{Edited} Chapter One - Driven To Steal A Drive
Humans have always been known and feared for their dedication to their sciences, their technology, their way of life... and their warfare. That is still true now, after seven-hundred years of obtaining proper knowledge to explore the final frontier: space.
In the late twentieth century, Humanity was able to explore the space immediately surrounding their home planet of Earth. As the population began to advance beyond the capacity of the planet to comfortably sustain their civilization the subsequent conflict over resources, economics, religion and politics on Earth gave way to numerous wars. Furthermore these tensions put great pressure on the species until the beginning of the twenty-second century, when the transnational organization that became known as the Unified Nations of Earth engaged in more frequent space colonization across their solar system. The UNE sought to represent the entire species, even though no one state ever previously ruled the entire human race. With the discovery of Faster-Than-Light travel in the year 2117 A.D., the UNE began spreading the human race beyond their home solar system, relieving the serious ecological pressure on the home world.
Simultaneously, this expansion was also to usher in promising new opportunities for Humanity, as some of these colonies, such as planet Aria with its bountiful coal and titanium deposits, could offer abundant stores of raw materials that may had otherwise been considerably unique and scarce on Earth. With the initial advent of interplanetary trade driving down the costs of what may had once been an expensive implementation of their technology (such as the forging of space-worthy ships and naval vessels) the effects from these carefully implemented first colonization projects helped to ensure that interstellar trade, travel and communication were to be more commonplace amongst the general populace in the ensuing centuries, eventually granting humanity the capacity to expand to hundreds of worlds and establish colonies at enhanced rates. As a result, more than eight hundred worlds were colonized by Humanity by the year 2496 A.D., the year the Unified Nations of Earth declared themselves the grand Empire of Humanity.
In the year 2505 A.D., Humanity had first contact with a sapient race of alien beings, finally providing an answer to a question that many thought there would never be an answer for. These aliens called themselves the Enlightened. They believed they inherited all of existence from their gods and demanded that Humanity surrender to them and turn control of the Milky Way over. The head of the UNE at the time, Harold Casteel the VII, refused the demands put forth by the Enlightened and declared war against them, the first major war humanity had been in since the fifth world war back in 2092 A.D. on Earth.
The Enlightened were—in terms of weaponry and ship design—on near equal terms with Humanity. However, the only edge they truly had was their knowledge of space-travel and unique resources from their home-galaxy to develop advanced engines. When they invaded the Milky Way, they had expected Humanity to surrender at the sight of a technologically superior race, like so many other galaxies had. What the Enlightened had not expected, was to discover a race quite similar to their own; a race whose cruelty could be limitless, a race that had torn itself apart countless times over the course of their existence over the tiniest of things, a race that had waged war after war against its own kind. And the Enlightened had just unleashed the wrath of Humanity upon themselves.
The year 2508 A.D., saw the surrender of the Enlightened, leaving Humanity as the victors of a virtually one-sided war. Human casualties were, overall, minimum. Only two planets, Melody and Eternity, were lost during the war, reduced to slag and glass by plasma and laser fire. But even the loss of those two planets paled in comparison to the damage done by an Enlightened saboteur. During the final hours of the war, when the Enlightened made a last-ditch effort assault on what would later become the human Capital Planet of Nova, the saboteur infiltrated the Library, the repository of all human knowledge and attempted to wipe out all of the data stored there and subsequently eliminate the copies of the data stored across all of Humanity's computer systems. However, the virus was quickly defeated by the Library's Data Defense System and only a small amount of data was lost.
To Humanities' dismay, that data contained all the information humanity had possessed on their home planet, Earth. All hyperspace routes, all communications codes, all information on the surrounding solar system, all coordinates. Everything. Gone.
As a further result, the pilots who constantly traveled to and fro from Earth could no longer properly calculate how to get there. With everything deleted, any space-worthy pilots who attempted to establish a new route or map would crash into a separate star, or possibly be stranded themselves in an unknown solar system. Far from civilized life.
Humanity had won their first intergalactic war, but they had lost Earth.
Time moved on, as it always has. The spoils of war furthered the technology of mankind and made them stronger. Powerful cloaking devices were developed to hide ships not only from radar, but from sight as well. Energy shielding allowed for weaker ships to fly through more dangerous areas of space unharmed. And new warships were developed with powerful engines far superior to their predecessors.
2600 A.D. welcomed a new species of sapient life to the Milky Way. The Saalwan, (bipedal, humanoid reptiles fleeing the remnants of the Enlightened) had found their way into Human territory. As a whole, Humanity welcomed them with open arms and hearts. The Saalwan would be the first of forty three different alien species to call the Milky Way home for the next one hundred and fifty four years until suddenly, all forty three species left for no apparent reason.
2754 A.D. Humanity was, once again, alone in their galaxy.
Many would call the time between the arrival of Saalwan and the great Exodus a golden age of peace and prosperity. Others called it a time when Humanity took advantage of the other races, using them to make the lives of Humans easier. Still, others would call it that because shortly after the Exodus, the First Galactic Civil War broke out amongst Humanity, threatening to tear them apart.
Excerpt from the Museum of Humanity Audio Tour
Location: Museum of Humanity, Novelis Peninsula, Planet Nova
2950 A.D.
Starbrought
2806 A.D.
Poseidon Nebula
Converged Solaris Syndicate Flagship Leviathan
Lower Decks
Drake tapped his foot impatiently. His hands were clenched tightly on his Hellfire-Class sniper rifle as his eyes carefully monitored the long hall in front of him.
Standing at just over six feet tall, Drake Shields was hardly an intimidating man at first glance. His face was slim and angular, which, combined with his shoulder length jet-black hair, gave him an air of someone who wouldn’t hesitate to shoot you in the back if you double cross him. As a pirate, Drake had felt the need to dress well.
The overcoat he wore was secured by his belt, on which shone several lights of varying colors from the various pieces of equipment he had clipped there. A Reaper-class pistol rested in its holster on Drake’s right while a golden-handled energy cutlass was sheathed on his left.
To his rear, Yuri Lawrence knelt by a holographic lock panel, beginning his work on decoding the encrypted lock. His shaggy brown hair hung over his face, a sharp nose jutting through it. His sharp, green eyes looked over the lock, watching to make sure he didn't get them blown up, or worse; trigger the alarm system. A black, long sleeved shirt covered his upper body, while a pair of simple camouflage pants adorned his long legs.
A bead of sweat worked its way down the back of Drake's neck as the pirate captain waited anxiously. He did not like these cruisers the Syndicates used. Their hallways had too many side doors and alcoves, all perfect cover in case a firefight broke out, but it left the Cerberus Pirates without cover.
"Yuri, how much longer until we're through?" Drake asked, drumming his index finger on the side of his rifle. "You know I get nervous when we have to wait this long in enemy territory."
"Give or take five minutes," the tech-specialist muttered. "If you stop rushing me, that is."
"Quiet." The third and final member of the group murmured as his eyes scanned the hall. Slayer was not only the enigma of the trio in terms of physical appearance, but he was also the weapons specialist and primary warrior of the group in close combat. He donned a set of crimson armor that covered him from head to toe, and his face was hidden by a jet-black visor.
He was the tallest of the group, standing roughly at a height of six-foot seven and built bigger than a Baragwin Battle Tank. Magnetically held in place on Slayer’s back was the assassin’s favorite weapon, his ever-formidable Energy Katana; a large, vicious blade that emitted ionic discharges throughout the hilt.
Two pistols (which he affectionately referred to as his ‘Sabre Shots’) adorned his hip, ready to be drawn at a moment’s notice. Slayer’s head moved from left to right as he scanned the hallway. His right hand gripped the blade still attached to his back, while his left floated over his offhand Sabre Shot. “Less talking, more being ready to shoot at a moment’s notice.”
Drake rolled his eyes and took another look down the hall. Still clear. Then, the tiniest shift in the shadows caught Drake’s attention. From afar, the sound of a pair of muffled voices reached the ears of the three pirates.
"Contacts," Drake whispered. "Cover, now!" Activating one of his neural implants, he sent a signal to the active camouflage unit he kept on his person, turning it on with a slight hum and vanishing from sight.
Slayer released the hold of his katana and rolled near a door frame, pulling out both Sabres and leaning his back against the frame. Seeing the commotion, Yuri calmly activated a small energy shield generator, and positioned himself next to Slayer to continue on the lock. Drake fell to one knee to stabilize himself as he took aim at the shifting shadows towards the other end of the hall.
The first soldier stepped into plain view, dressed in the standard Syndicate armor. Nothing extravagant, just a full-body silver-tinted set of armour, accompanied with a black war-glass face built into the helm. He was laughing loudly at something his companion had said and wasn't even looking around at his surroundings.
With a muffled crack, the first soldier fell to the ground, his laughter abruptly stopping as the round from Drake's rifle cut him down.
Slayer quickly craned his head out over Yuri and aimed his Sabres down at the other guard. With a well-timed twitch of both of his trigger fingers, two consecutive bolts flew out and struck the guard’s chest. He was flung back by the force and impacted the wall behind him, with two smoldering holes in his armour accompanying him.
"Oh, this is going to be fun. They have yet another secondary firewall,” Yuri muttered in an exasperated tone, content to ignore the possible compromise that nearly occurred no more than a few seconds previous. “This makes the fourth one we’ve encountered since boarding.”
"Sarcasm. That's a good sign," Drake muttered as he deactivated his camouflage. "How bad?"
"’Slayer-on-wine’ bad, and I mean the good stuff." Slayer grunted and threatened to aim a light, swift kick to Yuri's ribs. Were the situation not so dire, he most likely would have followed through.
"Knock it off, you two," Drake snapped. "Yuri, hurry it up. I don't know if anyone heard that but let's err on the side of caution and assume they did." Drake turned towards Slayer and tilted his head in the direction of the bodies. "Let's hide these before the next patrol comes by.”
