[Short stories] Norsehound's Homeworld short-story thread (10 stories)

[Norsehound]

Petya didn’t know it happened, but five seconds later he realized he was in trouble.

He glanced at the rear-view mirrors he had installed on the outside of his fighter, and his eyebrows jumped as he saw the tail end of his craft had been replaced by a ball of flame. His instruments were screaming at him that a core overload was in progress- since the fires were burning into the fuel stores. There was only one thing to do.

Petya had never had the joy of ejecting before. Like most pilots he just assumed it was a jarring and terrible experience that one did his best to avoid. Now, though, Petya had learned that not everything was perfect in the world of fighter piloting, and to live this was a necessity.

It was even worse than he expected it to be.

The huge, square door of the cockpit was gone and seconds later he was thrown from his fighter at incredible velocity. He had to, after all, if he wanted to avoid getting cut in half by the vertical fin at the back of his craft. At least, in theory… he wasn’t sure which of the three fins on his fighter were left.

He screamed in his helmet at the hyper-acceleration, but after a moment he calmed down once acceleration was a constant. He turned his body and looked to see where his fighter was- trailing away before it exploded in a fireball.

It left only him and the other four dozen fighter pilots whizzing about each other like angry bees in space. The only difference was that they had craft to get home in… he did not.

Petya scanned space to the best of his ability, looking for some ray of hope outside of the oblivion that he was facing. He had heard stories from the others about pilots popping their helmets when rescue seemed impossible. Petya had dismissed it then, but looking death in the face made him realize why they did what they did.

At least they weren’t somewhere hazardous this time, and it wasn’t like the Turanic Raiders went out of their way to gun down spaced pilots.

Petya let himself drift in space, wondering how long he would hold out before he would eventually make the final decision. He had two hours of air approximately in his suit… he had that long to live and ponder the question.

After three minutes passed in his helmet clock, he looked up. Hope bobbed in his mind at what he saw.

A corvette, painted red, was approaching. Though he knew very little about the customs or ways of the Somtaaw, he was very fortunate to have learned they had search and rescue vehicles such as this actively patrolling the battlefield.


CATACLYSM 2nd
Life

He didn’t know anything about the standard rescue procedures. He had never been trained, after all. As an amateur pilot from a faraway land (Where rescue wasn’t really considered in combat), he had little to know knowledge of what a victim was to do, to get rescued faster.

He waved his arms, trying to get the corvette’s attention. This was purely instinctive since it was expected of all people who had lost their ships to try getting attention to themselves. It was only after the third wave that he realized he just sent himself cart-wheeling. Goes to show what happens when you’re removed from your depth, he thought.

As he spun around he saw the corvette a little bigger. Either he was headed in their direction, or they had changed course to intercept him. Whatever the case, he would say a Prayer to Sajuuk that night in thanks for providing him a way out of death by spacing.

On the next rotation he saw something fire from the nose of the red corvette. On the one after that, he became aware of a spherical projectile passing him, trailing a long white line. Petya reached out with a gloved hand and snagged the line, pulling it closer to himself. Because of the properties of zero-G, the line began to tangle about him as he spun.

But all that was on Petya’s mind was that he had the line. He was physically connected to the corvette now.

Static crackled over his radio before an in-helmet light winked at him- telling him his radio was non-operational. Petya dismissed this in light of being rescued. He grasped the line as if his life depended on it… which it did.

His hand found one of the loops built into the line and he grabbed on to them, securing his hold on the lifeline and making sure he wouldn’t slide further along it. Seconds later, the line suddenly tugged, and he felt momentum from his feet to his head. He was being dragged into the corvette.

He could see it a little clearer now, resolving into a large red dot within his vision. It had two large rectangular eyes staring at him. As he got closer, he discerned that these weren’t eyes… but chutes. There were lights blinking in the blacks of the eyes, and painted arrows directing inward.

The reeling line slowed, but Petya continued at the same speed. When he estimated he was about within twelve meters, he let go of the line and flew into the chute.

The ‘black’ turned out to be lined with rubber. He rebounded off of it, but fell back to the black a second later… apparently the corvette was going fast enough to keep him stuck on the wall. He grabbed one of the many available handholds and slid into the compartment.

When inside, the whole aperture closed over him. A light lit overhead and seconds later the airlock opened into a compartment. Several faces stared back at him.

He reached up to take off his helmet, but the blue-suited men there shook their heads and pointed at one of the walls. AIRLESS was written there, and Petya just nodded. One of the blue-suited men grabbed his arm and pulled him gently- but firmly- to the back wall of the compartment where another cylindrical lock had been installed. After entering this a beeping in his helmet informed him an atmosphere was forming outside. It made a shrill tone for a second when air had finished cycling in, and the lock opened into another compartment.

The first thing he heard through his helmet was the screaming. Ducking into this dimly lit and cramped compartment, another blue-suited man grabbed him and pulled him through the space to a canvas bench. He sat there against the wall, and was then able to find the source of the screaming.

A woman was on a stretcher, flailing wildly while the blue-suited doctors tended to her. They shouted to one another, trying to stabilize this woman in such a small space. The rocking of the Corvette wasn’t helping any, but at least there wasn’t gravity to make things complicated. The doctor grabbed a tool off of the magnetic plate over his head.

There was more shouting when the woman’s arm came free and flailed.

Petya reached out and grabbed it.

She pulled, and Petya went with her. He collided with the side of the stretcher and got a look at her face. Wide-eyed, pale, and most of all…afraid. She stared into Petya’s eyes with an intense fear he had never seen before in another human being.

Her fingers dug into his glove, but he gripped back. His other hand grasped her forearm and stayed there.

Petya didn’t know why he did what he did, but something told him he needed to do this…for her. He saw her injuries- a torn up midsection and what had to be shrapnel. She wouldn’t survive this.

But the men in the blue suits were trying to save her. They looked at Petya, and were about to shoo him off when the Doctor gestured for them to get back to work. He shot Petya thankful glance, then returned to the operation.

Petya looked back down at the woman to see her eyes had softened some, but she was still staring at him. He stared back through his helmet at her.

He stayed that way for a long time. Even as the doctors finished their operation and moved to another patient, Petya stayed by the woman’s side, holding her arm. It was only when the corvette lurched from touching down was he aware of how much time had passed: fifteen minutes since when he was picked up.

A door opened behind him and the men in the blue suits were coming around to the woman’s stretcher. It was undocked from the floor and wheeled through the big square door. It could not fit the ranks of people that were moving out of it, with the stretcher, so Petya was forced to release his hand and let the woman, stretcher, and doctors go.

But he saw her gaze, still locked on his face, as she was pulled out of the Corvette. The stretcher was hurried away. Petya stepped out of the corvette.

They were in a small, pressure-filled bay. The yellow-suited technician quickly waved him on, and he hurried after the stretcher with the others. Only when he was in an antechamber beyond another set of pressure doors did nobody ask anything more of him. The stretcher, doctors, and patient had disappeared further down the corridor.

Petya stood there for a moment, until he saw another two pilots on a bench. They looked up at him.

“Petya,” Atur said, “They got you too, eh?”

Petya took off his helmet, looked down the hallway where the stretcher had disappeared, then turned back to his friends. “Who was that woman?”

Naris, the other man, laughed and said, “You didn’t hear it? They must have been ranting about it in that tin can in there! That’s ace pilot Hiila Somtaaw-Naab! She must have been swearing up a storm in there while they treated her!”

“Yeah,” Atur said, “The Pride of the Pilot corps, and bitch of all space! Hey, did you hear someone has a gamble running on her that she’s Kuiir-Met incarnate, and eats the hearts of lesser men?”

“Stories, stories.” Naris replied, “What I know is that she tore up that man, Masstad, pretty badly. I may not know Somtaaw, but there’s been enough whispers of ‘Masstad’ and…uh…” Naris rolled out a Somtaaw phrase.

“Ripped him a new one.” Atur translated while making a face.

“Right… that thing. Whatever it is, it sounds pretty bad.”

“Ah,” Atur replied, “Someone who shows no fear, no heart, eh?”

“A heartless hag?”

“A bitch of a heartless hag!”

Both of the Vaygr men laughed, but Petya didn’t join them. He turned and walked down the hallway, contemplating.

------------------------------------------------------

[Lurch]

awsome any chance of more? Only one thing I thought was odd in the radio line was he trying to call the corvette?

[Captain Elson]

....Wow.

It's good Norse. It makes you think about your preconceptions. Pet. was right to keep quiet. You also think of the woman and how she never probably faced her mortality before then.

The only thing is wouldn't he have been trained about pickups or anything like that norse when he entered the military?

[Chrome]

Probably trained to keep himself alive for as long as possible, is my opinion. And to find any means of getting picked up by a craft, any craft, of a faction that wouldn't outright kill him after finding him.

Well-written Norse. The descriptions of the ship and the clothes applied, as well as the character's handling of things work pretty well here. Petya was certainly intelligent enough to see an opening, and also intelligent enough to keep quiet when he knew he had to.

One major nitpick though. You seem to flip tenses a little too quickly in your introduction, even though you're trying to produce a more "immediate" right-as-it-happens feel to the story. You could make that introduction a lot more immediate - and flow better with the story - by scrapping the use of "were" and switching to something like this:

He glanced at the rear-view mirrors he had installed on the outside of his fighter, and his eyebrows jumped as he saw the tail end of his craft consumed by a ball of flame. His instruments screamed at him that a core overload was in progress - the fires had burned its way into the fuel stores.

[Norsehound]

Well, I hammered this story out in about a half hour or so. It was a small idea that I wanted to do, since I'm in the mood for short stories right now until I find myself with Children of Kadesh Book 2 (Stingra's comments in that story made me consider if I should be writing Kadesh stories when I'm not in the mindset to do them).

I had a lot of fun writing that short in the challenge thread, so I started considering other stories. This was one of them, born from an idea of exploring a unit. Obviously this is the Rescue Corvette from my Cataclysm 2nd project.

...I'm not sure how I came back there, but in a way I feel doing short stories for Cata2nd would help me explore the story better. Part of the reason that story didn't get off the ground was because none of the drafts I had were satisfactory. Maybe by doing shorts like this I can find characters I like to include in the final story when I return to it.

Anyway, thanks for the comments (and criticism, Chrome). I'd say we need a short story sticky for situations like this, but I'm not sure how many would post in there since most of the fiction on this board is typically chapters/epic in length. I'd probably be the only one posting :\

[S110]

Not too shabby Norse. It has a few minor rough edges, but from the speed you've written it, understandable. A good idea using the short stories to develope characters.

[Chrome]

Norse, I was doing shorts a while ago in a sort of a dump thread of Legacies shorts. You could always try the same thing, like doing a thread titled "Cataclysm 2nd shorts" and just stick all your shorts like this one in it.

I've been meaning to get back to doing shorts sometime, and rifleman101's Ficlet challenge (should he continue it with a new theme after a while) has given me some ideas. So you might have some company.

The other thing is, shorts being something other than epics might make it easier for new fanfic writers to get a hang of things before going into big epics.

[Stingra]

Epic stories don't always have to be long...

[Norsehound]

He had served them well.

There was this unconscious assumption that all warships would continue fighting… continue serving… for the duration of their lifetimes. The Battlefield would be the only end for them, slugging it out in some final conflict where he would take his beloved crews with him. Else… he would sit in old age, awaiting the death that deserved him.

It was unthinkable for those crews that their warship… their lifetime… would be retired.

Retirement was for those who couldn’t go on further- officers who had finished their dues fighting and moved on to other things. They would be sharing their knowledge with younger generations that still had to fight for the name of their nation.

One didn’t apply retirement to ships. That would mean putting them in a museum, where their existence could benefit many others who had not been alive during those times.

…But even if every planet in the Taiidan empire… The Taiidan Republic… could open a museum and stock it full of vessels… there were just too many. And the demand for resources in the failing economy was high.

Besides, the council had pointed out, Taiidan was far too militarized. As a Republic, they had to cut back on military expenses… which included operating costs. It just cost too much to upgrade the entire fleet. It had to be done.

But logic could not be used with the crew and command staff of the Tiia-Coma.

The destroyer had served for thirty years in the hands of the Emperor. Even in the maddening days, he had never left the side and loyalty of the Taiidan Empire. He had been loyal to the end- despite all the badmouthing done by those around him.

The Destroyer sat now, just above the large bathtub-shape of the breaker’s yard. Since this was Imasu, one of the most modern of the planets still in Taiidan control, this would be all over in minutes.

The crew- all that cared to join- lined up along the half kilometer of glass that looked down upon the final scene.

Even as newer craft- including destroyers, flew overhead in white and teal, all eyes of the ’Coma’s crew were only concerned with the ship they had served upon for so long.

Slowly he began to sink, encouraged into motion by the tugs overhead.

Some of them couldn’t stand it, and started to break down right there. The Captain said nothing… staring only at the ship that had been his pride to command.

“It’s all for the best!” One of the new-suited officers said, present because his friends had been there. The chief engineer was grateful to see the old ship go, “We’ll be back out there in no time, you’ll see!”

None of his fellows paid attention. “Stupid ship.” Grunted the engineer.

The captain, in earshot, understood the man’s frustration. ’Coma had a number of problems because of his age. Defects in the engines would continually crop up- masses in the coolant had been detected and categorized as deterioration within the system. The final say came when the ship just…wouldn’t move. A periodic run to shakedown the engines resulted in the ship not moving for three whole weeks.

This was to say nothing of the guns, which had not been fired in eighteen months. Because of their disuse the ammunition factory was likely to be in a state of disrepair… as it was a model one design which was known for it’s flaws.

Even the hull had faded, gray showing out in spots from where the yellow had flaked off from previous battles.

He continued to sink.

The doctor sniffed, then cupped a hand over his eyes. It had also been said that the spirit of the ship (despite discouragement from officials of both the Empire and the Republic) also bore with it the souls of the dead that had died while onboard, in combat. Many of them did not have graves on their homeworlds and had died very far away, with nobody to remember them save the ship, the crew, and what families that could be told. Sometimes, especially within the Empire, knowing a loved one was gone was not always a certainty. But the ship knew… he knew.

The glow of the blue lights touched the underside of the wings.

Even as the chief engineer continued to badmouth the questionable computer, the sudden flickering of the lights, and all that was wrong with the destroyer… all that was on the crew’s minds was the memories they had while aboard.

Nothing could replace those days. Weather it was in the heat of battle, fighting for their lives, or during peacetime when the antics at ports-of-call would be circulating in the rumor mill. ’Coma had meant more to them than anything else in the universe, since it, and their crewmates serving with them, were the only things they could rely on in a hostile galaxy.

The Captain watched his ship slowly sink into the pool of blue. He raised a hand to his cap, feeling his face and eyes begin to swell up as tears appeared in his eyes.

Even the other officers were being affected, either looking away or starting to cry. It was a powerful statement when grown men like this began to break down in this fashion.

It was forgivable, all of it. Like a favored tree cut down, a place of memory found destroyed, or pet being put down, even grown men and warriors could not stand to see a thing of such attachment go easily.

The chief engineer fell silent as the grieving became audible around him.

Tiia-Coma’s midsection was in the blue now, no doubt her lower sections and ion cannons already ripped up by the breakers.

The Captain fingered a plate in his right hand as he saluted with his left. He had ripped the thing from his cabin- a small plate that had held part of his desk together. It was the only memory he’d be able to keep from his best… and possibly last… command. He caressed the metal with his thumb and finger, tears rolling down his cheeks, as the guns slowly sank beneath the blue.

Then it was just the communications fins.

Then the rear phased sensor array.

Then nothing.

They all lingered there for a moment. There was never a final announcement that it was done… at least…nothing ever told to the crew. Each of them knew that it was time.

The destroyer was no longer there anymore. It was only a memory. Thirteen years of their service aboard it now translucent and in their memories… with little to hold on to… save the souvenirs most of them had stolen away illegally, for the sake of their sentimentalities.

Slowly they left, one by one. Some with lovers, others in groups as friends, and some alone… with only their feelings. Only the Captain was left.

Slowly he walked up to the glass, taking off his left glove and planting it against the window, picturing his destroyer still there, lights ready and set to go for another run.

His face wet, he pursed his lips and tried to find the right words to say.

“I’ll miss you, ‘Coma.” He uttered to nobody other than himself. He shook his head as it sunk, and he sobbed a quote he had given to this ship; “My amateur wolf…”

He finally turned away crying, and he too left the observation deck as the last member to leave. In his hand, between his thumb and finger, was the only reminder he had to thirteen years of outstanding service.

------------------------------------
Dedicated to the life of my favorite dog... who was put down today to end his suffering from cancer, breathing problems, and old age.

I'll miss you, 'coma.

