Date point: 4y 11m 2w 6d AV
“Alright guys, enough is enough. You’ve been working nonstop for nearly thirty-six hours now.” Frank said, glaring at the two crew members in front of him.
Flipping up his welding hood, and speaking with a bit of mania in his voice, Robert replied, “We’re fine! We just want to make sure that this thing is done before we get where we’re going. Or in case of another emergency.”
Ryst didn’t so much as look at Frank, and continued working.
Sighing deeply, and pinching his brow, the old man said, “You’re going to injure yourselves. For fuck’s sake, you gave Ryst an impact socket wrench. He’s going to tear his hand off.”
Shrugging, Robert answered without a hint of remorse, “He’s fine. I taught him how to use it.”
Finally losing patience with the both of them, Frank snapped, “ENOUGH! Both of you will go and eat something, and not set foot in this cargo hold for eight hours! Is that understood!?”
This time, Ryst did look up, a red-eyed and hazy look on his face.
For the briefest moment, Frank thought that they were both going to argue with him, but he held their gazes with a look of steel.
Without a word, they both stood, leaving their tools where they lay, and walked from the cargo hold towards the mess hall.
Breathing a silent sigh of relief, deeply relieved that they’d obeyed his orders and reassured in his newfound authority, Frank steadied himself for a moment, then followed them into the hallway towards the flight deck.
As he passed the mess hall, Robert was opening his meal, while Tricko had been waiting for Ryst.
His meal already opened, Tricko slid Ryst’s half of food across the table, who began eating it with robotic movements.
Entering the flight deck, Frank found Ted where he’d left him.
“Told you they looked terrible.” Ted quipped, before Frank could say anything.
Muttering slightly, Frank replied, “They look worse than terrible. I honestly think Ryst is trying to work himself to death. Robert should know better than to let him.”
“It’s the blind leading the blind. That’s why you’re here to make sure they don’t walk off a cliff together.” Ted shrugged.
The sound of chewing was the only source of noise in the mess hall as Tricko watched his friends eat.
Breaking the monotonous sounds, Tricko asked Ryst, “How is the suit coming along?”
Ryst stopped chewing and, without looking at his clan brother, said, “It would be finished sooner if people would stop interrupting us.” Ryst then continued eating.
Tricko glanced over at Robert, who had a similarly blank look on his face as he ate.
This is my fault. I forced him to work, and it’s all both of them can think about now.
“I would prefer you to both be alive and uninjured when you complete the coil-gun installation.” Tricko said, trying his best to keep his tone non-confrontational.
It didn’t work very well.
“You disapprove of me working against the people who killed our friends?” Ryst growled, snarling just enough to make sure his feelings were clear.
Unfazed at the hostile display, Tricko said, “I disapprove of you killing yourself before you can actually do anything useful.”
Ryst’s snarl widened into real anger, but he merely turned back to eating.
Instead, Robert answered for him, “We’re fine, Tricko. It’ll be done in a day or two.”
Tricko held Robert’s gaze for a few seconds, unsure what to say.
Before he could speak however, Ryst stood from his seat and exited the room, finished with his meal. Turning down the hallway towards his room, he disappeared from sight without a word.
Standing as well, Robert followed suit a few seconds later.
Glancing over his shoulder as Tricko entered the flight deck, Ted asked, “Did they go to sleep?”
As he walked towards the two humans, the Gaoian grimaced and replied, “They are in their rooms at least. I assume that after such a long time awake, they will sleep.”
“Good.” Frank said, “After all the shit that’s happened, I want those guns on that suit to actually work when they’re finished. I’d rather they didn’t explode because they attached the wrong wire in a sleepless haze.”
“Five more days, Frank. You worried about what we’ll find when we get there?” Ted asked quietly.
“Worried? Kid, I’m fucking terrified. That’s why I want something that has working guns on it.”
4y 11m 3w 3d AV
“I want to be as prepared as we can. The area we have to cover to intercept them is entirely unmanageable, but, we have one or two options that may aid in the attempt.” The Gaoian said, sitting rigidly in her seat, while conversing with the four drones that she had chosen to captain her reinforcement cruisers.
Blank faces stared back at her as she spoke, registering her voice, but giving no indication of emotion.
When it became obvious that a response was not forthcoming, she continued on, saying, “We have an overly large stockpile of gravity spikes; left over from Sixty-Four’s failure. We shall be employing the same methods as him, but with a different goal in mind.”
