This is not yet complete, as it is only on part two. I will begin to unfold more of the plot about how my alliance came to be over the next few weeks, as I plan to finish it sometime then. Note that it is originally formatted for ms word.
Comments good or bad are appreciated
Origins of The Satanic Ones
Prologue: Another “Ancient Commander” “Captain, our long range scanners are showing an abundance of activity four million miles off, with a relative bearing of 4.02, 1.96, 0.04. We have yet to run further scans, but the vessel appears to be heading our way under full power, and we’ve detected energy spikes that may be weapons undergoing charging. What are your orders sir?” Chief engineer Orbion asked their captain, who had just stepped onto the bridge after hearing the pre-warning alarm systems going off.
The captain, who was dead tired from almost three days of constant battle aboard the Mortiferus Ferum, looked about the command deck. He had just gotten back to his quarters, and was preparing for a nice nap in his cot before the warning systems had gone off. Normally, considering the fact he had gotten next to no sleep in the past 72 hours, he would have asked on of the ships other worthy crewmen to take over. He was just about to, however, when he had noticed the size of the vessel approaching.
Although only a thousandth the size of the large warship he commanded, the enemy vessel was giving off impossible amounts of energy; and through the long range telescopes he had quickly figured out what it was. The small spherical craft that was approaching them was one of the Varaxian “Swallowers” or so the crewmen had called it. These vessels were thought to have all been destroyed in the battle for the system of Metatheron seven, and the battle had been so fierce nothing was left when the recon vessels had arrived, not even the star itself.
Moving towards his command chair, Captain John quickly skimmed through the various input data that was being transmitted to his neural processor. Not having the time to sort through the information properly, he instead turned to his chief engineer.
“How much longer till the blasted vessel is within attack range?” he asked.
“Well sir, we cant get a proper scan of the engines due to the mass fluctuation fields surrounding the vessel, but based upon its current trajectory and speed it should be within our weapon range in twenty seven minutes, and it will be capable of counterattack within approximately forty five minutes, although we cant be certain due to the nature of the enemy.”
Turning to the rest of his crew, John raised his voice and said: “well what the hell are you waiting for? I want a full alert and fighters scrambled ASAP. Shunt the power from the engines and shielding to our weapons, and take whatever available auxiliary energy and use it to charge the warp coils.”
“Sir, even with the additional energy we can’t make another jump for at least an hour; the coils are simply too hot.” An officer said.
The captain silently swore under his breath, and sat down in his command chair and activated the three dimensional tactical map that would float just five feet away.
“Captain, are you sure it’s wise to shunt the power from the shields? We have reports of twelve low intensity laser cannons vessels surface.”
“The armour plating should be able to hold against that for a few minutes, And if we can sacrifice a bit of power then start charging the defense plating; as it may buy us another four or five minutes.”
“Captain! Telescopic rangefinders have located the ships command CPU, and fighters are being dispatched to destroy it as we speak.” It was his chief engineer again.
Cheers went up around the bridge, for this was good news indeed. If the fully robotic vessels self contained processor could be destroyed, then the entire enemy ship would undergo shutdown. This was greatly advantageous to completely destroy6ing the vessel, if that was even possible. Capturing a Varaxian “Swallower” would be a massive technological leap, as the technology that went into the construction of such a ship was puzzling beyond all belief.
The battle commander, Forsith spoke up. “Sir, the ship is within weapon range, what’s our target?”
“Try getting a lock on the computing core, and if that fails then order your men to go in manual and use the lenses to target it. Remember though, our fighters our out there and I want this thing in our hanger with minimal losses.”
“Captain,” It was DeiKobol; Standing over at one of the many control counsels scattered about the bridge. “The target has started firing, and we have a 10 percent armour loss on the engine plating. I am reading weapon charging signatures all along the vessel; it appears it may contain more lasers than we initially estimated.”
“See if the fighters can destroy some of the laser stations as they approach the main processor. Tell the fighter squad leader to dispatch a group targeting the weapon power conduits; but warn him not to breach the vessels outer shell, only to destroy the systems that aren’t keeping it stabilized.” John said, and wearily turned to Orbion again.
