//------------------------------// // 20: Ghost Ship // Story: Homeworld: Equestria - The Silent Hunters // by hiigaran //------------------------------// Obsidian was the last to enter the briefing room. The rest of the Infiltrators, already seated, glanced briefly in his direction. Without a word, he made his way to an empty seat past Sparky, Shadow, and the twins, each having fully regrown their fur and feathers. Using his VMUI as an excuse to look at something else, he avoided eye contact and sat strategically at one end of the table set, facing Eclipse, who had been standing in his usual place between the tables. Eclipse cleared his throat. “Good, we can start a little early then. Today I’ve got a retrieval mission for you, as a follow up regarding the device you found on Enigma.” Shadow’s eyes shifted between Glare and Obsidian, both of whom glanced at each other. Obsidian quickly looked away, back to the officer who remained oblivious. Glare looked down at the folder between her hooves. The officer continued. “In an isolated part of the galaxy, an unusual ship was found long ago. Unknown origins. Unknown purpose. No signs of life aboard, past or present, and the only thing known about it was its control field. Essentially, it could take control of anything larger than a ‘vette if it got too close. It was called the Ghost Ship.” “Ghost Ship?” Swift gave the officer an incredulous look. “It’s metaphorical, obviously,” Eclipse clarified. “The Hiigarans gave it that name during their investigations.” “So if they’ve already taken a look at this ship, why are we doing the same thing? Can’t we just … I dunno”—Swift shrugged—“get the data from the Hiigarans?” “This was during their exile era. They were a little preoccupied with reclaiming their homeworld and thus lacked the time to collect anything other than some basic information by tapping into certain systems from the exterior of the ship. You six will be sent out to find and extract the ship’s data banks.” Shift joined in. “How does this relate to our previous mission?” “Some data recovered from the computers around the Enigma device made references to this ship. We need to know why.” Folding his hooves, the pegasus leaned back in his seat. “This sounds too simple. What’s the catch?” “Well, the operation will be on two fronts. A new stealth destroyer named Basilisk will be sent to another Ghost Ship found during the Harmony campaign. We will be sent to the one discovered by the Hiigarans. The catch is, this region of space is now considered Raider territory, which is why Second Fleet will be standing by in a nearby system for this one. Our latest intel shows considerable activity around the Ghost Ship. We slip in, navigate through the enemy fleet, and insert you into the target vessel. Extract the data banks and get out.” “Any idea what kind of resistance we should expect aboard the Ghost Ship?” Shadow asked. “My guess is that there would be a moderate number of non-combatants with a light security detail, but a guess is all that is. Whatever the case, stick to a standard seeding style mission. Avoid contact. Eliminate hostiles only when necessary.” A tone sounded from a nearby seat. Eclipse glanced briefly at it before moving towards the screen. Tapping on the comms interface, he replied, “XO, briefing room.” “Commander, the Captain wanted to inform you that Second Fleet will hold position here," Crux announced. "We’ll be making our final jump to the target in twenty minutes.” “Thank you, Specialist.” Exiting hyperspace once more, the cloaked destroyer proceeded towards the distant target. Surrounded by soft cyan and golden lighting, the environment was dotted with small dark objects, each a distant capital ship. In the command centre, Crux was eyeing all detected contacts carefully. At seemingly random locations were small, lone ships, smaller than fighters, zooming around the wider area. After verifying their signatures, he spoke up. “Captain, there appear to be several proximity sensors patrolling the area. They look like the older style Taiidan sensors, so I don’t think we’ll have any trouble with our cloaking device. Just to be safe, we may want to maintain half a klick separation.” “Noted, Specialist. Mark each sensor and pass the information on to Lieutenant Azimuth.” “Yes, sir.” “And you’re certain the Ghost Ship’s control field is offline? No signs of it possibly being reactivated by the Raiders?” Quasar added, while scrutinising every visual detail of the target vessel. “I’m certain it’s down. Nothing suggests otherwise.” Responding only with an unconvinced hum, Quasar pulled up an image of the Ghost Ship taken by the Hiigarans when they had first discovered the vessel, and compared it to what Amarok’s external cameras showed. If the damage was anything to go by, the vessel showed no signs of repair work. Dismissing the image, he ordered the other stations to proceed as normal. Deviating slightly from their route, Amarok made several minor heading adjustments. Closing in on the Ghost Ship, it passed by several larger ships holding their positions. Though the majority were the well-known Vindicator-type