Standing from her chair, Nineteen began to pace, working out her plan as she spoke.
“If we can’t kill them before they get into the nebula, I want to force them into the heart of the world’s defences.”
She stopped pacing as the plan began to form.
Nineteen knew that it would be nearly impossible to kill the humans with her own forces, given that they would be impossible to find once they entered the nebula. But, the defenses of the taboo world were so extensive, and so foolproof, that she was sure they would do the job for her.
No ship had ever survived the trip through the swarm.
A nagging voice in the back of her head spoke to her, saying, No ship, except for the ones the first group of humans came in on.
Giving an angry flick of her ears, Nineteen told herself that the humans on the surface were as good as dead anyways.
The monsters of that planet would eventually take care of that.
4y 11m 3w 4d AV
Frank took a breath.
“Alright guys, this is it! Kid, get to engineering and make sure we have enough power to jump out of the system immediately if we have to. Tricko, Ryst get up here to man the pursuit countermeasures. Ted, stay in that seat and be ready to use the EW Suite. Everyone, we’re about to drop out of FTL with our destination in sight. If our friends knew where we we’re headed, they probably got here first, and will be waiting.” Frank spoke into the ship-wide intercom.
Ted was already present, and the two of them waited for the Gaoians to file into the room and take their positions.
“I’m ready, Frank. Our power is sitting around 80%. That should be plenty for whatever happens next.” Robert’s voice said through the intercom.
“We’re going in as quietly as possible. I’m going to try to make us look like average space debris. Ted, as soon as we’re out of FTL, I want you to find the average speed of every space rock you can find and tell it to me, so that we can mimic it.” Frank said.
“Got it.” Ted replied.
Frank took another breath to steady himself for the last few seconds of the FTL flight, and began counting silently along with the timer on his console, telling him when they would drop into sublight speeds.
Five…four…three…two…one…
“Here we go.” he whispered.
God, I hope we don’t die.
The Reclamation exited FTL at a nearly absurd distance from the nebula, under the paranoia of its Captain.
No one commented on the standoff distance though, as they all agreed with Frank’s caution.
The old man gave a nod to Ted, as a readout told him what speed Frank should set the ship to.
Even with the vacuum of space shrouding them in silence, no one dared to speak, for fear of being heard.
All of them looked to Frank, waiting for his verdict as to whether they were going to continue forward with the plan, and whether or not they were alone.
Letting out a small breath, Frank whispered, “I think that we’re alright. The ship isn’t detecting anything out here.”
He gave a nervous grin to Ted as he spoke, an expression of surprised happiness on his face.
“Frank, I’m looking at the same things you are, and I want to try something to boost our sensor strength.” Robert’s voice boomed over the intercom, making everyone on the flight deck jump.
Collecting his wits, Frank replied, “What did you have in mind?”
“I want to reroute all of the transmitting panels from the EW Suite to the scanning array. I can make them receive, instead of transmit. They’re not really supposed to do that, but it should at least give us a bit more range.” Robert said.
Mulling it over, Frank pursed his lips and said, “As long as it won’t make us more visible, that’s fine. Just make sure you don’t break anything.”
Seconds passed in silence as they moved forward, the great pillar of gases moving closer as time went on.
Impossible to see the true scope of such a massive object, words failed to describe the sheer immensity of the stellar nursery that the nebula rose out from. A great ocean of color was laid out beneath them. Swirling in great coils of purples and yellowish hues, mixing in several areas and bordered clearly in others. Rivers of red gases ran through the clouds like veins of blood, shifting lazily as they moved through the landscape of gas.
And that was only what was visible on the surface.
Deep within the nursery, flashes could be seen every minute or so, muffled as if seen through a dark lens.
Frank became distracted as he marveled at the swirling landscape set out below him, moving his ship silently towards the pillar of purple and pink light that rose from the depths of the gargantuan sea of gas.
”Holy shit, guys. Are you seeing this?” asked Robert, bringing Frank from his wonder and back into the present.
“Yeah, kid. This place is beautiful.” Frank said quietly.
”Not that, you idiots! Look at scanners!” Robert shouted at the whole flight crew.
Fear thrilling through him, and dispelling all thoughts of calm, Frank frantically began to scan his sensors, picking up many objects that had previously been invisible.
Looking fuzzy and shapeless, around fifty objects were now on their scanners. The ship could not make heads or tails of what they were, and had simply labeled them as “unknown objects.”
Five of the objects were massive.