“What was it these bloody things do again?”
“They contain miniature black holes, which they are supposed to ‘sling’ at any targets within a range of roughly 5 million miles, and to devastating effect. The micro singularities are completely unstoppable, and they barely have to move to rip a massive gaping hole through anything, even the new anti-beam charged armour that they’re placing on the navy’s most prized ships.”
Just as he finished speaking, John watched a large flash appear on the main battle screen, and felt the entire ship shudder as they were hit by a set of heavy beam laser’s. He could see thousands of warnings popping up in his neural computer, which projected images onto his eye.
“Report!” He half screamed as the ship was hit by yet another blast and sparks flew from the power conduits built into the walls.
“They hit us with a series of super lasers, and returning data indicates that we’ve lost jump coils one through eight, and two of our backup reactors have been destroyed. Another hit like that and the primary cores are gone, along with the rest of the ship!”
“Are the remaining two coils functional? What about engines?” He asked.
“We’ve lost power to engine three, and there’s no way we can jump on two coils sir, not unless you want to leave half the ship behind. There’s also a twenty-three percent power drain across all systems, and the backup computers are not responding to commands.” DeiKobol informed him.
“Smaller lasers opening fire!” Someone screamed, seconds before the holo-projector in front of the captain exploded, hurling sparks and bits of metal flying towards the captain.
Where are our d**n fighters? John asked himself before he was knocked into unconsciousness.
* * *
“Affirmative command, I shall proceed to the target point immediately.” Blackranger spoke into his combat mike as he checked his squadrons positioning on the heads up display built into his fighters screen. Glancing out of the shielded glass windows that surrounded him, he looked out at the fast approaching spherical vessel and switched his com frequency over to the command channel.
“Phantoms, you and Gamma are going to be attacking the power conduits feeding one of the main laser cannons. Command has uploaded a rough map of the target; you should be able to locate and destroy the primary energy conduit. Remember not to breach the inner casing, if that happens were all dead. Alpha and Beta, fall in with me”
He watched as status lights flashed green on his HUD, and glanced to his right to see Gamma squadron’s engines flare up as they accelerated towards the lower section of the enemy vessel. Just at that moment a large white beam erupted from one of the titanic laser stations that dotted the vessel, and Blackranger could barely see, even with the auto polarization of the shielded glass.
“ETA with the target is thirty seconds!” It was one of Beta squadron’s pilots speaking over the com channel.
“Everybody full power to engines! We have to get to the CPU housing and fire the fusion missiles.” He ordered over the com channel, switching laser power over to his engines.
Better charge my shields just to be safe, Blackranger thought to himself. His fighter was the only one equipped with a shielding device, and he had taken special care to install it properly so that power use was minimized. He had also stolen a specialized energy core off of the black market back on the Red Moon VII colony that they had been docked at for three days before they were called off to patrol the galactic rim.
The core was designed around a manufactured neutron star, one that had been valued at something trillion credits. It was enough to easily power every system on his heavily customized fighter, although the weight of the things was ridiculous. The entire core, casing included, was roughly the size of a large basketball, and weighed in at almost four million tons. The only way for him to compensate for this was to “borrow” a few pounds of antigravity plating and charge them with 83% of the total available power. This meant that when inside the hanger the ship would have trouble running all systems at half power, although in space he could overcharge everything and only have to worry about heating.
“Commander, there’s some sort of shield surrounding the vessel; everything we throw at it just disappears!” One of his men screamed before getting torn apart by a plasma bolt.
Blackranger narrowly avoided suffering from the same fate by banking hard to the left, and he could see his shield levels drop slightly as another of the bluish white globs hurled past his fighter.
“Deploy the scatter drones! It’s the only way to get through the selective shielding!”
Coming back around from his turn, he forced his engines to 400% power and at the same time fired the decoy missiles into the shield, causing the enemy craft to throw up a miniature black hole shield.