cruisers, several larger vessels were completely unfamiliar to Crux. “Captain, do you recognise these ships?” Crux sent zoomed-in images of the relevant vessels to the Captain’s station. Long, thin and rectangular, in much the same way as a Hiigaran battlecruiser, the red and black ships had a long gap running longitudinally through the centre of the chassis. Within the gap were a pair of armoured rails, tapering slightly at the forward end. At the outboard sides of the vessel were a pair of trapezoid stubs, and point defence weaponry at each corner of the ship. Frowning, Quasar looked over the images for a while, before shaking his head. “Can’t say that I do. Anypony else?” he called out, sending the images to other stations. “Huh. I want to say they look familiar, but I can’t think of any other ship that looks remotely similar.” “Great. Just what we need,” Sabre commented with unbridled sarcasm. “Our galaxy infested with Raider battlecruisers. At least the colour scheme isn’t Raider, so it might just be captured ships. Though, from which faction? Unless they gutted a Hiigaran battlecruiser and repainted it.” As Amarok slowed to a crawl at the final few hundred metres from the Ghost Ship’s hull, it oriented accordingly. A thorough proximity scan suggested their insertion point was clear, and Amarok’s pilots proceeded with their descent to a mere metre above the ship’s hull. As the vessel came to a halt, the closest helmsmare nodded to Quasar. “Specialist, inform Commander Eclipse that the Infiltrators are cleared to proceed.” “You know what this feels like?” Swift spoke up, his voice echoing through the Ghost Ship’s cavernous corridors. “Weightlessness?” Shift stated the obvious as he and the others floated down the seemingly endless hall. Narrow beams of infrared light from each Infiltrator swept across the otherwise pitch-black interior, identifying nothing but metal plating, and the occasional alcove in the walls through their night-vision. “What? No. Well, yes, but that’s not what I meant,” Swift continued. “It sorta feels like we’ve all been shrunk down to some tiny size. You think this is actually some giant’s equivalent of a frigate? Or maybe a corvette?” “Keep your voice down, Swift,” Shadow whispered ahead of the group, aiming a narrow beam of light from her pulsar at different locations while she searched for possible threats. “Or mute it,” Obsidian muttered at the rear. “Permanently.” “Why?” Swift whispered. “Eclipse said there weren’t any life signs detected. Why else would it be pitch-black here?” he continued, adjusting his night-vision. “There weren’t any life signs detected around our insertion point,” Shadow corrected. “But if you want other reasons … Power or lighting failure. Obsidian would suggest it might be intentional to spring a trap by any Raiders aboard or somehow watching us from elsewhere. Or perhaps the race that built this ship never had any eyes and therefore never needed light to begin with. Regardless, are you sure you want to risk your life on an assumption?” “Or ours,” Glare added. Staying close by Obsidian’s side, she added, “And we don’t know if there are machines like those on Enigma either, right Obsidian?” The changeling did not reply, and continued to face forward. “No one else finds it odd that there’s atmosphere here? On a ship meant to be ancient?” “Alright, fine, you guys win,” Swift conceded. “Why don’t I ever get to win a debate?” “Because you’re an absolute cretin,” Obsidian stated without hesitation. “It’s pronounced ‘crouton’,” Swift retorted. “How’s that an insult, anyway?” “Exhibit A; the bread head.” The group continued floating down the long hall. While Shadow made minute adjustments to the surrounding air to overcome her drag, Swift, Shift, and Obsidian had to propel themselves and the other flightless members whenever they started lagging behind the zebra. They repeated this process until they came to an intersection. Ahead, the hall seemed to continue indefinitely. To their left, another hall continued elsewhere. On the right was an empty cylindrical space spanning multiple decks. Many horizontal structures lined the furthest part of the compartment, which had an uncanny likeness to an oversized ladder. Engaging his mag boots at the edge, Shift peered over while nudging Swift. “So uhh, what was that you were saying about giants?” Looking up and down the vertical column, Swift sized up the distance. “Ladder rungs look like they’re spaced about two metres apart. So if there were some giants lurking about here, they’d probably be … what? Ten to fifteen metres tall? Ahh, I’ve heard stories where the Elements of Harmony fought larger things. Just think of a ship full of ursa majors or something.” “I’d rather not!” Glare’s voice cracked. “For all we know, it could just be a maintenance shaft, and those structures are pipes,” Shadow suggested. “Coolants, fire suppression, compressed air, bundles of cables or hydraulic lines. Let’s cut back on the speculation for now.” Pressing on, the group descended gradually through the column, falling at a leisurely pace. Several minutes passed before they found themselves approaching