Drones
#1 of Colonial Wars subsets
Kerrah Seven, chief helmsman of the Bohorronean, clicked a golden toe impatiently while the recently confiscated nuclear missile was offloaded from the Colonial cruiser. They were docked in a trader's Colony, the occasional shudder as a stardrive flickered to correct course.
"For the love of the Lyght, what is TAKING THEM SO LONG?" he barked, without realizing he was. All the other drones in the room turned to him, their helmets disguising their surprised faces.
"Sorry. You know what it's like to have humans 'inspect' before they do anything. First thing they do is set the damn thing off, and this Colony will be venting into open space."
A radio crackled in the gold walls of the bridge. "The nuke has been deactivated. Prep for immediate jump."
Kerrah-7 jumped and hit the Jump Prep button before anyone else.
The cruiser fell away from the Colony, its jump panels extending as a rift opened to spit out their wormhole. The huge craft rippled and bent as time and space were altered. The shields of the cruiser held them together, and then the cruiser closed the wormhole behind them.
Shienda, a Lizzarak Bonecrusher, strode quickly down the observation hall, her tail whacking tables and crates behind her as she tried to reach the sono-lift. Stairs never worked for her species, and she would get her head stuck in the hull if she tried to leap up the stairs. The doors were slowly closing, but she managed to get in before that. The next regular sono-lift would have been in ten minutes. A light humming started up as the lift rose towards the bridge. "Come on, come on..." she grumbled, her tail flicking from side to side. She took a drink of alcohol, the stuff helping clear her head of distractions, like the constant feeling of being stared at by all the drones on the ship. Her sharp claws and folded scythe-arms prevented the use of clothing. A soft, feminine voice rang out, "Re-entry into realspace in three minutes."
The doors slid open, and the first thing she saw were "Happy Birthday, Shienda!" banners and holographic balloons.
"Aw, you guys,"
She blushed as the crew laughed and cheered when she blew out the fake candles floating over a beautiful cake.
Kerrah placed an armored hand on her shoulder and whispered, "Six hundred credits says you can't stay sober during this party."
She whispered back, "You're on."
A Dominion ship slowly lurched forward, carrying its precious antimatter cargo. The Overlord had sent millions of Warriors to drag the freighter back, as Behar'ik Nejj Darts streamed from a Coremind Ship like someone vomiting explosive flying octopi. The Overlord was too late, and the antimatter detonated. An explosion like no other disrupted the gigantic space brain's communications, and the ship shut down, lights all across the inner chambers shutting off.
Shienda sat on a couch in a R&R room with five other drones, a bottle of vodka in her hand and a glass of whisky in the other. Her eyes were completely glazed over, and Kerrah Seven stared grumpily at her. She still wasn't even tipsy, not after six glasses of brandy. Everyone cheered in sheer awe at the reptile's ability to hold her liquor and not even slip in a sentence. Suddenly there was the sound of a plasma blade activating, and Shienda turned around. A Syndicate Marine stood behind her, the stolen blade resting beside her neck. She could feel the purple blade searing her scales, and she pretended to be completely oblivious to the problem. She took a swig of her vodka, and then she slammed it into the human's face, crunching his skull like a tin can. The blade fell away from her, and then she took another gulp from her intact bottle. She used the last of her whisky to down the vodka, and she walked out of the room, letting out a loud burp.
"Look, Enda, that was a Syndicate human. How one got on this ship is the problem at hand. You say all you heard was the blade activating, yes?"
"Yeah."
"Come on, work with me here."
"I'm trying to."
"You know you aren't."
"Says you."
"Fine. Will you help me if you got the six hundred I bet?"
"Probably."
Kerrah Seven sighed and took the crystal squares from a pouch on his hip, six in all. The moment the credits landed in her hand, she described the human's face. As she spoke, the cruiser rendered the face and ran it through the Syndicate's own crime and military database. The man had been a well known hitman, having taken down the biggest crime bosses on the Original Homeworld, Dayerinosk. Shienda then spoke.
"............. So I just killed the biggest criminal in Syndicate turf?"
"Yup."
"Gods, DAMNIT!"
"Hey, calm â€"â€""
"SCREW OFF!!"
Kerrah Seven stood quiet as Shienda ran from him.
The Bohorronean fired a salvo of plasma missiles at the Syndicate city-cone, railgun rounds slamming into their shields. Radiation beams from their starboard beam cannon ate up the armor and turrets on the city-cone, as a squadron of Colonial fighters blew a hole into the enemy's warhead silos. As the fighters raced back out, nuclear explosions ripped through the city-cone's engines. The entire ship exploded, the shockwave sending the tiny cruiser off course.
Captain Nomolos Freesky directed the fire teams, helping them locate and destroy the dampening field keeping the city-cone from shaking apart. A lone Syndicate battleship, furiously pecking at the larger Colonial ship with bullets, was crushed by a burst of plasma flak.
"Good work, everyone. One less planet leech in a sea of leeches."
Shienda relaxed on a couch in the navigation room, watching as overseer drones hobbled around, making adjustments to their course and plotting the next jump. Every so often she flicked her tail at the holographic map generator, bumping the power button. She was doing her best to entertain herself as she waited for Kerrah Seven to find her. Finally, after about an hour, the golden door opened, the flowery pieces attaching to the walls. Kerrah Seven and a squadron of elite drone soldiers walked in, and grabbed her, carrying her back to her quarters.
After they left and locked the door to her room, a speaker crackled. Captain Nomolos was going to talk to her, she guessed. The voice she heard confirmed that. "Shienda, I hear you've been causing trouble on my ship. I realize you have kept to your promise of not raising your BAC above .005, but you should know that we need you completely focused for your next task. The Syndicate has sent a mining ship into our space, and we are the nearest ship available. In exactly three minutes, that door will open, and you will be sent to the dimensional jumper drive room. You are going to board their ship, find out why they are in our space, and extract all information onboard. That will be all."
Shienda grumbled. She pulled out a bottle of wine and was about to pour some into a glass when the speaker crackled again. "And don't drink any more alcohol, for Lyght's sake," he said.