“Rob, are those what I think they are?” Ryst whispered into the intercom.
A moment of silence passed before Robert replied, saying, “Yeah, cloaked enemy ships. They’re waiting for us to show up. If you look closer, there are over a hundred gravity spikes laid out all over the place. If we hadn’t come out of FTL so far out, we would have hit them and been in the same situation as before.”
Deeply thankful for his paranoia, Frank breathed relief as he noted that none of the ships had moved, nor acted as if they had taken the slightest notice of their presence.
From his workstation, Tricko turned and said, “Our scanners aren’t good enough to track them reliably. We can barely see them as it is. If they get up to any kind of speed, it will be impossible to tell where they are.”
“It’s a good thing they haven’t seen us yet.” Frank grunted.
Ryst gave a low growl, that Frank interpreted as approval.
“So we will be continuing on, human?” he said, glancing briefly away from his screens.
Frank assessed the situation, trying to see what would have to happen for them to pass unnoticed.
He saw that another great web of gravity spikes was laid out before them, stretching a large distance in front of them. But, it seemed that the enemy had misjudged the human’s approach direction, as they were approaching at an oblique angle to the wall.
There was also a massive spike-free zone at the center, as if inviting them to pass through it.
Fuck that. That’s so obviously a trap, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was put there by mistake.
Their current angle would eventually take them into the nebula, but they would be skirting through the rear flank of the mass of ships that currently waited to annihilate them at the first opportunity. They also had to pass through the gravity spikes before that as well.
Still, as long as they weren’t in FTL, didn’t make any changes in direction or speed, and had a healthy measure of luck, they might actually be able to do it.
“Yeah, we’re going in.” Frank growled, a slim smile forming on his face.
It took over an hour for them to reach the first gravity spike, traveling at a snail’s pace in terms of space travel. As they moved past it, seeing it out of the front view port, they saw it glint in the distance malevolently, cheated of its prize.
The sea of iridescent gases below no longer had any pull on the crew, and it had become only a terrifying mystery that shrouded more enemies and nightmares beneath their feet.
In silence, the ship drifted forward, propelled only by the original push given to it by the kinetic engines, which now lay inactive.
No one on the ship had spoken for nearly half an hour, all standing a quiet vigil to see if they were about to die.
The pillar of purple and pink gas, distant and beautiful before, now loomed in front of them like an impermeable wall of promised hardship, beckoning them closer.
Another twenty minutes passed before they reached the next gravity spike, which had the first of the cloaked ships patrolling in lazy circles around it. As the cloaked enemy grew closer, the sensors more easily gave it a defined shape, but never fully outlined it.
Tense seconds passed as they moved past the patrolling vessel, which made no move against them.
Ted let out a shaky sigh as the ship was put behind them.
Hours passed, and more tense moments arose, but they continued on in uninterrupted silence, unhindered by the fleet that desired their deaths.
At last, with frayed nerves, they passed into the first layer of gas within the nebula, dulling their sensors and only mildly obscuring the vision out of the front view port.
No more ships registered on their sensors, as the cloaked ships were obscured by the rising interference from the swirling gases.
After nearly twenty minutes, Frank activated the kinetic generators and gave the ship a significant boost in speed, taking them far deeper into the nebula.
His voice hoarse from lack of use, Frank asked, “Ted, where was the last known sighting of our ships in those Chehnasho reports?”
Scrolling through pages of notes on his screen, Ted replied, “It’s maybe a few minutes ahead of us, but turn to the left a bit.”
Tricko cleared his throat and fixed a thoughtful gaze on Frank, saying, “Remember, human, this place is not safe. There are many reports of ships coming to this part of space and disappearing. Several have tried to discover why, and they have all disappeared too. I ask that we not join them.”
“I remember, Tricko. I’ll be carefu-”
Ryst was suddenly shouting, “Ships behind us!”
All conversation over, they all began scrambling to understand how things had suddenly gone wrong.
“I thought we couldn’t see ships in here!?” Ted shouted.
Ryst was still giving out information as fast as he could, saying, “We can’t see cloaked ships! These ships aren’t cloaked! I think they knew we might sneak past them, and waited for us inside the nebula!”
“How many!?” Frank yelled over the noise of a blaring alarm, which he hurriedly switched off.
Ryst answered, saying, “Twenty or so! They look like some of the same ships that attacked us before! We have no choice but to outrun them, Frank!” Turning to Ted, Tricko locked eyes with the human as he said, “They probably found us when you told the Captain to turn the ship. Space junk doesn’t turn.”
