Finding Humanity Chapter 1
#1 of Finding Humanity
Finding Humanity
** By Admiral Q Proofread by HotBlood**
Deep in space there is a large vessel. This vessel is long, sleek and to it's crew efficient in design. Equipped with multiple labs, workshops and factories its crew rarely needs to stop anywhere. Of course that helps with the fact that its crew is a bunch of sentient machines created by a long forgotten race for purposes unknown.It's sedate cruise through space how ever is suddenly interrupted by a pair of energy blasts hitting the hull, closely followed by more. Six small ships normally designated as 'Raiders' swept over the giant ship before swinging back around for another pass. This time their disruptors hit the shields, and the ships Poleron beams fire back. Sadly the Machine ship has had little contact with other races, so in comparison to other ships it's size, it is very weakly armed. The beams managed to take out 2 of the Raiders, but the ships shields partially failed and the beam cannons are destroyed in the gaps. In desperation, the ship sends out a distress signal, in hopes of finding aid, but this far out it's unlikely. The Raiders themselves heard of the ship, and the tech on board they felt was worth taking. So they swept around again, hammering the shields with another volley.
-Meanwhile-
Esrie leans back in the pilots chair for her ship the "Katana". The Katana, a Sabre class Raider, that she had tweaked and customized, making it among the toughest Raiders in the galaxy. The Katana was her father's final gift before he died, and she took great pride in her. A mercenary for hire, Esrie Argento manages to earn a living helping guard private convoys, bounty hunting, starship racing, and even assisting planetary milita's that need an extra ship or two. Which is what she's doing today. The Jones system's milita had run into a problem. Many of the different ships, from hulking cruisers, to Raiders smaller classes were in serious need of over haul, but they could'nt leave their assigned sectors undefended, so they hired a bunch of mercenaries and asked for assistance from the nearby systems. Esrie jumped on the opportunity and helped hold off a bandit attack 2 weeks ago. Sadly despite that, she got assigned to do a long range patrol at the outer most of their farthest sector, where little happened. Still it gave her the chance to see to the minor repairs Katana needed after the bandit attack were stable, and so far the Katana is working like a charm. A chirp on her control board makes her lean forward and sees a distress signal. She punches the open button. "This is the Silican Consensus. Our ship is under attack and our weapons have been destroyed by smaller ships. We request any friendly ships for help. Our coordinates are Muldurf Sector at 232,56,105. Repeat this is Silican Consensus..." Esrie checks the coordinates to her position and surprisingly their only a few minutes away, so she adjusts the Katana and jumps into warp.
When she drops out of warp she sees a grim scene. The Consensus ship was disabled with fires from many directions with the four Raiders nearby. Though she could easily declare the ship lost, and jump back into warp, for she is severely out numbered and outgunned, the Consensus was helpless and she was never one to run from a fight. She charges her weapons and speeds up the Katana. The enemy Raiders turn to attack as she launches a pair of her torpedoes. They hit the rightmost Raider. The first torpedo causes the shield to collapse, while the second slams into the left side of the ship ripping off the wing and destroying the left sublight engine on that side. As the Raider spins out of control, it's fellows unleash a barrage of disruptors and missiles at the Katana. Esrie rolls and jinks the Katana so the bulk of the shots miss while she returns with a volley of her phaser beams. As the opposing sides get close to each other they get mixed up into a furball. Soon Esrie gets on the tail on one of the remaining Raiders. She opens up with her phasers and hammers the Raider's shield while her own shields are hit by the Raiders fellows. She fires her phasers again with another torpedo she banks away. The torpedo slams into the now unshielded engines, the explosion of the torpedo causes a chain reaction and in seconds the whole Raider turns into a ball of fire. While doing another bank, the Katana is hit by a missile. Sparks fly in the cockpit and Esrie checks the shield indicator. Though damaged her shield was still holding, and she manages to get on the tail of the third Raider. While jerking her ship around Esrie fires her phasers at the Raider. While half miss the Raider, the rest hit dead on. The Raider does a loop up in an attempt to shake her. She dives down in a steep dive, she feels the g forces as the inertial dampers fail to kept up. The maneuver works as her opponent is still in the loop maneuver and she lines up her shot and fires her phasers in three volleys. The Raider seeing the mistake it made fires it's disruptors and tries to bank away. Unfortunately it banks the wrong way and the first volley hits the shield, but the second goes right through the cockpit. The third volley misses completely as the now pilotless ship tumbles out of control and its wing hits Katana's, sending both ships spinning wildy. The fourth Raider, unluckily, was very close to the Katana, trying to get a lockon for its missile and had not noticed the third Raider until it's too late, and they slammed into each other and exploded.
Meanwhile Esrie climbs back into the pilot chair, blood dripping on her face from a gash on her scalp. Her shields are down, her left wing is gone, her engines are out and her remaining phasers are offline. Esrie tries to get started on repairs when she notices the first Raider. It comes toward her at a slow pace and slanted to the left. "Oh crap." She says as she figures out the pilots intention. His weapons must be out for she's well in range so he's doing a kamikaze run. She looks over the weapons panel and sees that her torpedoes are still functional. She pulls the trigger and the torpedoes launch at point blank range. The last Raider is completely destroyed and its shockwave hammers the Katana, ending her flying. Esrie also flies from the pilots chair again and sees a bulkhead in front of her before she sees nothing but blackness.
Though sections are still on fire the Consensus ship launches a shuttle to see if they can assist their savior. It approaches the drifting Raider, noting several places where air is leaking out and flames spewing, most notably flames near the engine. The shuttle finds a docking clamp and attaches. When the bulkhead doors opens it reveals 3 robotic beings. Two are humanoid in form with light gray metal bodies, their torsos have compartments where all the tools an engineer would need. The third is considerably smaller having a pill shaped body. Its smaller pill shaped head is connected to its body by an articulated neck. It has 3 skinning arms, two in the front and the third longer one in the back. It has no legs but it hovers in the air. One of the engineer robots looks at it and says. "Sensors reported an organic on board find it and give whatever medical attention you find MU-05." It salutes and heads off. While the two other robots head for the engine compartment. MU-05 headed for the front scan for life signs when it comes upon Esrie. Esrie is laying on the floor next to the hull. Her legs are under a metal support and her left arms is twisted up like a pretzel. A quick scan shows that she has many injures both outside and inside her body. MU-05 quickly takes out an injector and puts painkillers in her right arm. As the robot continues to do what it can for her including move the metal support strut on her legs the engineer contacts it over the link. <MU- 05, have you found the organic and what's its condition?>
<The Organic is alive but seriously injured. I must take her back to the ship for treatment.>
<I'll send EG-1138 to assist. This ship's core is going critical so I'm going to try to at least get its memory core.> MU-05 continues to work on Esrie until EG-1138 arrives and it picks her up and head for the airlock. There the meet their team leader and they enter the shuttle and departs. Halfway back to the ship and Katana explodes in a brilliant fireball and the beings on the Consensus ship all make sure to record the death of one of their saviors. A very efficient Raider called "KATANA."