Knowing he had only a few seconds before the shield would be ready again he pushed his engines even farther; coming around at near top speed heading straight for the spherical surface of the vessel broken by small plasma cannons and various power cables. Sparing some energy he fired his own plasma cannons, which quickly burned holes through the silvery gray armour coating one of the enemy turrets. After the armour burned away he fired one of his rail gun rounds and watched as the turret blew apart from the ruptured ammunition tanks within it.
After he had flown safely past the shield he lowered his engine power to 80%, allowing them to cool. After taking a quick count of the remaining active fighters he sent the order to proceed over the com channel and watched as lights blinked green on his HUD.
Activating his mike he transmitted his orders over the com channel: “Prepare to engage the ships core, its 900k up from here.”
Dodging the various plasma blasts spouting from the small turrets that were scattered over the vessels surface, he noticed a large containment take that undoubtedly stored the ammunition for the metal gray turrets that were becoming ever more common.
“Beta, Take your squadron and proceed to those plasma tanks, if we can destroy them then we should be able to get to the core unharmed.” He said.
“Affirmative Alpha leader,” came the reply on the command channel “we’ll be there in fifteen seconds.”
Twisting through the void in his fighter, Blackranger couldn’t help but smile as he saw clouds of white hot flame erupt from the fuel tanks not far off.
“All ships fall in; the remaining turrets will be out of ammo in a few seconds”
“Copy that Alpha, we are proceeding to CPU core now” Came the reply from Beta leader.
Once again increasing his engine output, he watched as the distance between him and the enemy CPU closed. Deciding he had a good 30 seconds till he was within range, he started charging his fusion missiles.
“This is Beta leader, we are at the core and there’s a tons of turrets here, plenty of which are still active. We’re going to pave the way for you guys here; we’ll dump our missiles on the turrets and leave you an open shot at the CPU.”
“Affirmative Beta, just be careful not to breach the inner shell”
Second after saying this he was within sight of the CPU housing, and watched as white flares went up on the metal surface leading to it. Laughing, Blackranger maneuvered his ship until it was flying over the scorched metal surface; and dodged the few plasma bolts that came his way.
Suddenly, he saw one of Betas fighters get hit by a series of blasts, and shuddered as it flew into the hardened metal surface. For the second time in twenty minutes, Blackranger was nearly blinded by the explosion that resulted from the ships crash. Super massive spheres of burning hot fusion lit the dark void; causing his shields to suffer a 38% drain caused by the temperature of the micro suns. He watched as they expanded into titanic behemoths burning through the vessels outer and inner hulls, and then sat sweating in his cockpit as the spheres winked out in a few seconds.
After his eyes were back to normal, he noted that there was some sort of energy spewing out of the massive gorge ripped in the ships hull. Glancing at his HUD he saw radiation levels nearly overwhelming his enhanced shielding and he accelerated towards the core before they caused him any permanent damage.
“What the hell was that? I specifically told you not to breach the inner hull!” he screamed into his mike.
“He fell into the ship with his fusion missiles charged to 400% sir, and he took out four of our craft. Readings are showing enormous amounts of radiation pouring out through the gap, and anything that gets within 500 meters is sucked towards it with incredible force.” Came the reply from Beta Leader.
“Tell everyone to stay away from that hole, as soon as we are done with this CPU we will get out of here and leave the radiation leakage to the technicians aboard the ship!” He said as he activated his scanning computer and attempted to target the central CPU.
Due to shifting tidal forces and the radiation leakage from the torn hull only a few hundred kilometers behind him, he was unable to get his computers to effectively target the dull metal lump that housed the CPU. Instead of waiting for the computers to correct themselves, he charged all fifteen of his missiles an extra 50% and fired them, watching as they sped towards the half sphere of dull metal shielding that surrounded the CPU.
* * *
“Captain, are you okay?” Orbion asked; concern in his voice.
Slowly the John opened his eyes, looking about the command deck and taking in the damage. Other than the destroyed holo console and a few overloaded computers there was little damage.