Eyes widening, Ted felt a hole open up in his stomach.
Needing no further information than he’d been given, Frank gunned the ship, trying to widen the gap between themselves and their pursuers, who had begun to spread out behind them.
Already, Robert was shutting down nonessential systems. Lights, cooling, and the EW suite were being rerouted into the kinetic drives, pushing them faster.
The gases outside of the ship were thickening, beginning to obscure the ship’s sensors badly and skirting the line between transparent and opaque.
They were not taking fire yet, which struck Frank as odd, seeing as they were within range.
Outside the ship, the gases were now completely opaque in their density, reflecting light from within the nebula and shining like the sun itself. The sensors were now all but useless to see what lay before them, and they could only barely see the lead ship that pursued them.
A terrifying thought occurred to Frank.
They’re herding us.
And then a thunderous bolt of lightning tore through space in front of the ship.
Even as the lighting began to arc across his vision, searing his eyes and blinding him, the Vzk’tk drone that commanded the fastest pursuit vessel ignored the pain and broadcast a message at full power, attempting to pierce the veil of electromagnetism and radiation throughout the nebula.
“The humans have activated the defense grid. They will not survive.” he said methodically, as though the words had been rehearsed and programmed into him.
He could no longer see his control panel, and was only dimly aware of the continuing lighting, in the form of dull flashes that were only vaguely alarming.
Another drone behind him began to inform him that several ships had been destroyed.
Not taking heed of the danger, neither drone seemed perturbed when loud thuds began sounding throughout the ship, denting the hull and even exposing several compartments of the ship to the surrounding vacuum.
Flicking the same switch that he’d just used to send the first message, he said, “We have experienced the loss of several ships, we are unaware of the cause of the-”
Though he could not see it, a large, elongated, mechanical thing, covered in coppery scales and many limbs, latched onto the front of the Vzk’tk ship.
A brutal and unfeeling robotic eye peered through the view screen at the Vzk’tk.
Something akin to a mouth opened beneath the single eye of the creature, a bright light emitting from it.
And in a flash of plasma and fire, the front of the ship exploded and ejected the Captain and his crew into space.
“Frank…what the fuck is happening?” Ted asked, unable to turn his gaze from the serpentine visage before him, gazing upon them all with an unmoving and alien gaze.
Latched onto the front of the ship, it had, along with several others of its kind, broken through the shields with pitiful ease and moved to look at them through the window.
Unable to find his voice, Frank merely stared at the coppery creature, sure that death was imminent.
No one spoke.
Even in engineering, away from the gaze of the beast, Robert was silent, seeing in his video feeds that the entire ship was covered in the same creatures as the one having a staring contest with Frank.
Over twenty of them were either latched onto the ship, denting the thick hull on impact, or circling them as they continued past the wall of lightning that they had miraculously passed through unscathed.
The same lightning that was now tearing their pursuers apart.
The heaviest moments in Frank’s recent memory passed in fearful silence.
With excruciating slowness, the serpentine robot released it’s hold on the front of the ship, and pushed off from them lazily, retracting its limbs inside its body and becoming snakelike.
Creaking, and loud clunking noises, sounded all over the ship as the creatures all departed and moved as one into the mist of the nebula.
“What…the fuck…was that thing?” asked Ted, of no one in particular.
“You mean, ‘those things.’ There had to have been at least twenty of them all over the ship.” Robert replied over intercom.
A soft chuckle made everyone turn towards Ryst, who was giving a sickening affectation of a smile as he said, “Those are the things that kill anyone who comes here.”
Ted answered, “I agree with Ryst’s guess. We should leave. Now.”
Frank grunted heavily and said, “Absolutely not. We just passed through a wall of lightning, watched all the ships behind us get torn apart, and we barely have a scratch on us. It’s possible our missing crews and ships made it through the same as we did.”
“You want to find the things that made those monsters!? Frank, I don’t know why those things let us live, but if those things let our people escape, why are they still missing?” Ted asked incredulously.
As Frank and Ted began to bicker over what to do next, Tricko glanced at the viewport of the ship and gasped at what he saw.
Like breaking the surface of water, they exited the swirling clouds of gas and emerged into an area of clear space, shrouded in a massive cocoon of the nebula.
All around them, glittering packs of the same serpent like robots lazily traveled around them, moving in great masses and reflecting the light of the nebula back upon their ship.
