Emergency Beacon

Yril’k entered the bridge at speed, her chitinous claws making the most dreadful sound as she skidded to a halt by the security console. “You are relieved’k.” She said briskly to the young Uinn who was currently manning the station, dropping into the seat the instant he had left it. Tapping the screen a few times, she drooped backwards with a sigh and glanced over at Dustin. Emely slid out his lap and gently applauded the Vex’ess woman. “Record time from your quarters to the bridge, Yril’k.” The Feliax observed, adding “and your junior was handling the simulated situation to an acceptable standard in the interim.”

The Uinn recruit saluted in response; Dustin nodded to the young woman and then gestured to the door. “As the comms officer says, good work. You can spend the rest of your shift on your human studies from the files the chief science officer distributed.” As the woman saluted again and left, he turned his attention back to the Vex’ess warrior. “I do think this is a little unnecessary Yril’k. We have ship wide comms, and part of training the recruits to run your station is so that you can rely on them to handle things when you are not on duty - not so that they can just be keeping the chair warm until you come in - out of breath I might add - having run four decks to get here in an emergency.”

Right as he said the final word, Sola’s lights flashed red and the siren sounded. For a moment he wondered if the Vex’ess had accidentally triggered the alert in response to his words - her console being one of the few that could activate a ship wide call to battle stations. As the woman turned to scan her screen however Sola’s voice cut across the siren. “Captain, I have picked up an emergency beacon broadcast requesting aid for a colony world. Adjusting planned system departure point and weave route, engaging engines to full, estimated time to jump point two minutes twenty nine point four seconds.” The distant hum of the engines rose in pitch as Sola put the pedal down; for a moment the viewscreen blurred as stars wheeled around, the ship coming to a new heading for a different jump point than the one they had previously been cruising towards in the dull system they were passing through.

“Emely, status?” Dustin said - his comms officer having practically thrown herself into her station the instant the alert sounded. “Myrthoxis - small colony world, one or two cities and a starport, requesting immediate aid - under attack. Cargo ship sent the emergency weave-beacon as… Captain, the beacon says they’ve been cut off from galactic comms.” At that, Dustin exchanged a glance with the only other person on the bridge. Rye met his gaze for a moment before turning back to her console, fingers dancing over the inputs. “I’ll redirect power to the long range scanners and shields. Emmz, double up on sensors for now until Meli gets here.”

His thoughts dancing back to the communications outpost and the weird many-limbed foe he’d fought there, Dustin thumbed the button for ship-wide broadcast. “Attention all hands. We have received news of a colony under attack. Gunnery teams, stand down for now but remain ready to go; medical teams to medbay, first trauma response to the shuttle bays, then all hands move to full alert when we’re about to drop out of the weave. I need you fresh when we arrive, for whatever we’re facing.” With that he sagged back in his seat. “How long is the weave jump, Sola? Patch it through to the whole ship so they know when to be ready.”

The AI’s response came as Meli and Trea’k entered the room - the counsellor moving to stand next to Emely as the Feliax shifted back to her own station from the sensors to allow the Velca woman to take over. “Estimated arrival time one hour and twenty two point seven minutes after jump. Please hold for weave transit.” The roar of the engines faded at that point, replaced by a slightly differently pitched whine as the weave drive charged. Meli glanced at the sensors for a moment before tapping the controls, fine tuning the work that the Feliax had already done to get a reading just before they jumped. “Judging by the energy signatures on and around the probe there’s at least a half dozen different craft in the system if they’re still there.” Her words didn’t fill any of the crew with any great joy - thoughts drifting back to their rescue of Trea’k and Yril’k.

Dustin glanced at Rye. “We can’t charge the big gun while we’re in weave Dusty. Not yet at any rate - I’ve got some ideas, but the prototype I’ve got mocked up keeps slagging the refraction lenses every time I tinker with it. If I had a year or two of uninterrupted work in one of the construction labs around Rabythion maybe - even for me, preventing dimensional-gravitational shifts from destabilizing an energized plasma array is a challenge. But right now, best I can give you is ready to fire about twenty seconds after arrival.” Pleased with the news of the decreased charge time regardless, and despite his engineers apology for not being able to manage the near impossible right now Dustin turned to his security chief.

