Dark Haven - Chapter 18

[crunn]

Chapter 01 (Fate of the Armadeaus)
Chapter 02 (Portents)
Chapter 03 (Passing of a Fantasy)
Chapter 04 (Fissures in the Dark)
Chapter 05 (Reminiscence)
Chapter 06 (Things that go Bump...)
Chapter 07 (The Rocky Road)
Chapter 08 (Escape Plan)
Chapter 09 (Becoming)
Chapter 10 (And it Begins Again)
Chapter 11 (Flight)
Chapter 12 (Cut-off)
Chapter 13 (Spicy Noodles Under a Blood Coloured Moon)
Chapter 14 (The Dreaming)
Chapter 15 (Room With A View)
Chapter 16 (Clearing the Way)
Chapter 17 (Nasty)

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DARK HAVEN

Chapter 18 (The Gathering)


Jubilee


Pierson leaves the M5 in the capable hands of the engineers and enters the elevator. He almost presses the button for the bridge then changes his mind and picks the floor for the medbay. The door opens and he steps out.
Pierson walks through the small reception room into the doctors treatment room.

'So Doctor, how is Captain Monroe?'

'We won't know for sure until he regains consciousness.
But physically he should be just fine with a few weeks rest and his replacement leg.'

'Did the suit or remains of the leg give any clues as to what happened?'

'We ran the leg through the scanner first. Nothing unusual, except the nature of the injury itself, which you've seen, I'd like to know what did that.
Whatever it was left no trace behind, no fragments, no machinery oil, no organic matter, nothing.
I didn't scan the suit, it's been bagged, over here.'

'May I?'

'Help yourself.'

Pierson takes the suit out of the bag and lies it on the operating table.
He then lifts the scanning device and takes a shot. Replacing the device he turns to the view screen.
A flashing box says 'Warning, it is recommended this space suit not be used.'
Otherwise, nothing of interest.
Pierson unclips the suit's PDP and notices its battery charge is low and memory is full.

'Doctor, I'm going to take this with me, keep the suit for now.'

'Well you can put the suit back in its bag before you go, Lieutenant.'

Pierson does so, then as he is leaving says 'Let me know when Monroe wakes up.'

'Very well.'

The doctor gets back to his microscope and Pierson re-enters the elevator.

...

Bridge


"If they are coming through it should be any second now."

Pierson enters the bridge with a crisp replacement jacket picked up from his quarters en-rout.

"Ah, Lieutenant, did you enjoy your trip out?"

"Yes Captain, it was lovely. I thoroughly recommend it.
I'm sure you'd like to take the M5 out next time Captain."

"I might just do that.
What have you there?"

"It's Monroe's PDP.
I'm about to see what's on it."

Pierson walks to a console at the back of the bridge and inserts the small device into the slot.

"Hmmm, personal logs.
Ahh, there's what's taking up all the space, A/V logs. Not Argon, Teladi by the look of the file names.
From the station I would guess."

"Play them back then, Lieutenant."

The main view screen changes to the image of a Teladi female. She starts to speak, in Teladi.

"Hold on, I'll run it through the translator."

Sina spoke while Pierson was pressing buttons,
"Her insignia shows her to be a member of the Blood Moon Clan.
That adds up with those pirates that attacked us.
Her appearance and clothes show she is the leader, maybe of the whole clan. Though she seems a little young.
Maybe the younger sister or daughter of the clan leader."

The recording starts up again, this time in Argon.

"Thiss object we found drifting towardss the sstation and brought onboard seemss to be alive.
I think it iss growing.
It's sslightly bigger than a Bayomon so we can't move it into the medical bay's isolation chamber.
The dock workers don't like it being down there. Two of them have gone missing and the rest refuse to go back down there, they tell me it ssmells like..."

The image cuts off early. Pierson starts the next log entry.

"The black thing, what ever it iss, hass killed, we think eaten, the doctor. He tried to take a ssample for analysiss after all sscans of the entity failed to penetrate. The ssecurity guards with him fired on it with no noticeable effect, but we all heard it's pain in our mindss before it quickly killed them too. I have ordered our three remaining fighters to launch and attack it with their more powerful weapons."

"Thousandss of tiny black shipss arrived all around uss, they destroyed our shipss then left.
Power is out through much of the sstation, it is sshaking us apart.
Communicationss are out but we think it has killed everyone in the sstation. It has left C&C and the upper deckss alone for now.
We need to escape.
It has covered almost all of the exterior of the station in it's skin.
It is eating us, the whole sstation."

"Structural integrity is badly compromised. The tremorss are worsening.
It is huge, forcing the sstation out of shape, all the time consuming it.
The black entity is coming sstraight through the wallss.
No way out.
No where to hide.
It is all over..."

The final entry stops and Pierson puts the sector map back on the view screen.