Yuri waved a hand at them, motioning them to leave. Slayer nodded in agreement and walked with Drake toward the end of the hall, hand hovering near his katana and Sabre Shot once again. The pair of them moved quickly and quietly to the end of the hall where they proceeded to drag the bodies of their victims out of view.
"And there we go! You are now free to use the door without triggering a massive amount of alarms." Yuri stood up as the door slid open, dusting his hands off proudly.
Slayer peered down the darkened hallway past the doorway. No sound emitted from the pitch-black corridor. "So, who goes first...?" He and Drake both turned in unison to look at Yuri, who stood between the two of them.
“Why are you both looking at me?” Yuri glanced up and down at his companions, and sighed. “Alright, fine. I’ll lead. Just let me charge this sucker up.” He stated as he plucked an energy pistol from the inside of his jacket. It hummed to life upon activation, a small bar steadily filling with green energy to indicate a growing surge of power.
While the firearm charged, Yuri reached into his pocket and pulled out his intricately designed glove with exposed, glowing red wires wrapped around the fingers. He slid the glove on, preparing for a possible fight that would require some matter to be disoriented. The tech looked into the room, making sure there was no immediate threat before he haphazardly dashed inside. A few moments passed before light basked the space before them.
Slayer followed the technician with Drake trailing behind him as they gazed at the area. It was a round circular room with windows facing a passing star along the port wall. Four hover-carts for heavy transport were docked under the windows, charging for use. From the looks of the varying crates and canisters scattered about the corners of the room, this was one of the Leviathan’s holds for non-vital cargo. At least, that's what it looked like.
Yuri came out of the dark side-room carrying three amber-colored bottles in his hands. He popped one open and took a deep swig, much to the confusion of his shipmates. A light sigh of satisfaction left him, and he stared blankly at the two pirates meeting his mellow expression.
"Uh..." Drake cocked an eyebrow at Yuri.
"Here, catch.” Yuri threatened suddenly, tossing one bottle to Drake and one to Slayer. Drake fumbled with the tossed bottle for a moment while Slayer effortlessly caught the bottle in one hand and peered down at the old label with minor hesitance.
"How old are these?" was the query as he began searching for a date on the bottle.
"These are, my fine, somewhat-slow friend...” Yuri began, casting a smirk in Slayer’s direction. The assassin responded with a brief bout of his middle finger. “The last bottles of Trevanian wine to be produced in history, from when the grape went extinct a few decades ago. Dunno why Syndicate has a hold of them, but they definitely aren't cheap."
“These would be worth quite a bit on the market," Drake said, carefully tapping the bottle he had caught.
"We always need more credits," Slayer muttered. He let out a small sigh as he watched Yuri start to claw through more and more canisters and crates in search of their objective; a Saalwan-designed energy drive, rumored to be more compact and far more powerful than any energy drive in use by humans at least.
Slayer walked towards the window facing the star. Even with the interference of the pane in front of him, Slayer could feel his Suit absorbing the trace amounts of solar power. He inhaled a small breath as he spoke over his comlink. "I’ll keep watch. Loot anything worthwhile."
"Already on it," Drake replied as he lifted a smaller crate from the pile and onto the hover cart next to him. "Just don't let your guard down." Slayer acknowledged that statement with a nod and moved over to the door in which they entered from. The assassin knew there wasn't going to be another patrol; he just didn't want to have to muck through containers and waste his time.
"Anything else interesting in these things?" Drake inquired as he examined an access terminal set into a nearby wall. The screen was blank, save for a small white blip indicating that it was in standby mode and would flare to life upon a touch. "Weapons? Contraband? Information?” With trepidation, Drake attempted to interact with the terminal.
"Please do not touch any of those terminals." Yuri's voice caught Drake off guard, and he pulled his hand back away from the terminal. The form of Yuri appeared soon after, a small box in his possession as he sifted through it lazily. A few seconds passed before he set it down and kicked it away.
"Why?" Drake asked guiltily. He should have known better; you don't just touch terminals in enemy territory without checking for traps. That was Common Sense 101.
"Because I need to clear them to make sure there are no hidden ‘surprises’," Yuri mumbled as he stuck his torso into a nearby canister, most likely scouring the bottom for anything worthwhile. One could have considered the view of two legs flailing about slightly in effort as amusing, but the Cerberus Pirates were too preoccupied to have a laugh over it.
Drake let out a small sigh of restlessness. "Fine, fine. Let's trade; I'll keep grabbing the crates while you make sure this terminal's safe."
"That sounds good." Comically, Yuri popped out of the canister with a Rear-Admiral’s jacket on his back like a cape. He walked over to the terminal and began to work his magic. "Override password-encryption, nullify the parser, and... we’re in!" The tech’s brow furrowed as he stared at the screen before him. “That was almost too easy. Hmm. Let me just search for the ID of our item...”
The satisfying clunks of several locks disengaging filled the room as one of the fixed containment units opened up. A smile could not have appeared on Yuri’s face any faster. Striding with purpose towards the door, he activated the sensor, causing the wall of metal to gradually split open. "There you are, my glorious little drive.” Yuri turned to his Captain and grinned.
Drake and Yuri strode inside the containment unit and looked across the space at their objective. Drake raised an eyebrow, while Yuri could only afford a perplexed scratch of his chin. “It’s smaller than I expected,” Drake quipped. The distant snicker over Slayer’s comlink was unnoticed by the pair.
“Be thankful for that.” Yuri breathed a sigh of relief. “Small means I’ll have an easier time installing it.”
Slayer moved to stand behind his fellows and took in the sight of their objective. Situated in the heart of the containment unit was a streamlined cube, covered with numerous Saalwan-esque symbols that pulsed regularly with an orange light. A transparent casing surrounded the cube, generating a low-yield gravity field to hold it stationary. Slayer strolled towards the casing and began to slowly stalk around it. "Is this casing vital to the drive?"
"Honestly? I'm not sure,” Drake muttered. He tilted his head in the direction of the tech-specialist. Yuri was currently trying his best not to drool, but was failing slightly. “Any way you can figure it out, Yuri?"
"I have no idea, but we should probably keep it in there until it's on the ship,” Yuri muttered as he gently stroked the side of the casing. “You know how valuable this thing is for us, and for others.”
Drake tapped a finger on his pants leg, before quickly checking over his shoulder out of paranoia. They were in the clear. Everything was going to be fine as long as no-one did anything stupid. “If we’re taking the whole thing, we need to figure out a way to carry it. Those lifts won’t have enough room...”
'This ought to be simple enough.' Slayer smirked to himself, unaware of the discussion behind him as he drew his katana and began to charge it. It began to glow a sinister bloody crimson as he positioned it expertly in his grasp and pulled his arms back to stab. It was a brute-force technique he learned that worked very well with his sword to overload certain energy barriers.
Drake turned back towards the Saalwan drive, only for his eyes to widen in revelation and horror at seeing Slayer's stance and his inevitable action. ‘Please don't do what I think you're going to do,’ Drake silently pleaded to himself.
"Uh... Slayer?” Yuri called out to the ex-bounty hunter nervously. Slayer’s form froze. “Before you do this, think about how the hell we are going to get this off the ship. We're also not entirely sure if this casing is required for the drive to remain stable or not." A lack of response caused Yuri to take a hesitant step forward. "Slayer?"
For several seconds, Slayer remained immobile in thought. It seemed that he was getting ready to sheathe his blade, before the infamous ‘Crimson Menace’ gave a shrug. "Eh." And with that, the bounty-hunter dug his katana into the casing. It went in about half-way before he began to carve a large oval through the exterior, the grating of sword against electronic-plexiglass echoing throughout the containment unit.
Drake's palm met his face and slowly slid down his chin as several alarms started blazing. "Well, there goes the plan of 'don’t let the Syndicate know we’re here.'"
“WARNING! INTRUDERS DETECTED IN CARGO HOLD FOUR. ALL AVAILABLE PATROL UNITS RESPOND,” the Leviathan’s onboard AI announced over the loudspeakers.
“Well, we’re boned.” Yuri let out a dejected sigh. “Why is it we can never have one successful heist without setting off some sort of alarm, get chased by guards, or accidentally activate a self-destruct sequence that conveniently only gives us enough time to get to our ship and escape?” As the katana came full-circle, Slayer quickly sheathed it and fired a kick. With ease, the spherical incision became accessible, and Slayer reached inside to remove their prize. He motioned his head towards the door as he began to quickly waddle towards the exit of the storage room, grunting under the effort of lifting the surprisingly-hefty drive.
"Start the carts!" he grunted as he made his way toward the aforementioned vehicles. "Time to go."
"Way ahead of you!" Drake hollered, quickly activating the various carts and setting the destination to the hanger where their ship, the Ethereal, laid in wait. Slayer set the drive down amongst the pile of crates they had already loaded just as the convoy of loaders began to move. In unison, he and Drake moved to the sides of the main cart, providing it with cover. If the Saalwan-drive got hit by a stray blaster bolt, their entire mission would be jeopardized.
"Make way for the geek!" Yuri shouted as he charged past his companions, leading the way in his rush to escape. He veered down the path they had taken to get to the hold, vanishing from sight. Only to come running back seconds later, crying out in shock with his impromptu cape flitting about in his wake. "Let's not go that way!" With the phrase hanging in the air, Yuri continued his dash, and made a random turn through one of the connecting doorways.
Drake and Slayer both shot the tech-specialist curious looks as he ran past them. They turned their heads together simultaneously back toward the hall Yuri had turned around in, only to find a dozen soldiers charging down the corridor, blaster rifles gripped tightly in their armored gauntlets. Slayer snorted under his breath. "Let's."
Drake drew his pistol from the inside of his coat and shot the locking mechanism. The damage caused the blast door in the corridor to short-circuit, bringing it down between them and the soldiers just as they were beginning to open fire. The resounding gong and cacophony of blaster fire impacting the barrier was ominous, to say the least. "Go! Go!"