the deck indicated in their CNSes. Stabilising the others, the flight-capable members pushed the squad forwards toward their objective. “Captain, I’ve been seeing some unusual activity in the past few minutes from the surrounding Raiders,” Crux stated, his eyes fixated on the sensor managers on several of his screens. “Care to elaborate, Specialist?” “Well, I wasn’t sure anything was happening when it started, considering they’ve been moving so slowly, but it seems they are all assuming a sphere formation around the Ghost Ship. Around us. You don’t think they know we’re here, do you?” The Captain shook his head. “We’re cloaked. That shouldn’t be possible. Not with this type of device.” “Famous last words,” Arc Sabre remarked. “Point taken, Lieutenant,” Quasar conceded. He turned back to Crux. “Specialist, give me a breakdown of all ships based on their type.” “Sorted by mass, the following ships show up on sensors: Six of the unknown battlecruisers, a Rancor, two-one Vindicators, four-nine Daggers, and one-eight proximity sensors. No strike-craft detected. Given there is a carrier in the area, there may be two-zero squadrons of fighters or corvettes aboard though.” Quasar remained silent. Analysing the contacts via the sensor manager, each depicted by a two-dimensional shape identifying its class, he came to a decision. “Lieutenant Sabre.” “Sir.” “We have sixty torpedoes. What do you think we should target if we had to make a quick getaway?” Sabre gave the Captain a look. “Are you talking about abandoning the Infiltrators in the process?” “If I’m given no other option, yes.” Humming, Sabre took a moment to comb through the sensor manager. “I’d send the first six torpedoes to the unknown battlecruisers’ sensors, and fire both rear tubes at the Rancor’s sensors. If we’ve been detected, they’d be my first guess as to why. Assuming a Balcora heading away from most of the battlecruisers, I’d target Dagger clusters next. As for the Vindicators, I’d ignore them completely. We can outrun them easily and circle back around to take them out if they’ve got hyperspace inhibitors active.” The Captain agreed. “Alright, make the necessary preparations as a precaution. We’re not leaving our crew behind if I can help it, but if I have to trade six lives to safeguard this vessel and all aboard her, I will.” “We’ve still got Sixth Fleet’s support,” Sabre reminded Quasar. “Well aware of that. If we have to retreat, we’d regroup and coordinate a rescue mission as soon as possible to prevent reinforcements from interfering. Sixth cannot go up against this many ships though. Shielding officers always find ion cannons difficult to deal with. Given the amount frigs out there, I doubt Sixth would last long against them.” “So they’d be bait, or a distraction while we attempt to return to the Ghost Ship?” “I’m hoping it won’t come down to that, but yes.” “What is it, Sparks?” Shift looked up at the diamond dog, after a paw blocked him from advancing around the corner. Sparky took a couple of whiffs, and pointed at their final destination. Against a glowing wall were multiple stations of testing equipment, with a pair of bunks crudely secured to the floor. All four beds were occupied, strapped in with harnesses. Assessing the situation, Shadow found no one else nearby. “Obsidian, you’re with me. Take the first two, while I take the others. The rest of you, hold until we’ve dealt with them.” Obsidian waited until the zebra pushed off from the wall, before propelling himself alongside her. The two floated silently towards the sleeping Raiders. As they drew nearer, Shadow pulled out a combat knife, while Obsidian reoriented himself and readied his wing blades. Despite turning away and shutting her eyes, Glare shuddered at the sound over the open comms, of blades running through their victims. Looking back at Obsidian and Shadow, the latter beckoned the rest over. Upon arrival, the intricate details of the wall could be made out. Etched on to every part of the wall were hundreds of thousands of luminescent, millimetre-wide tracks. Protruding from seemingly random locations were flat, or blocky components, where many of the tracks converged. Situated centrally was another component, flat and hexagonal, surrounded by the largest number of converging tracks. Shift stared up at the component, barely larger than his own hoof. “So, is that it? That tiny thing is the brain of this thing?” “Isn’t that what radiologists say about his MRI results?” Obsidian whispered to Shadow, who suppressed a snort. Swift looked to the others. “Now what? We just gonna yank this thing off and that’s it?” “No idea. Maybe.” Shadow approached the component. She could make out small release mechanisms at each corner. “Too bad there’s no manual to go along with this.” “Although”—Glare tilted her head and looked at several components from different angles—“this wall does look like the kind of hardware seen in some antique Hiigaran computers. I think they’re called motherboards.” “How do you know about old Hiigaran tech?” Swift asked. “I read. You should try it one day.” “Hey, I read plenty!” Swift retorted with a stomp of his