Dark Haven - Chapter 19

[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)
Chapter 18 (The Gathering)

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DARK HAVEN

Chapter 19 (Duty Calls)


Argon Fleet Command


Admiral Ornov types his pass code into the panel in front of him.
A retinal scanner does its work then announces "Access Granted".

'I was only in here a stazura ago, but I must take one more look before...'

He steps under the sign saying "Secured Records Authorised Personnel Only" into the long narrow room and looks around.
Ornov walks the length of it to a door at the far end.
"No Access" is written in large red lettering across the door.

'Well, not quite true. Three of us have access. Myself, Illandas and the President.
Although our current President has never seen it, not sure he even knows about it.'

The Admiral goes through the laborious process for the second time today.
Insert key card, type fifteen digit pass-code, palm scan, retinal scan, voice recognition and bio-scan.

'The bio-scan is checking for signs of stress, I'm not sure how that works, I'm always stressed when I need to come here.'

"Access Granted"

The door slides open.
The Admiral steps quickly into the dark room before the door closes again.
Once the door is closed behind him the light comes up. The door is heard to re-lock itself.
The room is small, little more than a cupboard. Only big enough to comfortably fit one person at a time, which was specifically part of the design.
The back wall is a bookcase with glass doors, filled with old books and papers.
Against the wall on the right is a standard console with view screen, though this one is independent of any network.
A chair is tucked under the console. He pulls out the chair, sits and types yet another password to access the console.
Once in, he runs through the menus to find the file again and presses 'play'.

'This was recovered fifteen jazuras ago. It was found in a piece of wreckage embedded in an comet passing through Treasure Chest.
It took wozuras just to identify it as being of Xenon origin beneath all the charing melting and disfigurement.
We think this small piece of wreckage was from a Xenon satellite. It had obviously been there for many jazuras.
This is a partial video record from that wreckage, no audio.
We still haven't been able to identify the solar system, the star formations in the background are unfamiliar.'

The view screen shows an image of a planet.
We are in orbit. As we slowly travel around, the surface far beneath can be seen intermittently between the clouds.
Obviously a Xenon planet. Striped bare of its resources, baron. Several vast cities, no, not cities, construction facilities. Small ships buzzing around far below. A hive of activity.
Suddenly the camera turns to face the gate and zooms in. Capital ships can be seen in the distance, gathering, heading towards a gate.
There is another planet not far behind the gate. Dark patches on the planet show it is also colonised by the Xenon.
Fighters rush past, probably from the planet behind, more, more. Recognisable as being old style fighters, placing this around, or more than fifty jazuras ago.
There is obviously something bad going on, all military ships rushing towards the gate.

The two carriers and two destroyers are now positioned near the gate. All fighters launched and now split into three groups, the first is with the capital ships and the other two behind the gate.
The gate activates. One huge ship comes through the gate, vast. Almost too big. It is quite possible the ship was designed to fit through and no more. Black spherical, no, more oval, a little like an egg but tapering equally both front and back. On the front and back ends of the ship are many spear-like protrusions. They look small compared to the ship, but in reality they are perhaps twenty to thirty meters in diameter and perhaps thirty to forty of them on either end.
Each spear begins black like the hull, but around two thirds of the way out the colour starts to gradient towards clear. The last few meters are completely transparent, until they start to glow. Arcs of glowing energy run between the spears, brighter and brighter. Then one almighty burst of energy is released from the front end. The energy arcs like electricity from the ship to its target momentarily connecting the two ships, but somehow it just doesn't look electrical, plasma perhaps, perhaps not. It hits the nearer of the two destroyers and tears its shield completely away.
As the Black ship is firing its first shot the Xenon all open fire on it. Capital ships holding position and fighters moving quickly towards and around. The shear number of shots from the Xenon seen truly overwhelming, but the Black ship seems barely fazed by it.
The alien ship continues forward towards the destroyer and fires again. Its rear weapon fires this time, differently, each spear seems to be firing independently. Arcs of energy spiralling outward in a multitude of directions, most hitting and destroying a fighter. It is obviously far less powerful this way, but to take out as many as thirty or forty fighters in a single volley is more than impressive.
The Xenon continue their barrage on the ship with still no noticeable effect.
Twenty sezuras later the front weapon hits the same destroyer again mostly on the right side, away from the camera, but fires can be seen erupting even from this distance and angle. The badly damaged Xenon ship begins to loose stability and starts rolling, the fires becoming more obvious, though it manages to continue firing as before.
The second starts to move off, slowly at first, gaining speed, around the side of the alien ship turning to bring as many guns as possible to bear on the enemy.
Now with the Black ship a sufficient distance from the gate, a second joins the first. It fires the moment it arrives, its forward weapon sparking in every forward direction taking out many of the remaining fighters and reducing the shields of the capital ships a little. A moment later the rear weapon in the same manner taking the remaining few fighters.
Finally the Xenon weapons seem to be having some effect on the first of the Black ships. It is slowing and the tips of rear spears return to translucent. The concentration of plasma from the second destroyer along its side has managed to cut through the hull in several places. A black liquid starts to ooze from its 'wounds'.
The first ship fires once more at the damaged Xenon destroyer before it appears to die. Its forward weapons go out and it begins to drift slightly, sideways.
Its final discharge of energy was more than enough to shred through the near-crippled destroyer, little more than shards of metal remained.
The remaining Xenon change target to the second of the Black ships.
A third Black ship arrives. The second now lining up on the second destroyer. The third already firing on the first carrier.
The first Xenon carrier begins to turn, probably trying to retreat, but is hit head on by the energy weapon, stripping it of its shields and causing some minor damage to the hull.
The Xenon destroyer begins to accelerate, turning around with the second ship trying to stay out of the line of fire while continuing to fire itself. It manages this well, however in doing so it strays behind the gate as the fourth arrives and takes its first shot backwards through the gate. The destroyer is hit full-on on the broadside taking the shields down and destroying a large section of its hull.
The damaged carrier takes one last hit and breaks apart.
The destroyer clears the gate only to be met with a fatal burst from the rear of the third Black ship.
The final remaining Xenon ship, the huge carrier, is clearly dwarfed by each of the three active alien ships. They move closer for the kill. Their weapons glowing brightly.
Then, as one, all three fire.
The explosion is so bright it could be seen for many hundreds of kilometres.