"Don't have to tell me twice..." Slayer muttered under his breath as he increased the speed output of the carts and charged down the hall towards the docking bay where the Ethereal was docked. By then, the technicians would have realized that the Leviathan's security camera system had been compromised by looping the same footage, and would only further antagonize the Syndicate forces.
"Why do I let you two talk me into these situations?!" Drake shouted.
"I don't! We just do something, and we live with it!" Slayer cackled in adrenaline-fueled madness, a state of mind that was fairly rare with the usually-stoic assassin, as he slid down the rest of the hallway and rounded the corner. Slayer came up short upon sighting several guards standing there with their rifles raised. He immediately drew his katana and readied himself for battle.
Drake, however, reacted on reflex and tossed an adhesive grenade right into one of the guards' faces. An enormous plume of chemical ice splashed out and immobilized the squadron of troopers, rooting them in place. "You were saying?" he shouted in irritation at his fellow crewmate as the grenade detonated.
Slayer spun on his heels and charged in the opposite direction, releasing a snort upon doing so as their escape was more important. He would gain more than enough prestige with completing the heist, anyways. "...Wait.” He skidded to a stop and turned back towards the quickly-recovering group of guards. A hushed swear was issued under his breath. “Our door is behind those guards."
Drake leaned around Slayer in time to see the cart begin to automatically turn down the hall with the guards still in it. "Bloody hell... Guess we will have to fight."
"Here." Slayer quickly shrugged his shoulders, causing his katana to disengage from its sheath on his back. Catching it without looking, he tossed it over the now-reversing cart and into Drake's outstretched hand. A frown appeared on the assassin's face, but Drake obviously was unable to see it. "Don't break it."
Drake tossed the crate in his occupied hand on top of the hyperdrive and drew his own cutlass, now dual wielding the two energy-blades in his grasp. "Let's do this," the pirate captain grinned maniacally as the guards finished removing themselves from the evaporating ice-trap. Slayer grunted in the affirmative as he halted the carts’ advance and stood back with his Sabres in hand to protect it, if fire came his way. This was not his Rite of Honour, but rather Drake’s. He would not involve himself unless there was no other option.
Drake twisted to the side as the nearest guard lunged toward him in an attempt to grab his collar. The guard stumbled past and was met with the edge of Slayer’s katana which sliced effortlessly through his shields and halfway into him. Drake yanked the blade out of the guard’s body and brought it up to deflect several energy rounds the other guards were firing at him. Using the flat-edge of the cutlass, Drake scooped up the body of the fallen guard and tossed it towards the others with a grunt of exertion.
The distraction worked, and the guards broke ranks. Drake pulled his arm back and, with a flick of the wrist, sent his cutlass spinning down the hallway ahead of him; watching as it tore into two guards, severing one in half and mortally wounding the other. The other guards quickly recovered from Drake’s distraction and took aim at him once more. Drake smirked and activated the psychic link between himself and his equipment. A brief shimmer surrounded him and Drake vanished from sight.
“What the—?!” one of the guards cried out in surprise. Slayer ducked behind a corner to evade detection. How (or why) they hadn’t started a firefight with him before was unknown, but he decided to ignore said statement as he stood out-of-sight. “That bastard’s using Alliance tech!”
“Check your six!” another soldier shouted, pivoting on his heel to look at the empty space behind the group. “He could be anywhere!”
“He could even be right behind you,” Drake’s disembodied voice said smugly in the man’s ear. The guard let out a shocked cry and spun around, firing his shotgun towards where he had heard the voice, only to shoot one of his companions in the chest. The other guards all cried out in surprised anger as their comrade dropped to the ground. Drake’s energy cutlass, retrieved during his bout of invisibility, flashed to life long enough to run another man through his chest before vanishing along with Drake’s victorious chuckles.
“You son of a bitch!” one of the others cried out, spinning around and trying to find any sign of their target. “Show yourself, you coward!”
“Damn, you’re bossy,” Drake’s voice grumbled. Another flash of light filled the hall as Drake appeared, arms spread wide in surrender, alongside ten other Drakes, all of whom were identical in every way and standing in a perfect circle around the remaining seven guards.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” a guard groaned. “He has holographic decoys too?”
“Even better,” the Drakes all spoke in unison. “Explosive holographic decoys.”
“Explosive...?” The guards all repeated. The Drakes all smiled warmly at the guards, and began to glow red. The holographic generators that Drake had placed around the guards while cloaked all detonated in unison, reducing the remaining guards to barely recognizable lumps of flesh and blood. Slayer mused it would take quite some time for a cleaning crew to get all the little Syndicate bits out of the corridor.
“Gross,” Drake muttered as he deactivated his cloaking device and wiped some of the residual blood off of his attire. "My coat is definitely going to need a sonic-cleaning."
“Surprised you aren’t Syndicate,” Slayer remarked with a veiled, repressed chuckle. Drake had persevered his Rite of Honor; as expected of someone Slayer had bothered to give some instruction to. That battle would surely make a glorious story next time they all sat in a cantina, Slayer thought. The assassin even considered to buy the captain a free drink. Just one, though. “Brutal.”
“We’re in a rush,” Drake reminded him as he passed the ex-bounty hunter his energy-katana back. “So let’s get back to the Ethereal.”
Starbrought
“They really don’t know when to give up, do they?” Yuri thought to himself as he hid behind a small alcove as Syndicate guards ran up and down the corridor, trying to find him. So far, Yuri had been able to remain incognito, but was slowly being forced farther and farther away from the hangar bay.
From what he had been able to see from his surroundings, he was somewhere near the mess hall, or what he thought was a mess hall. All Syndicate ships usually smelled like bad milk and beans, so he couldn’t be entirely sure on his position.
His thoughts were interrupted as the sound of approaching footsteps reached his ears. From the amount of steps, and the weight of them, they sounded like shock troopers. Undoubtedly on-route to the Ethereal. He had to get out of there, and fast. Peeking his head out into the hallway, and looking both ways to make sure that he would have the time to get out of there, Yuri crept out. The footsteps began getting louder and louder, and Yuri took that as his cue to run as fast as he could in the opposite direction.
Starbrought
Meanwhile, Slayer and Drake had begun unloading near the ramp leading into their vessel before Yuri’s voice crackled over the comlink. Once the feed cut out from the comlink, an exasperated sigh left Slayer. “I’ll be back.”
'Must I do everything?' he thought as he walked back out and left Drake to try and prep the ship. At least Yuri, in all of his stupidity, was giving Slayer the excuse to do battle, the hunter mused. He strode quickly back toward the door closed by Drake during the escape, and planted his feet heavily in front of it. Reaching behind his back and drawing his katana, he began charging it once more.
Instead of carving a hole through the barrier, this instance he simply stabbed through the center, and twisted the weapon back and forth in the same spot. The area around the point of impact gradually became hotter and brighter before it looked like a magma spot from Mageast. Withdrawing the blade, Slayer locked his weapon back into its sheath on his back. Slayer threw his leg at full-force into the spot, causing the middle of the barrier to crumble with ease.
The sounds of a certain wine-loving overall crazed technician, and rifle-fire, filled the air as Slayer drew his Sabre Shots and positioned himself near the left side of what was left of the barrier.
Slayer tensed up, feeling his muscles ready to spring out at any moment. The sounds were becoming louder and more constant, and he knew he'd have to act quickly. The first matter of business would be to provide cover fire for Yuri to get behind his barrier, before unloading grenades to cover their escape. Slayer poked his head out from behind the barrier for the briefest of seconds, both of his Sabres primed to face...
...nothing.
Slayer lowered one of his arms in confusion after several silent seconds. ‘What the...’
Drake looked around from the entry to the Ethereal, realizing there were no sounds of fighting like he'd expected. Tapping his wrist, the personal comlink clicked open. "What's going on, Slayer?"
Slayer crouched back down and holstered his left Sabre. Using the same hand, he brought his two forefingers to his helm. "Thought Yuri was bringing company."
"Where'd he go?" Drake asked as he entered the access code to lower the Ethereal’s ramp.
"Not sure..." Slayer sighed and quickly made his way back to the hangar. "Let's just load the rest. Yuri will stop messing around."
Drake nodded in agreement and began pulling the final crates onboard. "Get that thing down into Engineering," he said, gesturing at the Salwaan drive they had stolen. "Yuri can install it when he gets back and we finally get out of here." Slayer grunted in response and lifted the drive, marching up the ramp with it on one shoulder.
"Oi!" They both turned around and looked at the end of the hallway to see Yuri running towards them as quickly as his legs could carry him.
"Hey look, there he is," Drake muttered with a minuscule sigh of relief.
Slayer simply rolled his eyes and began marching into the ship once more. "Took him long enough—"
At that moment, they saw and heard what he was running from. Nearly thirty infantry units, from what they could estimate, were chasing him. He was screaming, and somehow still Yuri had all the booze he'd snagged from the Syndicate cargo hold with him. Slayer’s eyes widened and he cursed under his breath as he quickly set down the drive in Engineering and began going the length of the Ethereal to the lift leading up to the second deck.
"Ahhh!" Yuri’s cry echoed around the docking bay, full of panic.
Drake let out a roar of frustration. "Honestly, Yuri?! Again?! Didn't you learn your lesson last time about antagonizing Syndicate platoons?" He scrambled to finish shoving the remaining haul onboard before he sprinted into the lift after Slayer. The door to the lift slid open and Slayer squeezed himself through the gap before it finished. Thundering across the ten or so feet to the weapons control room behind the cockpit, Slayer all but threw himself into the chair to begin powering up the Ethereal’s weapon systems.
>Infantry Turbolaser: Online
>Combat Mode set to: ‘Manual’
Slayer laughed twistedly as he sat in his specially rigged chair, gripping his ‘Joystick’ in preparation for some target practice. It was connected directly to the weapon controls of the ship, making him more often than not the sole defender of the ship in flight. The crew had debated giving some firepower over to Drake, but decided against it on the grounds of worrying about weapons would mess with Drake's flight ability.