[atmawpn]

Beautiful short. Reminiscent of various sinking ship epics and the drama that must go along with them. Granted, this is probably a "PDA sea" rather than a watery one, but I still like the parallels you've done here.

Minor complaints being some rough bits here and there that could be solved with a quick edit. But I presume this was another speed-write, so understandable.

And sorry about your dog. Never is an easy time when a pet goes.

EDIT: Seeing as ships are usually referred to as female rather than male, is there a particular reason you chose the contrary in this piece?

EDIT2: Ah never mind: realised the answer was probably staring me in the face all the while.

[Norsehound]

I felt I needed to honor my dog in some way. He was with us for a very long time... and I didn't get to say goodbye in person since I'm away at college. The latter half of this saw me in tears while I wrote it.

...And I don't think anything's been ever written about a ship being retired. I'm not sure if many players do retire ships they've constructed in any of the games (well, I did, with some of the reinforcement ships I got in Cataclysm. Never used those stupid ramming frigates anyway). Until then I'm not sure if anyone considered the feelings of the crew whenever they ordered a ship to be retired.

So here it is... a take on what it means to loose a spaceship to peacetime demands.

[Chrome]

Sorry to hear about your dog, Norse. That's rough to go through.

Condolences aside...............That. Was. Fantastic.

That speaks of the heart and soul of military fiction to me - the unity of the ships, their crews through hundreds of battles.

And when somebody writes about a hardened military crew weeping over the loss of their ship, it speaks to all those people who love a certain ship - like the Trek people who have a soft spot in their heart for the old Constitution-class - and the pain that is felt when that ship, home to these people for so long, is destroyed, for whatever reason.

I have a stepfather who cried when they blew up the Enterprise over Genesis. Who got sniffley when the Enterprise-D crashed on Veridian III. He used to have a pewter model of the Constitution-class Enterprise from TOS, and also just loves old sailing ships.

So when I read your short, I was immediately reminded of how people feel so strongly for beautiful, reliable, capable old ships - be they seafaring or spacefaring. And I really like how you made this a fic about Taiidan. Too many biases against them going around sometimes.

[rifleman101]

I kinda felt the same way after the final episode of Battle 360, when they scrapped the Enterprise. Its just not right to do that.

Very good mate, very good.

[Norsehound]

When my parents took him to the vet for the last time they found more problems with him. Another mass on his spine, more cysts on his back... it was just bad. My mom feels a little guilty for keeping him alive this long, but I don't think the extra time he spent with us was wasted.

I will miss him.

As an aside on the Taiidan- I'm not sure why, but between the Hiigarans and Taiidan, it's always the Taiidan and Vaygr that I see being more sentimental about these things. This isn't to say a Hiigaran wouldn't miss his previous command, or his ship when it's scrapped, but there's more ceremony and...reverence among the Taiidan and Vaygr. Perhaps this is because I see both as being more in tune with the mysticism of space and spiritual things *Shrug*.

Maybe that's why I like writing about them so much.

Rifleman, what's Battle 360?

Thanks for the condolences, guys.

[Stingra]

I, too, am sorry about your loss, Norse. It's always hard to lose a family pet, and it's even harder knowing that you couldn't be there when it happened.

Battle 360 is a History Channel show that follows the USS Enterprise through World War II. It's pretty good, they simulate the Enterprise and all the dogfights and battles that it was with exceptional CGI. It's similar to Dogfights, where each episode is about a certain type of fighter plane/jet and focuses on a large scale aerial battle, such as Midway or the MiG Alley in Korea.

[Norsehound]

Lysson laughed. “I told you,” he said, “You’re being paranoid. We have clearance all through the duration of our travel route. Do I really need to spell it out for you?”

The Teer-Gig’s first officer wasn’t as…trusting. “But you know how everyone throws out contracts with us whenever it suits them. Remember the Callaradin contract with the Kuun-Lan? Or how Faal-Corum was almost boarded and raided by the Iyassade when they were headed back from the rim? On Both occasions they had-“

Lysson continued to laugh and turned away from his first officer, clearly indicating that he wasn’t listening. “But Priam… none of those cases had high delegates involved. Would any of the nations around us dare attack a passenger ships full of core-world dignitaries?”

Captain Lysson Somtaaw-Kuul floated away from where his first officer drifted by the navigational panel. Priam Somtaaw-Talled just sighed while he watched his commander go.

(Sorry, no picture since I’m away from my tablet and Photoshop)
Cataclysm 2nd
Duty

Of her sisters, Teer-gig was the baby.

The huge explorer vessel was not so huge when viewed upon completion. The ship had only three mission modules attached to her frame aside from the command and engine modules. Clockwise, these were the habitation block, the Emergency module, and a modified habitation model with luxurious quarters and furnishings in mind, as well as the most prestigious space-born kitchens in all of Taiidani construction in space.

In short, Teer-Gig was a luxury liner.

It was odd considering most of Taiidan construction. Even after fifteen years, Taiidan ship production had not lifted to accommodate civilian vessels. In a way this was completely understandable- Taiidan did not have the borders or fleet composition of its ancient predecessor. It was surrounded by several hostile nations that at any moment could descend and reduce the exiles again to memory. The only thing protecting them, outside of a Galactic Council promise, was their space fleet. Every Kiith bound on Hiigara needed a fleet that they could protect their world with, and so even ground-side production was geared to making warships.

The fact that Teer-Gig was an advertised ‘luxury liner’ of Taiidan construction, thus, made it a sort of novelty to the upper class citizens of various core-world nations. This, of course, was ironic given that explorer vessels were designed and intended to operate as industrial miners. Still, despite this contradiction, many had booked passage on the Teer-gig for a number of reasons.

This pleased Somtaaw, who were getting use out of their incomplete mining vessel in such a way that wouldn’t put it in immediate danger.

This was the huge ship’s second circuit through the inner core regions on routes that were relatively free of pirate activity. Every time the ship put out, a contract had been signed with every nation on the circuit that protection would be guaranteed if in the event that the ship was attacked by pirates. However, as the exec had pointed out on this particular morning, there was no guarantee that the various nations who had signed the contracts would uphold them. In fact, privately, Commander Priam would not have been surprised in the slightest if at least one of the nations on their planned route intended on stopping the ship and seizing some of the passengers for political purposes. The Teer-Gig had marines, sure, but not enough to hold off the amount a carrier group could land on the ship to enforce their will.

The ship was presently in Havilan space, which was more-or-less safe when compared to the nations of Hanoch and the Frerrn. Havilah had been relatively friendly with the Taiidani, being the second emissary to arrive at Hiigara when the Emperor’s tower fell. Teer-Gig was passing now by the Star Mimin 399, so cataloged in Galactic Charts by the Havilans themselves.

The time was 8:00am ship time, first watch.

First officer Primam was on the bridge still, seated in the commander’s couch of the zero-gravity compartment. With everyone doing their jobs, the only sound in the whole room was the air conditioner blasting cold air into the room. The light bleeding in over them was making the room hot.

Priam was consulting his display when a voice interrupted his thoughts. “Sir, I’m detecting a distress signal bearing Mark 60 degrees port.”

Priam reacted with his hands to bring up the master sensor display while turning his head and asking, “can you identify?”

“Working.” Replied Maya at communications.

Priam examined the situation on his master control board. The commander’s station on all Explorer ships was outfitted with the most advanced computer system in the bridge- capable of commandeering (or at least displaying) the output of every other panel on the bridge. It was the only one that had limited touch-screen activity, as it had to replicate the other stations in an emergency. Priam pulled up the sensors display then to show the space around Teer-Gig

Currently being displayed was the signal reception graph, aimed at a position near the star. There were two bright spots in the static field. The one on the right, the brightest, was Mimin 399. The other was unidentified, and separated in green.

“No match on known signals yet sir.” Communications said then, as Priam reviewed the information.

Priam reached over to the communications panel installed in every one of the bridge stations. With it, any one of the commanders there could communicate independently with other parts of the ship. Priam now used it to tag the Captain’s frequency. “Captain Lysson, report to the bridge please. Captain Lysson, to the bridge.”

He released his hand from the call button and continued to monitor the situation on the bridge. Currently Teer-Gig was using her Ion thruster while they passed the star- for the entertainment of their guests. Mimin 399 was one of the only blue stars known in the universe to have a violet visual spectra. Those entertaining the view now were looking through the specially installed filters in the liner module.

Priam asked the sensors operator, “Distance to signal?”

“Fifteen light seconds Commander.” Was the reply.

“Can you clear any of that interference?”

“No sir.” The communications officer responded, “comm.. arrays are jammed by the star’s emissions.”

Priam winced. Another property of Mimin 399 he had not been briefed about. He wasn’t sure if that was a fault of his or for Havilah for not providing that information to Somtaaw when planning their route. Such things were mandatory requirements- at least if he remembered the ordinances for Galactic Travel correctly. He turned his head, “Sensors, give me an active sweep of the area- low frequency emissions.”

“Aye sir” replied sensors and tapped his controls. One of the large antenna on the command module’s sensor pallet turned to line up with the direction the source was coming from.

Priam awaited the report and glanced at the mission clock. Three minutes had passed with no response from the Captain. He tried again, “Captain Lysson, report to the bridge please. Captain Lysson, respond please.”

He lifted his finger from the button. Nothing.

Priam turned his head, “Any returns on sensors?”

“A moment commander.”

Priam turned his head to scan the length of the long bridge, before he tried the comm.. again. This time he dialed internal security. “Security, this is the bridge.”

“Security here sir.” Was the reply. Priam had dialed the ship’s internal police squadron, responsible for civilian law enforcement throughout the ship. The marines were a separate channel, and usually called into action if there was a possible threat of being boarded… or being called to investigate another spacecraft. Finding a man was beneath their job description. “Please locate Captain Lysson. He is not responding to summons from the bridge.”

“Acknowledged Bridge.” Came the reply and Priam left the channel. This would be the first time Lysson haddn’t responded to a summons… at all. Priam wouldn’t let him get away with it this time. He returned to the situation on-hand.

The sensor operator reported just then, “Scans retruning now sir. I’m picking up a debris field several kilometers wide. I’m also detecting residual particle traces…likely ion cannon emissions. Fading heat blooms from about fifteen sources.”

Priam shifted in his seat. “Source of the signal?”

“I can’t make it out from all this interference sir.”

Priam rubbed a hand across his chin in contemplation. He wished Lysson was here- as second officer Priam didn’t feel like taking any action independent of the Captain’s orders. However, Lysson hadn’t responded to two ship-wide calls for him… if he was injured somewhere, Priam would be taking command anyway…

Priam looked over at Production and fabrication command. “Production- put up a probe and launch it in that vicinity.”

“Aye.” Replied the woman there.

The “White Hangar”, as it was named by Explorer crews, wasn’t as spacious or capable as the bigger hangar modules found on Teer-Gig’s sisters. Nevertheless, it was capable of fabricating corvettes and fighters, so a probe was not beyond its capabilities. A moment later and a probe flew out of the rectangular opening and sped into the distance.

Priam waited, passing the time by watching the Probe’s progress. It only took two minutes before the debris field came into view.

“Clear now sir,” Sensors informed, “Looks like the hulks or pieces of about seventeen ships. Mixture of Turanic and… Sajuuk-Sahri!”

“What?”

The sensor operator manipulated his panel, then turned. “Commander, I’m detecting a huge metallic object within the debris cloud. It’ll be in visual range in about ten seconds.”

Priam changed the display on his master screen to that of the probe. Indeed, a dark mass loomed at the far end of the field, and as the Probe slowed to a stop, the details became clearer on the ship.

The vessel resembled a huge boulder in space, but the upper and lowermost apexes of the shape were covered with a dull glowing substance. The flattened equator was laced with blisters and obvious ports for windows. However, damage looked clear on the giant rock, with craters and scarring that looked completely unnatural next to the other formations on the hull.

Priam leaned away from the display. He had heard of Havilan Rockships before, but this was the first time he had encountered one. “Is that the source of the distress signal?”

“Apparently sir,” said Sensors.

The communications officer announced, “Commander? Piggyback from the probe… it’s the Havilan starship Timgad, reporting a loss of reactor power and heavy casualties.”

Priam leaned away from his panel. “Could the signal penetrate the interference?”

“Doubtful.” Replied communications, “Without the probe’s phased telemetry signal, we wouldn’t be receiving it either.”

Priam frowned. As a registered passenger craft, they were obligated to respond to any sort of distress signal through interstellar regulations, regardless of nationality. However, it would have to be the captain’s decision since he might have standing orders to the contrary- especially if the ship or the current contract was a concern.

Priam tried the police again. “Any luck on finding the Captain?”

“He’s not in his quarters commander, nor any of the hospitals. We’re investigating the passenger compartments now.”

Priam sighed, thanked the constable, and rubbed his forehead as he mused over what to do. A ship in distress, the Captain missing, it seemed he’d have to make the decision after all.

He sighed and leaned his head up. “Helm, cut the ion thruster and apply reverse thrust. Navigation, plot a course for the debris field. Launch control? Prepare tugs for emergency rescue operations. Communications, use that piggyback and inform the Havilans we’re on our way.”

The bridge coursed acknowledgments through the hull. Priam continued to rub his forehead.

-----------------------------------

An hour later saw the Teer-gig applying reverse thrust to stabilize her position in the debris field. Several squads of interceptors trawled the area on the lookout for any Turanic surprises among the debris.

Somtaaw Tugs had swarmed around the Timgad, which displayed her damage better now that the Somtaaw had pulled up close. What had been luminous lava flows had been reduced to a dull glow now, and none of the lights at her equator were lit. Several of the blisters had been burst as well. Tugs, towing search and rescue pods, had pulled up around the equator and were mating with the docking ports positioned around the equator.

Priam himself was speaking with the Timgad’s captain at the moment. “We were ambushed by Turanics… our screens destroyed. We knew it was a fat chance, but without hyperspace communications we can’t reach home right away.”

Priam nodded, “We’ve notified your government of your location and situation captain. We’re waiting on a reply… they might be wondering how to respond to a liner rescuing one for their front-line combat craft.”

The Havilan captain laughed and then replied, “You Somtaaw are the random variable to the universe. Now you can add guardian angel to the list. Thanks again for the rescue captain… we’ll be sure to thank you even if our government doesn’t feel up to it.”

“It’s commander, actually.” Priam replied, reminded that his Captain was still missing, “But thank you. Anything else you need, let one of my men know and they’ll pipe it up here.”

“Will do. Thanks again.” And the transmission ended.

Now concerned with his captain, Priam checked the mission clock and let out a short curse when he discovered it had been an hour later. He dialed ship security. “Constable-?”

Just then Lysson entered the cabin- followed by the blue and black uniformed security officers. “Commander?” The constable Priam just requested, asked.

Priam looked down at the communications panel. “Cancel that Lieutenant, he just arrived. Thanks.” Priam released the comm.. button and stared angrily at his captain, “Where the hells have you been? We’ve been trying to reach you for the past hour!”

The Constable answered for him, “We found him in compartment 18C sir, in Siress Uri’s bedchaimber.”

“Her WHAT!?” Priam exploded.

Priam had studied the list of their more prestigious members and remembered that name. Siress Uri had been an older woman from the Iyassadae concordat- a wealthy widow of an council member from that delegation who had arrived with her son. She had been quartered in 18C.

The fact that he was in her bedchamber could only mean one thing.

“And what were you doing in there!?”

Lysson cleared his throat, “Siress Uri and I were having a private conversation-“

“So private you didn’t hear the summons? Twice?”

“Well as a matter of fact-“

The constable interjected, “The cabin was filled with music sir… we discovered Ameedan wine on the scene.”

Priam stared at his Captain, agape, then to the Constable, “Anything else?”

The Constable looked to the Captain, then back at the Commander. “You will receive my full report this afternoon sir.”

The Commander sighed and leaned back in his seat, just staring at Lysson. The man stared back.

“Captain,” Priam said, unsure how much longer Lysson would remain a Captain, “I’m going to be forwarding a full report to the Kiith-sa about this. Not only have you broken regulations in failing to respond to a summons, but I’m sure your wife will be very interested to discover what you were up to with Siress Uri.”

“Commander, I’d appreciate if you would leave that out-“

Priam stared up and hard at his Captain, stopping the man short in mid-sentence. “Trying to get me to cover for you won’t work sir. Where the hells do you think you are? What kind of position do you think this is? I’m aware that you’re one of Somtaaw’s prestigious captains and a veteran of the Homeworld war, but this is disgraceful! This isn’t some kind of hobby assignment where you can be a captain part-time and playboy another! Because of this breach of regs I’m going to have to contact the Kiith-Sa directly to find out what to do. You’re relived, sir.”