hoof, accompanied by a click of his mag boots. “Comic books and reading material with centre-folds do not count.” The pegasus raised a hoof and opened his mouth to respond, before pausing. “In that case, I retract my previous statement.” Shadow cut in, “You were saying something about motherboards, Glare? I assume you had a point to make.” “Hmm? Right, well if this is anything even remotely similar to those boards, you may want to look around for storage components instead. This would likely be a processing unit, but it might not house its own data storage.” Shadow scanned the entire wall. “There has to be a good forty or fifty major components here. How are we supposed to figure out which one of these is the right component then?” “Why not just grab them all?” Shift suggested, shrugging. “Might be a little tricky, but we’re weightless. We can manage.” “Probably would be faster than figuring out which component is the right one anyway,” Swift chimed in. “You fellas wanna stick around for more Raiders to come, while you study each piece? I mean, not that I’d say no to a little Raider flank whooping, as Shadow would call it.” Shadow sighed. “I was hoping to avoid that, but somehow I doubted we’d see a big flashing sign pointing to what we needed.” “Great, you’re finally back. And not a moment too soo—” Eclipse stopped, upon sighting Swift and Shift spilling the contents in one of several bags into the surrounding air. He watched as the pair frantically retrieved the alien hardware. “What—what’s all this?” “We didn’t know which one held the data, so we took everything.” Waving a hood in dismissal, Swift continued. “Figured it would be the research division’s problem now. Don’t worry, we made sure to take clear images of everything first. Oi Glare! Pop the other bags down in the corner there, will ya?” Eclipse’s eyebrows gained significant altitude. “There’s more?” “Ohoho yeah! This’ll keep the nerds busy for a while.” “Unfortunately, it also means you six will be busy as well. I don’t have any crew who can catalogue and store all of this at the moment.” “Buck.” “In any case, I’m glad you’re all back aboard. Raiders are acting suspicious, and we thought they might have detected us despite our cloak. We’re high-tailing it out of here. Now get to work. I’ll be back in the command centre.” “Infiltrators back aboard, sir,” Crux reported. Breathing a sigh of relief, the Captain turned to Sierra. “Initiate hyperspace, Ensign. Get us out of here.” “With pleasure,” Sierra replied, hitting one of the buttons at her seat controls. Quickly reaching for the inter-phone, Quasar made his usual announcement. “This is the Captain. Stand by for immediate hyperspace jump.” The muffled noise of the ship’s hyperdrives could be heard as the hyperspace window consumed the vessel. Realising her entire body had been tensed for several minutes, Sierra relaxed. “Jump procedures complete,” she reported. “We should be home in—” Amarok shuddered, drowning out the officer’s voice as several alarms made themselves known in the command centre. The cause of the chaos was immediately identified on almost every screen, causing Quasar to reach for the ship’s inter-phone. “This is the Captain! Stand by for emergency hyperspace exit!” Emerging in a large dust ring orbiting a young star, it seemed Amarok did not get far, if the surrounding constellations were any indication. With barely any difference in their patterns, it was likely the vessel had only travelled across one or two solar systems from the Ghost Ship. “Ensign, report!” “Engineering reports no significant damage, and the hyperdrives were functioning as expected prior to the jump. Currently recharging normally. My logs suggest external factors caused the quantum waveform to collapse. Looks like a hyperspace inhibitor is set up somewhere.” Crux cut in before Quasar could reply, “Captain, sensors are picking up contacts two-zero klicks out, directly ahead of us. Oh, and this audio transmission just came through …” Playing back the transmission, a deep, almost bored voice filled the command centre. “Alright, let’s do this the easy way. Power down your systems for boarding, and we will spare your ship’s crew. Resist, and be destroyed.” Quasar suppressed a groan. “Of course this mission was too simple. Lieutenant Sabre, target anything valuable. Fire at will. Specialist, get me an open channel, then coordinate with the Lieutenant.” Crux made the necessary arrangements at his station. Confirming active comms, he announced, “Channel is open, sir.” “This is the Captain of the Equestrian Navy vessel Amarok. You are interfering with Navy operations. Disable your hyperspace inhibitor, or we will be forced to do it for you. This is your only warning.” “Five bits says they won’t comply,” Eclipse remarked. The Raider’s reply arrived shortly after. “Your threats are meaningless, Captain. You are but one ship, hiding behind an ineffective cloaking device. I will ask you again. Power down immediately and surrender.” Quasar dragged out the silence between the two vessels. “So you were there at the Ghost Ship, then?” “I was not. I’ll admit, you surprised us. One ship, foolish