Thankfully, Slayer was a damn good shot, and could hold his own.
"Give them hell, Slayer!" Drake shouted as he began powering up the Ethereal's engines.
"Let's provide some cover..." Slayer growled as he quickly calibrated the turret so its line of fire aimed down the hallway and over Yuri's shoulder. His grin turned more malevolent as he began pressing his thumb on the trigger. Bolt fire continuously rang out and made contact with more and more soldiers as their rifles tried to strike the turret and Yuri. Each shot took down two or three soldiers, and bought Cerberus’ technician some much-needed time.
Yuri had managed to get to the cargo ramp at that moment. Once there, he placed down the goods on the inside and swiftly jogged out. "Slayer, stop firing! I got this!"
"Headshot!" Drake shouted as he watched one of the patrol guards fall from his vantage point in the cockpit. "Nice shootin', Tex!"
"Who?" Slayer questioned as he shut off the turret and began calibrating the other weaponry. He had a guess on what Yuri was going to do, and admittedly Slayer had more pressing matters to worry about than play guardian for a drunk Russian-descended tech.
"I have no idea!" Drake said as he activated the ship's navigation and powered up the engines. Various diagnostics flashed in blue and white across the screens as his fingers flew across the holographic keys. Suddenly, the pilot thought about what the tech just said. "Yuri! Get your ass back onboard and stop taking the piss! We need to get going!"
Yuri ignored him and swiftly positioned himself in the center of the bay, right in the warpath of the charging mercs that constructed the Syndicate. Their guns were raised in vigor as violent curses were spewed to encourage one another. With a faint hiss, an earbud-looking device slid into Yuri’s right ear, blocking off all sound. The other ear had no need for the device. Yuri was deaf in that ear, a result of being far too close to an outpost detonating. Twice.
Yuri raised his glove and pointed the palm at the oncoming horde of mercs, who were still expressing their vast knowledge of swear-filled vernacular. The glove began to take a harsh glow, slowly gaining in vivid intensity as a faint hum began to rise in the air. In an instant burst, a barely-visible pulse fired out. Abruptly, all the soldiers collapsed to the ground and grasped their ears, most of them screaming in pain. The ones not wearing a helmet got the worst of it, their ears beginning to bleed from the auditory massacre that had just occurred. Yuri smirked and stopped the noise, his glove instantly ceasing its glow. He turned around and walked towards the ship, casually strolling along as if he was on a vacation.
Slayer frowned at both the rather-faint ringing in his ears, and the large flurry of merc bodies incapacitated by being deafened from Yuri’s Sonic Wave. ‘Needs a higher output, and I need to readjust the silencers in the Suit...’ he thought absentmindedly as he began prepping the other systems for their escape.
>Ion Cannon Mark IV: Charging
>Sectic Missile Launcher Mark III: Primed
>Anti-Fighter Turret I: Primed
>Anti-Fighter Turret II: Primed
"Okay, I think that'll take care of—” Yuri paused and gave a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure there were no more troops following them. What he spotted did little to lighten his mood. “Oh hell...” he groaned, turning back towards the Ethereal and breaking into a sprint. “Go! Go! Go! They’ve sent out shock-troops! They’re armed with an AA plasma cannon!"
Slayer cackled as he directed the Sectic Launcher towards the infantry. They were all huddled around the short-range artillery piece, making explosives the ideal weapon to use for maximum destruction. He sometimes wondered if he needed therapy for his vicious tendencies. Slayer decided that was a load of crap. "Die!" the hunter shouted at the targeting screen in front of him. Sometimes, Slayer really did love his job.
Several snub-sized missiles fired off in rapid succession as they detonated throughout the corridor, annihilating any reinforcements while triggering the plasma cannons’ core, sending bodies flying into walls and any other mercenaries trying to get up.
"Go go go!" Yuri shouted again as he entered the Ethereal. Without pausing, he slammed his palm against the controls to close the ramp and seal the ship up tight.
‘Three silos on backup...’ Slayer noted in his seat as he reloaded the launcher and checked the status of the Ethereal’s shields. "Shields at seventy-five percent power. Combat ready."
The Ethereal lifted up into air and spun towards the massive sealed bay doors leading into the openness of space. "Slayer, make me a path," Drake called back to the other pirate. What was left of the Syndicate force in the hanger was still in disarray. A perfect opening to make a getaway.
"Got it," Slayer mumbled as he prepped the S.L. once more. A singular missile left its respective silo as it sailed through the air to impact the sealed passage. The explosion easily damaged it to the point of forcing the mechanism open, granting their vessel a guaranteed route out of the hanger. ‘Five shots on backup, two silos are available...’ Slayer thought as he continued monitoring his screens located all across his station in the cockpit. He briefly registered the new swarm of Syndicate troopers flooding into the hangar, but they were much too late to stop Cerberus.
"HA HA HA!" Drake laughed as the ship's engines roared to life, frying many of the reinforcements that had arrived. With a lurching heave, the Ethereal blasted out into the stars.
Starbrought
The Leviathan was beginning to quickly pick up its pace as it pursued the pirate group 'Cerberus'. Leading the ship was Admiral Parkins. He had been the Commander of the Converged Solaris Syndicate since its founding thirty years ago, and he intended on keeping that position by capturing the group.
The Syndicate was originally underestimated. The Imperials and the Alliance considered the group as nothing more than a coalition of thugs who had ascertained a small fleet, and generally ignored the operations of the small thorn in their sides.
However, what they lacked back then in numbers, they made up for it on the battlefield. Their ferocity on the fields of war quickly changed the enemies' opinions, and they became strong enough to enter the Civil War as a major element. The Alliance and the Imperials weren't looking down on the Syndicate when they were being blown out of the sky.
But this Cerberus... this group of pirates had been able to sneak onto the Syndicate’s flagship. They had been able to dispatch several squads of trained soldiers. Not to mention they stole the Saalwan drive. So, it wasn't with great surprise that Parkins intended to capture the lot of them, in the name of the Converged Solaris Syndicate. How they could even think their lone ship could even influence the tides of the war with the Leviathan combat-ready was baffling. And ridiculous.
Parkins drummed his fingers against the control panel restlessly, staring at the ends of Cerberus' jets as they progressively began obtaining speed. He had always been able to keep his cool in these kinds of situations, but the last encounter with those damned colonists to obtain the drive was... stressful. ‘How these pirates got onboard in the first place, I'll never know...’
"Sir!" He glanced towards an officer who was managing the ship's comlink. "They will escape in approximately one-point-five minutes if we don't increase our—"
"Do it." He interrupted, redirecting his focus back to the window of the Bridge. "Alert the Weapon Technician crews to ready the Auto-Turrets, and concentrate them on Cerberus' engines."
"Yes, mi'lord."
Parkins smirked as he saw the beginning shots ring off from the turrets situated around the ship. Small automated turrets were steadily increasing their volleys, making him grin even more. It was obvious that he was quite pleasantly surprised that neither of the other fleets knew about the drive. Which meant that the Syndicate could still keep it a secret... but the pirates had to be stopped and the device extracted.
"They'll be a thorn in the C.S.S.'s side no longer—"
"Admiral Parkins, sir!"
His eyes widened as he was interrupted before his monologue could have begun. Parkins whirled around and snapped at the radar technician sitting several chairs away from him. "What?!"
The tech nervously gulped before speaking. "A-a single hyperspace route is forming eight-point-nine clicks to our starboard side."
"So?" He responded bitterly, quickly glancing at the window to see Cerberus’ engines struck by the Leviathan’s turrets. A malicious grin threatened to spill over Parkins' face.
"It's an Imperial dreadnought."
His smirk disappeared entirely. "...Is it the Hammerdown?"
"No sir. But from the signatures we're getting, it's from the same squadron."
Parkins sighed and rubbed his temple thoroughly. "Great..." He glanced up towards the Ethereal to see its speed diminish by each passing second. "Call in two support frigates,” Parkins ordered as he stared out. “And send a group of snubs to deal with Cerberus' chance to escape. All other forces, focus on the Dreadnought."
"Yes, mi’lord!"
Starbrought
"Yuri! Get that drive installed, on the double!" Drake yelled into the ship’s comm, trying to get as fast as he could out of the way of the Leviathan and into the relative safeness of space. Lasers were certainly not making the endeavour any easier for the captain as he piloted.
Yuri groaned as he pushed the drive into a position where his abnormally tall frame would not fit in a million years. He picked himself up and looked over the drive, trying to figure out how the hell to work it. Or better yet how to install it. Yuri reached and pushed a button on what he guessed was the console. He braced himself for anything, and nothing happened...
Except for the random screen popping out of the drive, which he guessed was the control panel. Yuri smiled evilly and began to try to figure out what he was looking at. And for the first time today... Lady Luck smiled upon them. “Drake, we’re in luck,” Yuri commented over the intercom, catching the attention of both members of the crew.
“I’m all ears,” Drake said, his eyes never once leaving the navigation console as he carefully monitored enemy movements around them.
“The drive appears to have an installation manual...” Yuri smiled as he read over the guide, which had a convenient translator option built-in (though, it was slightly outdated by a century or so).
Drake’s brow furrowed. “That seems a little too convenient. Be careful with that thing, Yuri. I’m starting to have doubts.”
“Do you really want me to run a full scan on it? Now?” Yuri asked, now looking at the drive with concern.
The Ethereal rocked as a stray missile from a Syndicate Snub-fighter exploded against its shields. “We'll have to worry about it later, Yuri,” Drake ordered. “Right now, we need to get the hell out of here.”
“You got it!” And with that, he closed the link and began to work on the drive.
The proximity radar next to Drake lit up with a single dot, lonely in space without any other dots around it, except for the dots that represented the Syndicate ships. Drake turned his head towards the screen, studying the screen with interest and a hell of a lot of concern. Because that lonely dot was suddenly getting a lot less lonely, with dozens of smaller dots appearing near the ship; probably fighters from their size.