Lysson frowned. “Priam, you can’t just-“

“Lysson I can! I have to!” Shouted Priam, “You’ve violated the regulations set down by the Kiith-Sa and in accordance with Taiidan naval regulations! Your accountability as a Captain is in question now! As first officer I have no choice but to call for your investigation, or I’m in the can with you.”

Priam turned to the Constable, “Constable, escort the captain to his quarters and confine him there. He’s considered under arrest for the time being.”

“Now wait just a-“ Lysson started until the Constable put a hand- heavily- on his shoulder. The Captain bowed his head and left the bridge.

--------------------------------

Sometime later, Priam closed the regulations book and leaned back in his chair to reflect over the conversation he just ended with the Kiith-sa. Before him, on a separate monitor, was the service record of Lysson Somtaaw-Kuul. Formerly the commander of a Harvester, the man had a colorful service record before ultimately being hired by Somtaaw. His record at the end of the Homeworld war showed that he had some proficiency in Resource operations…

But a survey of his background connections showed how he ended up in command of the Teer-Gig. With an uncle as part of the Kiith-Sa’s leading family, and a brother and son-in-law among Somtaaw’s groundside financial sector, it was obvious that someone somewhere pulled some strings to have him assigned to this post. Perhaps it was even of Lysson’s own request.

Either way, Kuun-Lan had been diverted from her mission of diamond mining in the Great Wastelands to rendezvous with Teer-Gig and ship Lysson back to Hiigara for an inquiry. Constable Riggs’ report would be going with him. Priam would have gone also, for testimony, but he had a bigger responsibility that prevented him from leaving.

The printout of his promotion sat on the table before him, and his hand rested on the Somtaaw logo at the top. Because of his decision to act and save the Havilan starship, he had been awarded with a decoration of meritorious service and promoted to fill the vacancy of the negligent commander. And here Priam had long believed that command made nonsensical decisions… as Lysson’s posting would have proven. But maybe the universe worked in a positive way too, from time to time.

Priam just reclined in the seat and stared out the polarized window at the violet star beyond.

---------------------------------------------
No man, officer, or starship is exempt from the responsibilities of a duty assigned.

-----------
Not entirely happy with the dialog between Lysson and Priam at the end, but I needed to get this out somehow. I wanted to get another short story out, and work on something Cata 2nd while I was here in Livermore, so here it is.

[Khar Makaan]

Wow, that's a nice piece of writng you have here
But i also liked the previuos story of the decomissioning of a "Skaal-Tel" Destroyer... You even managed to make me feel sad for them ^^

[Norsehound]

“Lunar st*a**tion Eig***… this is Freighter ******-re, do you Re****! Engines D*wn. Hyperspace En**** explo****. Leaking air and other pre*****. Request Immed****ate As***ance! Repeat, Lunar ******************….”

“That’s it?”

“That’s all we got sir. The freighter’s there… she’s popped out just over the lunar terminator.”

Commander Ladau eased up from the station and sighed, then turned his gaze out across the lunar surface.

Though the Angel Moon of Hiigara was colonized- it was only in subterranean cities. Most of those ancient earthworks were still of questionable condition… it took even a hundred years just to have this much operable, and this much life on the surface of the glorious white satellite of their reclaimed home.

Until the moon was fully restored, however, outposts such as these were needed to monitor space. Petty pirates and thieves were still not unknown in grave-robbing from the tombs of the Angel Moon… the only difference was that some of them were Hiigaran, now, hoping to steal and price artifacts from Hiigara’s long distant past.

Of course, it was only worse with the war going on.

“You can’t raise them now?”

“Nosir, I’m getting no communication from the vessel.” The communications operator said.

Ladau turned to the sensors. “Sensors, can you make out what’s going on?”

The sensor operator was already shaking her head. “Sir, whatever the freighter is leaking, it’s putting out something to fuzz up our sensors. Radar echoes are all over the place, laser sensors are diffused by the cloud, and all active scans are being disrupted. Visual is all we have, but the lenses are too out of date.”

Ladau rubbed his face in upset over the ancient, obsolete technology they were forced to contend with. “All right,” He said, “Prepare-“

“Commander?” A voice said from behind him. Ladau turned.

A petite, nineteen-year-old woman was all geared up and ready in her flight suit. She saluted. “Flight officer Marin, reporting my squadron and I are-“

Ladau cut her off with a gesture, then said, “What makes you think you’re going out there?”

Marin hesitated. “Sir, I thought you would want to dispatch our squadron for rescue and assis-“

Ladau shook his head, stopping her. He continued, “Look, I know you and your teenage groupies are chopping at the bit to get your little toys into space and certified, but It’s not going to happen. Not while I’m commanding here. Your fighters? They’re outdated. We don’t need them anymore… not when combat drones can do the fighting. I know I can trust them to finish the job instead of your gaudy fighters with amateurs pretending to be pilots.” He waved his hand dismissively at her, “So why don’t you and your little girl scouts go… I dunno… nap or something and let the vets handle this.”

Marin’s face was puffed with anger. “Commander! I-“

“Dismissed, Flight Officer.” Ladau waved again, and turned his back on her.

Marin’s face was red as fresh blood, but only a small sound escaped her clenched teeth before she flew herself down the spiral staircase into the rest of the facility… probably to cry, Ladau thought.

“All right,” Ladau adjusted the collar of his jumpsuit, “Send the drones. Let’s get this done.”

From a specialized launcher parked on the lunar tarmac, six drones were launched into space, accompanied by four movers. More than enough to see what was going on.



Homeworld 3:
Eclipse



The dark shape was alone in this patch of space, accompanied only by the trailing cloud of black smoke bellowing from a pod attached to the hull.

The ship’s three engine bells were quiet.

In the bridge, all hands were hunched over their consoles, and nobody said a word. All ears were arrayed at the Captain, awaiting his orders, for the next phase of the operation.

The Captain himself was staring at the holo-tank that projected the sensor manager. It was the only thing, aside from the consoles and their keypads, lit in the room. Occasionally he glanced at the clock, but this had been going on only since they arrived here.

Ten red dots appeared on the sensor manager.

“Contacts.” The exec whispered for the benefit of the crew.

The Captain nodded. Then he smirked, “Only ten? I was expecting a little more help from the Hiigarans. Aren’t they supposed to rush to the aid of whatever weakling cries for help?”

The exec only shrugged. The Captain turned back to the sensor manager. “Well,” he said, “All the better that we can spring our trap and seek an engagement with so little force opposing us. Prepare to launch fighters, but do not light the ship just yet.”

The exec nodded and reached for a yellow inter-ship phone.

---------------------

Ladau was leaning over the sensor operator and staring into the monitors. He was eager to see how the drones performed. Despite being nearly eight months since hostilities began, the Progenitor replicas had yet to be sent into any kind of action. Ladau was optimistic for their success. “Status?”

“Drones are closing.” The operator reported, “No clear contact yet. Mass is… roughly… capital sized. She’s a big freighter.”

“Can you analyze the debris and find out what she’s carrying?”

“Uhhh…” The operator looked at the instruments. “No. The drones aren’t equipped for remote sensing sir… shall I dispatch a probe?”

Ladau waved a hand. “No need. The drones will tell us what we want to know soon enough.”

------------------------

“They’re entering range.” The exec said.

The Captain looked down at the sensors manager, and then at the exec. “What can we expect from that diffusive material we put into that fake smoke?”

---------------------------

The screens suddenly went to static, and then switched over to information feeds.

“What happened?” Ladau asked.

“Uh,” the drone operator replied as he bent over his equipment, “Signal jam… the drones have switched over to on-board guidance.”

“Then how are we getting these stats?” Ladau pointed at the monitor.

The operator said as he worked, “The drones have a transmitter to relay status reports to the parent vehicle… that’s how the Progenitor’s destroyer knew to create more. We…ah…still haven’t worked out the bugs yet.”

Ladau raised a hand to his mouth and watched the console, pondering if this should be taken as according to plan or not.

-------------------------

The exec turned his head and whispered harshly, “Captain… targets are drones! Progenitor drones!”

The Captain only nodded, then sighed. “Well… I can’t say we were unprepared for this eventuality.” He looked over at his exec and toned in a full voice, “Launch the fighters. Light the ship.” The general quarters alarm rang and the lights came on. “Arm primary batteries and prepare to fire at incoming combatants.”

Those crews who were on standby leapt into action, even though most of the crew was already to stations awaiting the chance to light the ship. Across the darkened hull windows came to light, and the navigation beacons blazed clear. Her patterns gave her away as a Type 50 Taiidan Carrier… “Saarkin-Cho” as code-named by the Hiigarans.

“Rudder right,” The Captain ordered, “Starboard roll, twenty degrees. Give our gunners a clear shot. Fighters?” He asked over his shoulder.

“Squadrons launching now.” The exec saluted.

--------------------------

The cockpits had been fully lit, but the fighters had been just as dark as the outside when the traffic signal clicked to green.

Kaadan Tao-Shint, Squad lead of Red Squad, was one of the first to launch. He checked his systems as his fighter was kicked clear of the darkened hangar. Once he was sure he was clear of both prongs, he flicked the switch for the X-foils to open to full position, and the fighter’s stubby winglets unfolded along the back. The ship’s fusion rocket motor activated on command, and he banked. On orders, he didn’t assume parade formation… but waited for his squadron to line up behind him.

The inside of his helmet projected the information into his vision, and he saw the icons denoting Red Two and Three form up into delta formation on his left and right. Gold squadron had followed them out, and leaving the Ka’an-Tel were Black and White squadrons.

He turned his head and looked out of the right side of his fighter. The little red squares, denoting the enemy craft, glowed into his vision even in front of the support bar of the fighter. He armed his weapons.

-------------------------------

“Uh, sir?” The drone operator said, calling Ladau over from the sensor station.

“What is-“ was all Ladau got before the operator interrupted him.

“Sir, the drones have gone into automated combat status. They’re being fired upon.”

------------------------------

Full turrets had replaced the hull-mounted small mass drivers. Plasma lances on full mounts tracked the incoming fighters as they approached.

The drones began their spin as they fired their dual plasma cannons, and the blue motes of light scored hits across the ship’s hull. A redundant cargo bay depressurized, and the crewmen across the adjoining decks were advised to get their helmets on.

But as they passed, the Plasma lances opened fire. Connected to high-pressure cooling systems (Which replaced the hydraulic lines that guided the ship’s ancient armament) the rapid-fire weapons pulsed at twice the speed of the original variants taken from Vaygr lance fighters.

They stitched shots across a passing Mover; knocking holes in the engine before one blast melted the ship’s AI brain. It coasted for a moment out of range, listing slowly, before the onboard countermeasures system detected no input from the AI. The ship self-destructed to prevent capture.

By now, the fighters were turning.

-----------------------------

Kaadan angled his fighter and opened fire.

Tungsten rods the size of a man’s forearm rained out of the rotary cannon off-center from the ship’s spine. Kaadan held his fighter’s control sticks like a rider would the reins of a horse- firmly driving the fighter against the motion of his main gun. He didn’t need the maneuverability the gun could give him just yet.

His squad mates fired with him and the assault cannon rounds clattered across the replicated armor. Apparently it wasn’t as effective as the original versions, as the fighter made a satisfactory fireball from the combined shots of three assault cannons. Kaadan smirked as he narrowed in on another fighter and opened fire.

The drone somersaulted and turned, shooting the duel plasmas at the squadron almost point-blank.

It was only for the split of a second though, as the faster fighters rocketed by. Kaadan moved his thumb and depressed a nub on his control stick. Instantly three wire-frame projections of the fighters snapped into his HUD, and he examined all of them. “Two, report.” He toned; noting one of the sections of his fighter was in the yellow.

“Minor scoring. No internals. Armor diffused most of it.” Two responded.

Kaadan released his grip on the status nub and turned his fighter. It seems the composite armor that R&D had hoarded so jealously had finally paid off. Bets had been placed across the fleet to see if they could withstand the fire from progenitor cannons. Perhaps they had passed the test.

Red squadron turned and started shooting at another mover.

------------------------

Ladau’s alarm grew as more and more of the status windows turned black. “What is happening?” He demanded when the formation had been whittled down to two drones, “Why aren’t they responding.”

The operator only shook his head. It should have been obvious.

Ladau slammed the back of his chair and spun to sensors. “Sensors! Do you have anything on the attackers?”

“Uhh…ah….” The woman fumbled, but had to duck out of the way as Ladau himself operated the controls. He moved the outpost’s astronomic array and aimed it at the battle. With several snapshots, he got some images. “There.” He commanded to the woman, “Identify that.”

She operated her machinery, now finally able to access it, and then she announced the result with some surprise. “Uh… a Type 38 Assault Fighter… code-named “Warthog” by intelligence. It’s Taiidan.”

Ladau’s color drained from his face as he stood for a moment, contemplating a Taiidan assault here… in the Hiigaran system. Such a thing had not happened in…well… close to a century.

“Launch every drone we have!” He bellowed.

“Sir, the network cannot support that many-“

“LAUNCH THEM ALL!” The command room rang.

Seconds later, the drone launchers on the lunar tarmac aimed skyward and let their packages fly into the airless sky. The tri-wing fighters unfolded and flew, like served shuttles in an average game of Rikenet.

------------------------

The exec approached the Captain. “They’ve launched all their drones.”

“All of them?” The Captain asked.

The exec nodded and replied, “Intelligence says the installation was only equipped with about twenty. They’ve expended six… fourteen contacts are inbound.”

The Captain looked at the sensor manager and smirked wryly. “We’re in no hurry. If they’re so demanding to have us out of their sky, let them come to us. Is the module operational?”

“Functioning normally.”

“Good.” The Captain said and took off his cap to scratch his head; “I didn’t want to haul any unnecessary weight for this trip. I can only wonder what the other branch is up to.”

“According to the timetable, they should have been moving by now.”

The Captain nodded, but then craned his head back to the ceiling of the bridge. “It seems we’ve come back to relying on prayers to our Gods and trusting in the faith of our warriors. Well… at least if we loose, we could always blame it on destiny. Keep the fighters for close-in support, then when all the drones are done, launch the bombers.”

“Sir.” Nodded the exec and issued orders.

------------------------------

The drones approached single-mindedly…. Suicidal … towards the carrier.

The four squadrons of warthogs were circling the fighter slowly, but now broke formation as the drones came within five hundred meters. The Taiidan fired first.

The drones followed their preprogrammed evasion routines and sacrificed getting clean shots off. This behavior had been introduced by the Hiigarans in hopes to get some survivability with the new units… though of course, being test models the drones had to be approved first before combat. That’s why they had been delivered to the remote base of Lunar Station Eight.

If anything it slowed them down, as they jinxed out of the way of the incoming rods of tungsten the computers were faced with a new problem: Objects on a deliberate collision course.

Though the AI was tasked with projectile evasion, the Progenitors never had to contend with guided munitions. As the concussion missiles launched from the Assault fighters narrowed in, the AI tried to handle each of their problems individually. Of the five targeted, only one of them computed correctly to shoot the missile down before it hit. Three of the five simply ignored the high-explosive rounds and suffered the consequences, while the other two were plagued with conflicts between their Progenitor and Hiigaran programming and exploded on their own.

Ten fighters angrily fired on the carrier.

-------------------------

The Captain heard the hull creak from a direct impact. He grabbed a support bar in the bridge and asked, “Damage report?”

The exec shook his head. “That was the resource control bunker. It was evacuated… but that was too close.”

The Captain turned, pointed, and ordered, “Close hyperspace shutters. We won’t be taking anymore chances until the airspace is clear.”

The heavy metal plates slid in over the windows. Typically used to protect the crew during hyperspace transitions, the Taiidan (and Vaygr, to some extent) had been using the additional protection as a makeshift layer of additional armor. While it was capable of deflecting lighter-caliber munitions, nobody on the bridge was sure if it could protect them from the suspected high-yield plasma fire the drones were capable of shooting.

The carrier’s Plasma lances shot out and cooked another pair of darts that got too close to the carrier. Eight drones remaining.

------------------------

“Sir…” The operator said, and then did a double take at how white his commanding officer was. “Commander Ladau?”

Ladau was standing, stunned, at how quickly the drones were being killed off. This shouldn’t be happening. The Drones were to represent the next tier of space fighting technology. Finally, at last, they had perfected the automated fighter. Better, since they copied one of the scourges that harrowed the second mothership on her epic journey. Where had they gone wrong?

Three more fighters winked out. “Have…they…taken any…down?” Ladau asked in a shaky voice.

The Operator turned back and made a shrug. “No drones have confirmed kills…I…” He leaned forward suddenly.

“Ooh?” Eeped Ladau.