enough to jump into the heart of a large fleet. By the time the main fleet discovered you, it took too long to power up our inhibitors. Fortunately, the inhibitors on our fleet are active. The main fleet figured you would head in this direction sooner or later though, so here we are.” “I don’t suppose you’re aware of this ship’s capabilities?” Quasar asked, continuing to buy time. “I have an idea. Irrelevant, like this conversation, however. Last chance to turn your ship over to us.” “See, I think you’re just bluffing. It’s curious we were detected, but it would seem your fleet lacks the same capabilities of the ‘main fleet’, as you call them. My theory should be proven correct in five, four, three, two, one …” Several distant eruptions of plasma were visible on the external cameras, as six torpedoes impacted with the stationary targets. Grinning, the Captain shook his head, “Imagine how embarrassing that would have been if I was wrong. Right, Specialist, that inhibitor field still up?” “I’m afraid so, Captain,” Crux replied. “Of course it is. Lieutenant Azimuth, plot a course around the fleet and position us abeam the bulk of the vessels, five klicks out. Ensign Sierra, ahead three G, one-five second delay.” Hitting the internal comms, Quasar added, “This is the Captain. Stand by for moderate G manoeuvres.” Reading back their orders, the officers went to work, while the torpedo crew strained under the forces of acceleration to reload the tubes. As Amarok re-positioned, Arc Sabre identified his next seven targets. Inspecting the eight targets they hit, he could see the damaged Rancor still operational, while several Daggers were completely obliterated. The remaining nineteen frigates had assumed a wall formation ahead of the carrier, from which several squadrons of corvettes launched and established a defensive sphere around the damaged command ship. Performing a quick measurement, Arc Sabre seized an opportunity to cause as much damage to as many frigates as possible. Selecting one of the centre-most frigates, he targeted the voids at each corner of the ship instead. By his calculations, four torpedoes detonating at those points would destroy or damage nine frigates enough to at least take them out of the fight. Certainly more efficient than one direct strike per frig, he reasoned. His theory proved solid. As soon as Amarok had moved into place and reduced acceleration to safe levels, the next set of torpedoes split off into two directions. Tubes one to four went for the frigate formation, while five and six hit the carrier, vaporising many of the corvettes in the process. The last remaining torpedo in the rear tubes followed soon after, finishing the capital ship off. “Rancor down,” Crux announced. “Hyperspace inhibitor field is no longer present. Sensors also confirm significant damage to multiple daggers. I count ten still operational. They appear to be breaking formation and heading in multiple directions.” Sabre grinned. “We’ve got them on the run now.” Crux shook his head. “I wouldn’t celebrate just yet. They’re still eager to fight. All of them have deployed their arrays and look like they’re firing in random directions.” “Ensign Sierra, ahead two-G. Let’s see if we can’t move behind those four facing u—” Quasar was interrupted when a shudder and groaning creaks were heard throughout the vessel. Immediately after, several alarms sounded at multiple stations. “Oh shi—damage report!” “Moderate damage sustained to the rear sensor array, plus minor hull damage near the engineering deck,” Sierra replied. Inspecting a schematic of the ship on one of her screens, she added “No hull breach detected. Looks like they just raked it across the hull. No injuries reported across the decks so far.” “Lucky hit,” Quasar grumbled. “How long until those drives are charged, Ensign?” “Less than a minute, sir,” Sierra replied. “Lieutenant Sabre, torpedo status?” “Tubes still reloading. Number six almost ready,” “Fire on that frig as soon as you have the opportunity.” “With pleasure.” Several blips appeared on Crux’s sensor manager. “Captain, I’m detecting multiple hyperspace signatures. One-zero klicks bearing two-eight-eight, inclination zero-seven.” “And that’s our queue to leave. Ensign, get us out of here the moment those drives are charged, preferably before we’re trapped by more inhibitor fields,” Quasar ordered, issuing the relevant announcement over the intercom. “Wait, wait,” Sabre held a hoof up at Sierra. After a few seconds, he leaned back in his seat. “Okay, go ahead. Tube six just fired.” Nodding, Sierra sent the order to engineering, and Amarok departed promptly. Everyone in the command deck held their breath. After the sound of the hyperspace jump procedure ceased, Quasar looked around and waited for a few seconds. “Did we make it this time?” Sierra also waited, her eyes jumping from screen to screen. Satisfied, she turned back to the Captain. “I think so. Looks like we’re on our way home.” Exhaling, Quasar reclined, before standing his crew down. "Have damage control teams sent to the aft sensors. We'll worry about repairing external damage once we exit hyperspace."