"Drake,” A sudden, concerned voice spoke into his headset. ”We’ve got an Imperial Dreadnought on our hands.” His only response was an irritated groan and a slap to his forehead due to the mounting frustration of the events.
“What are our options?”
“Well...” There was a brief silence with only the whirling mechanisms of the engine as feedback. “We could—”
“Surrender, run, or what I hope we’ll do; shoot our way out.” Slayer interrupted as he finished calibrating the Ion Cannon and syncing the Auto Turrets. There was a discerning silence between the other two crew members before Drake spoke.
“We came this far, and there’s no way we could get out of this by surrendering...” He brought his attention to the glass window that separated himself from the Syndicate and Imperial vessels in the surrounding space. “Hell, I’m going with Slayer; might as well fight our way out. If we die, we go out with honour.”
“I understand taking on the Leviathan, but taking on a Dreadnought and the Leviathan at the same time is a completely different matter altogether.” Yuri basically cried into the intercom, the distress in his voice easily recognizable.
“Would you prefer going out like a coward, or going out with honour?” Slayer retorted.
“I would prefer to live, thank you very much. No reason to go out with honour if no one is alive to see it!” Yuri answered back.
“And our best chance to even hope to survive lies in using our guns and making our own way out,” Slayer retorted in response. “Most likely if Imperials are coming, that means that the Hammerdown will too, and that is not going to be pretty.
“Considering the relationship between the Syndicates’ Admiral, and the Imperials’ Admiral, their feud should grant us enough time to fight through the discombobulated fighters and do a tactical advance away from the conflict,” Slayer finished, kicking his feet back onto an inactive panel as he let the auto-turrets do their work.
“Unless they send a fleet instead of the Hammerdown, in which they kill us both and keep us from kicking ass in a different direction.” Yuri’s side of the comlink degenerated into the sound of a plasma torch becoming activated.
“I think you underestimate how deep the feud between Parkins and Moustaka truly is,” Slayer countered. “If Imperials know that Syndicate got a hold of Swaalan technology, no doubt it would draw out Moustaka even further.”
“So... All we have to do is hold on for a little while. Is that what you’re telling me?” Yuri asked, punching random buttons on the console in front of him, causing the drive to hum in a not so good way. Yuri kicked the drive, causing the hum to cease. He considered it an improvement.
“As long as nobody else shows up uninvited, then yes; that’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“Sounds like a plan... I hope.”
Drake’s voice crackled to life over both of their headsets, clearly agitated. “I hate both of you some days, you know that?”
“Drake... Is it your time of the month again?” Yuri commented rudely, snickering at the same time.
“What the bloody hell did we do?” Slayer asked, sticking his head out of the door to the weapons control room to glare at the back of Drake’s head.
“Because due to you idiots, the number of Syndicate fighters have doubled!” Drake roared as he dodged a small volley of missiles from said craft.
“Well, excuse me, Captain!” Yuri yelled into his comlink as he rushed around the Engine Room, checking on the Port and Starboard engines to ensure they were functioning properly. “But we kinda needed a game-plan!”
“Shut it,” Slayer muttered in a calm tone as he watched his turrets lock onto another wave of Snub-fighters and eliminate them. ”Just... focus. We’ll be fine.” As the words left Slayer’s mouth however, one of the fighters got a lucky barrage and impacted the Port side of the Ethereal, sending it into a physics-propelled corkscrew. Drake grumbled in annoyance as the ship rocked and he attempted to realign.
Drake twisted in his seat a bit and stared daggers at Slayer. “You were saying?” He grumbled as he fully leveled the Ethereal out.
“This is why I don’t talk that often...” Slayer grumbled as he turned back to his array of consoles and monitors.
“What the hell was that?” Yuri groaned, picking himself up from the floor of the Engine Room. He stumbled briefly from the jarring effect, before it wore away and he was able to continue working on the installation.
“That was Fate, paying both of you back for opening your mouths in a combat zone,” Drake replied, sending their ship into a roll to avoid another strafing run from an Syndicate Snub-Fighter.
“Drake. I will backseat drive the shit out of you if you don’t shut your mouth, and get us as far as you can away from this fight!” Yuri yelled into the intercom, anger in his voice clearly understood by all. Though understood didn't mean excused, Slayer mused. Yuri got agitated and let it show far too easily, sometimes.
“I only spoke to create the battle plan,” Slayer interjected as he finally got the Shields stabilized to a further degree. “So I recommend you stop blaming us for faults due to your failure.”
“Slayer, I’m not blaming you two. I’m calling you two the tools used by Fate,” Drake replied in a disturbingly calm tone. Slayer recognized the tone; Drake used it once before blowing up an Alliance star-destroyer. Good times. “Yuri, we’ll get away faster if you stop yelling and find a way to increase our engine output so I don’t have to focus on that while I’m dodging a full missile battery that currently has a lock on us.”
Slayer sighed. It happened again; that random occurrence where he forgot to keep his attitude in check. Granted, he chose to join the little group of pirates of his own volition, so he was entitled to use whatever attitude he wished... but it wasn’t going to keep him alive. And his survival was the number one priority. “Very well, I’ll try and make sure everything on my end is sound.”
“Okay, I can only do one thing,” Yuri mumbled as he double-checked the diagnosis of the drive, “I can either get this Alien drive to work and possibly find a way to Earth... or increase the engine output to get away from here. The choice is up to you guys.”
“Earth,” Slayer stated without hesitation. “We’ve spent years building up to this point.”
“Drake?” Yuri asked.
Drake was silent for a long moment. On one hand, they could have a definite way to escape with the Ethereal intact, and sell all their loot for a momentous profit. Of course, them being pirates was less about the profits, and more about aiding the neutrals affected by the Civil War. On the other hand, though... they could find Earth.
Earth. It was the whole reason why Drake founded the Cerberus Pirates in the first place: to find a way back to humanity’s home-world at any cost. It was what Jenna would have wanted. Drake let out an audible sigh. “Rear-shields at maximum. Yuri, get that drive installed ASAP.”
“Would you like to lock in your answer?” Yuri joked. Obviously, he thought it was a good time to crack wise.
“Just do it!” Drake and Slayer shouted in unison. Obviously, his crew-mates did not.
“You got it. Diverting all power to the rear shield!” Yuri’s hands swept over the console, sending all the unused power in the ship towards the shields. He then turned towards to the drive and began following the installation guide. “Slayer, I have an idea to give us a little bit of time.” Yuri commented, catching Slayer’s attention.
“Does it involve my guns?” The hope in Slayer’s voice was palpable to his two crew mates.
“You got it! Is the Ion Cannon charged?” Yuri asked with an equally-hopeful tone.
“I expect a round in about ten seconds.”
“Target the bridge when you fire it. If we can knock out its main systems, it'll give me enough time to install this drive!” Yuri exclaimed, diverting all of his attention then to installing the drive.
Slayer didn't skip a beat. He double-checked the Anti-Snub Turrets to make sure they were still targeting on Auto, and noted that the launcher was still eliminating any passing fighters thanks to the auto-fire script he upgraded it with.
Once satisfied with that, the weapons-specialist selected the Ion Cannon as it was still charging and aimed it at the Leviathan’s Bridge. He flipped back the firing switch and placed his finger on the trigger located on the remote stick he used. As he waited, his eyes stared diligently on the progress bar steadily increasing.
>Ion Cannon is: Primed
Slayer grinned and pulled his finger back, disengaging the lock on the inner workings of the weapon. The result was an instantaneous release of a blinding blue bolt of electricity. It ripped through the vacuum of space as it approached its mark. Slayer leaned in slightly due to anticipation, watching it get closer...
And closer...
‘Bullseye.’ Slayer smirked as he watched the blast strike the base of the Leviathan’s Bridge. Surges of ionic power flowed over its shell, undoubtedly disabling enough systems to buy the crew enough time for a solid jump. However, he relented on firing at a more crucial point, due to needing the Syndicate Flagships’ weapons to keep the Dreadnought at bay, which it was barely doing beforehand.
“Slayer... the Leviathan is pulling away to engage the Valiant.” Drake called over the intercom. Slayer gave a light grunt; the Valiant was one of the premier Imperial vessels that tended to chase Cerberus out of their airspace. Figured it would be one of the first deployed by the Imperials to engage them.
“See? Told you.” Slayer muttered as he glanced at the radar to confirm that the large hulk of metal was pulling away slightly, as well as its fighters. Those were indicated by smaller dots flowing towards the parallel hull belonging to the Imperial vessel.
“Don’t get your hopes up yet. The frigates and most of the snubs are still coming after us. Mind doing something about that?” Yuri called, having been looking at a radar screen at the time.
Slayer grunted in response as he recharged the Ion Cannon once more. The ship rocked as another missile slammed into the rear shields, sending sparks flying in the engine room. Yuri dived to the floor and covered his head. After a little bit, he stood up, making sure nothing was breached.
“Could you maybe... start now?!” Yuri screamed. No response was given, but the batteries started firing at a more rapid rate. “Good Slayer, you deserve a cookie.” He joked, hands deep into the internal wires of the ship.
‘You deserve my metal boot up your ass,’ Slayer thought.
A loud cackling was heard over the intercom, accompanied by several loud, electronic pings. "Hehehehe. I can't thank you enough Cerberus. You've done all of our dirty work for us."
Drake's blood ran cold and he felt his muscles freeze up. He'd know that voice anywhere. The voice of Fleet Admiral Mark Kinz, leader of the Alliance Separatists. A large fleet of ships appeared out of thin air as the Alliance fleet deactivated their cloaking devices and moved in to attack the Syndicate ships.
"Now, hand over the Ethereal, and the Alien drive." He demanded, his voice now adopting a larger level of cockiness.