The Operator collapsed his hands on the keyboard. “Sir, I’m getting feedback from the network. The AI are getting confused. Seems like their survival codes are conflicting with their Progenitor programming.”

Ladau swallowed. Of course, the drones were experimental. But…experimental meant they would win… it meant that they should win. Experimental vehicles always triumphed over their opposition. Always. Always….

“Sir?” One of the operators said, “Sir?” He had been standing beside Ladau now for a moment. Now he waved a hand over the Commander’s face. “Uh…” The officer said, “Can someone call a doctor up here?”

---------------------

The remaining five drones were wiped out by a combined sweep from the assault fighters.

Once the sky was devoid of red squares, Kaadan looked at his squadron. There were some yellow zones, but nobody showed any reds. Kaadan had taken care to swing his fighters out extra far to get the extra position flanking. White squadron had not been so fortunate, and he saw the fighters turn and burn for the Ka’an-Tel.

“No losses so far,” Gold squadron’s leader spoke to him, “Didn’t think we’d do so great against Progenitor drones.”

“Replicas.” Black squadron corrected; “Stay alert. Tactical’s just picked up incoming Hiigaran torpedo frigates. ETA thirty minutes.”

“That’s plenty of time.” Gold two said over the Public channel, “Why couldn’t they get here faster?”

“We have a gravity well in play. The Hiigarans will get here when we feel like it.” Black lead replied.

Kaadan looked down at the sensor sphere projected in his lap and zoomed the view out. Indeed, some thousands of kilometers distant, red diamonds were crossing the terminator to come after them.

“Squadron leads,” The flight director on the Carrier suddenly announced, “Alpha and Beta squadrons have been launched. Red and Gold squadrons, you are assigned to escort the formations to the target. Black squadron, you are authorized for strafing runs. White squadron will offer aegis to Carrier. Acknowledge.”

Kaadan gave his acknowledgement and fell in line with the bombers. A far cry from the venerable Type 47s, the Type 88s bore a passing resemblance to the exile Repair Corvette. However, the new bombers had rounder noses and high-volume Plasma repeaters on the wings. These heavy bombers were reputed to deliver twice the destructive volume of their predecessors. Experimental as they were, at least they were a new development away from the archaic fleet Taiidan was forced to use for a hundred years.

Kaadan set his fighter into escort formation and watched Black squadron disappear in the distance.

---------------------------

“Sir?” The sensor officer said, her hands on Ladau’s shoulder and arm, “I need you to take a seat. Please sir…”

Several officers had been trying to get Ladau into a medical chair to get him to the sickbay, but the man wouldn’t budge. So shocked he was that he was rigid with disbelief, his eyes wide and still aimed at the drone display.

But the klaxon went off from the sensor panel of incoming fire…and munitions. “RUN!” Shouted the sensor officer and the crew abandoned the bridge.

Only the drone operator turned around at the pressure door to look at Ladau. “Commander!” He shouted.

Ladau turned his head and blinked for the first time in several minutes.

Then the window looking out across the base exploded as Tungsten rods ripped through the ill-prepared glassware.

--------------------------

A rumble shook the foundations of the moon base.

Kayala Marin looked up from her pillow and listened. The rumble was heard again.

Tavan Somtaaw-Chu poked his head in. “Kay,” He said, “You hear that?”

Kayala slammed her head back into the pillow. “Probably Landau using our fighters for target practice.”

“No, I think we’re under attack.” Tavan said.

Kayala made a rude noise from her pillow.

“No, I’m serious.” Tavan said, “I can’t raise the command tower. I don’t think they’ve hit the hangar doors yet… maybe they haven’t seen them.”

Kayala raised her head.

----------------------------

Nobody knew when Lunar base eight had been constructed, but upon examination by the Hiigaran excavation teams it had become clear that the base was to serve as a defense outpost for fighters.

Of course, it had been constructed in an era before long-range guided missiles… when Hiigarans were expected to protect their own system from others. It had been refurbished a few times, and presently served as a defense post against smugglers and a part-time testing facility.

Nevertheless, to protect the fighters against orbital bombardment, the hangars had been carved underground from the lunar rock. It was suspected that the facilities could withstand all but a direct hit from a nuclear weapon, but that theory of course was never tested.

Now, though, the base was recipient to eight FX-21 fighter craft, along with a handful of scouts.

The huge fighters dominated the available hangar space, and were only just large enough to be positioned at the base of the launch ramps. They certainly out-sized the latest brand of Interceptors, and were almost the size of a corvette.

Kayala Marin was immensely proud to be a part of their development. Even though her father, a serving senator on the Daiimid, had pulled strings to get her this assignment… Kayala had been following its development ever since she laid eyes on the original prototype.

Now she was wing lead of the experimental squadron. FX-21, otherwise known as the “Spade”, was Hiigara’s first heavy attack fighter.

She ran across the tarmac with her helmet in hand, and behind her Tavan was locking the seals of his own in place. The ground crews waved them in… she had no time to go over the full checklist as she would have liked. If the base was under attack, they needed to be out there as soon as possible.

She took a big jump off the lunar ground and glided through the hangar air to the powder blue surface of her fighter. Some bounds later and she was next to the off-center cockpit. As she took her seat, she couldn’t help but look at the assault cannon’s two exit ports to her right. This cannon, capable of throwing explosive rounds the size of a man’s chest, was one of the most powerful kinetic weapons in the arsenal of the Hiigarans.

Tavan, her weapons officer, settled in behind her. “All good.” He said in her helmet when it was sealed. They both gave thumbs-up to the ground crew technician and the cockpit bubble craned over them. Once it was sealed, it gave a three-tone alarm to announce the cockpit was closed.

HUDS flashed into existence for the both of them, and Kayala’s augmented vision allowed her to steer her craft.

The landing skis had wheels set into them. She turned her fighter and drove it into the cubby aside FX2- her wing mate. Assault fighters in Hiigara flew in groups of two.

“Roger-Roger.” Announced FX2.

“Go-go.” Confirmed Kayala.

She and Tavan saw the instruments register the change in outside pressure, and moments later the space doors opened. The long ramp into space was now clear, and both of them saw a yellow and red blur go by.

“Taiidan.” Tavan said, “Too fast for an ID.”

“Well,” Kayala breathed, “Let’s get started.”

She hit her engines on full and the fighter blasted into the sky.

In the lunar gravity, the procedure was remarkably serene. The two sleek-hulled ships levitated off the surface with minimal effort, and then fell into formation. Like elegant leaves in a wind, they banked gracefully.

But now that Kayala and her wing mate were free of the surface, it was hunting season.

“Type 38s.” Tavan announced.

Kayala’s eyebrows shot up in her helmet. “The kinds of fighter we were designed to fight. Well… this SHOULD be interesting.”

------------------------

“Sir,” The exec reported on Ka’an-Tel, “White squadron is operational.”

“Good. Get them out there on patrol as soon as they’re ready.” The Captain replied. He waved his exec over. “Tarin, what do you make of these?”

The Exec walked over and winced at the display. It was currently showing the lunar base they were directed to attack… and now a pair of unidentified fighters was in the sky. He winced. “I’ve never seen them before. New prototypes?”

The Captain stroked his chin twice as he watched the newcomers glide out of their launch chutes. He gestured with his hand as he said, “Decrease elevation by three hundred meters. Maintain thrust accordingly.”

“Sir, may I remind the Captain that we are too close to the moon’s gravity well already. If we have to hyperspace-“

“I’m aware of the Risks Commander.” The Captain nodded, then turned his head, “But we might need to provide some more close-support for our fighters.” He studied the screen again. “Order both Warthog squadrons to intercept. Keep those unknowns off the bombers.”

--------------------------

Black squadron was unaware of the presence of the new craft until Black Two exploded in a fireball.

Black lead turned from his strafing run to see them- the cross-shaped profiles of the new fighter craft. His HUD informed him of the lock-on warning and he rolled his fighter to escape.

The two blue craft opened fire with their mass drivers. The heavy rounds whizzed about Black Lead as he tried to dodge, but the Taiidan pilot swung his craft right into the round of a bullet, and the huge shell struck the fighter amidships, then exploded. The cockpit cartwheeled in a far arc over the lunar surface, while the propulsion half flew into the ground and exploded on the tarmac.

Black Three tried to avenge his comrades by coming into the blind spot of the fighters and opened fire with his assault gun. Tungsten rounds riddled across the wings, but mostly missed even at this distance. Both fighters started to bank in the lunar sky.

“Black three to command,” The pilot called as he continued firing, “Unidentified fighters detected using unknown weaponry! Request immediate assistance!”

With the wide profiles exposed, Black Three fired again. Tungsten rods splattered across the upper hull of the Hiigaran fighters- some sticking and others deflecting off the polished armor. There was, however, no penetration.

The Warthog flashed by the Spades before the Hiigaran fighters had the chance to fire back, or clear their underside missile launchers for a clear shot.

-------------------------------------------

Kaadan heard Black Three’s announcement and was about to give orders when the louder command from the Carrier came over all frequencies: “Gold squad, Red Squad, break from escort formation and proceed ahead. Engage enemy defenders.”

Kaadan took a breath in and ordered, “Flight, this is Red Leader. Break escort pattern and set evasive tactics. Full burn, lock and load!”

The assault fighters rocketed ahead of the slower bombers, and the moon grew beneath them. Moments later, the base was in sight.

Black Three was still tangling with the first squadron, but hadn’t noticed a second coming up behind him. Kaadan cussed in his helmet at being out of range, and switched to missiles. After three tones of the computer he opened fire.

Black Three was hit from behind by a Hiigaran heavy round from that second squadron, blowing most of the engine housing away and sending three of his four fins spiraling into space. The fighter listed for a while, before speeding like a missile into the bases’ habitation complex. Kaadan gave a small breath of a prayer for the pilot, then turned his head to avenge him.

Red squadron came in behind this second formation and opened fire with Tungsten shot. The super-hardened super-projectiles clattered around the aft end of the fighters. They tried to bank at their speed, but were too sluggish to evade.

Kaadan turned his head to see the other squadron banking at them. “Scatter!” He commanded.

The three assault fighters banked and turned in different directions, and the enemy fighters went wide. He turned his head again and signaled out the leader of that formation- visible since she was the forward most of the formation. He cut his engines, turned, and fired his mass driver at her.

------------------------------------------

Kayala heard the rattle race down the back of her fighter. “Damage?” she asked Tavan.

“Superficial.” Replied Tavan; “Armor integrity is holding… though we have something like half a dozen rounds still buried in the armor.”

Kayala rolled her fighter and scanned the sky for the fighter that had just buzzed them. He was flying away from her, but banking. She pulled the nose of her fighter up to get another short at him, saying as she went, “All fighters, you are free to break formation and engage!”

A glance at her heads-up display showed that another squadron had launched from the base. Now it was six on six.

----------------------------------------------

Kaadan zeroed in on another one of the enemy darts that had just broken formation. As he narrowed his assault gun in, the target icon flickered and added another red ‘2’ above it, signifying that his wingman had also targeted the fighter. Kaadan fired.

Both assault fighters filled that area of space with tungsten rods. Kaadan could visibly see some of the rounds bounce off in the lunar sky, but the glint of more remained in the back of the fighter. He ducked down behind the craft, slowing his engine and letting off a dumb-fire missile. The fighter banked out of the way.

“Lead, enemy coming on your six.” Three reported, and Kaadan banked away. The fighter cartwheeled on command and he hit his engine to full power. Though he was slammed into the back of the cockpit seat, he avoided the heavy rounds that had just been fired by a Hiigaran fighter. “Thanks Three.” Kaadan said and looked up at the fighter’s ‘rear-view mirror’- a monitor projecting the field of view aft. The blue hull of the leaf-like Hiigaran fighter was leveling into his rear, it’s cross-shaped face view becoming almost complete.

A lock-on warning toned in his ears, but Kaadan was already thinking of how to escape. He rolled his fighter and pulled up. The craft dipped in the lunar gravity, but he managed to escape behind some raised towers of the Hiigaran base. Munitions exploded behind him, and the missile tone was gone.

He pulled up again and made a tight circle, finding his assailant as she tried slowly to bank upward at him. He got a lock on her first, and opened fire.

Again, the resilience of the enemy fighter was proven as the rods either stuck in the armor or deflected off into space. There was no penetration, despite the Taiidan using one of the densest materials known in mass driver projectiles. Obviously the Hiigarans have layered their craft in thick armor, or have a new armor composite resistant to their weapons.

He switched to his missile launcher, but noted he only had one rocket left. He sighed explosively, angrily, and switched back to his assault cannon. Even if it meant filling each of these fighters with rods so thick it looked like hair, he would do it, to take them down.

Then he wondered where the bombers were.

----------------------------------------

Kayala heard the impact and the shrill toning in her helmet. “Damage?” She asked Tavan as she switched off the alarm.

“Number two engine has a direct hit.” Replied Tavan; “Switching over… we’re going to be at 50% power for a while until the auto-repair systems kick in.”

Kayala sighed angrily and checked her weapons payload. She still had missiles… but she had wanted to spare them until it became impossible. She had already used some of them against the first squadron of Taiidani interlopers, but it looked like she would need them again. “Tavan,” She said, “Kick out a HMM pack.”

“Are you sure? We only have two of them.”

“As it is, they’re out-dancing us.”

Tavan only huffed a breath to confirm it was done.

One of the missile bays opened and ejected a circular array of rockets. A second later the rockets were kicked free of their mount and fired. The stubby missiles, laden with thrusters, turned and immediately angled for their targets.

The Taiidan reacted with alarm, diving their fighters every which-way as the six missiles closed on various targets. One of the fighters attracted two of them, and despite his best efforts took the hits in the engine. The craft cartwheeled before crashing into the fuel storage area of the base. A huge fireball erupted from the complex, causing secondary explosions across the facility.

---------------------------------

Kaadan had seen the missiles launch and promptly gunned his attacker down. He also came in behind the fighter responsible, noting one of her engines out, and opened fire at the other. The fighter banked out of the way, but again it was sluggish in doing so. He oversped her and banked away from her.

Just then he noticed the thick profile of the bombers- and streams of plasma bombs issuing from them. He ducked beneath their fire with a grin.

The line of impacts cratered the runways and traced up across the launch rails as the last pair of Hiigaran fighters were accelerating away from their launch bays. The bombs raced up the angled ramp, catching one of the two fighters and melting away the trailing edges of the wings. It lost some altitude and speed, eventually being covered by the bombs. The fighter melted under the bombardment and its engine exploded. The wing mate, now alone, banked away from her dying comrade.

------------------------------------------------

“Ah-Shaddah!” Kayala cursed when she saw FX-8 black out. She turned her head and saw the menacing bombers. “All fighters,” She ordered, “Engage the bombers. Ignore the interceptors for now.”

As one, all the FX-21 fighters turned away from their current targets and wheeled about to face the bombers.

But the attack craft had taken notice, and one group of four broke off their attack on the surface to turn their weapons on the Hiigaran Spades. Blue-white plasma fire crossed space with the Hiigaran’s heavy rounds, resulting in the death of a few fighters. The Hiigarans lost two more of their number, bringing it down to five craft.

However, all four of the bombers from that squadron went down in flames from direct hit by missiles.

Kayala reaffirmed her orders, “Confirmed, release on munitions! It’s all or nothing, now.”

The Hiigaran Spades kicked out more of their missile compliments, and two more packages of HMMs joined the fray. Most of them angled for the remaining formation of four bombers, and only one of the craft survived the sheer concentration of firepower.

But the Warthogs weren’t idle.

---------------------------------

Kaadan had lined himself up behind one of the fighters and fired. Red three was next to him.

Both fighters filled the aft end of the fighter with Tungsten rods- both crosshairs centered on the engine housings. Explosions popped out of the sides, before one of the wings blew off and the fighter slowly shredded in half. Four were left.

“Gold lead,” Kaadan said, “Concentrate fire on the aft of the Hiigaran fighters. We might be able to cut them down that way.”

“Red lead,” Said a voice, “This is Gold two. I’m all that’s left of Gold squadron.”

Immediately Kaadan pulled up a status report. His squadron, and one fighter from Gold and beta squadron, were all that were left of the Taiidan fighter force.

Opposing them were four Hiigaran super fighters.

They were still at an advantage, but it was a chore to down one of those enemy craft with the ineffective munitions the Taiidan were carrying.

Kaadan grumbled in his helmet then toggled his radio. “Command, Command, this is Red Lead requesting instructions.”

--------------------------

“Sir?” Asked the exec.

The Captain planted his hands on his hips. “I guess that’s it, isn’t it. How’s the timetable?”

“The other branch should be well into their own operation by now.”

“All right. Recall all fighters, and drop the streakers.”