The Captain spoke first.
"This doesn't exactly fill me with confidence at all.
Send a copy of these to Fleet Command and The Titan."

"Still no sign of them, no gate activity, nothing.
They are long overdue."

"Good, Sina. Let's hope they don't arrive until the rest of the fleet get here."

"Boron shark is in position and I'm detecting something else coming through the other gate.
Argon One."

"Excellent. Contact..."

"General Kaar already has."

The Conversation is heard by all AFC ships.

"Welcome to Teladi Way General Illandas.
Glad you could join the party."

"Thank you General Kaar.
Glad to see you well Captain Hall."

"It was close, Sir, but we got out in time. They don't seem to be following us out.
We have two Elites if you have room to take them onboard. One is badly damaged, disabled.
Also we are transmitting you some information which Monroe collected."

"Very good Captain.
How is Monroe?"

"He should be ok."

"Good. We will pick up the Elites and pull along side the Shark.
We will, of course, need a path cleared through the asteroid field. I see you have already started General."

"Yes, we pulled back when we heard the black ships might be on the way through."

"Ok, we'll wait five mizuras more then I'll send in a wing of Elites to finish the job.
For the moment everyone hold position and keep scanning.
Oh, one more thing. General Tirnok will be joining us shortly, however General Vos is having some trouble with his jumpdrive, they are sending additional engineers to take a look. But he might not be able to join us.
Any sign of the Teladi?

"Not yet.
The Boron Rays will be here in a little under forty mizuras."

"Ok, Illandas out."

...


Pegasus

'Transmission from the Corvette.
Hmmm, encrypted files.
Soon have them decoded.'

'There, done.'

'Open.
Play it back.
Teladi Pirate, Blood Moon...'

'I don't like the sound of these black things.
I'll report this back as soon as I get chance. Don't want to be detected, so I'll not transmit just yet.'

'And here comes the Argon One
It's looking well considering the little 'experiment' we conducted on it.
It was just a minor trial of course.'

'Oh, another conversation coming through.
And another transmission from the M6.
Ah, the same files again, oh well.'

'So, they are going to start shooting asteroids again. This is getting a little boring.'

...


Argon One


"Bring us within five kilometres of the disabled Elite and stop.
Send out the tug to bring it in.
And have the other Elite dock for refuelling.
Then bring us along side the Boron Shark.
Also have all fighters prepped for launch, and ready one of the fighter wings with Hornets to take out the asteroids."

"Yes General." The commander replies

...

The Argon One slows as it nears the Commanders Elite, the Lieutenant Commander still stands guard over the crippled ship.
Once at rest, a small tug vessel leaves the launch bay of the colossal carrier.
It makes its way slowly to the M3. Then it too comes to a stop and turns around.
A grapple on a line, exactly the same as the one on the Jubilee, fires out from the back of the tug and connects with the Elite.
As the small vessel accelerates back towards its home it draws the line in, closing the gap between the two ships to almost nothing.
The Lieutenant Commander follows at a safe distance.
A few moments later the three ships disappear into the Argon One and it resumes its journey towards the other carrier.

Around five mizuras later the Argon One pulls into position and comes to a full stop facing the asteroid field.

"Any sign of the enemy Commander Jalat?"

"No, nothing."

"That's been almost ten mizuras longer than we were expecting them to be, I don't think they are coming.
Launch the wing of Elites to clear the asteroids."

"Yes Sir."

[Moss]

Very interesting Crunn especialy the log translation from the pirate station, being eaten alive including the station doesn't sound like much fun. I'm still wondering about Monroe or his leg being infected, I think he'll have an interesting tale to tell once he wakes, but will he be the same man? apart from being a limb short that is!

I dunno if they should go in to try and clear the X8 sector out, but I do think more information about this lifeform will be esential, well if I was there i'd want to know how best to deal with it.

Good stuff keep it coming, cheers.

[KiwiNZ]

Very good read. As mentioned by Moss before, the log translation is interesting. I too think there could be more wrong with Monroe than meets the eye.
I also wonder if the black ships are actually using gates at all or they just create an ambush by jumping straight into the back of the battle ships.
Given their 'society', as you described it in an earlier chapter, I am not sure if they'd actually sacrifice one ship as a scout before they enter a battle or if they value every ship/being so highly that they always come in huge amounts.

Looking forward to more.

found a couple of things:

"refuse to back" - go back?
"sseurity" - ssecurity
"hope they don't until" - there is something like 'arrive' missing

[crunn]

Thanks guys.

You’re all determined to have something nasty happen/happening to Monroe,
Hasn't the poor guy been through enough?
Well, actually I do have some major plans/revelations for him when he wakes up, but that's not for a few chapters yet.
(you'll see. Mwahhahah)

found a couple of things:
"refuse to back" - go back?
"sseurity" - ssecurity
"hope they don't until" - there is something like 'arrive' missing

Thanks, sorted.