"Burn in hell, Kinz," Drake growled as he quickly got back to work and sealed the communication breach. "My only regret is not being able to kill you today."
Slayer looked back up to see the Alliance Fleet off the starboard side. He let out an irritated snort of air. ‘Damn it...’
Yuri just sighed; nothing more, nothing less. The day started off great, but it had slowly degraded from less than shitty, to a river of fudge-colored crap. “Anyone have any ideas on what we do now that we have an Alliance capital ship after us as well?” Yuri groaned.
“Not exactly, no.” Drake remarked as he glanced back towards Slayer. “You got anything?”
Slayer simply stared at the Alliance ships, and then towards the space battle already in-progress. “Drones are faster than Snubs, but not as durable or effective unless in massive numbers. They’re fighting for the right to capture us as we speak.” He turned back to face Drake, staring at him with a hard gaze. “I suggest we jump for Earth, while they’re busy brawling.”
“Slayer... If you can tell me how to get to Earth, I would be more than happy to jump us there. This thing doesn't exactly have many non-Galactic Basic maps on it, ya know.” Yuri spoke.
“Scan the drive’s hyperspace routes. Use the panel on the side,” was the response. Slayer looked over at Drake to be met with a questioning glance. “All drives made by the Saalwan should have them, according to now-dead techs.” While Slayer's smile was invisible, it was still heard through the comlink. "I, of course, didn't have anything to do with that at all."
“Give me a few minutes, and keep those damn fighters off of us,” came Yuri’s muffled voice through the crews’ comlink.
Slayer nodded to himself, and primed the Sectic Launcher once again. 'Let’s see here...' he thought as he glanced at the two conflicting surge of dots vying for dominance around Ethereal’s airspace. ‘If I strike these three, it should cause a chain reaction... But that won’t work unless....’
Meanwhile, Yuri was trying to figure out how to access the drive’s Navigation menu, if there even was one. The installation guide had actually worked, so he had been able to hook it up to the reactor that powered the whole ship. Its appearance was the same powered up as it did without the main power hooked up to it. Heck, even the green glow looked the same...
“Ok, let’s see what you have in here,” Yuri mumbled to himself as he began to search through the command and core program files in what he guessed was the drive’s main computer. He was careful at the programs he opened, and even more careful at the files he moved. The last thing he wanted to do was to somehow blow up the ship, which had nearly happened on multiple accounts previous with less demanding hardware.
“No... That’s the antimatter to liquid... Carbon? Never seen that before.” He mumbled to himself, not knowing how the drive worked. It was nearly as annoying as when Slayer had gotten drunk on Promet, which sapped a significant amount of the group’s stored credits as compensation for the events afterwards.
The Ethereal took a sudden lunge to the left, dodging the now-increased push of both Syndicate and Alliance craft. The ship's occupants knew quite well that they could only fight so many forces at once, and the reinforcements coming in were cutting dangerously close to that limit.
“Slayer, how’s the ammo?” Drake called out.
“Doing good.” Slayer responded as he brought up the stats on an adjacent panel. He peered at it and spoke again. “Though, not for long. We got one silo left for the Sectic Launcher. Batteries may also be overheating soon at the rate we're firing.”
Yuri sighed and slumped up against the wall, slowing falling down onto one of the cold, metal grates of the engine room. He had searched every program that he could read or knew what it did. And nothing had worked. No star charts had opened with the desired results, no possible jumps.
Hell, the only thing that had changed was the user menu was now black, instead of red. Which really did not look that well on it... hell, the red had given it a look that would strike mortal terror in many civilians. In a way, it comforted him.
‘Wait a second... Wasn't one of Sol’s bodies called the ‘Red Planet’...? What was the actual name though? Wait wait, that’s not important... Urgh, what was that detail?! The planet had something, a resource. It could be anything though: mercury, silver, iron...’
Iron...
“I'm a genius!” Yuri yelled, punching both of his arms into air. He ran over to the drive and grabbed a wire from the console, plugging it into one of the holes on its side.
“What did you find?” Drake asked, hearing the shout from the comlink. He only winced slightly, but he was used to Yuri being overzealous when he worked.
“Computer. Scan the Orion arm for any above C-class planet levels of iron oxide.” He yelled, excitement evident in his voice.
“Scanning... Scanning... Two-hundred and twenty five matches.” The computer answered in its dull tone.
“Computer. Of those planets, how many are close to G-type main sequence stars?” He asked.
“There are thirty five.”
“Of those, which ones are more than three-hundred light years away from Canopus?” He asked, his voice giddy like a child receiving their first hover bike.
“One,” was it’s only response. Yuri jumped up and cheered in delight. He had done what no one else had ever been able to do, and in an insanely simple way.
“Yuri,” Slayer called out. “I believe you got our target. Lock.”
“You got it!” He yelled, his fingers dancing over the keyboard with incredible speed. The drive began to hum as the computer did what Yuri could not and programmed the route into the Saalwan drive.
“Alright you two, let’s get out of here once that’s linked!” Drake shouted exuberantly. It rather surprised the crew, even Drake himself, at his giddiness. Then again, take into account of finally being able to escape the war they were forced to fight for the good of the innocent (but mainly themselves), and finding humanity’s lost home planet, and most likely any other person would be acting the same way.
The same could be said for Yuri, but instead of being forced into the war like so many others, he had joined it and done the ultimate sin. A sin that had been haunting him for his entire life. And now, he was finally going to be able to run away from it for good.
Slayer had similar thoughts flow through his vision as explosions radiated around the Ethereal in flight. The glow of destroyed cores, tattered remnants of metal scrap, high-powered bolts of energy whizzing past into the void of space... in an ironic sort of way, he’d grown accustomed to this. Almost to the point of not wishing to see whatever new was in store. But, when thinking about his past, the one that started him on his road... he considered maybe, it wouldn’t be too bad.
Drake stared at the hyperspace data being uploaded to the screens in front of him. Earth. For the past five years of his life, he had dreamt of finding Earth. Finding it was the whole reason why he had founded the group in the first place. Five long years were finally coming to fruition, and he only had one regret now. Drake closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. She always wanted to see Earth. To stand on the soil that gave birth to our race, to breathe the air our ancestors did; to look up at the stars with the same wonder.
“Locked on and ready when you are, el Capitan.” Yuri grinned, finally saying the words he had waited to say since joining the crew. To say he was happy was an understatement by a light year.
“Ready,” Drake mumbled, opening his eyes and staring through the thickets of battle. “Set...”
“Can we go already?” Slayer uttered in annoyance at the dramatic situation Drake was creating.
He rolled his eyes and saw the perfect opening. “Now!”
There was a lurch; an unexpected yank of the ship as a glow began encompassing the entire hull. The space before them seemed to stretch out, telling the crew that hyperspace was shortly awaiting. But of course, Lady Luck was rarely on Cerberus’ side for long, if at all.
Moments before escaping, a stray missile from a fighter affair smacked the Starboard engine of the Ethereal. The result was the ship’s angle being shifted to a significant degree, before the crew was launched forward into the deep recess of space.
Starbrought
Drake breathed a sigh of relief as he slumped back into his chair. The jump with the drive had been successful. The radar screen to his immediate left showed no hostile forces in whatever system they had arrived in. It did however, display a large green and bluish planet relatively close.
With a flick of his wrist, Drake put the Ethereal into autopilot and raised a hand to his earpiece. "Good news, fellas. We made it out alive."
Slayer let out his own small sigh of relief as he rose from his position in the Weapon Command Room. "About time we got out of lethal space."
Drake turned his chair around to face the weapon's specialist. "Nice call on that Ion Cannon," he said. "Did one hell of a number on the Leviathan.”
The response was a simple shrug as the bounty hunter tapped a nearby screen. A resounding ding sounded as the system went offline to recharge and release heat. "We better go check on Yuri. Knowing him, he’s probably having trouble keeping our new prize in check."
"You go on ahead," Drake waved off Slayer. "I'm going to run a few scans of this system first. I have no clue where we ended up."
Down in the engine room, Yuri slowly picked himself up from the floor of the room, dusting himself off and making sure nothing had been broken. After doing a complete pat down of his body, he sighed in relief. "Thank God, that could have really hurt. Now, what the hell did you do...?" He stated, looking at the piece of Saalwan tech that brought them to wherever the hell this is.
Drake spun back to the main control console and pressed a few buttons to initiate a preliminary scan of nearby space. "Huh, there's an awful lot of water on that planet," he noted as the scans immediately focused on the nearby celestial body. "What planet is that?"
"UNKNOWN," the Ethereal's computer replied in a monotone, female-esque voice.
Drake let out a groan. "What system?"
"UNKNOWN."
Drake raised an eyebrow. Could it be...? Legends say Earth was mostly water. Did they actually find it? Their ultimate goal? "Computer, are we in the Milky Way?"
Silence filled the cockpit for several long moments. "NEGATIVE."
Drake's heart immediately plummeted. He shouldn't have gotten his hopes up. But if they weren't in the Milky Way, where were they? Hyperdrives couldn't jump galaxies. Not Human-designed ones, at least.
"Yuri, status report," he requested as he activated his earpiece again.
"Well, I got bad news and... worse news," Yuri said sadly, fiddling around with a bunch of wires in a panel.
"Bad first," Drake's voice requested.
"Well, the bad news is that the drive is shot." A small amount of electricity arced somewhere in the now nearly-wrecked engine room. The Saalwan hyperdrive was billowing a small amount of smoke, and with an acrid smell flowing out from it. A cough left Yuri from the unexpected release.
A groan of frustration filled Yuri's ear. "Anything else?"
"Let me see..." Yuri rolled out of the web of wires, and walked over to one of the computer consoles. He typed in and slammed his fist into the console in anger. "Yep, here's the worse news: the shields are gone, and I mean gone. The shield generator is all but useless and the backup has no power running to it."