The exec nodded.

------------------------------

Kaadan fired his assault gun in passing against one of the enemy fighters before the radio broke, “Command to squadron, disengage, disengage. Return to base.”

Kaadan glanced at the sensor manager to gauge if they were in a position to retreat or not. The lone attack bomber had two of the four fighters on him, while the other two were trying to chase down Gold three and his Red two. They couldn’t hope to pull out of here without loosing one or two of his warthogs. “Command, ETA to streaker drop?”

“They’re already en-route.” Another voice responded, “Get out of there!”

“We can’t pull out without taking more losses. Eta?”

There was a pause before the response came. “Forty-five seconds.”

Kaadan relayed it immediately, “Red Lead to all fighters- forty-four seconds to streaker drop. Keep them busy, then take any escape vector to get out of here.”

He glanced at his mission clock, then back through his HUD as he fired at another one of the fighters harrowing the attack bomber. Red three was on his wing, and both of them aimed at the nose of the fighter.

---------------------------------

“Kayala I’m-“ Static finished off Teresa’s words, and Kayala looked out of her window at her wing mate. Tungsten rods landed about the cockpit, and from the hint of red just visible on one of the cockpit windows, it was pretty clear a round had gone through the cockpit glass and into Teresa herself. “TERA!” Kayala screamed angrily and pulled her fighter up.

FX02 listed slowly with a dead pilot at the helm. The cockpit bubble blasted off, and following it was the weapons officer. The advance fighter continued on her list before plowing into the lunar surface. She didn’t explode, just skidded across the dust as the engines continued to fire.

Kayala cut her engines and fired the reverse thrusters. She pulled against the restraints of her seat, and the inertia, but she slowed enough for the hostile fighters to fly over her. She revved up her engine again, over Tavan’s protests, and opened fire with the mass drivers.

The heavy rounds darted by rapidly before she took a wing off of one of the fighters. It still banked away, both fighters turning in opposite directions.

--------------------------------------

Kaadan checked his wing mate. “Three, you good?”

“Lost a wing.” Replied Red Three, “We gotta bug out of here sir.”

Kaadan looked at the clock. Ten seconds. “Red lead to all craft,” He ordered, “Break formation and flee the area at best possible vectors.”

The Taiidan fighters broke and scattered. As the last attack bomber finally succumbed to fire from the enemy fighters, points of light appeared over the base.

Seconds later, a hundred million rockets cascaded into the lunar surface.

Kayala screamed in her fighter as her craft was caught at the edge. A wing exploded and sent her fighter spinning in a flat cartwheel. It hit the lunar surface, snapping off the payload doors and throwing her head against the side of the cockpit. It continued to spin before coming to a rest. Kayala was unconscious.

But the torrent of light rockets continued for a good twenty seconds- waves and waves of dumb-fire munitions cascading across the entire span of the base. When it was finished, the clouds of lunar dust still drifted across the surface.

Kaadan and the other surviving two fighters continued to burn for the Ka’an-Tel. Red Two had not escaped the limits of the fall… but neither had his pursuers. One of the enemy fighters had not survived, but this was not a good showing for the Warthogs by comparison, either. Kaadan lulled his head back into the cockpit couch as White Squadron came into view, flying into formation around the weathered fighters as the Taiidan carrier came into view.

“Let’s make this quick.” The flight director said, “Hiigaran assets are closing, ETA five minutes.”

Kaadan, tired, lined his fighter up with the hangar deck and eased in. He flew between the refits to the PDA bay- replaced entirely by the launching system for the Streaker rockets. He recalled the briefing. Their mission here had been twofold: Draw Hiigaran attention away from another operation inside Hiigaran orbit, while also assessing the strengths present at this base. The option to capture the base and it’s assets was to be left open- two converted Attack Bombers stood ready to land troops if it had been possible. If it became impossible, then the base was to be carpet-bombed with this experimental system.

Well, Kaadan mused, it could have been much, much worse. They drew almost an equal count from the Hiigarans, and they had lost their base. Plus, the craft had taken out their drone defenses and wiped out all but one of the fighters. Maybe, Kaadan wondered, if he would be called to testify for a new upgrade to the Warthogs to better match this new competition.

With all the fighters in, Ka’an-Tel continued her ascent, and two minutes later jumped to hyperspace.

--------------------------------------------------

Kayala stirred. Then moaned as she craned her head upward. Her eyes were still closed, and she took two breaths before her memory came back, and she realized where she was.

Tavan was leaning over her, his gloved suit hand closed around her wrist as his onboard suit computer was tracking her pulse. He made a weak grin behind his helmet glass. “You’re alive. Don’t move… help is on the way.

Kayala turned her head, but she found she didn’t need to turn it so much. Her fighter had turned so it faced the base.

Hovering above it was a Hiigaran carrier- the lights from its station-keeping thrusters firing to keep the ship positioned over what used to be Lunar Station Eight. Scout craft whizzed over head, looking for survivors probably. Kayala felt strangely relieved to see that they were in Station Eight livery. “How bad is it?” She asked.

Tavan stared at her for a moment before he voiced, “Only two fighters are still somewhat intact. Cheops, Malakan, Durst, and Korhal are off with minor injuries, while Jessa and Melps are critical.

Kayala was able to count. Four fighter’s worth of pilots had managed to escape this. Half the squadron was dead. She closed her eyes.

Tavan sat down beside the rim of the cockpit- the canopy long gone. “I suppose there’ll be an inquiry…” He mused, “Another design revision.”

“Yes.” Kayala said and opened her eyes. This would never happen again. She would not allow it. Even if she had to dog every Admiral in the Hiigaran navy, ripping them apart for assigning such an incompetent…

“Relax.” Tavan told her, “I can hear you fuming from here. You’ll have all the time to rant on the Patku’s sail.”

Kayala followed her gunner’s advice, and after three breaths she submerged into sleep once again.

------------------------------------------------------------------
The cycle of conflict begins again even to a new generation.

[Darcnighte]

Very nice there norse, that was a really enjoyable read.

[Norsehound]

Thanks.

I wondered if I was still capable of writing battle fics, and lo and behold I manage to churn one out.

Also seems like Homeworld is orbiting back around into my sphere of fandom. I've got more ideas on the table I might put up... though nothing on my 'heavy' sagas... maybe because every time I think about visiting them I find cringe-worthy things I'd like to edit for the sake of streamlining and editing to make the story better (at least, in the case of Taiidan Civil War).

[Lurch]

Awesome, I like your Taiidan stories.

[Aesaar]

While I don't quite agree with you view on the Taiidan (not specific to this), that was great. Looking forward to more.

[Stingra]

NORSEHOUND LIVES.

Oh how I have missed your Fan Fiction.

Not to be confused with Fanfiction, of course.

[Norsehound]

Pod Person

A short Homeworld 2 1/2 fic.

Chrome, this is all your fault.

----------------------------

They only assigned one guard for the entire complex. After all, the ship was dead and inert, right? What could the ghosts of yesterday possibly have against the people of the present?

The kiithless guardsmen scoffed at the notion of superstition. This was supposedly “Sajuuk”, He Who Shapes What Is (with capital letters). So much for that. In the end, it turned out to be a giant ion cannon spaceship powered by three ginormous, overrated, ancient batteries. Woop-de-fucking-doo.

The guard yawned and decided to go back to reading his book. Honestly, even he was redundant in the scheme of things. Come five days since defeating the Vaygr over Hiigara and noth-

What the hell was that?

The book fell to the ground as the guard stood and looked around for the source of the huge noise that rumbled across the vast interior space. Moreover it didn’t sound like it came from faraway- it was decidedly close… but what the hell was it?

The he smelled something… an unusual pungent odor. It smelled like the detestable vegetables that he was forced to consume as a child. He looked every which-way for the stupid source of the noise… where?

Something heavy fell behind him, and a cloud of vapor fell over his face. He heard breathing behind him. Ram-rod and rigid with fear of fangs, claws, and a red tide of evil nanites, the guard turned around.

Staring him in the face was a very powerful, well-built and muscular superman. He was bald, and his eyes were the kind that you knew could fire Ion Beams and roast you Alive.

“Excuse me,” He asked in a warm and scholarly voice, “Would you happen to have a towel?”

The guard feinted, falling backward and landing spread-eagle on the metal decking. His flashlight rolled off the platform and fell into the abyss of the empty void.

The Bald figure, realizing what happened, only sighed in slight dismay and uttered “Pakao…”

He turned around and started for the door forward.

-------------------------------------------

There were still excavations, explorations, and undertakings that were going on across the whole of Sajuuk.

Now that the war was over, the time came for the Hiigarans to examine what it was, exactly, that they had taken with them from the depths of Balcora. It had to be pretty important if the Progenitors sealed it at the center of a cluster of black holes.

…Or something particularly deadly, since the portal was one-way.

For good or for ill, the needs of science compelled the Hiigarans to pull a full excavation.

And currently, Science Team Sigma was in charge of examining the couplings between the three Progenitor Cores, and the rest of the ship.

“So wait,” The intern was trying to piece together, “There are nearly five thousand energy connection trunks between the Cores and the forward array, but none of them channel to the rest of the ship?”

“Pretty much.” The scientist accompanying him said, tired and bored from explaining what was common knowledge to the rest of the Sajuuk Excavation Party, “The drives, operating equipment, computers, and whatever the hells else you want is powered by that massive fission…thing at the back of the ship. The cores are something completely different.”

“But I thought the ship was powered by the cores… it was dormant because-“

“No, no,” The scientist said, stopping in the corridor and gesturing with his hands, “It’s a common misconception that Sajuuk is powered by The Three.”

“The three? You mean, the cores?”

The scientist glared at the intern. “Yes, The Three. That’s what we call them.”

“Sounds lame.”

“There are only three.”

“Yeah, so?”

The scientist glared at the intern again for a moment before continuing, “The current theory is that all those energy connections are used as some kind of huge transmitter. Firing each individual emitter in sequence over hundreds of miliseconds formulates some kind of signal. That, or it’s a superweapon inefficiently designed to fire in such a way to cool easier.”

The intern winced, “I thought it was some kind of PDA. Doesn’t that mean it can make stuff?”

Again, the scientist glared at the intern. This time, with his hands on his hips. “Where do you come from?”

“Uh…Kila-Tor’s Prime University.”

“With a degree in what?”

“Ah… A bachelors in Anchient Hiigaran history?” The scientist slapped the Intern’s head. “Ow! Hey!!”

“Your ignorance in all things mechanical, ancient, and progenitor is staggering! Didn’t you read the primer on this thing before coming aboard?”

“I was trying to meet everyone!” The intern said, covering his head.

“Let that be a lesson for you- less socializing, more science. PDA means Phased Dissassembler Array. It takes things apart. While the Sajuuk array and the PDA are similar in doing this, PDAs try to preserve the molecules for individual categorization for production. As far as we know, anything touched by Sajuuk’s main beam disintegrates- even solid neutronium. Got it!?”

“Excuse me.”

Both turned to see the man standing next to them in the hallway.

“As interesting as this conversation is, may I borrow a shirt?”

“SAJUUK SARI! IT’S IMPOSSIBLE!!!” Screamed the scientist and bolted in the opposite direction. The Intern followed, if for no other reason than to escape from the stranger.

The bald man sighed again, shook his head and uttered in Vaygr various words of profanity as his misfortune before he continued forward.

---------------------------------------------------------

Karan S’Jet was, by far, the only one trusted to operate the entire spaceship.

Putting aside her legendary status as the Sajuu-Ka (yet another title to add to her accumulating status), she was the only one who had significant neuro-surgery that made connecting with the great ship easier. While the Great Ship didn’t seem designed specifically to house persons ‘modified’ like Karan, it WAS capable of taking input from the brain. Karan, though, was thankful that she didn’t need to be unconscious and burdened with fifty dozen heavy cables to control the ship.

She did miss the Pride though…

There was a comfortable chime from the Master Control Display of the great Room with the Lights. Called the ‘chapel’ by just about everyone else, this was Karan’s abode for all things save hitting the washroom. Removed from the sleep-state of the Mothership, her metabolism was back in full swing.

But if anything, it made her feel more human.

She leaned up and out of the couch donated gratefully by Captain Soban and walked to the terminal. She stretched her arms as she did, still not used to physical exertion after weeks trapped in the immobile state of the Mothership.

She looked at the Progenitor markings and still couldn’t make sense of them. Some of them were in red.

She made a thinking pose and ‘thought’ to the terminal to be a little more clearer for her. The console hesitated, as if exasperated that it had to ‘think down’ to her level and switched to a schematic display of the great ship. One door from the core was winking red.

“What?” She asked quietly and leaned forward. She willed a comm. Line channel to the security sector, “Captain, there’s been an unauthorized breach in the core chamber. I cannot reach the guard posted there.”

“Understood,” Captain Soban replied, “We’re on our way.”

She eased back from the console and stared at the display. Her mind went over the sensors in the huge cavern of the core repository, trying to find any biological trace of the intruder.

--------------------------------------------

Captain Soban was all the happier to be aboard the Great Ship, in the service of Karan s’jet. The Great Lady had saved them all once again, and stood as the great symbol of all the power Hiigara could throw in the universe.

So he went without hesitation or contrary thought to the Core Repository, and indeed found the door open. “Check,” He said into the collar-microphone, “Repository mains are open.”

“Sah,” One of the marines observed, “Doesn’t look like the door was picked. It was opened from the inside.”

“The inside?” Karan’s voice asked, unearthly, from the walls. “Captain, we might have a security breach.”

Soban turned and walked away from the door as he made orders into his microphone, “Command Command, this is Captain Soban. Initiate a lockdown on all exterior exits and marshal search teams. We have an intruder aboard.”

A ported Hiigaran alarm nose rang through the hallways, ridden with static and almost half-hearted by the speakers blaring it. There was no evidence to suggest that the ship was actually alive, but it was clear that the computer systems seemed less-than-willing to accept the Hiigaran ports and adaptations. Soban sighed, then continued his work.

---------------------------------------------

Karan, despite being declared the mistress of Sajuuk and its power, was fighting with the security system. It wasn’t any conscious part from the system itself, rather it was Karan’s lack of understanding that hampered the effort. Progenitor computers were not configured to Hiigaran physiology and thinking. Despite the myth that one ‘jacked in’ like her had absolute control over all a ship’s functions, this was far from the truth when it came to the alien system that governed Sajuuk.

She sighed and tried thinking at it again. She wouldn’t dare try the console’s buttons and motion controls until the science teams were able to discern what they did. For all she knew, the self-destruct button was on there somewhere.

The problem was trying to find an ‘unauthorized person’. In Sajuuk’s mind, everyone was authorized. The ship had no ‘official occupants’ after all, and if it really wanted to get picky everyone was unauthorized, since nobody aboard was a recognized Progenitor. Karan still had to figure out what that meant, but that was what the computer system was telling her.

She shook off the current search, as it was going nowhere. “Very well,” She uttered, “If you can’t tell me where the unauthorized person is, can you give me security feed for the main door to the core repository for the past half hour?”

The computer seemed compliant with this and displayed the information. Given that it was connected directly to her brain, she could scan through the thing at the speed of thought.

She froze when one particular still came into her ‘vision’.

“No…”

There was a knock at the door, and she turned her head. Who ever knocked on the door to the Chapel?

It opened seconds later. Again an impossibly, only Karan could open that doorway. Her eyes widened at the sight, and her hands came up to her mouth in surprise…shock… and arousal.

The warlord Makaan, wearing nothing at all, braced his arms against parts of the doorway. “Karan S’jet,” He said, “As shocking as this is, I have walked halfway across your starship without anything to wear. Do you happen to have a towel I can borrow?”
-------------------------

[Stingra]

LOL.

That is hilarious, not only because it reminds me of the Terminator but also because of the irreverence (right word?) to Homeworld 2.

[Norsehound]

I wouldn't consider it 'irreverrant'... it's humor, but not at the expense of Homeworld.

[doci7]

rigid with fear of fangs, claws, and a red tide of evil nanites

Hilarious! Not that the rest of the story wasn't. I wish I could've been there to give poor old Makaan a towel. Or maybe a nice Armani tuxedo. Or a chicken suit. Depending on what was available in his size.

[atmawpn]

Thank you sir, for that... mental image.

Extremely funny stuff. This is all Chrome's fault indeed

[Chrome]

Oh damn that is freaking hilarious. I'll take full blame for this one, hehehe.

The beginning is especially funny - the rant about the Sajuuk turning out to be basically an oversized ion frigate, and the "Woop-de-fucking-doo." Also loved the brief bit of Beast-phobia in there. Hehehe.