“How long was I out?” He asked, feeling the beginnings of a headache starting.
“No more than a minute sir, it appears you got a nasty chunk of metal to the forehead. You should be fine though, and you aren’t showing any symptoms of a major concussion. The doc gave you a few stims just a second ago; so you should be fine for a while.”
“What is the status on the fighters? Have they destroyed the core yet?” He asked.
This time DeiKobol answered his questions. “The fighters have successfully destroyed 2 major laser stations, and badly damaged another. The core is being attacked as we speak. It appears there was an accident and a three by twelve meter hole has been opened up near the CPU’s location. We should be able to seal it if we can place a large enough spare armour plate over it; which can be easily constructed in our work bays.”
“What about damage to us? Did we get hit by anymore blasts?”
“We were fired upon by a few smaller lasers; and we lost hanger H11, decks C67 through C124 have been sealed off due to lack of life-support and other necessary systems, however these should be reparable after a few weeks.” Orbion replied after accessing a console not far off.
“Captain, incoming transmission from Alpha squadron.” His chief CO, Rothel said.
“This is Alpha commander Blackranger, we have just fired at the core and it should be destroyed any second now.” Came a voice through one of the many speakers built into the bridge.
“Sir, we are picking up a multi wave transmission coming from the enemy vessel.” Rothel said. “We are decoding now.”
The captain leaned over one of the consoles as it printed the message that had been transmitted.
>>Mass Danger Code T/S DIS11
>Time Stamp--27.4.18056HUMAN--54836112ACT.
>Zone--Q3/1294.273.199RELATIVEG4.91B.
>Priority: MAXIMUM/OVERIDE CODE ******
>Imbedded Message:
>Class 11 continuum fluctuation, 4 star radius clear
Until: 122/3 message send time
Universal Rift=%?
High Prob. Loc=???/EST 4.973946
CLEAR NOW
Even with years of training it took the captain a few seconds to decipher the message before him. What it was saying was there was an unknown probability of a tear in the fabric of space-time, something that was deemed near impossible by the more respected scientists.
“How long till this ‘event’ takes place, assuming it even does?” The captain asked his crew, a doubtful look on his face.
“Well sir, based on the ‘Until’ time embedded in the message another 13 seconds” DeiKobol answered.
Everyone on the bridge held there breath until the clock on the wall screen ticked off twenty seconds. There was a sigh of relief from everyone on the bridge, and then a few seconds later laughter broke out among some of the crewmembers.
“Ha ha, looks like they might have messed up there clock during the battle,” One of the officers chuckled.
“Doesn’t really seem too probably anyways; I doubt that a dimensional rift is even possible.” Another said a look of relief on his face.
“Well, back to work. We need that vessel in the hangers by-” The captain was cut off by the sudden sputter of the radio.
“This is Alpha leader again; I’m seeing some pretty strange stuff happening here…”
Looking at the view screen mounted on the wall, the captain magnified the view of the object until he could clearly see the torn spot of the hull. There appeared to be some kind of white sphere shrinking back into the hole; and the entire crew watched as it slowed and then finally stopped.
“Command, the radiation levels are insane around that thing… and it seems to be… glimmering…” The speakers sputtered.
Just then the sphere exploded outwards, speeding towards there ship at an unimaginable speed. The captain could have sworn he saw it pass through the bridge, and he had felt a weird tingling sensation as the event had taken place.
“What the hell was that?” he asked, glancing about the bridge. Nothing had seemed to change; except for the digital clock which was now blank.
“Sir, the clock is remapping the galaxy stars to get an accurate time. Our sensors are also showing that the sphere has sent out drones which have automatically sealed the gap in its hull.” Orbion said.
Just then the clock blinked, and at first the commander noted nothing different about it. Upon closer examination, he realized that the date was almost 9 million years off.
The laughing crewman stopped his chuckling as he too saw what the display read.
“Is there something wrong with this thing? It’s nearly 19 thousand years ahead.” Orbion said, a puzzled look coming over his face.
