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The gargantuan ship turned slowly towards the gate.
It was the TKE Balder, an Argon Titan. The engines flared up and she sluggishly moved towards the swirling vortex.
It was half a jazura after the battle of Omicron Lyrae, and the universe had certainly changed. For only the second time since their meeting, the five races had agreed on something. The Khaak had been stopped momentarily, but they would be back. Despite reluctance by the Paranid and the Split, the five eventually agreed to pool their resources. The Balder was one of these resources. It was patrolling from Kingdom End to Family Whi.
Vice Admiral Santhorpe Braylac sighed and put down a pad containing yet another complaint. The Split ambassador was complaining about the 'disgusted' faces of the Argon crew, and several crewmembers were complaining about the Split's habits, or the Split's attitude towards them.
Flush them all out to space Santhorpe thought briefly.
'Entering gate to Ceo's Buckzoid now.' The navigation officer in the 'nest' below chirped.
Thank the Fates. If I'm lucky, we'll be in Kingdom End soon and I can take Thor's Hammer to Argon space. Santhorpe thought the only good thing about this agreement was that he got a free mamba for fending off a small Khaak incursion in Family Whi.
The ship whirred, clicked and hummed quietly as it entered the gate.
Santhorpe looked up to see the calming, almost hypnotic movements of the gate stream. He half-smiled and closed his eyes.
'Entering sector Ceo's - Holy!' The navigation officer squeaked.
Santhorpe opened his eyes, the space outside was black. Well, that is to say, it was blacker than space normally is. There were no stars, no nebulae, and more importantly, there were no stations or ships within visual range. 'Report!' Santhorpe barked at the nest.
No-one had time to answer. The huge titan suddenly nose dived, throwing Santhorpe's second-in-command over the railing to the nest below. The ship groaned and creaked in complaint.
There's nothing there. Nothing at all. Santhorpe thought as he struggled to stay in his seat, What in the hells is doing this?
There was a fizzle of electricity that expanded to a tumultuous roar of crackling circuitry as several panels gave out.
'Shields are gone! Hull at 73% and falling.' An officer hollered.
Alarm klaxons wailed throughout the ship. No doubt the Split ambassador was already writing another complaint.
The ship shuddered suddenly, as if struck by something unseen, but giant. Santhorpe was flung from his chair, striking his head off the railing and lapsing into a sweet unconsciousness.
Silvan Trovo'kren was rather rudely awoken when his bunk collapsed and he was flung sideways onto the metal grid below. His roommate was gone. The door to their small quarters was lying neatly in two pieces, one in the room and one outside. The corridor outside looked to be at a different angle than the quarters. Silvan groaned and stood up. Since he was part of the 'Red Squad' - the first fighters to be sent into battle - he was already dressed. Stepping cautiously onto the corridor floor he realised that it was, indeed, at a different angle and promptly tumbled to the other side.
Struggling, bleary eyed, to get towards the hanger bay, he noticed something: there was no-one else here. Silvan never thought of himself as a deep-sleeper, but could it have been possible that he slept through whatever was happening?
'This is Vice Admiral Braylac,' the comm unit boomed, but it was a pre-recorded message, 'evacuate ship. This is not a drill. I repeat...'
Silvan blinked as he reached the elevator, 'Evacuate?' he wondered aloud, 'What in the hells is going on?'
The elevator reached him and the doors opened. Finally, life! Silvan thought as he saw a tall female in officer's uniform. She looked relieved to see someone else as well. There was an odd clicking sound. The elevator disappeared from sight, plummeting straight down. The officer barely had time to make a noise before it collided with the ground.
Silvan winced empathetically. Training had taught him not to react to vigorously to death, but it still had an effect on him.
The hangar bay was one deck down. Silvan looked at the elevator shaft for something to climb down and found an emergency ladder. As he began his decent he wondered what could be doing this. The Khaak weren't that powerful, or if they were, it would have to be a destroyer or two. The only time he had ever seen a destroyer was at Omicron Lyrae.
The doors to the hangar bay were gone, fallen down the shaft, Silvan guessed. He threw himself onto the deck as the ship lurched from side to side. Still no-one. Had they escaped already? Was the hangar bay empty?
He reached the thick bulkhead doors that read in plain yellow lettering, 'Hangar Bay 1'. He pressed a panel to open them, it reported an error with the gravitational plating. Silvan shook his head and activated the manual over ride. The doors thundered open and a disembodied, bloodied arm fell onto him. Silvan jerked back and let the unattached limb flop to the ground. The hangar bay was in ruins. There were several corpses, or bits of corpses, on the walkway around the bay. Of the seven ships that were normally docked here, two were gone, three were now only bits of ships and a sixth had a jut of bulkhead running through the cockpit. The only operational ship was the Vice Admiral's mamba. Silvan wondered if the Vice Admiral would mind, then realised that he didn't care what the pompous git thought.
Silvan took a step into the hangar bay, only to start floating. Carefully kicking off the wall, he bobbed over to the intact ship. Silvan was surprised, considering what had happened to the others; the mamba had no scratches at all. In fine black lettering, running from just below the cockpit was 'TKE Thor's Hammer' and a few ornate stars and symbols. Silvan entered the ship surprisingly easily. Apparently the Vice Admiral didn't think anyone would dare to try and steal it.
Silvan clambered into the cockpit and flicked a few switches. The engines began to whir as the ship's systems came online. Silvan signaled for the doors to open. Nothing happened. Silvan tried again. The automatic system was either ignoring him, or broken.
Silvan groaned, sinking back into his seat. What was he meant to do now? Say, 'Oh well, I had a good life'? He hadn't. Not really. Straight into the military corp, never had time for a social life. Thinking back, he and his roommate hardly said a dozen words to each other per week.
Suddenly, an outer wall exploded inwards. The rubble crashed into the walkway's protective casing. Silvan looked towards the gaping hole.
Outside was black, but he could see the jumpgate. This was his chance.
He - what was the quaint colloquial term? - 'put the pedal to the metal', the mamba shot forward and spun upwards through the hole. He activated the cameras, someone would want evidence and not some crackpot story. The monitor showed him the ruins of the Balder; something had torn it apart. An engine twirled dangerously close to the mamba. Silvan swerved to avoid when something else struck the ship. The left engine shut down, the right overloaded and the ship began spinning haphazardly. Silvan was flung against the hard steel of the cockpit and groaned as his vision began to get fuzzy. He was heading straight at one of the nacelles of the gate.
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Feel free to point out how painful it was for you to read
(now a redundant statement, that's much better!)