And I love your hinting that the Sajuuk had a mind of its own, especially in the last sequence with the door. It's almost like the Godship looked at Karan, looked at Mak, during Balcora and decided "awww they'd look so CUTE as a couple" and found a solution to keeping both alive at the War's end.

Oh Dear God, that is one image I didn't need: Sajuuk acting like Lwaxana Troi. *faints*

That ending scene really capped the entire situation off...hehe. I think Karan would be more than happy to provide that towel, and possibly a few other things.

As for the humor...sometimes you just need a not-serious Homeworld fanfiction.

[doci7]

Lwaxana Troi.

A name even satan himself must shudder at the mention of.

I think Karan would be more than happy to provide that towel, and possibly a few other things.

Like maybe a jail cell or a public execution? As interested as I myself am in the idea of Makaan and Karan being a couple, or good buddies, or whatever, we've got to assume that she'd be pretty ticked off at him for his insatiable bloodlust against Hiigara that lingered even after his death (well, "apparent death"). Although in the context of this story logic doesn't necessarily apply, obviously, so I suppose she might grant him a towel, and clothes, and some toast, and a foam finger she got at a Mits game when she was 8 years old.

[Norsehound]

Like maybe a jail cell or a public execution? As interested as I myself am in the idea of Makaan and Karan being a couple, or good buddies, or whatever, we've got to assume that she'd be pretty ticked off at him for his insatiable bloodlust against Hiigara that lingered even after his death (well, "apparent death"). Although in the context of this story logic doesn't necessarily apply, obviously, so I suppose she might grant him a towel, and clothes, and some toast, and a foam finger she got at a Mits game when she was 8 years old.

This is one of the reasons why I ended there. I imagined one of the first things Karan would have done was throw something at Makaan, and probably ring every intruder alarm across the entire ship with her brain.

Makaan, of course, knows he's defeated and in for a spell, and there isn't much he can really do about it. He's intellectually superior to his adversaries and, like Karan, has some mind control over Sajuuk even though she doesn't know you can do it wirelessly. However, Makaan is not daunted at all to walk with a breeze, if you know what I mean. He's that confident about himself, and can probably get himself out of this fix if he really wanted to.

Now, for a 'serious' take on a Makaan-Karan pairing, go look at 'The Dreams'. This was just a short, humorous piece inspired by Chrome's idea that Makaan survived the explosion of his flagship. It still may be a canonical possibility, and Makaan is a prisoner of Hiigara after Homeworld 2, but I think it's more the assumption that Makaan died and his Vaygr fragmented. If he was captured and the Vaygr knew he was held, after all, the whole of Vaygr would fall on Hiigara like a hundred million moons to retrieve him.

[Chrome]

Yeah, canon has a couple big hurdles to surmount.

My solution to the Mak and Karan as friends problem simply was to bring on the Complete Monster that caused people like Makaan and Threya, who normally would be considered evil by the Hiigarans, to side with them against the far worse alternative.

It can be a pretty good motivator, because I always felt Makaan wasn't so much evil as he was a patriot for the cause of his own people. To the Hiigarans (and the player perspective) he's seen as evil. But what if he's just simply playing hardball, and playing for keeps?

That kind of perspective change is what can really open up a change in a character's situation, for me.

I don't know what your realistic solution will be. The dreams could be a neat way of doing it, of causing a sort of emotional bond between the two out of sheer telepathy that neither may initially want, let alone be very thrilled that they have...but it causes a lot more to happen afterwards.

I've always found some of the best alternative-option stories to canon to be the ones that took an unbelievable, or outright imposssible situation, and made it not only possible, but completely believable from the reader perspective. It's not easy. Hell, I probably took the lazy route in Legacies by having a genuine Big Bad on the scene.

PS. Caution: TVTropes, the site I linked above for the Complete Monster, is highly addictive. It's like that drug Silas put into the Kadeshi's water systems. Once you start reading, your mind is altered, you have to read more...and you will never come back. (You also will never look at TV shows, stories, or even your own writing the same way either.) It also seems a good way to see how you handle the classic tropes in your own writing, and gives you some new devices to play with. For a good example of addictiveness, check the Crowning Moment of Awesome pages. Holy shit...

[OhJohnNo]

Her eyes widened at the sight, and her hands came up to her mouth in surprise…shock… and arousal.

LOL. One wonders if this would go to the gallows, or the bed...

[Khar Makaan]

What the heck...? O_O"
How did i ever missed such an immensely important detail? x)
Sure gives a whole bunch of possibilities

[Norsehound]

“…and now we join the exiting excavation of the Progenitor ruin at Kellog, where already now Supervisor Scientist Mara S’jet is busy excavating one of the new categories of Progenitor derelict.”

“Well honestly we’re not sure what it does… like most Progenitor ruins it seems grand and impressive and without a clear sense of purpose. Hopefully by poking around a bit we can figure out what it does, but the current theory is that it’s a giant space vacuum cleaner…or was.”

“That’s an odd statement. Aren’t you S’jeti supposed to be more scientific about things?”

“Meh. Where’s the fun in life if you take things too seriously?”

-----------------------------

The vehicle design was older than the ages of its crew, but it was reliable and proven design handed down to them by their great ancestors from Kharak. Older than even the old “Arrow” type scout, the “Porter” salvage corvette had only one change in it’s entire service history: The upgrade of the engines to high-efficiency fusion torches, making the vessel removed from the need to fuel.

Unfortunately the conditions for the pilot and two-man team were still very cramped, and it felt as if the air was being shared between the three of them.

“Well…” The Pilot began, “Where are we going first?”

The token woman of the crew was looking at her map- a holographic plate projected over her lap by her PDA (the old systems of the Porter were never capable of holograms, after all). “Uhm…. There.” She said and pointed out the window.

It was the right side of ‘the rim’, which Mara S’jet had proposed was the closing aperture for the giant vacuum. Nobody seriously believed that it WAS a giant space vacuum, but Mara was so insistent…

“Ok…” The pilot said, “Any word on what we’re looking for?”

“Anything interesting.” The Engineer reported, “Anything obvious. Anything out of the way.”

“So like a door left open or the nite-light still on, right?”

“Something like that.”

“OK.”

The three rode in silence for a bit as they all listened to the hypnotic drone of the drives rumbling behind them. Then the Woman looked around the cabin and asked, “Does this thing have air conditioning?”

“Not likely.” The Engineer replied.

“No.” The pilot answered, “They built this thing with the intention on taking away enemy starships. Creature comforts was not a concern.”

The woman fiddled with a control. “You’d think with two sets of engines and a better reactor they could have added air conditioning.”

“Sure,” The engineer replied, “And a bathroom, and a stereo speaker system, and a-“

“We’re in space.” The pilot replied, “In a space ship. This isn’t a luxury SUV.”

“…What’s an SUV?” The Woman asked.

The engineer turned to her, “Don’t mind him, he’s a Giledan. They have strange acronyms where they come from.”

“Hello? Sport Utility Vehicle? You mean you’ve never heard of that before?” The pilot quipped.

The engineer winced. “What does Sports-“

“Hey!” The woman declared, “I’m picking up energy readings from an area of the debris field! Move closer… uh…. Nav 338, 7830.”

“You know, you could have just said, ‘the debris shaped like an L’.”

“…That doesn’t look like an L to me.” The engineer replied.

“Well whatever!” The pilot grumbled and turned the Porter to move closer to the derelict.

They passed through progenitor fragments and remains, all of them slowly drifting without any purpose. The Porter waded through some of them, and dings and dents on the hull made the Engineer and the Woman shudder. “That doesn’t bother you?” The Engineer asked. The pilot shrugged.

Before long they were right next to the L-shaped ruin, and the Porter stopped before it. “Funny…” The woman said as she used the Porter’s sensors, “It looks like something…crashed into it.”

“Really?” The pilot asked and craned his head to look around the derelict.

“Yeah,” The engineer added, “a small little bit of debris… I think I can see a hull ID code too.”

“Can you read it from here?”

“All I can tell you is that it begins with a big S.”

The woman groaned, “Somtaaw. Can we go anywhere without eventually having to deal with their mess?”

“They seem to get their fingers into everything.” The engineer added.

“Speaking of messes,” The pilot said, “It looks like whatever it was got hit by a bowl of spaghetti. I mean, look at that.”

“Spaghetti?” The woman asked, “What’s Spag-“

RrrrooOOAAaaRRR!!!!!!

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Homeworld 2
Refute
----------------------------------------------------------------------

There was darkness.

“What the hell just happened?” The pilot asked.

“I’ve got a headache…” the woman muttered in the dark, then asked, “What’s Spaghetti?”

“Seriously,” The engineer said, “Now is not the time to be asking-“

SIIiiLLEEEnnnnCCCEEE!!!!

Indeed, there was silence. But only for a moment.

“Uh, what was that?”

YYYOuuuurr NNEEWWW OOVVERRRRLOooorrddDDD and MASSsstttEERRR!!! IIIii HHAAVVEE-

“You sound like a chick to me.” The pilot said, “Shouldn’t it be Mistress?”

Iiiii HHAVVeee Nooo….GENDeerrrR.

“Oh.” The pilot replied.

“Wait,” The woman said, “Echoing voice, subversive entity….” She gasped, “The Beast!”

“The Beast?” The engineer added with equal alarm, almost emphasizing wide-eyed horror in his tone.

“You mean that bedtime story?” The pilot asked with no exasperation.

WHHaaTT!!

“Seriously, I heard it when I was a kid. A big scary monster from,” He warbled his voice accordingly, “Hyperspacee….oooohhhh!! That takes over your brains and turns you into red gooy ooheyyy!”

III DOOO. ANNnnD HaaAAVE. YOOUu Aarrre NOOWOWW aaa PARTTT offf MmmmEEEEE.

“….I don’t believe it.” The pilot said.

“What!?” The woman almost screamed, “You Can’t believe it!? WHERE DO YOU THINK WE ARE!?”

The pilot shrugged. “I dunno. Dreaming. Must have been some explosion to knock us into collective comas.”

“Could you try to take this seriously?” Asked the Engineer.

“I am. It’s you guys who are running around screaming the sky’s falling down.” The Pilot answered.

EEENnnOOUGGHHH!!!

“Ok wise guy,” The engineer asked, “If this is a coma, then what the hell is talking to us?”

“I dunno. Maybe the sum of all our pessimistic fears… or the collective mass of boredom from taking this mission.”

“You mean you honestly don’t think that’s the beast out there, talking to us and”

III ccaaANNN REnnDDD YOURrrr MInnnnDDD APPAArrrrtttt LIIKEE ANNN ONNIOONNNN!!!!

“…what’s an onion?” The woman asked.

“Not again…” The engineer sighed.

“Bullshit.”

WHHATTT!?

“You heard me. I don’t think you can.”

MOORRTTALLL!!! YOUUU HAAAVVEE AASSKKKEEDDD FOORRRR THHIIISSSS!!!!

“Woa…ahhh!!! AHHHH!!!!…”

…

“…Uh, pilot guy?”

“Yeah?”

“You aren’t dead?” The engineer asked.

“No, I’m just explosively ticklish. Don’t tell anyone.”

“…what’s explosively-“

IIiimmmMPOSSSiiiBBLLEEEEE!!!!

“Like you’re one to talk. ‘Nano-technolgical virus…from hyperspace ooohhh!. Even I know Hyperspace isn’t some evil alternate dimension that houses strange and malevolent discards.”

The woman asked, “But I thought the Somtaaw scientists concluded that the Naggarock picked up the Beast in Hyperspace.”

“Shows how far their heads were up their asses then,” The pilot said, “Or maybe because their best brains were turned to Jell-O and they left the interns to do the thinking for them.”

“Wait,” The engineer said, “He’s right. Hyperspace is a temporary effect created by the hyperspace module. Power goes in, the wave turns on, and it ends when power is discharged from the module. It doesn’t send the ship anywhere, just pushes it at super-luminal speeds in a wave that ignores inertia and physical objects”

“You mean it doesn’t propel the ship into another dimension for travel?”

“Hells no. Where did you hear that?”

“Well…uhn… that’s how it happened on that TV show…Baba-something.”

“You mean Sargon 7. That’s science fiction.”

“Well… we fly around in spaceships…”

SIIlLLLEENNCCCCEEE!!!! Nnnnoowww….yyoouuu wiilll oooppeerrraattteee yoUurrr vessellll to briinggg mee bacck toooo myyy paarrtsssss…. To buuillldd….annnndd connssuUUUmmmeee.

“Make me.” The pilot replied.

IIIiii DdooNNnnttt haaAAVVVeeee ToOOoo….”

They all heard the sound of the corvette’s engine starting… then stalling and dying.

……

“Well, so much for that.”

“How old is this thing anyway?”

“It’s a retrofit of one of the originals. Bought cheap. So figure a hundred years….”

“This wasn’t one of the ships from the exile was it!?”

“Hells no.” The pilot said, “Built just after I guess. Some clown filed off all the service numbers, so it’s impossible to tell.”

“Then how did it get started in the firstplace?”

“…It isn’t easy.”

YYOUUU WIILLL TEEELLLLLL MEEEEEE!!

“Not unless you ask nicely.”

…

“I can’t believe this.” The engineer said, “You’re not even afraid of this thing?”

“Why should I be? There’s only one of it and three of us. Besides, it’s not hard to make fun of a thing you don’t think exists anyway.”

“…But then what do you think is happening?” The woman asked.

“Meh,” The pilot replied, “Probably something more interesting than my usual day.”

EEENNOOUGHH!!! Thenn….I SHAaaallLllLLl SUmmmMMoonnn MYYY KIINNN….

An Ear-splitting whistle broke the silence.

“Ahhh! Jesus!”

“…Whose Jes-“

“Stop with the strange words!”

“I’m sorry I don’t have my Normal-to-Hiigaran dictionary with me. WILL YOU STOP THAT?”

MUAaaaHHHaa HAAAhhhAhhhhhAHHHHHAAAAAAAAaaaa!

Then it stopped.

There was silence for a moment.

“Didn’t they clear out the rest of the beast though?” The woman asked.

“It took…what…three crusades before it’s finally over with?” The engineer asked.

MYyy KIInnn RESPOnnnDDDD!!! SoonnnNNN THE FEEEeeDDDINNGGG shalLLLLL BEEGiiinNNN!! AaaannnnDD THEEERREEeeee IISSSS NOOttthiingngggg YOUouuuuu Cannn DOooooOO AAAabbbBOOUUUTTTT IITTTT!!!! MUAAAHHHAAAAHHAHHHHAAHHAHAAAAA!!!

“…I guess not.” The engineer replied.

“Great. And we helped it. We helped to bring the beast back. SAJUUK FORGIVE US!!”

“Not much we can do about it now…” The engineer said over the Woman’s sobs. Hearing no quip from the Pilot, he asked, “Hey… pilot?”

“Yeah?”

“Where’d you go?”

“Oh, I just set the Corvette’s engines on terminal overload, and sent a transmission to the Audacious About what’s going on.”

WHHAATT!?!?!!!!

“Well, I figured if you’re some freaky hive mind thing and we’re a part of you, then I can fiddle with the controls too. It’s my body in the cockpit after all.”

III CCAANNNN STOPPP YOOUUU!!!

“Nah-ah. The thing about Rionna’s Ride is that not only is it incredibly hard to start, but you need to keep cycling the coolant in the port side magnet array to keep the fusion reactor from overloading. There isn’t enough coolant to do it now though, or bring it back from beyond the safety limits.”

“Wait,” The woman asked, “Is that why you asked me to keep flipping that one switch.”

“Uh-huh.”

A siren started to shrill in the darkness.

Someone was taking a deep breath.

“Great. Here we go again.”

N-

-------------------------------

There was a small flash of light.

“What was that?” asked one of the operators on the Hiigaran carrier Audacious.

“I dunno,” Another answered and checked the registry, “I think it was the Porter we sent out there.”

“Collision, or…”

“Hey, what’s happening to the derelict?”

The huge ring-shaped structure was lit up now and spinning.

In the bridge, all heads turned to look at the spectacle before turning to look at one another. “What happened?” “What’s going on?”

“Uh, ma’am? I’m reading about three hundred hyperspace contacts….”

“Isn’t it wonderful?! Someone turned it on!”

Particles of light started racing from space and into the hole at the center. The ring was spinning incredibly now.

The three hundred spaghetti-covered spaceships resolved from hyperspace and turned as one to face the carrier… but started flying in another direction. All of them were headed for The Hole.

Mara was jumping up and down with excitement. “And by the Breach Block, we won’t get sucked in!”

By the dozens the ships were pulled into the hole and whirled around a forming whirlpool before getting drawn into a single black point, vanishing entirely by the needs of the plot. It took twenty minutes for the entire array to complete drawing in the last of the newcomers…even right down to the lone recon fighters that tried racing away from the hole. In the end, none escaped.