DeiKobol answered: “The clock has run star scans three times; there is no way it can be off. I am guessing that that burst of energy scrambled some of our sensors.”
“All systems check out fine, other than the warp coils and engines, which were damaged in the battle.” Orbion said.
“Captain! There is a large fleet of fighter sized craft approaching the ship; they do not match any known Varaxian assault ship types. Sensors also report an opposing fleet of much larger vessels coming this way. Should we prepare for attack?” One of the crewmen asked.
“Running long range scanners on the ships, coming up with a rough picture of them now.” Another officer reported.
The ships which were heading for them were easily 400 times the size of the Mortiferus Ferum, and outfitted with countless weapons and massive engines; along with arrays of totally alien equipment.
Sitting back in his command chair, John studied the image on the view screen. Finally he spoke: “Where the hell are we?”
Chapter One: Rescue “Captain, what are your orders? Scanners are showing the larger fleet will not be within engagement range for the next five minutes, and based on our computer projections the smaller fleet of fighter class robotic vessels will be engaging within the next 3 and a half minutes. The remaining onboard fighters are being scrambled and we are going to have the Varaxian ship inside the hanger in a minute thirty; EMP scramblers are stopping the ship form rebuilding its central CPU.” DeiKobol said, reading off of a display set into one of the bridge walls.
“Get that ship in here, and tell Alpha we’ve gone form the frying pan into the fire. I want remaining power to our shields and engines; we are going to try and break through the smaller ships and attempt to escape the larger vessels.” John spoke the orders through his mike and watched as everyone aboard the bridge jumped to work.
A few minutes later Orbion gave him a report on the current situation. “We will be engaging the enemy ships in thirty seconds; all remaining fighter craft are currently prepared for battle and have been deployed off the ships bow. Our scatter missiles are loaded and ready to fire, and the ship has been successfully loaded into the hanger. We’ve had to shutdown that hanger’s gravity control though, due to the extraordinary mass of the Varaxian vessel.”
“Captain, firing the first set of scatter missiles, 500 targets locked. Fighters have begun engagement with the enemy, and we are suffering minimal losses. They appear to be armed with little more than a series of cutting tools and a low output pulse beam.” A weapons officer reported.
“Prepare an overload buffer for the charged plating; I want at least three bursts ready by the time we’ve engaged with the enemy. Also get some technicians working on that ship; let’s see if we can borrow some of its power.” The captain said, injecting an adrenal stimulant into his arm to keep him awake. What I need is some good old fashioned tequila, he thought to himself.
“Shields suffering from severe drain; they will have burned holes through it in a few minutes.” DeiKobol informed him as he typed furiously at the screen before him.
Glancing at one of the wall screens, he took note of the battlefields layout. There were huge swarms of tiny ships clumped so tightly together he knew they would have trouble getting through them without suffering form sever armour loss; and if they weren’t careful they could get slowed by a group, leaving them open to attack form another. After observing their movement patterns for a few minutes, he realized that they were not all attempting to engage the Mortiferus Ferum, only the groups of ships in close proximity were moving to counter them.
“Plot us a course through here at 200% engine power, we need to move fast if were going to get out of this mess.” He spoke while drawing in a series of points to which they would pilot the ship. With a bit of luck they would be able to outmaneuver the largest groups of enemy ships and tear through a thinner rear guard that would cause them minimal damage.
“Sir, shields have been depleted, and we are losing armour fast all over the ship.” DeiKobol informed the captain as he finished inputting a course.
“Force one of the charged burst cells through the armour; that should give the bastards something to think about. Drain another of the cells into the shields, just enough to keep the individual craft off the ship. Also inform the mechanics to prepare the ship for a high output EMP pulse; as I intend to knock a hole through their rear guard.”
“Yes sir, firing energy charge now”
John watched from one of the many cameras mounted on the ships outer hull as the entire surface of the ship seemed to flow with lightning for a split second, and he couldn’t help but smile as the many droid craft that had been cutting through the armour blew into millions of charged particles.