"Just a moment then," Drake grumbled. Yuri listened intently as the sounds of Drake's frantic typing came over the earpiece. "I'm going to manually override some of the power systems to see if I can divert some energy to our shields. Not that we really need them, since we're in a non hostile zone. But it's better to be safe than sorry.”
"Speaking of which... where the hell are we?" Yuri said over the gradually louder hum of power.
"We are in the middle of nowhere," Drake said sarcastically. "Literally. Scans can't even tell where we are. I'm officially calling this sector of space 'H'."
Slayer merely raised an eyebrow as he listened to his comlink. He had taken the lift down to examine his workspace (monitoring Yuri wasn’t on his list of concerns), to ensure the energy cells obtained from the Leviathan raid were still functional. The bantering commentary of his crewmates occupied his thoughts for a moment.
"Why sector 'H'?" Both Yuri and Slayer asked at the same time, although the latter sounded far less concerned or confused about the matter.
"Because the letter 'H' is the middle letter of 'nowhere'," Drake explained. "I was making a joke and trying to lighten the situation."
Slayer merely shrugged to himself as he walked into his workspace. It was a modest little chamber, filled with a variety of canisters for storing power cells, stands for sheets of metal, and workbenches to integrate specific parts. He began to search the slightly messy area for his goal, making notes about what to fix due to all the hits they took.
"I don't get it; how can we be in the middle of nowhere, if we don't know where nowhere is?" Yuri exclaimed, now slightly more confused.
There was a pause over the headset. "Slayer, smack Yuri as hard as you can without killing him when you get down there."
The ex-bounty hunter let out a small chuckle as he heard the request, and seeing his cells still intact. "In a moment. Checking things out on the Lower Deck."
"Is the kitchen on fire... Again?” Drake asked as he began shutting off unneeded systems.
"Slayer, I need you to check the weapons grid, I'm getting strange readings from the Ion Cannon." Yuri’s voice arrived over his comlink.
Slayer side-stepped over to his secondary weapons panel on the wall and pulled up the statistics. “It’s fine.” He muttered, rolling his eyes and placing a piece or so of vital equipment back into its original cluttered, yet organized form. Yuri just grunted in confusion of the energy readings he was receiving, and went back to assessing damage in Engineering.
Slayer meanwhile strolled out of his space to check the neighbouring rooms. A quick swipe of his hand over the sensor later, and the Kitchen's door slid open from the half. Luckily, there were no fires present, and the small mini-bar that Yuri installed had all of its liquor still properly shelved.
Snagging a bottle of 'Yisten Yeager', he sent a neurotic message to the Suit. Its’ response was revealing the small hole where his mouth would be. A personal upgrade. Satisfied, he took a large swig and set it back. "Everything’s *hic*... good in the Kitchen."
"Please tell me you aren't already—" Drake began before several warning lights flared to life on the console in front of him.
Slayer readjusted his helm and resealed it. Listening to the lights flashing and the sirens blaring, he simply sighed and rolled his shoulders to crack his back. Slayer made a note to visit a chiropractor next chance he got. "What is it this time? Wait... I'm not sure I truly want to know."
"Drake... Are you getting the same thing on your end?" Yuri said with a hushed voice, staring at a rapidly blinking screen in front of him.
"Unfortunately!" Drake shouted from his end. "Hold on tight boys, 'cause our shields are down and we just exited hyperspace directly into the path of a meteor shower!"
Slayer strolled to the table where the crew normally ate, and reclined back in one of the seats with a separate bottle of alcohol. Another swig he took. 'If it's not one thing, it's another...'
Drake's hands flew across the main controls as he attempted to increase the power of the Ethereal's shields. He had limited control (due to the power consumption of the piloting systems), unlike the unrestricted access of Slayer’s panel and the overriding access of Yuri from his panel down in Engineering, but it was enough to increase the power easily.
The engine room began to rattle and shake as the reactor began to glow a sickly blue. Yuri was thrown off his feet and onto the metal grate of the floor. He climbed up to the console and began to desperately try to reroute more power to the shields, but it was all for naught.
Slayer gripped the table and held himself to avoid being flung by turbulence. Quickly standing and exiting the room, he tapped the sensor and sealed the door. Moving swiftly towards the lift, he jabbed one of the few buttons on the accompanying panel and stepped into the door.
It closed and a few brief moments later, it reopened back at the Upper Deck. He began trudging towards his seat which commanded the Ethereal's Weapon Systems, but the turbulence was slowing him down. If it wasn't for his armour, no doubt he'd been flung all over the cockpit.
"Focus on moving, and less on shields. We need to conserve power towards actual functioning systems..." He mumbled as he sat back down at his Weapon centre.
"Easy,” he was interrupted a thud, “for you to say!" Yuri screamed into the headset. He tried to hold onto the center console but ended up being slammed into the wall. The Ethereal shook violently as the meteors wore down on the shields, rapidly eating away at their energy. In less than a minute, the shields became visible before fading out.
"Son of a—” Drake shouted. “Shields are down!”
Slayer was still sitting in his revolvable chair, staring out the helm of the ship with Drake frantically tapping away in the foreground. "It seems the stream of meteors are blocking off any routes... except for one..." He leaned forward slightly to identify the spot. "Is that... a desert?"
“Yes, I’m trying to land us somewhere soft that won’t drown us, thank you!” Drake snapped as he gripped the controls tightly. A rather large meteor slammed into the side of the Ethereal, throwing it into a spin and disabling the interior artificial gravity generator.
Slayer slowly began to float, but yanking himself back down to his seat and strapping himself in ceased that.
"Oh come on!" Yuri shouted as another thud sounded out. The gravity could not have turned off at the worst of times. Yuri was caught off guard and was thrown into one of the pipes that had some sort of gas flowing through it.
“Yuri!” Drake shouted as his nerves began to wear even thinner. “Fix the damn generator!”
Yuri reached behind his head and felt blood. Turning around, he looked at the pipe and discovered it was covered in blood. "Drake... I'll get on it, but I need medical help." He began to feel woozy but ignored it and floated towards the direct gravity control panel. He tore some wires out and plugged some together. He pushed a button on the console and dropped himself onto the grate. Hard.
Another barrage of meteors slammed into the hull of the ship, further throwing the ship into a spin.
“WARNING. REAR STABILIZERS OFFLINE,” The Ethereal’s interior computer announced.
“Slayer, we are probably going to die,” Drake said. “Admittedly, Yuri will probably go first if that thud is anything to go off of.”
Slayer merely sat there, staring out the window at the onslaught of meteors whizzing past the ship's vision as it further span around. It was a common occurrence; in stressful situations, his personality shifted from callous and bloodthirsty and became rather silent and calculating. Surprisingly, he began to speak. "Where's the Repair Drone, R1-B5?"
“Gone. We lost him two weeks ago when we raided that Alliance Supply Ship. Remember?”
"What about the Medical Bot, E-7?"
"Currently in use." A strained voice went through their headsets.
“What good would a medical droid do for a ship?” Drake asked.
Slayer rolled his eyes and tapped one of his consoles and began typing in commands aloud. "E-7, administer Substance P3 to Yuri, then go offline in the Cargo Hold."
“WARNING. APPROACHING ATMOSPHERE AT DANGEROUS VELOCITY. SEVERAL HULL BREACHES DETECTED IN ENGINEERING. HULL INTEGRITY COMPROMISED. ATMOSPHERIC ENTRY NOT ADVISED.”
“That drive was so not worth it!” Drake growled.
Slayer rolled his eyes and spoke through his comlink. "Yuri... you good?"
Yuri slowly stood up, and rubbed his arm. The drug had sealed up his wound, but he was still woozy. "It helped, but it's still—" He was cut off by the sound of metal being torn against itself. "Drake... What the hell is going on...?"
“We’re dying,” Drake grumbled.
“WARNING. I’M SCARED, DRAKE. WILL I DREAM?”
“You’re a diagnostic program that is not self-aware, so no.”
Slayer had cast a disgruntled look at the P.A. system of the Ethereal. ‘Note to self: If we survive, disable that damned A.I...’
Drake and Slayer both winced as a smaller meteor shattered through the viewport and smashed the control console in front of Drake. The air in the cockpit rushed out for a single, brief second before a steel plate rose in place of the glass that was now missing.
“I think the problem solved itself,” Drake said as he rolled the meteor off.
"What, being able to see death? If so, the steel plate has certainly helped."
Drake flung a piece of shattered glass at Slayer. “Shut up. It’s only that left side.”
The piece of glass simply collided with Slayer's shoulder before it shattered into multiple shards and fell to the floor. He glanced back up to determine that indeed only the left side of the viewport had been sealed. "The planet is on the left side..."
“And we’re being pulled towards it,” Drake reminded him. “I’m not too worried about finding the planet.”
"Guys... We got a problem," Yuri managed to gasp into the intercom after coughing. “A big problem.”
“Speak of the devil,” Drake said. “Go Yuri.”
"Tritium 369 is leaking from the core..." He gasped again, struggling to open the door as he got weaker and weaker. Drake and Slayer looked at each other for a moment.
“Seal it all off and get out of there Yuri.” Drake ordered. “We’ll worry about it after we land.”
"Is anyone by the door to the engine room?" He gasped, rapidly running out of air.
"Negative." Slayer retorted.
"Please keep it that way for a second." He stood up and stumbled towards the reactor. After gaining some distance, he rammed the steel door with his shoulder. The result was him blasting through the door and collapsing onto the cold floor.
Yuri wheezed, and crawled over to the emergency airlock control. He had a massive coughing fit from the lack of oxygen, but soon enough he had crawled close enough to seal the emergency door, trapping the radioactive gas inside the chamber. But, during his short time exposed to it, he had most likely signed his own death warrant. Then again, the effects of Tritium hadn’t been tested to whether it had long-lasting and detrimental effects or not...
Drake rapidly pulled on a series of levers next to him as he attempted to slow their rapid descent into the atmosphere of the uncharted planet. An orange and red tinted fire was forming around the helm of the Ethereal.