Then something fizzled and broke, and a link came off of the spiraling ring.

Somehow the sound of gurgling water shuddered through the ship, and the ring started to spin down as friction with the bearings cut down its momentum.

But Mara was enthused. “See!! SEE!!! I TOLD YOU IT WAS A VACCUUM!!!”

Someone at the back broke the awed silence. “More like a toilet if you ask me…”

-----------------------------------------------------

And so the great mystery of Progenitor waste management has been solved.

[Khar Makaan]

What... the... helll? oO
Those 'spaghetti covered' ships were Beast right?
And you've found nothing else but make them disappear into some "toilets" made of a (quantum) singularity/blackhole? x)

Well, then that story is hilariously silly
Besides, i like a lot how goes the talk between our 3 crewmembers of the Porter and the Beast Entity

[Chrome]

That story is hilarious. Irreverence to Cata definitely does well with the humor here. I especially like the dynamic between the 3 crewers and an increasingly frustrated Beast.

[doberman211]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA is all i have to say.

btw im new here because my hotmail wouldnt work so i got on Yahoo mail. I'm amazed by your stories Norse, Children of Kadesh i like and the seccond one too. but reading these is just plain hilarious! XD

[Talros]

They are all nice, but I dont't like the spaghetti part. xD

[Chrome]

Pod Person is my favorite simply for the hilarity of it. Norse got Makaan's lines so beautifully done you can imagine him saying them in the voice...that voice...

[Khar Makaan]

Eep...
The Voice :x
The french version of Mak's voice in the game is clearly much much much less... err... 'interesting () than the original version ^^

[Chrome]

Obviously they got a really good voice actor for the English version...good enough that I have heard otherwise perfectly straight men proclaim that his voice was sexy.

(Unfortunately one night I decided to watch a YouTube of the cutscene before the final Sajuuk battle, and I have Makaan's Sajuuk-Khar speech permanently stuck in my head. Along with the awesome music. Damn, that voice.)

Hey, Norse, you doing any more shorts anytime soon? I'd love to read more of this kind of Homeworld humor that you've developed.

[Tristan Sjet]

Beast spaghetti sounds nice
can't wait for the next one

@Chrome i always thought he sounded like pierce brosnan

[Norsehound]

You guys know it's the middle of November don't you?

I have one idea that I thought up for Halloween, but NaNo takes precedence right now.

[Norsehound]

The Hiigaran laughed so hard he spilled his drink out of his nose. Recovering, he breathed and exclaimed, “Come on! That story?”

Several heads in the establishment had turned to look at him. This was in orbit of Dareen, one of the worlds bordering the Vaygr area of conquest and thus saw traffic from both the Core and the Rim of the universe. Today, there were more from the latter than the former.

On the other side of the table was a Vaygr, bold-faced and stoic despite his counterpart’s hysterics. “But it’s true,” he said, “There are witnesses.”

“Yeah right,” The Hiigaran said, “The Beast was a hundred years ago, and nobody believes that story anymore. Wooo-oooh!!” He waved his arms, “I’m a frekin’ mass of nano-mites out to eat you alive! My God…”

The Vaygr blinked, serious still in his conviction and undeterred by the Hiigaran.

A Taiidan at another table gestured with a hand, speaking to the Vaygr, “Don’t listen to him, what the hells does he know?”

“Plenty, since I come from the Core.” The Hiigaran snapped to the Taiidan, and then ignored him as he turned to the Vaygr. He considered the man in black and red for a moment while he adjusted his seat and said, “Ok wise guy, if you’re so knowledgeable in this and think it’s so true, then answer these facts. The Beast is Impossible. The Beast has been dead for a little under a hundred years. Anyone touching the beast would have been infected, or so the myth claims, and the bigger it is, the worse. Infecting a friggen mothership? Come on….”

“Then perhaps you need to hear the tale.”

“Pft,” The Hiigaran waved off, “Fine. If you wanna hear the sound of your own voice.”

A patron sipped at his drink at the bar as the Vaygr bowed his head and began the tale.

-------------------

The Blood

Norsehound

-------------------

We were in deep space. Somewhere. It was months into the invasion. We were all partaking in the assault on the core, waiting for Karan Sjet to show herself so Makaan could begin his plan to trap her. In those days, we fought everywhere and with wanton abandon. Makaan himself seemed impassive to the voraciousness of his armies, as long as they caused mayhem and discord.

I can’t remember why we were there, only that there was a reason. Makaan seemed to think there was a purpose… nothing he did was without a purpose. We were there, in space, when we found It.

I didn’t see it myself, but I know It was there. Because we heard the screams but there was no battle. And then there was the chaos as these… these things that were once our vessels came roaring back at us and refused to listen or speak to us. They just came.

We fired at them, but they seemed stronger than they should be, and more resilient and more driven than any fanatic we could count in our ranks. They were smeared with blood, these ships, making it seem all the more like a nightmare while we were awake.

We tried hard to stop them, but they came. The carrier Irha-Dosh had been lost, and it’s full compliment of mute, blood-stained warriors had turned against us… against Makaan, and now came after us. Because they did not recognized their fellows, and because they worked to defy Makaan to whom we all sworn allegiance, we knew something terrible had happened. No soldier in the Squadron of Makaan would ever desert

It was all so dreamlike, those hours of insanity under the veil of that nameless, ruby nebula. The Irah-Dosh had changed, also smeared with blood and bleeding beams to smear the hulls of other ships. It was chaos, madness, as these vessels ‘touched’ by the blood also turned into mute traitors who hunted their brothers. As the madness spread, chaos started to rise, and the screams became louder.

Until Makaan spoke.

His voice was across all channels, giving commands and speaking like the God we assumed he would become. His flagship issued forward, becoming a wall that we, his soldiers, covered behind as we faced the blood-stained traitors. Despite the hits the Great Ship took, Makaan gave us a shelter where the damaged could repair, and the shocked could find shelter.

Until the ships of Blood touched his craft.

There are stories of blood and chaos as the tides of red ripped inside of the ship. I was only aware of the chaos and the screaming inside, as I was awaiting the repair of my fighter. I remember the wide-eyes and terror, I remember survivors having escaped from the other side of the ship. They claimed a tide of blood, consuming those who fled before it and had no escape. A call went out to all those who could serve and fight, and being Vaygr I volunteered to take up a weapon and defend my lord.

There were so many of us that volunteered that the Great Hall where Makaan did his planning was filled with people. Tables had been overturned and arsenals collected from across the available parts of the ship. We heard stories of entire sectors of the great vessel going silent- even moments after the ship of blood touched our craft. But we poised, ready, for it to come.

And come it did.

You can never quite capture what it was to see the Blood. It flowed almost like water… or worse. At first it gushed through the doorway, pushing it outward and spreading forth as a mass of gelatenous red. But then I remember someone panicking and pointing, and all of us looking at the walls where it leached out of the metal like water oozing through a wall.

And then it took it’s first victims, washing over them and dissolving them. I saw a man consumed up to the waist and sinking. Another, running to escape, was splashed by the Blood. He screamed as he toppled over a barricade, where it spread and consumed the people behind it. Blood and bones also dissolved under the ichor.

But we fired. Ammunition flowed from our weapons like water into the tide, and it seemed to hold the blood at bay. Explosions worked, but fire worked best of all. Hope rose in us as a pair of plasma-throwers moved forward in the ranks, until the blood welled up beneath their feet and consumed them.

At the sight of this, many panicked. The thing was coming through the floors… and the cealing. It seemed the end for us.

But then… He walked. He left his dais and walked forward through the ranks of the warriors and the broken alike. He strode without pause, without hesitance, and walked up to The Blood. I just watched him, all hope of my own having long evaporated. I wasn’t sure if He intended on facing the end with Dignity, as he faced all other things. But he seemed… seemed to glow. I wasn’t sure if this was just corruption from the lighting, or the madness from the situation, or whatever. A halo seemed to be around his head as he walked forward, facing The Blood.

In that moment I was focused only on Him. Makaan. The savior of our people and the changer of all things. He walked up to the blood, chest and head held level as he approached the threshold. “You will leave my people alone,” He decreed, “and never again scourge this universe.”

I cannot believe, even to myself as I recount this story, what I saw next. He struck the blood, screaming, with a fist of white and the blood shriveled. A sound like the breach of a hull deafened all of us, and when I looked next, the blood was gone. Only the spaces where it had warped and erroded the metal remained.

And then… Makaan, He Whose Hand Shapes What Is, turned his head as if to stare into space, and for the second time there was a mighty glow and a scream- a crack of sound not unlike a sudden breach in space. We all covered our ears, and our eyes, since the shock was so great.

I learned later that all the ships touched with The Blood dissolved on their own accord into dust. Nothing remained of those ships touched by whatever it was. We left that space not long after, and we put in at the Port of Biblos to effect repairs on The Great Ship. Makaan himself said nothing, and every person there had a different account of what we saw that day…

--------------------------------

The Hiigaran laughed again. He did so for several moments, and so hard that he lost his drink. He recovered, saying, “You’re Delusional! Mad! Insane! Just like the rest of your race.”

The Vaygr only blinked.

“Gotta say,” The Taiidan said, “The whole thing of Makaan being a God? That’s a little far-fetched.”

“Finally,” The Hiigaran said, “The oppressive genocidal maniacs agree with me.” He turned to look at the Vaygr, “Buddy, your leader wasn’t a God. If he was, why in the seven hells did he allow himself to die, huh? Why did he let The Goddess carry off the core if he coulda just mind blasted her or something? If he was so fruggin great then why did he loose?”

The Vaygr searched the air for answers, but was forced to decline his head a degree. “I do not know.”

The Hiigaran only nodded, recovered his drink, stood and said, “Well, have fun with your delusions, buddy.” He turned, gave a rude gesture to the Taiidan and then dropped the drink on the counter before leaving the establishment.

The Vaygr folded his arms and sighed as he stared into his own drink. The Taiidan turned away before he too, left the establishment.

But the man at the bar, after paying his fee, stopped for a moment to approach the Vaygr. He laid some coins down on the table. “Have faith. Remember, some legends have a grain of truth in them, no matter how fantastic the tale.”

The Vaygr looked up. He did not see the face of the man who had said this, but he did see the back of the man’s bald head and confident stride.

----------------------------

Science can scoff, but we know what really happened.

[Chrome]

Oh, damn Norse, and you say you hate Cataclysm?

That was awesome.

I love the idea of a Vaygr perspective on Makaan, and his behavior. How his being a god would shape their beliefs, and what he would do. I think the way you narrated the Vaygr's story here was dead-on for these warriors of the fringe. Naming it the Blood was also very apt. And Vaygr strike me as the sort who probably could repel the Beast by sheer force of will.

The only problem I have with this is how easily Makaan turned the Beast around. If this guy's telling it factually as he saw it, that seems almost a blatant Mary-Sue in his behavior.

To make matters worse, if he could do that, why didn't he do it sooner before the Beast cost him several ships, and hundreds of his sworn followers?

[3DMARINE]

Because it was a mental Hadouken, and he had to charge it.

[Norsehound]

Take the vaygr's story as you will. Whether it is pure delirium, a story he's parroting, or actual real events is up to the reader to decide. This is the story idea that I conceived back around November but only got around to writing it just now...

[Chrome]

Ah, I see. Propoganda.....truth......or a tall tale?

I like those kinds of "mystery" stories, when you don't quite know what is true or not, and have to sort it out yourself.

I could see you getting into a longer story where the skeptical Hiigaran in this decides to do some investigating to find out what was true or wasn't. And perhaps wondering if the guy who dropped off the coins had anything to do with it...hehe.

[Norsehound]

“What?”

Lieutenant Fitaan put a finger to his lips and hushed his coworker, before turning to look back into the bridge. Both under-officers were just outside the entry into the bridge of the Taiidan carrier Tahiin-So. Both looked inside now, to wonder if Ensign Kiirid’s exclamation had been heard by their Captain.

Fitaan turned back to the girl and pushed her down the hall, getting away from a potential cause of being court marshaled. When they had crossed several intersections deeper into the ship, Fitaan continued, “It’s the captian’s discretion. We have no choice in the matter.”

“But we’re supposed to be on patrol! Aren’t the Hiigarans our enemies? What are we doing abandoning the patrol routes?”

Fitaan took in a breath, and then sighed angrily, “We’re off to help a Hiigaran outpost from attack by the Vaygr.”

---------------
Homeworld 2:

An incident

------------------

The Galactic scene had… changed… irrevocably so thanks to the Vaygr invasion. What was once swathes of ‘quiet space’, occupied only by the Ukabeh freelands and the Alcogorans, was now the range of the Vaygr.

Without their charismatic leader to guide them, the Vaygr had turned wild. Though they no longer pushed into core space with a driven purpose, what they had conquered was now theirs. Forever. Unseating the Vaygr from the space they now held as theirs was said to require five times the amount of ships in the Hiigaran inventory before the war.

And the Vaygr were brutal. Makaan at least gave them a purpose, a creed, and a motto to follow. But Vaygr turned wild, with no leader, were now subject only to the whims of their desires. They now preyed on the Hiigarans when they could- taking plunder and wealth when they desired from the enemies who had slain the greatest man they had ever known.

One area particularly susceptible to Vaygr raiding were the twin “breakwaters” of Ur and Tarsus. Though they were home to the last bastions of Hiigaran military might in the eastern fringe, they were not invulnerable, and neither were the colonies and worlds that surrounded them.

Mycon-5 was an asteroid in the Mycon system that had been set up, at first, as a listening base. Traffic and refugees overflowing from Tarsus had seen Mycon transformed into one of five havens for the disposed Ukabeh refugees.

It was now being raided by a Vaygr pirate force.

Or so they had been told.

In the mess room of the Tahiin-So, many junior officers were clustered around a map that someone had appropriated and laid out on the table. While the original owner was gone, the underlings of the ship had taken turns coming to the table to look at where, exactly, they were going.

Fitaan had been on the bridge recently, and of the crewmen assembled around the table now, he knew what was going on. “Here,” he said, “And here.”

He had just pointed to where Tahiin-So should have been. Their battle group had been tasked with patrolling an empty, unclaimed area of space to survey the space traffic present there. It wasn’t just the carrier, but several frigates and utility craft as well. The Imperial council had put them out here for a reason, and their commander obeyed the orders.

But now he had changed them, turning the craft and sending it to the response of a distress signal.

“This place,” A pilot said, leaning over in his black imperial flight suit and tapping the planet purposefully with a glove, “Is at the rear of Tarsus. Why in the hells would there be anyone under attack there?’

“The Vaygr are mobile.” A medical officer in bright teal said. With attention on her, she elaborated, “Vaygr ships move fast. How else could they have covered the entire east that quickly?”

Fitaan nodded, “A Vaygr battle group could cover the same amount of space we could in only half the time. Their Hyperdrives might be cheap knockoffs that burn out on occasion but they are really fast.”

“But why are we helping the Hiigarans?” Someone asked.

An uneasy silence fell over the table at that question, and there was the sound of feet shuffling. Many were staring at the ground or away.

“Captain’s orders.” Someone said, dressed in Engineering orange.

The medical officer said, “Its refugees in distress… women and children…”

“Heh,” The pilot said, “Hiigaran and Ubekh women and children. Tell me why I should care?”

Fitaan sighed while Ensign Kiirid piped, “But they’re neutral! The refugees didn’t have anything to do with the war!”

The pilot turned to face the girl, sniffed, and said, “When we Taiidani were refugees, what empire held out a hand to rescue us? Which hand wasn’t striking us for being Imperial Taiidan? The only reason we have space to begin with is because we pushed others out of the way… the weakest.” He huffed an ironic laugh, and then continued, “If the Ukabeh and Hiigarans have a flank so weak they need help, I say let them suffer. Better to the Vaygr, who lost their chance at civilization because of them.”

“Commander!” The medic cried.

“I mean it!” The pilot replied, “If I had to loose all four of my grandparents to starvation and fighting during the migration out into the fringe, then the Ukabeh could stand to loose a few ancestors themselves. This is the fringe, not the cushy core. Why are we helping those who emasculated our great empire and supported an a corrupt republic that usurped the name Taiidan?”

“Because there are women and innocents on that station that did not choose to fight!” The medic replied.

Both the teal and the black suited officers stared at one another. Finally the Commander averted his gaze, stiffened his face, and said bitterly, “I will go where my Emperor commands me to, but in this case I will not go willingly. I only hope my ancestors can forgive me for aiding the descendants to the hands that killed them.” He turned and strode from the room.

Others of the assembly parted silently, each conflicted with their own thoughts. Fitaan remained seated at the table, looking at the map.