“Well done; what about the status of that Varaxian ship sitting in our hanger bay? Have they found any power conduits yet?” He asked, turning his attention to his Chief Engineer.
“They are running splices on two series of cables as we speak, and this should allow for a 180% increase in the total available power. We have also learned how to fire black holes out of one of the many launchers built into the vessels surface, although this will do us little good in the hanger bay.” Orbion reported.
“Tell them to hurry with those cables, were going to need the extra power. Hopefully we can set up an effective extension on the black hole launcher, as it may be of use against the other ships.”
He watched on the view screen as the battle played out before him, and took careful note of the maneuvers the ship was making, adjusting course as necessary. It took only a few minutes for the ship to reach the last clump of fighter sized droid craft, and the captain noticed that when they were about halfway through the shields had almost been completely depleted, even after discharging an energy cell into them.
“Force engine output to a five second burst at 1000%, and see if we can discharge another energy cell into the armour plating.” John spoke, watching the screen as the droids started cutting through the hull.
“Discharging another energy cell sir.” Orbion announced.
The entire bridge crew felt the ship shudder as explosions filled the surrounding void, and bolts of lighting jumped from one craft to another, destroying hundreds of thousands of the miniature vessels.
The captain cast a dismayed look at the battle graph, realizing they had destroyed only 14% of the enemy ships in the immediate area. Realizing that even with the momentum from the engines 5 second burst, they stood no chance of getting through to the other side.
“Push the engines to 5000% and fire the EMP charge in three seconds. Use the remaining energy to cool the thrusters until the power cells are drained. I want an extra 200% out of the fusion cores as well.” The captain said.
“Sir, we only have enough energy to run the engines for about 12 seconds, and that’s without cooling them to operable levels. We can run them at 5000% for maybe two and a half seconds if we keep them at operating temperature.” Orbion informed him.
“Well we’re going to have to get what we can out of them; otherwise we are going to be scrapped by these ships.”
Every crewman nodded their understanding and started working at their consoles, and it wasn’t long before they had forced the engines to the breaking point. The captain watched as they accelerated, and ordered the engines shutoff before they were boiled down to mere slag. As soon as they had a reached a reasonable speed they fired the charge, but it had no effect on the ships around them.
DeiKobol spoke up, a look of dread upon his face. “Captain, enemy vessels were not effected by EMP burst, and are swarming towards our exit vector. There’s no way we can breach them, even at this speed.”
The Captain felt a sadness overcome the bridge crew, and watched as they slowed down to a slower speed, before giving the order to push the engines back up to 5000% for as long as possible. “Were going down fighting everyone” was the only explanation he gave.
After a few seconds Orbion gave him a report. “Engines are just about to exceed their operational maximum sir; and then were out of power until the energy cells recharge.”
A few seconds later the bridge lights winked out, leaving only DeiKobol standing with a portable light.
Suddenly the power came back, and Orbion looked at his console with a look of utter amazement upon his face.
“How did we get power back so fast? There should have been a three minute delay before systems came back online.” John asked.
“Sir, it appears we are running at 32000% total power, somehow that ship in our hanger bay has supercharged all our systems… and its providing steady output energy!”
“Well I’ll be damned…” John said, sharing the look of confusion that had befallen his entire crew.
After a few seconds the captain overcame his amazement and started firing off orders.
“I want the large laser stations running at 2500%”
“Yes sir, overcharging now!” Was the reply.
“Saturate shields to 350%, and see if the engines haven’t been totally melted.”
“Yes captain,” Orbion said, “the engines should be functional within the next thirty seconds.”
“Sir! All lasers are firing, and we’ve launched all available plasma towards various targets.” DeiKobol said.
The view screens all around the bridge showed views of the surrounding void and the enemies that filled it. The crew watched as burning hot beams of red and white energy took off towards the dull grey mechanical craft that were approaching the ship. Smiles broke out on the faces of the men aboard the bridge as gaping holes were torn open in the enemies line of ships; the remainder of the vessels blocking their path where quickly reduced to warped metal and boiling chunks of steel as the plasma globs hit them.