Frank felt awed as he was reminded of schools of fish, moving together as if guided by one mind.
Thousands of the creatures were present, and moved towards them with a seemingly child-like curiosity, only to suddenly change direction sharply and speed away.
A large group broke into several smaller ones, and joined other schools of their fellows.
Several times, bright flashes would arc between several of the creatures, electricity traveling between them in much tamer versions of the lightning than the Reclamation had been subjected to earlier.
Seconds passed in silent wonder as they watched these killer robots, so menacing only moments before, look innocent and even quizzical.
“We can’t even be near the other side of the nebula, right? Why is this part of space so clear?” Frank asked, shaking himself from his thoughts.
Tearing his eyes away from the sight before him, Ted looked at his computer screens and said, “I think…we found a star system. If a star’s magnetic field or stellar wind is energetic enough, it might be able to repel the gases within the nebula like this, at least the gases that weren’t used in the formation of the star itself. It’s probably also why the gas was so thick at the borders.”
Remembering his duties, Frank steered the ship to the bright yellow spot in the distance that the computer had identified as a star. As they moved towards it, the massive schools of serpents followed them.
“Dibs on calling the murdering space snakes ‘Basilisks!’” Robert sang into the intercom.
“Shut up, kid, or I’ll increase the gravity in engineering.” Frank growled.
Flanked by thousands of metallic onlookers, the Reclamation moved deeper into the solar system as the computer registered three rocky worlds and two gas giants.
The largest of the rocky worlds, perhaps one and a half times the size of Earth, immediately sent up notifications on the crew’s display screens.
Indications of a civilization were becoming more numerous as they drew closer, but the certainty of the death of that civilization also became more obvious as well.
As they approached the world the computer had designated, they recognized satellites and space borne habitats. But they also found the debris field that surrounded the entire planet, many layered and comprised of mountain sized asteroids.
Their view of the world’s surface was greatly obscured, and traveling through the asteroid field would have been suicide, so Frank tried to find a clearer avenue of approach.
As Frank flew, Ted was working at a feverish pace on his console; moving his lips without speaking and working through a theory that had struck him.
Flying the ship to the northern half of the planet, they saw it.
A massive crater, if you could even call it such a thing.
It looked as though a gigantic hand had scooped out part of the world below them, leaving a dark heart of blackened bedrock and molten lava at the center of it.
Black scorch marks extended for thousands of miles from the edges of mountain ranges that had formed at the rim of the crater, and deep cracks spidered across the surface of the world. In many places, smaller craters, almost like pockmarks, littered the surface and cast long shadows upon the ground.
“Alright, that does it. Frank, stop the ship.” Ted spoke, sounding much more sober and grim than he usually did.
Taking his tone to heart, Frank did as told and asked, “What’s up?” as the ship came to a halt.
Standing and looking agitated, Ted began to pace back and forth behind the two pilot chairs.
“I know what happened to this world, Frank. We should leave.” Ted barked.
Surprised at the harshness in his voice, both Gaoians and Frank looked at Ted, and Robert stepped onto the flight deck, intent on seeing what was making Ted so nervous.
“Go ahead. Explain.” Robert said.
Forcing himself to stand still, Ted answered, “Someone murdered this planet. On purpose. This asteroid field is not a natural formation.”
Ryst, not seeing what Ted meant asked, “Meteors hit planets all the time. Just because this one looks like it was bigger than usual-”
“No!” Ted snapped, “You don’t understand. A meteor traveling through space, large enough to create this much debris, would have destroyed the planet outright and turned it into a molten ball of rock if it had been traveling even half as fast as the one that killed the dinosaurs.”
“So…what?” asked Frank.
“Someone nuked nearly every piece of this planet, trying to ruin it, and when that didn’t work, they crashed a fucking moon into it.” Ted replied grimly.
Robert snorted, saying, “That’s impossible. The engineering to pull off something like that is beyond any species in the galaxy. Gravity engines the size of cities would be required.”
Ted growled, “I don’t care if you think it’s impossible or not! We’re not setting foot on that world!”
“I think that’s my decision, Ted.” Frank said warningly.
The mood turned very cold in the room, the great scar of a crater looming beneath them outside the view port.
Tricko broke the silence by asking, “Why don’t you want to go down there, Ted?”
Without turning, his gaze boring into Frank, Ted replied, “Because the people who tried to kill this planet didn’t do a very good job. This planet has been made into a Class 14 Deathworld.”