes began to flutter, and Gloria nearly panicked. "Martin?... Martin!?"

Martin's eyes closed slowly, and his hand fell to the ground. A final breath of air passed hissed out of his lungs, and his rigid body went limp. His face was still frozen in a soft smile. There was a sweet, childish quality about him now. The violent, impulsive soldier was finally at peace.

Gloria's entire body was shaking. Tears fell from her one eye and landed on Martin's burned uniform. She looked around the ravaged terrain, and her eye fell upon the jagged form of a dead legionnaire. The Symek warrior was missing its face and one of its arms. Its blank, lidless eyes stared at her from afar while its toothy jaws hung wide open. She stared into the beast's hideous face with growing hatred. She glared at the awful cyborg corpse for several minutes, remembering the face of its creator. The face of the man who had latched onto her one and only chance for love, and ripped it away from her.

The face, of Travis Randall.

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Alexandra Procet paced back and forth across her office floor, holding her left hand to her mouth and biting on her knuckles. She had just received news of the bloody battle of the Horadran system. She had just heard about Martin Stransk's injury. The squad of Karzan Dominators was due to arrive at the royal landing pads any moment now.

She didn't really know what to make of Martin's excursion to that remote, uninhabited part of the sector. The current belief was that Martin had somehow learned of the Symek invasion fleet coming in from Boraelius, and rushed to stop them without alerting the other officials.

...but Alex was not sure. Martin never did anything without asking Alexandra's permission. Although, the last time she had seen Martin, he was furiously drunk, celebrating the Drogan victory over the confederacy with the other mid-level officers. He had greeted her with his crooked grin and odd eyes, but she had no time for conversation. She had been following her elaborate plan to ruin the Terran race's new-found "order" by killing the Emperor she had put in place, Adrian Mengsk.

It should have worked fine. Adrian was alone and unarmed, while Alex was fully prepared with an array of weapons at her disposal. Unfortunately, things had not gone as planned. Somehow, Adrian had deduced her weak tolerance for passion, and kissed her on the lips. It was absolutely revolting, but it worked. Alex had dropped her last knife, and walked away in disgust. The lowliest tactics are sometimes the most effective; a fact Alex knew quite well.

This was, without a doubt, the most shameful failed operation she had ever undertaken. Worse than that time on Braxis, when the Counters, her old mercenary band, had gone to destroy a confederate city for the Sons of Korhal. One of her teammates was Travis Randall, the Angry Scotsman from Chau Sara. Travis had gone berserk on Braxis, and killed Neal Shardeaux, their own team's demolitions tech.

Alexandra could never forgive Travis for such failure, even if she had been glad to see Neal die. Admittedly, Shardeaux had been a disgusting, vile man. He had always mocked Alex for her relatively crude bomb-making skills. Alex believed it was a talent to be able to build powerful explosive devices out of the simplest civilian materials, but Shardeaux believed that anything without top-scale plastic explosives and robotic detonators was inferior garbage. Maybe if she had learned to build bombs as an educated soldier trained in a confederate academy, and not as a child assembling land mines in a prison factory, she would have been as 'professional' as Neal.

Alexandra's reflections were interrupted by a knock on the open door of her office. She looked up to see the sweet little face of her secretary, Julianne. The stocky, red haired woman with horn-rimmed glasses had been quite loyal to Alexandra, even through the stressful days of the Zerg Domination.

"Miss Procet? The Karzan officers have arrived at the infirmary. Shall I take you down?"

Alexandra nodded. Julianne could be somewhat intrusive on Alex's concentration, but she was also very professional, didn't ask a lot of questions, and was very quiet. 'Julianne' also happened to be Alexandra's middle name. Alex liked Julianne, but she still wouldn't hesitate to slit the woman's throat if it was necessary.

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Neal Shardeaux had always mocked Alex for her relatively crude bomb-making skills. Alex believed it was a talent to be able to build powerful explosive devices out of the simplest civilian materials, but Shardeaux believed that anything without top-scale plastic explosives and robotic detonators was inferior garbage.

LoL, the one thing that actually bothers Alexandra is somebody insulting her bomb-making skills. This is making me want to write a prequel about 'The Counters.'

on 15/6/10Quote by aduck1

on 15/6/10Quote by Necron

OMG. You are so stupid uberlisk.

Number 1: People can survie amazing things. For instance, there is the famous case of the railroad layer who had a spike blown through his head and survived. He lived for two (or something around that) more years and his death was not related to the metal spike through his head.Read about a guy like that he had major personality changes though

Number 2: The human heart can beat up to 45 minutes after death. It is sort of a reflex, kind of like how a chicken can run around with its head cut off. Even though the heart is beating the body may still be dead.Eyes can blink after death to which is a similar reflex so ur right

Number 3: Even if the body isn't dead that doesn't mean that the brain isn't dead. As long as the bullets missed the basic reflexes, he could still be alive, abeit in a vegitative state. And vegitative states aren't as vegatative as they seem. In a recent article (meaning this year) nuralogists discovered that people who were thought to be vegatables could respond to yes-no questions, just in their brains. The brains reacted differently to yes and no. This means that the brain could still be function.I read about a guy who was thought to be avegatable. Here he saw an heard evrything around him but since his body was useless he couldnt respond

Number 4: HE IS THE WRITER! HE GETS TO DESIDE WHAT HAPPENS BECAUSE THIS IS HIS STORY! IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW UNREALISTIC IT IS AS LONG AS IT IS A GOOD STORY! SO DON'T BE SO NEGATATIVE![b]You make a good case[/b]

Great work Uber. I can't wait to see how this turns out.

@Shogun: How could Martin's personality have gotten any worse than it already was. I doubt the brain shock would make him a better person.