With the space cleared, Kiirid took a seat next to the bridge officer. It was a moment before she asked him, “What are we supposed to do, Lieutenant?”

Fitaan played his finger across the rim of a cup beside him. “The Taiidan empire isn’t really known for ethics and morality… especially Riesstiu’s empire, under which we technically remain.” He dropped his finger to the table, sighed, and continued, “Many star empires harried the Imperial Taiidan after the fall of the empire, including Ukabeh. Settling in the Imperial Fragment wasn’t easy, and there was a lot of blood shed on both sides. In that way, there are a lot of grudges to go around. So what is just here? Helping the wives and children of enemies who gave us no quarter in the past? It’s a lot to ask of us Taiidani to turn the other cheek… especially we Imperials, who have been branded as evil and irredeemable since the first Homeworld war. If nobody expects us to give quarter and mercy, who are we to suddenly give it?”

“But do we just let those women and children die at that habitat?” Kiirid asked, staring at the spot on the map.

Fitaan shrugged, “Realistically, it’s not our problem. We’re not obligated to help them. In fact the Vaygr might be drawing important tactical assets away from places where we could use intelligence. Maybe shoot some of the ship’s we’d like destroyed. The pilot’s right, if the Hiigarans open a weakness they deserve to get blood drawn from it. That’s what the Taiidani have learned, anyway.”

Kiirid lowered her head. “It’s just wrong to exploit someone else’s misfortune, though.”

Fitaan sighed, then said, “Were it a perfect universe, of course. But like the pilot said- nobody gave the retreating Imperial fleet aid when we were headed out into space. We had to conquer and hold what we have today. Nobody granted us amnesty.”

Fitaan stood. “Regardless, we are on our way to help the Hiigarans, whether there are women and children there or not. Karma will be satisfied, and we can sleep well tonight knowing we saved some lives. Lives of the enemy no less, but lives all the same. Lives that, perhaps in a few generations, might be told to kill us.”

Fitaan turned and walked away from the table just as conflicted as those who had left earlier.

---------------------------

Mycon was a desolate system.

Something happened in the ancient times, when the system was formed, to prevent any planets from forming. Stellar dust had been scattered far and wide, leaving only one rocky planet in the system that was barely the size to quantify the title. There were a number of asteroids here though, and until recently it was deemed a quiet system.

Until the Vaygr came.

The raiders were from Crusade Aviird, and were clothed in crimson with grey stripes. Their signet was a single four-pointed star with a hollow center. Nothing too fancy, but it was enough. It had been the signet of Crusade Aviird for generations.

Ships of these colors were attacking the station. The Battlecruiser leading the charge, Allvyna, was at a distance between a pair of carriers while strike craft harried the base.

The Defenders comprised of a destroyer, half a dozen frigates of varying configurations, and an ancient Kushan carrier loaned once to the Ukabeh freelands. The ancient Imperator-class carrier was hanging beside the Modern Hiigaran destroyer called Evartan Fair.

Aboard that Destroyer was the Daughter of the Ukabeh Lord-King in exile, Tallea.

The short princess wore her crown perched on her head, and looked quite out of place among the Hiigaran and Ukabehian officers. A childish face was also marred by impatience and anger as she screamed at the carrier commander, “Why CAN’T YOU!?”

The man recoiled away from the monitor on the other side out of fear, as the Princess’ anger radiated from his monitor. He swallowed and tried explaining with reason again. “We don’t have any RUs in stock! All of them were expended reinforcing our forward line!”

“Well then GET SOME! SOMEWHERE!” The Princess shrilled, looked around, and then pointed to a frigate, “Scrap that ship! I want some Pulsar corvettes!”

Some of the officers were looking at one another, but it was the Imperator’s Captain who voiced their thought, “M-M’lady-“

“Ahem.” The girl corrected.

The Captain swallowed again, “Princess Tallea, we don’t have the manufacturing pattern for Pulsar corvettes. Even if I were to scrap one of our valuable Flak frigates, we don’t-“

“I am the Leader here, and I will give the orders! DO IT!” She shrilled.

“Princess!” Someone called, “Several ships detected coming out of hyperspace! Taiidan signals!”

“Taiidan!?” She cried, turning to the holo-tank and watching the forms appear out of hyperspace at a distance… and on the Vaygr’s flank. She growled, “This isn’t fair!”

“My lady!” The communications officer cried, “My lady, the Taiidan announce they are here to assist! They’re launching an attack against the Vaygr!”

“Really!?” The Princess shrilled, “All right! Yeahaaaa!!”

--------------------------

On the bridge of the Tahiin-So, the officers were quiet as they went to their duties. Some exchanged glances, unsure of the insanity they were performing.

But on his seat, Commodore Thollus was quite stern in his resolve. He stiffened his jacket, crossed his legs, and commanded, “Communications, open a channel with the Vaygr armada.”

“Aye.” The officer replied tonelessly.

As the Carrier was an older model vessel, it did not have holographic screens or projection devices. However, it did have a few forward monitors set in the ceiling within view of the commander, suspended over the forward station pit. The Commodore stared up at one of these monitors now as the Vaygr responded.

It was the face of a boy, perhaps in his mid twenties. He was handsome, but his face was contorted with creases across his face. He looked Angry, but then all Vaygr were angry, so it was always the same. Thollus took in a breath and commanded, “Vaygr forces, this is the Imperial Taiidan Carrier Tahiin-So. I cannot permit you to attack civilians at this outpost. Withdraw now or suffer the consequences.”

“Who are you?” The Boy replied.

Thollus wasn’t quite prepared for that, but nodded and said, “I am Commodore Thollus.”

“And I am Sten, oldest son of Koravell, Crusade-Lord of Aviird who perished this morning when our Shipyard-vessel was attacked by this harridan. Do not interfere, Taiidan, this feud is between me and her.”

“Regardless of your feelings, Sten,” Thollus said, “I won’t permit any further action against this base or the population on it.”

“And I won’t permit ignorant Taiidan interference. This is none of your business.”

“I’m making it my business, son! Unless you withdraw from your attack on the base now, consider yourself targeted by our forces!”

The Vaygr boy shook his head. “It is your choice, Taiidan.” The transmission ended.

Thollus turned to point a hand, “Launch fighters.”

Taiidan interceptors launched from the carrier, and frigates moved accordingly.

One of the Vaygr carriers broke off and launched two squadrons of laser corvettes from its belly. One flechette frigate, holding station around the Vaygr party, also broke formation to intercept the incoming Taiidan.

Ion cannons from the Taiidan force opened fire, and the battle began with a new front.

-----------------------------------------

The killing continued as the Taiidan drove their forces into the fray. Yellow and Red mixed with Black and White, while the Teal, grey, and blue forces were allowed to pull back. Once it was clear that the Taiidan would be in striking range of the Battlecruiser if they weren’t stopped, the Vaygr pulled back from the base to deal with the Taiidan, leaving the Ukabeh force time to recuperate.

Many of the frigates were damaged, and the wise assaults by the seasons Vaygr veterans had left few Torpedo and Assault frigates remaining. Only one of what had been four flak frigates was left.

The Imperator’s Admiral was trying to juggle combat forces, and a damaged ion cannon frigate was headed for retirement to construct something more useful. That is, until he was interrupted by the Princess. “What?”

“Hold your ships HERE! I want you to protect me!”

“But ma’… Princess Tallea, unless we support the Taiidan they’ll be crushed, and we’ll still have Vaygr to-“

“I’M GIVING THE ORDERS COMMANDER! SHUT UP AND DO WHAT I SAY!”

The transmission ended, leaving a flabbergasted Admiral. He turned to look at a subordinate, who only shrugged.

-------------------------------------

Laser Corvettes were no less effective against Taiidan starships, despite the different generations of combat space armor. The Ion cannon frigates were quickly targeted by the Laser corvettes, despite the best efforts by Taiidan strike craft.

No matter the opinion of the Taiidan in being here, they had to fight to protect themselves. Nobody skimped.

On the bridge, Fitaan was sweating. This was a doomed expedition. The Vaygr outnumbered them by a significant margin… a patrol force could not overcome an entire battlegroup. Though cloak generators were out in force, the Vaygr quickly found and destroyed them, taking away the one surprise the Taiidan had in store. Now the mongrels were systematically destroyed frigates in order of lethality to their corvettes- a popular Vaygr tactic. The capital ships hung back, waiting to move in once all threats to their supremacy were destroyed.

Fitaan knew the situation was dire and unwinnable, but he could do nothing. He was a mere deck Lieutenant, standing in at Resource operations. He had no say or authority to remove himself from combat or stop the madness. He could only sit in his chair and watch the madness around him.

As the last of the assault frigates exploded, the last of the anti-corvette force was removed. Interceptors tangled with assault craft as the lethal Laser Corvettes now turned their attention to the ion cannon frigates. But the single-weapon starships were starting to accelerate, breaking away from the lone carrier and token escort of fighters.

Thollus stood in his chair and took some steps forward, commanding into his microphone, “Duharr! Get your ass back in line! What in the…Duharr!!” Thollus swept his hand angrily away from the side of his face as he watched both banks of the Ion cannon engines recede away from his ship.

At first the battle ball of fighters was unaware of the change, but then suddenly the assault craft turned away from tangling with the Taiidan and raced to stop the Ion cannon frigates- which were going twice the speed they should have been. It was only then that the Vaygr realized that the Taiidan gunners were not powering their weapons to shoot at the closest Vaygr carrier.

The huge ship was already turning, trying to present it’s second-smallest face to the incoming Taiidan frigates. But the Taiidan were just as determined as the Vaygr, and the first Ion cannon frigate collided with the Vaygr carrier just underneath the bridge. It bent upward as it collided, and the structure of the Taiidan vessel wrapped around part of the Vaygr ship before the fusion engines went up- exploding and sheering off the bridge.

The Carrier was starting to turn from the explosion, but the other Ion frigate was closing to complete the job. The Vaygr Laser corvettes fired into the housing of the Frigate, hoping to blow the craft to smithereens before it destroyed their mothership.

While red spheres did go through the superstructure, it only started fires there. Momentum was already carrying the ship forward even as the engines were flickering in death. The nose rammed into the side of the Vaygr craft, and the Ion cannon frigate lost it’s forward prongs before the reactor exploded.

The force of the detonation was blown forward through the Ion cannon frigate- incinerating the crew but also flowing into the breach in the Vaygr ship. Fire blew out of viewports as the insides roasted, and then resource bins and volatiles exploded, breaking the Vaygr carrier apart.

A fireball and debris from the long sides of the carrier spilled apart in space, and the shock shook a number of vessels. It was the first Vaygr casualty in the battle already several hours old with many Hiigaran defenders dead.

Both sides watched the explosion in awe.

--------------------

While the Hiigarans cheered, the Princess had a new order. The Imperator’s Captain had to ask for it to be repeated. “What?”

“Attack them! Launch all of our ships!”

The Admiral turned and issued the order, “All ships, begin your attack on Vaygr forces.”

“AND The Taiidan!”

The Admiral turned. “M-My lady?”

“Ahem.”

The Admiral grunted, “Princess Tallea, I beg your pardon? The Taiidan came here to assist us.”

“And they are our enemies! Fight them Admiral!”

“…But…”

“They’re our enemies, Fight them!”

-----------------------------

The vaygr frigates died between shots from the Hiigaran and Taiidan forces, and then the Laser Corvettes fell victim to Torpedo frigates.

But about then it became obvious that the Hiigarans were attacking indiscriminately, as a torpedo squadron wiped out an entire Taiidan fighter group. Only one of the fighters from that squadron returned, nearly crashing his ship. The pilot was silent as he was carried away in a stretcher, eyes closed with silent fury.

Two Torpedo frigates fired loads at the Tahiin-So. Fitaan, looking out the window and seeing them, stood from his station and started to run into the exit of the bridge when they struck. When he was next aware, he tasted blood and his leg burned with pain. He pushed himself from the deck and looked behind him into the bridge, where only fire and debris raged. He couldn’t hear anything as his ears rang, and it was a while before he was next aware of where he was- in a corridor some space away from the bridge. Someone was talking to him and holding something at him.

Blinking, Fitaan realized it was an internal ship-comm, and someone was demanding orders from him. “What?”

“You’re the last of the bridge officers alive sir,” The officer was saying, “We need orders! Nobody knows what to do!”

Fitaan blinked, and was then aware of Kiirid next to him, eyes in tears as she held on to his arm. Blinking with shock, Fitaan ordered, “Pull us back… get us out of here, as far as you can.”

Accordingly, the Taiidan carrier turned on its axis and started away from the battle alone. All of her escorts and attendants were dead and fire was raging from her broken bridge.

But it was as if the Hiigarans were embarrassed, for they only halfheartedly pursued. None of the torpedo frigates fired at the retreating carrier.

They were more concerned with Allvyna closing on the outpost.

The Hiigarans had turned and were firing at the Vaygr ship, but the second carrier was shielding the massive Battlecruiser. Allvyna’s nose was aimed at one target.

“Admiral!” The Princess Shrilled, “Stop him!”

The Trinity cannon opened fire.

It took two rounds for the charged-up cannon to fire, striking the destroyer amidships. Explosions rippled down the length of the Evartan Fair and erased it from existence.

The second carrier also continued on course for the Imperator, but the admiral there was wise and reacted in time to turn his massive ship. The nose of the other carrier gouged across the shell-backed surface of the vessel, pushing it aside and rocketing by towards the asteroid base.

The hulk was headed for an artificial wall with lit windows, but thrusters fired along one of the sides to swerve and avoid the habitation block. The carrier crashed into naked rock then, dragging some across the surface before the reactors exploded.

By then, Allvyna had turned away, the last few strike craft and frigates shielding the final member of Crusade Aviird from certain death.

On Allvyna’s bridge, Sten watched and saluted the sacrifice of the last carrier of Crusade Aviird. The crew about him paused, shooting glances up at their Crusade lord.

“My lord,” The aide to Sten’s father said, “They are at our mercy. We can double back and pick off the frigates one by one, and then pillage the station.”

“We did not come here to kill, raid, or rape.” Sten replied and tiredly sat in his chair.

The aide watched the boy and said, “With the plunder, we might stand a chance.”

“No,” Sten replied, “we would not. The Hiigarans cannot hate us, as we’ve killed a source of their embarrassment. It might have been better to let that harridan live long enough to make more children fatherless and motherless, but I couldn’t permit it to continue. Honor is repaid.”

The aide nodded, then asked, “But what now my lord? We have no home left.”

Sten only stared into the space in front of his Battlecruiser, and then closed his eyes. “We’ll seek out the Alassai. Father had ties to them, maybe they’ll remember me.”

“As you wish.” The aide nodded.

---------------------

“They’re leaving.”

Fitaan looked up from the stretcher placed on the floor of the gymnasium. Many of the wounded were shuffled to wherever there was flat space, and nobody would be working out here in the gym.

Kiirid had stopped crying and was kneeling by his side to tell him the news. Fitaan only lowered his head back on to the pillow.

“What…” Kiirid asked after a while, “what was it all for? They didn’t even attack the outpost- that carrier deliberately dodged a habitation block! What….”

“What indeed.” Fitaan replied, then took in a breath, sighed, and replied, “I really wonder what the Commodore expected coming out here. Certainly couldn’t hope to curry favor with the Hiigarans…”

“We were saving people.” Kiirid replied.

“Didn’t look like they were grateful, did it? That Torpedo that took the Commodore’s life came from a Hiigaran ship. Sides, it doesn’t seem like the Vaygr were here to raid and pillage the outpost after all. Not today. If we didn’t show up, they probably would have finished their business and left.”

Kiirid looked down.

“Well,” Fitaan said, reaching out with a hand and putting it on Kiirid’s, “We made it out alive… at least we have that much.”

Kiirid was crying again, and her blond head came down to Fitaan’s chest.

Fitaan didn’t say anything, just stared at the grey ceiling over his head.

------------------------------

Never makes any sense…

I'm really not sure how I feel about this fic. I originally intended it to be something quite different... not as... unsettling... but it evolved into what it is on its own.

War is never orderly, there is no black and white. No 'good team' versus 'bad team'. When fiction reflects this, perhaps it feels a little more interesting and a little more real.

But war can also be senseless in some regards, as not all battles are fought with purpose, or with gains. I'm leaving this uneasy, perhaps senseless, fiction up because I can see it happening in the Homeworld war. Not every battle is a gain, but with every battle there is loss.

Depending on how I feel I may decide to take this down, but for the moment I'm posting it to remind those of the senselessness of war. It may be necessary sometimes, but it is a very tragic thing.

For atmospheric effect, the music I listened to for the latter half of writing this was Das Boot's Bedrohung.