48 (DSV Nautica) Newcomers
The Mors exited FTL, very close to the Ayr'ese city, maneuvering to dock in one of the bays that normally held a Dreadnaught. The procedure was long and arduous, but was finally completed to let the crew off. Flare moved up to the central command center swiftly to find the status of the Erebus, and return to it ASAP. "What do you mean, out of dock??" The docking coordinator had informed her that the Erebus had left dock approximately 12 hours ago, on a testing run. "The captain demanded a testing run of her ship before it returned to active duty. They are due to check in within another 12 hours. I'm sorry." The coordinator turned back to his work on the holographic controls lining the massive room. Flare felt a little lost. Now what? She didn't hear or sense Loki sneak up behind her and begin walking alongside her. "Your Captain busy?" She said in a conversational tone. Flare jumped. "Ye-yes captain!" She stood at attention. "That's Admiral to you. Don't worry about rank protector, I have a task for you in the mean time...we are investigating an odd occurrence in a nearby galaxy." Aki and Ka'ya hovered just off the Erebus, casing huge fans of will around them, looking to disturb anything that might be hiding in space from them. It was a hard vacuum out here, with nothing in the interstellar space to speak of. "Anything yet?" Aki called to Ka'ya via mind link. "Nope!" She sighed in her head, hoping that they would yet find something out here. It felt real alone, especially in interstellar space, where, for each cubic centimeter, there was approximately one atom. One. Stars no longer shimmered like they did in the atmosphere of a planet. It was dark and dead. Nothingness. THUNK! Aki got caught off guard with a sharp pain in her left temple, knocking her off her board, sending her spinning through space. Her feet hit something thin and long. Her stomach flipped. Bringing herself around, she willed herself 'upright'. Something was shining blue from the reflection of the Erebus' blue hue. She reached for it, heart pounding. It was smooth and curved....like a scroll container. Loki sat on the bridge, Flare behind her in the shadows. The Mors bridge was certainly more crowded than the Erebus by a long shot. About 20 Ayr'een were crowded around, not including her, the captain, or pilot. "Exiting shortly." Tyr announced, easing the ship out of FTL. The Mors flashed back into existence, just a few hundred thousand kilometers away from a planet, A terrestrial planet. "Supposedly there is an industrial society here, one of the closest 'advanced' civilizations." Loki said aloud to no one in particular, but Flare had a feeling it was directed at her. "Zoom." The HUD on the bridge zoomed to a close view of the planet, a view roughly a square kilometer in area. The bridge went dead silent. The earth had been scorched, with the charred remains of what looked to me brick and metal buildings littered everywhere. No signs of life. "...Zoom out." Falling back, the
camera panned over the area. The entire city had been scorched off the planet, with the forests and plains around it untouched. "What...was there a war?" Someone on the bridge asked. "No...beings this primitive do not fight wars like this." Flare muttered out loud, drawing everyone's attention. She had studied the fighting styles of all civilizations known. They all had something in common. When they fought, they torched forests and burned away brush. In short: they were messy. This was precise. Only that city. Two hours later, they had orbited the planet, and found the same thing all over. The cities were obliterated. Anything not city, not inhabited, was left untouched. Over the whole planet. "This was definitely not a war. We would be seeing the victors. We see nothing..." Flare was quiet, sitting down and holding her hands, looped around her knees. Her gaze was fixed on the display. What did this? De'ans eye was drawn to the motion control, indicating that there was a ship approaching and approaching fast. He barely had time to react. "Aki, Ka'ya company!" He warned them, getting ready to set the cloak. He had to wait until they got inside, or they would lose the Erebus. Navigating into a cloaked ship wouldn't go very well without some kind of visual aid. "De'an, cloak now!" Aki and Ka'ya put up their own personal cloaks, laying low on their boards. De'an didn't hesitate, raising the cloak just as the ship exited into real space. The ship was huge, long, and thin. Its back curved all the way from front to back, glowing an angry red, counter to the Erebus' cool blue conduits. It just sat there. No maneuvers or movements. It just sat where it exited with its own version of FTL speed. Waiting. Aki began to slowly move toward where she thought the Erebus was. "De'an...don't move. We are going to try and get to you by feel." "Aki...that could short out the cloak! For both of us. The Erebus should be fine, but not yours! If you miss the bay, which you would, you would be exposed!" Aki tried to ignore that inconvenient fact. "We can make it, just guide us.." "What!? I can't do that!" "Yes you can, just guide us to the hangar-" "AKI!" The ship had turned and began to move toward them. Small objects seemed to be streaming from a couple 'vents' on either side, toward them. There must have been hundreds. They were blanketing out in formation, arranging themselves in a wall-like formation. "They are going to try and catch us in that wall." De'an snarled, getting ready to fire the engines. "Forget it, we don't need to do this, decloak run!" Aki stammered very quickly, dropping her cloak and gunning her board full speed toward the Erebus, which also dropped cloak. The hangar bay was right ahead. An abrupt change overtook the entire formation. All the objects started speeding up with exponential force, turning so they all were going for the Erebus. Both Aki and Ka'ya flew into the hangar bay, crash landing and rolling into a run to the bridge. No time to
get off politely. He could see them now. De'an ran the sensors and scanners. They were small fighters, no more than 20 meters long, but there were hundreds of them. The closest began emitting bolts of energy, impacting the Erebus' hull with dull clangs and roars that reverberated across the ship. They also seemed to scramble their conduits for a moment. Aki jumped into the captains chair, as Ka'ya skipped to the weapons, humming to herself as she brought them online. The rest of the fighters began to catch up, letting off even more shots, increasing the strain on the Erebus. Small chunks of the hull were blown off, alarming the trio. "Oh damn, these guys are serious. Ka'ya, transmit we are not a threat, that we mean no harm." "I doubt that will help..." De'an muttered to himself. "In Ayr'ese?" "Ayr'ese, Draconid, prime numbers, anything." Ka'ya got to work sending the message, and shook her head. "They no talk, captain!" "Lets go.." Aki took control of the weapons, leaving Ka'ya to scan as much as she could about these intruders. The Erebus shuddered as they lurched forward. "Bringing us up to speed..." They turned tail to the ship. Lancets of will energy struck the small fighters, blasting them to bits upon contact, but there were too many, and they moved too fast. The Erebus leapt toward the resonance point, destroying all the fighters within a hundred meters with the FTL field.