“Yril’k, we go in hard. You’ve had two weeks since we left Uinn space to train and prepare your teams; lets see what they can do. If it’s more of the ships that attacked you, we aim to get into a position to core as many as possible as fast as we can - Rye, the instant we’re sure that’s what we’re fighting divert all power to shields, engines and the big gun. If Meli’s right and there’s five of them we won’t have much time to play with, and the smaller weapons didn’t really scratch them last time. If that’s not what we’re up against, it’s your call both of you as to how we approach combat - although I’ll deploy the big gun at my discretion against lesser foes if I think it needed.”

With that, the crew settled into an uneasy readiness as Sola slid through the weave at the maximum possible speed. The countdown to the return to normal space came almost as a relief - no matter what happened next, at least they’d know what was coming. Dustin took a moment to call the crew to action - and then the viewscreens turned back on to show the blackness of space. The blackness, and a world on fire. Meli’s hands were a blur as she processed what the sensors were showing them, the screen jumping around as she zoomed it in and superimposed images alongside information from what communications Emely was picking up.

Three shapes hung in the space above the world; angular vessels of a strange construction - not the ones that had attacked Trea’k’s ship thankfully, but equally unknown. A fourth, rounder ship hovered inside the planet’s atmosphere - what cameras were still working on a world being bombarded by weapons from space showed that particular vessel seemingly sucking up debris and the bodies of the dead in equal measure. Further away from the planet, another of the angular vessels appeared to have been split in two from a collision with a ship that was (despite it’s crumpled hull) still recognizable as being a cargo ship - the one that had sent the beacon Dustin guessed.

Taking a moment to admire the bravery of the captain of the cargo vessel - lacking guns, they had apparently opted to use their own ship as a ram to try and drive off the attackers - Dustin gave the order to open fire as soon as they came within range. Sola’s engines roared as she closed the distance; as he watched one of the ships broke off it’s bombardment of the planet and turned to face their incoming fury. “No response from hails sir” Emely said, right as the first rounds left the barrels of Sola’s rail-cannon. Impacts blossomed over the hull over the enemy craft; the pulse of returned fire crackled off Sola’s shields. “Damage to shields seven percent. Damage to hostile confirmed, minor hull breech and we’ve knocked out some of their point defence” The words came quickly, Rye and Meli working as one to feed information to Yril’k and her team.

As the damage was confirmed, the remaining hostiles turned their attention from the shooting gallery they’d made of the colony, coming about to also open fire on Sola. Rye’s fingers danced as she rebalanced shields to handle the incoming blasts and impacts, while Yril’k’s voice was a near constant stream of orders to her gunnery teams to fine tune firing patterns. Unlike before, the rail-cannon and missiles were highly effective - the hostile ships were taking a pounding from Sola’s weaponry, while her shields were holding. Dipping in strength, yes, but holding.

Just as another volley slammed into the first ship, knocking out one of it’s weapons and causing it to list to one side from the **** of the weapon’s magazine cooking off Meli spoke. “The craft in the atmosphere seems to be leaving.” Sure enough, as the viewscreen brought up a secondary feed it was clear that the rounder ship appeared to be leaving the planet’s atmosphere. “They don’t look like they have guns, I wonder if they’ll be running…” Dustin began - then trailed off. In the void behind the ships that Sola was slowly wearing down, beyond where the rounder ship had left the atmosphere something enormous and dark moved. “What is that?” He asked in a half whisper.

“Where did that come from? Rye, sensors only just picked it up!” Meli’s voice was shaken, and rightly so. The new ship was gigantic - easily the size of a battleship or more as it’s form faded in against the stars behind it. A dim blue glow like the light of dying stars emerged from it as huge holes opened in the side of the beast, and through one of those holes the round ship flew. The other vessels were starting to reverse course too, moving towards the safety of the massive craft. “We can not fight something that size’k” Yril’k said through clenched teeth “even the big’k gun will do little.” As she said that a sudden mote of light emerged from one of the holes, moving past the last of the craft to enter - the fleeing vessel still under fire from what of Sola’s batteries could reach.

Like a fairy, the mote bobbed and weaved - and then fell towards the planet. “Captain - we’re detecting multiple craft on launch vectors from what’s left of the colony.” Meli’s voice drifted over the top of Dustin’s consciousness as she reported the fact that some of the colonists had clearly been waiting for a chance to try and escape to orbit. None of it settled in his brain however as he watched that tiny spec drift down into the atmosphere and then… There was a flash, and time suddenly sped back up. From that single flash flames spread out, a fiery wave rapidly encircling the planet as the sky burned.