A few minutes later DeiKobol gave the captain a report, as they had just cleared the battlefield. “It appears that a few of the enemy ships are attempting to follow, although this will be only a minor nuisance for our long range lasers to take care of. Hanger bay three also reports that Blackranger and Phantoms, the leader of Alpha and Gamma squadrons, successfully stuck with the ship and destroyed nearly 300 individual craft each. As for the ships following us they appear to be a few minutes away from the dense swarm of ships we just passed through.”
“How long should the power from the Varaxian ship last? If it holds up we may be able to outrun those larger ships, as they are probably not any friendlier than the last bunch.” John asked.
This time Orbion answered him. “The ship shows no signs of any energy reduction whatsoever, and it may be possible that it normally operates with that much power. The Black hole extension cannon you requested is also being constructed, and we are reinforcing one of our spare forward running maintenance conduits with specialized materials so that it can take the gravitational forces that will be temporarily exerted on it. We should have it done in about 24 hours, depending on the resources available for the project.”
Just then DeiKobol voice rang out across the bridge.
“Captain! We have entered some kind of distortion, and sensors are showing multiple vessels approaching. They seem to have been guarding a super massive facility built around what appears be a neutron star.”
John looked up at the view screen and saw something that seemed to defy reality itself. Before them stretched an army of countless ships, each one easily three times the size of the Mortiferus Ferum. These were miniscule, however, compared to a few titanic vessels that could have easily carried thousands of the smaller ships in their hangers. Not even these could be compared to the truly monstrous complex that surrounded the star before them.
It was a tangle of titanic cables and interconnecting modules that enclosed the vast majority of the lone suns cold blue surface, which seemed to be spinning at hundreds of miles a second. The incredibly dense mesh of metal and rock left only a few small points where the light shone through, but they were still large and frequent enough to leave no doubt as to what was inside.
“It appears they were utilizing some kind of spatial cloaking device that allowed them to hide from our entire array of sensors sir. They also appear to be harvesting matter from the star, although who knows what they could be using it for. With a facility that size they could easily manufacture miniature neutron stars for power, so perhaps they require it in mass amounts. Other than that I can’t even begin to think of what it-”
DeiKobol was cut short by the bleeping of the communications console.
Rothel spoke up: “Sir, we are receiving an incoming transmission from the lead ship approaching. Patching it through now.”
“This is general Kirsk; I am acting commander of this facility in the absence of admiral Davey. You have moved into LOI controlled space, and you are to be escorted to our specialized research and production facility. We will use force if necessary.”
“Well this just keeps getting better and better…” The captain muttered to himself before sending the order across the ship to hold their fire.
Chapter Two: The Dogs of War “Captain?”
“Tell them we will follow them to their facility, and get that black hole launch tube finished. It’s our only way out of this mess.” John said to Rothel.
“Yes sir, we’ve got technicians working on it right now. There’s a few men in engine room B that we should be able to pull off of repair duty as well, so it shouldn’t take much longer.” He replied.
“We are approaching what appears to be a dry-dock for some of their smaller ships, it doesn’t appear too secure. I’m bringing the cameras online now.” Dei said.
The screen flickered to life, static flashing across its surface as the image stabilized. The view was of a large series of ring like objects connected to another giant piece of the facility that encased the star by an umbilical of dark metal. The rings themselves were wound together at what looked to be equal intervals by thick tubes and wires that wound together to form a tangled mass of circuitry and fuel lines. Protrusions everywhere made the purpose of the object clear; it was undoubtedly some sort of repair bay for vessels about their size.
“From the looks of things I would wager that these rings engage some form of shield technology to keep anything within them from getting out. Closer looks at the rings inner surface reveal what appears to be a hardened plate alloy charged with plasma and laser repulsor energy. An effective defense against conventional weapons, although it would be like trying to stop a train with a stick were we to launch a black hole at it.” Orbion informed John as he studied his computer screen carefully.
“Were moving into the structure now” Rothel reported.