One of the ships then attaches itself to the dead or disabled Black ship and pulls it back through the gate.
The remaining two each head to a planet.
The first arrives at the other planet in only a couple of mizuras. It enters orbit, further, it enters the atmosphere and stops at cloud level. The camera zooms further, the ship and construction facility beneath filling the view.
Its weapon fires, in the individually spread mode, taking out buildings, levelling them to the ground, fire, destruction. In moments there is nothing but craters.
The ship moves north and eliminates another city. Then northeast and another. Further east and disappears round the back of the planet.
Jump points form near the planet, thousands of tiny black ships emerge and fly in a cloud down to the site of the first destroyed city.
The second Black ship is almost at this planet, its weapons ready to fire. It enters the atmosphere not far from the camera. It passes close by. Even though the camera is zoomed fully out to wide angle the ship still more than fills the view, the shinny black skin, smooth, creepy, evil.
It begins firing on the buildings below, smoke and fire filling the atmosphere.
Then a single one of its rear spear-like protrusions lights up.
A flash and the picture goes dead.


'When I first saw this recording some jazuras ago, I naturally thought that the Xenon got what they deserved, that this was simply a race retaliating against the Xenon.
But now, seeing this again and knowing some of the events taking place in X8, it is all becoming clear.
The attack or capture of the pirate station,
the probable destruction of any ships belonging to the station,
the apparent destruction of the Armadeaus and its M5,
the attempted destruction of the Jubilee,
but most of all this recording of the absolute elimination of all 'life' in a Xenon sector.
In my opinion all this points to one thing, a race of hostile expansionists, systematically colonising solar system after solar system, destroying any life that is already there.'

'Maybe I'm wrong. I hope I am. But I doubt it.
There is no doubt that the tiny ships here and in X8 are one in the same.
Those capital ships...
Well, I don't know if we stand a chance.
We can only hope to fight them back before they get established in the sector.'

The Admiral stands and opens the door. Head hung low. A man with a terrible burden emerges from the room.
He is soon back in the corridor with both doors secure behind him.

'There can be no mistakes, no hesitation.
Illandas, despite our differences, I do consider him to one of the best in the fleet. If he weren't he would not be commanding the Argon One.
Even so I wonder if he has the stomach for a fight like this, to do what must be done, no matter the cost.'

Ornov taps a control on a nearby comms panel.

"Reamus, this is Ornov.
Do we have any jump-capable ships nearby?"

"Hold a moment...
You are in luck. Every able fighter was assigned to the Argon One, but we do have one Buster in the shipyard undergoing repairs on a faulty shield generator."

"Good. Have it dock here at Fleet Command immediately."

"Yes Admiral.
But may I ask..."

"I'm joining the fight.
I'll be waiting in the dock for the Buster.
Ornov out."

[Snokid]

Interesting development[ external image ]

[KiwiNZ]

Good and interesting background! It sounds very much like an ultimate weapon. Though, since it appears to be biological one may wonder how much it has evolved in as little as 50 Jazuras. So there could be a chance for new ships and weapons.

Looking forward to more.

[Moss]

This paints a bleak picture, a foe with some awsome fire power and probably even more so now so much time has passed. Still they didn't completly wipe out the Xenon as they have proved to still be a nuisance, so the question is did the Xenon hide or was there eventualy a stalemate? Good stuff Crunn keep it coming.

[Mercenary]

Just been catching up on the last couple of chapters...

Good read, didn't see any capital ships in sector X8 but I guess they're on their way...

Pity the Xenon didn't have the use of the M0 planet killer to help defend them, could have helped even the odds up a tad...

[Al]

Good stuff. Just caught up on the last 2 chapters. Looks like there is a little battle ahead. Nice to see that even the alien lifeforms hate the Xenon

Al

[crunn]

Thanks y'all

I was worried that this was a bit much.
I mean too much info on the Alien capital ships.
Have I left nothing for the big finale?

So far we've really only seen the M2's and M5's.
And heard a mention of their colony defence ships being destroyed by Xenon, (possibly M6 equivalent)
Well, I have ideas for other classes of ship. Maybe they have an "M0". Woooo.


To answer Moss' question about a possible stalemate between the Aliens and the Xenon.
If you remember back to Monroes dreaming, we saw an earlier part of this same incident.
So between Monroe and Ornov we only know of this single incident between them.
Ok, highly unlikely that this was the only one in all this time, but X8 is the only incident between them and the Argon in all this time.

Well, ok, there have been a few others, you do remember the Xenon being quieter in XT than they were in Xbtf. Lets just say they were rather busy to be bothering much with us at that time.

[KiwiNZ]

bump

[crunn]

Thanks for the bump, Kiwi.

Been having a busy week,
the busy continues,
but I hope to get Ch20 finished sometime before tomorrow night.

crunn crossing the fingers.