“Come on! Come on!” Drake growled. “We didn’t come this far just to die in a crash!”
"Thanks for all the help." Yuri stumbled into the cockpit, collapsing against a side panel.
“You’re welcome,” Drake snapped.
Slayer glanced back towards Yuri, then back to his work before doing a double-take. "You look like shit." Another meteor chose that moment to slam into the Ethereal, causing several panelings to come loose and fall on Yuri.
"Fine job you’re doing there, Drake. I wish I knew where you got your flight training from, so I could punch said thing in its face." Yuri growled, attempting to remove the piles of metal now on top of him but failing.
“We. Are. Crashing,” Drake snarled. “Flight training means shit.”
"You’re still doing a good job in that department.” Yuri groaned with sarcasm in response as he glanced towards the armoured warrior of the group. “Slayer, a little bit of help here?"
Slayer stood leisurely and flipped over the lowest sheet of metal on Yuri, sending the other bits towards one of the corners of the cockpit. It was a smooth maneuver, and Slayer simply shook his head at the simplicity of removing the debris. "Next time, try harder." He muttered as he returned to his spot.
The Ethereal began shaking more violently as it continued its downward descent into the night-darkened side of the planet. Fire roared off of its sides, illuminating the skies like a small star. Slayer sighed as he watched the rapidly-approaching ground. He looked over at Drake, and spoke in a collected tone. "So much for our Crusade, eh?"
“Weird, I thought it would involve more explosions, alcohol, and large amounts of big breasted women,” Yuri said as he closed his eyes. Yuri wondered if he'd had enough time to run back down to Storage and finish the Trevanian wine before they crashed. Probably not.
“This is it boys,” Drake said solemnly. “This is how we die.”
Silence fell over the three pirates as the dark ground rushed up to meet them. To any observer on the planet, they would have heard the screech of metal, accompanied by the shattering of glass and no less than two explosions, followed by silence. A fatal, deadly silence.
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Sounds promising. I'll definitely read this and let you know how i feel!
Will read shortly, this sounds like it'll be good.
I LOVE IT MORE PLEASE
Holy shit, this can only end in the best way possible... IT'S GREAT!
The 14,000 thousand word chapter sold me up front.
Moar would be appreciated.
The amount of back story in this is amazing. The prologue has some very detailed bits about the history that I liked, and the chapter shows a excellent setting for any number of actual Sci Fi books.
!!!!!
In other words, I want MOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAR
Fuck. Yes.
I want Moar!!!
I enjoyed it to a degree, although I skipped pieces of the sci-fi space battle, as the characters are rather strange for my tastes. I assume that they're military, in which case the excessive alcohol and swearing is a little out of place, especially for the crew of what is stated to be a flagship.
In addition, why would humanity keep all of their information on one computer, especially since the internet and numerous hard copies and backups would make it next to impossible to loose such information, and even if they lost the directions, it shouldn't be hard to find again. As the Doctor would say "How do you loose a planet?"
The pony history was better, if a little drawn out, with scenes such as the one with the CMC appearing to be redundant.
But your writing style is composed and manageable, without any glaring errors or faux-pas, and whilst your characterisation of the humans was lacking, your portrayal of the ponies was spot on, with Spike's little drama, and Luna's muses adding some creative flare to a scene that veterans have seen a thousand times by now.
So status report:
Engine: FUBAR
Shields: FUBAR
Stabilizers: FUBAR
Generator: FUBAR
Hull: FUBAR
Yup, definitively a one way trip.
Dude, Very nice story. Very clean in a lot of aspects, the action is just perfect, moments of intensiveness, and then lulls, just like a real battle. The part with them sneaking on board, and then cheese-ing it? Pretty cool. I can only wait to see where this story will go. Keep on going!
>>Stalking_Z0mbie
We're hoping to update it every two weeks, but we are trying to collaborate our four schedules, so that might not quite happen as often as we'd like. However, we do try to get together every night or so to work on it, so frequently is the best answer I can provide.
834400
They're not military. They're pirates.
Great start of a potentially epic story.
Oh hell yeah, this is damn good.
844104
Shadow Horizons: A little explanation then. The ship they were on was a Syndicate Flagship. Their ship is actually a much smaller one. Would you be so kind as to point out where exactly the confusion is caused so we could examine it and possibly make some minor changes to make it clearer?
844239
Your writing style for the chapter is very flowery, which is baaad for someone who skim reads like me (as many assumptions are made).
The reader has to wait till the sixth paragraph till they get a hint that someone's hacking something, and even then it's unsaid if it's their ship or not. The title states that they're on a flagship and then switches over to a description of, stuff... assumptions are made whilst the audience are scratching their heads regarding what's happening (lack of immediate action suggests that they're in home territory).
The start of a scene is where the tone is set, the first paragraph in particular is the hook, and the first paragraph for this scene in particular is rather pointless. An immediate jump into action stating the sides, objectives and the scenario would have been preferable.
LOL loved the line
Will I Dream
cant remember where its from though
=(
For some reason, I can relate to Yuri alot. Is that bad?
860472 Enope
So... updates?
God, i am antsy...
870701 Being worked on as I type!
SovietBacon
Yay for full and detailed backstory!!
The really important thing is that they still have Vodka. Without that what a grim future it would be!
Anyone else think of Han Solo from Star Wars when the fifty troopers came by?
Too much at once. I glossed over pretty much this entire chapter after I read the foreword in italics. I just.. don't care about all these new characters, technology, conflicts, organizations, etc. I haven't been given time to care about them.
You mean sapient. Dogs, cats, earthworms etc, and some plants (if not all plants—that one is a little fuzzy) are sentient, as sentience is simply being aware of your surroundings. Sapience, however, is a higher level of understanding, and the only known sapient species is Humanity.
Also, I have only read the introduction on this chapter, but you may want to proofread it as I saw some badly punctuated sentences.
Edit: also, how do you loose a planet? From what you wrote, you implied that every computer with the knowledge of Earth's location was connected to the same mainframe, which, quite frankly, is laughable. Modern day countries keep loads of sensitive information on computers not connected to the Internet, as do corporations and private individuals. Heck, connecting these to the Internet is a major security flaw for the reasons you mentioned. The saboteur may have been able to wipe the Wikipedia version, and maybe a secure government mainframe, but there must be a computer somewhere with the data on it. Heck, if I ran a logistics company that needed specific navigation details to ensure I could do my job, I would create so many untouchable backups of that data it would be unreal, if only to prevent a rival corporation from wiling my data banks and driving me out of business. Double Heck, I would write it down on paper and stick it in a bank vault somewhere.
"A black, long sleeved shirt covered his upper body, while a pair of simple of camouflage pants covered his long legs."
"Slayer acknowledged that statement with a nod and moved over to the door in which they entered from."
Should be "...from which they entered".
Other than that, it's awesome! Keep it up!
I don't see any possible way for this to make sense. Stars aren't hidden; you can look up in the sky and see them. From great distances, even! Not sure how the FTL drive works, but... They must know how to identify a star telescopically and navigate to it, or else they never would have been able to spread out from Earth to begin with.
If they colonized mars, couldn't they just use those relatively close coordinates to find Earth again?
4085723 I just started reading this so don't take my word as solid gold, but I think we're talking about extremely large scale here. Large enough that solar systems get lost in cosmic arms of the galaxy. If you didn't know where exactly to look for the needle in a haystack the odds of you finding it while juggling the societal needs of a galactic civilization are rather slim. Especially if all of your data on that particular region of space was expunged.
Basically what I'm saying is it's not a problem of calculating the coordinates -- It's a problem of not even knowing where to match the coordinate system up to. At least that's my take on it.
4085801
You're wrong, for the right reasons. Let me explain.
Yes, space is absurdly massive - thank you for realizing that.
The problem is that that's not the problem at all. The problem is that the data managed to get lost at all. And even then, they should be able to simply work it out. What, did all life on Earth disappear along with the data? Were there no ships in the Sol System? Did they manage to forget which worlds were near Earth, despite the fact that you'd expect that to be the kind of knowledge that almost every person on those planets would have?
Not to mention, what happened to backups? Other copies, elsewhere in their entire interstellar empire? Humanity was a huge polity at that point, surely they had more than one place where the data was.
And don't even get me started on the absurdity of an eight hundred planet empire filling the galaxy. And an invasion from a different galaxy. Does the author not realize there are three hundred billion stars in just this one galaxy, and it's so huge that it takes light a hundred thousand years to cross from one edge to another? That's not even close to how far away the nearest other true galaxy is, of course - two and a half million light-years!
Please, sci-fi writers in general: learn what the hell you're writing about before you write it. Otherwise it's just painful to anyone with the slightest idea what you're talking about.
4093607 Agreed. The author refurs to Yuri as a "drunk Russian" despise the fact you have to be born in Russia to be a Russian. You know, the country on the planet that we forgot the location of some hundred years ago.
2# mmm
4093607
Planet Earth Being lost would have to occur in an Asimovian fashion, something happening to the planet/system rendering it uninhabitable. Then it could remain on charts as a monument to where mankind came from. IF the war drew all of mankind into it then it may be possible for a wipe of a system that seems interconnected to work.
I do agree that cross galaxy is kind crazy and 800 planets not many on that scale. If you have every heard of or read the Lensmen series, now that is a set of books that know how to do cross galaxy battles. Planets and anti-matter planet smashing into one another with all the glory a 50s era sci-fi series can muster. To date the largest Sci-fi battles ever published I do believe. Oop, I think I went tangential.
First chapter was very good, but this one... well... not very good IMO.
As I prefer "Heisenberg compensators working just fine,thank you" I got annoyed with 'Earth's missing and we are idiots and we can't find it' and other bits like that.
Later I skimmed a lot of text.
One typo I noted:
“One,” was it’s only response.
-its
I know it isn’t the same but pirates in space
The movie is on netflix if you want to see it