“See if we can open up diplomatic lines to the base commander, with any luck we can pass ourselves off as traders that got lost or something.” John ordered, racking his brains for any solutions to get through their fleets. “Even with the Varaxian craft at our disposal, we won’t be able to fight through this many ships were we to break out of this hanger.”
“Captain, the rings energy levels are increasing, it would appear that they are powering up some sort of field to keep us detained.” DeiKobol said.
John frowned as a chart flashed before him on the view screen, informing him that the entire complex was using what appeared to be a very thin sheet of neutron star matter encased between twin energy fields.
“Captain,” Rothel began with a hint of fear in his voice. “They have attached a docking cable too the hanger doors and demand to be let in. They say if we don’t allow them access they will destroy the ship.”
* * *
Ludao glanced around the cargo hold, being sure to stay well hidden behind the stack of crates strapped to the deck. He watched as the ships captain and one of the bridge officers were talking to a few men, apparently soldiers, about their current situation. After a few seconds the soldiers motioned for the captain to follow him down to one of the lower fighter hangers, which was apparently where the boarding party had entered and setup a temporary checkpoint of some sort.
He waited till they had gone through the bay door until he emerged from his hiding place. Moving towards one of the maintenance conduits that ran throughout the ship, he entered his access code and quickly made his way into the low tunnel leading away from the cargo bay.
After shuffling along the dim passage for a few hundred feet, he came to one of the many ladders that crisscrossed all over the ship. Moving down it quite a ways, he stopped one level above the hanger bays. Following an even longer series of tunnels he finally reached the maintenance access for the hanger the he had heard the soldier mention. Slowly opening the hatch he looked out into the hanger, where he was momentarily blinded by the lighting.
Grumbling to himself about the poor lighting in the access tunnels, he took in the scene before him. The checkpoint that had been setup was off to his left a bit, running across the entire hanger and effectively cutting the it in half. It also blocked access to the boarding tube they had entered form, but only if you came in through the main door.
Smiling to himself, Ludao jumped to a large metal pole a foot away and slid down to the hanger floor, careful to land quietly.
He darted back and forth between large equipment used to launch and repair the fighters and boarding craft that were normally stored here.
Finally he was as close to the boarding tube as his cover would allow. Amazed to see it unguarded, he bolted across the hanger floor and punched the button to open the door.
He floated down the pipe, propelling himself in the sudden zero gee environment by pushing off against the walls until he had reached the other end of the tube, where he once again moved through an access door and gravity returned to normal.
To him, the inside of the enemy’s star base appeared poorly maintained. There were cables dangling form the roof, along with what appeared to be scorch marks from a previous battle.
Taking care to be quite, he shuffled along the corridors, jumping into side passages or behind wiring when enemy marines moved by. After a bit of searching he had reached the main docking cable, which linked the rings to the primary compound.
Popping open a satchel hooked to his belt, he started placing miniature charges around the edges of the access door and wherever the cables moved into the ring.
Hearing footsteps, he quickly twisted around, to see a marine walking around the corner only ten feet away.
“Whart’s your biness’ ere fella?” The man asked; a suspicious look on his face.
“Err, well, you see, due to the poor condition of this conduit here, I was asked to come and make sure nothing was coming undone, cause if anything did then we would be stuck without air and probably wouldn’t last very long…” Ludao said, hoping it would fool the guard. He watched as his suspicions turned into what was clearly worry.
“El than make shure ya do goo’ wit it. Last ting I needa hav is me stuck witout any air… cause any fella who dos sometin like dat ill ava answer to me.” He said, indicating the weapon he held with a nod of his head.
Ludao smiled and promised he would, turning back to the cables and pretending to inspect them until the he had rounded another corner and was out of sight.
Glancing around one last time, he punched the button and opened the door to the umbilical, once again feeling weightless as he moved through into the facility. Opening the door at the end of the passage he moved into a large corridor, grinning to himself as a computerized voice said: “Welcome to LOIRF 7-301, encasing the star Q4(G) 183,514, 312. Please enjoy your stay.”
He was definitely going to enjoy it.
