Location: ISC Eastern Frontier; Military Exercise Zone.
Time: “Old Earth Time” 2293 A.D. January 20th
Captain Yabrin Tolluse had taken command of the ISC Warship “Harmony” several weeks earlier this year. First it had surprised him that he had gotten a command so fast, and secondly it had surprised him that he had gotten command of such a powerful ship. The ISC “Harmony” was a newly constructed and commissioned I-CCZ class ship, and to him and his newly staffed crew, she was beautiful as well as deadly. But with all it’s deadly weapons systems she was still new, and so was her crew. They were trained, as all ISC crews were, but not in real life. And that’s why he and his ship were here, to train. This section of ISC space had long been used by ISC Captains to take their new ships out in and put them though their paces. And so they had been running exercises for the last 3 days, battle exercises, navigational and ship control exercises, emergency repair, emergency evacuation exercises, everything that he could think of and some that had not occurred to the ISC Military trainers before. Yabrin drove himself and his crew as if the combined forces of all the Alpha Empires were after him, and him alone. And so it began to show, his new crew were beginning to take shape, obeying orders without hesitation and becoming proficient at their and their comrade’s duties.
“Navigation, set course for the weapons range, Weapons Officer, bring plasmas on line, I want to go though plasma exercises one more time before retuning to base”. “Yes Sir”, the answers had almost come in unison from the two officers, and it made Yabrin smile, yes this crew was shaping up very well indeed. The great bulk of the ship turned to starboard as the Helm Office and Navigation Officers set the course of the ship for the target range. For this small journey Yabrin allowed himself the time to read some of the Medical Officer’s reports on crew health and fitness. Half way though the report on emergency Medical exercises, a calm, but hesitant voice broke Yabrin’s concentration. “ Sir, I have a strange energy reading coming port side, approximately 1,000,000 units from our current position”, Yabrin looked up to see the Science Officer concentrating hard on the screens in front of him. “What kind of energy reading”, Yabrin asked? “Unknown, Sir” the Science Officer said as looked from panel reading to panel reading. “I can only say. Large, unknown, very powerful”. “Tactical, bring ship to condition red, Weapons Officer all weapons on line”, Yabrin turned and handed the data pad he was reading to his aid and said to the Navigation Officer, “Navigation set course for disturbance, Helm, make speed three quarters impulse. Navigation bring the ship to within 10,000 units of the disturbance and halt the ship. Tactical, set the forward shield to full strength and reinforce, Weapons, train all weapons to the disturbance, Science, begin sensor scans when we reach optimum range, Gentlemen lets treat this as a real threat!” Yabrin gave his orders in a calm, short manner and his crew obeyed will speed and effectiveness, whether this was a real threat or not, Yabrin was going to use this to gage the crew. And in the back of his mind, as if playing for the first time, was the lose of the last ship he commanded, “not again he thought, not ever again”.
The Imperial War ship Draconus began to fade into normal space, the ship it’s self shimmered as if one were focusing a lens on an object that had gone out of focus. There was no discomfort to the crew, but the unnatural feeling it gave one took training to over come. Captain Matthew Marius, master of the Draconus, had been though this many times, but it still gave him that uneasy feeling, even after all these years. “Tactical, I want all shields up and at full strength once the transit is complete. Weapons, all weapons full charge, Science begin scanning the area to a quarter light year range. Communications scan all frequencies”. Matthew walked the circle to each station giving orders to each of the station’s occupants as he spoke. And as he pasted each station the occupant nodded in acknowledgement, no longer did his people need to push buttons or flip switches to activate the machinery, no the bio connections his people had developed rendered that obsolete. The mere thought from the operator gave the computer the instructions it needed, that and the speed of the mind itself made Imperial War ships lethally alive. As the last shimmer past the Draconus solidified and was now in normal space, and in that moment the Tactical Officer spoke. “Captain, target moving towards us, sub light speed.” “Science” Matthews barked “full scan, Weapons, target that unknown”. “Weapons, belay that order”, Matthews turned to see who had dared to counterman his order, and standing to his right was the Dux Flavius. “ I am sorry Captain, the ship of course is still yours, but this is part of the mission, I will of course give the target to you if what I want to do fails”. “Of course my Lord, the Con is yours” Matthews said and stepped to the side of his commander. “Thank you Captain, Weapons target the unknown but do not lock, Science begin passive scans, and bury a override command in the scan, prepare to take over their computer systems on my command.” The commands were processed and cared out almost the instant they had been thought, the ship Draconus waited for the unknown to approach and Dux Flavius waited to see if what he had come so far for could be accomplished.
“Sir, we have reached position,” Navigation said. “What is that?” it was the Communication Officer that Yabrin was hearing. “Science report” Yabrin said as he and the rest of the command crew was fixated on the image on the forward view screen. “Unknown Sir, I just can’t read it, I don’t understand all our scans are being reflect right back at us.” “Easy crewman, find out what you can. Tactical, what can you tell me.” Yabrin said as he swung his chair to face his Tactical Officer. The Tactical Officer looked up from his panel and spoke, “We have not been targeted that much I can tell, but as to weapons, shields, all my scans are being reflected back also.” “Sir!” the Science Office had practically screamed, “We’re being passively scanned.” “Alright, Communications send a report back to base and try to hail that ship, Weapons give me a lock on that ship” Yabrin said as he swung his chair around again to face the view screen.
“Science report” Dux John said. “They are attempting to scan us, all scans are being reflected back.” “Sir”, “Yes Tactical” John said, “Target is attempting to gain a weapons lock on us, also I detect a communication beam.” “Communications” the Dux said, “Block all Communications in this area, Science can we now override their computers?” “Yes my Lord, I have all necessary data now.” Very well John thought lets see if this will work. The Dux walked over to the science station, “Take over their computers, shut all systems down except for life support and artificial gravity, and get me a language translation.” With the order came the thought, with the thought came the action, and a tight blue green beam shot out form the Draconus and struck the ISC ship.
“Sir, still attempting weapons lock” the Tactical Officer said, “but the reflection of scans is interfering.” “Sir communications are being blocked” the Communication Officer said. “Sir target has just launched a beam at us!” and now the Science Officer was screaming, and screaming in fear. Yabrin swung his chair around to face both the Science and Tactical Officers and said “Is it a weapon?” No sooner than the word weapon left the ISC Captain’s mouth than ever thing happened at once. The engines shut down, weapons went off line, shields drop, and communications went down, if fact the whole ship just turned off, everything except for life support and gravity no longer worked. Yabrin and his entire command deck crew and the rest of his ship sat or stood in a dark unpowered ship, no weapons, no shields, nothing. Yabrin turned to face the view screen expecting to see the unknown ship launching a full attack at his helpless ship, and he thought to himself “all I went though, just to die here, in my own space by another unknown.”
“Science your report” The Dux said, “Completion of commuter shut down accomplished Sir, all systems down except for life support and gravity.” The Dux turned and spoke to one of the Marine guards at the Combat Control sphere’s door, “have the Diplomatic Observer escorted here”, “Communication establish a link to the target, blank screen, text only.” Now we’ll see what we will see John thought, “Communications, status?” “We have established link Sir”. “Good, send this message exact words” the Dux said and smiled, this in a perverse way this was fun.
“Sir, unknown target has just established a communication link with us, text only.” “Can you put it on main viewer Communications?” “Yes Sir” the Communications Officer said, “I don’t know how, but when link was established view screen became operational”. “Very well, lets see what they have to say, and Tactical see if the crew can begin manual escape procedures.” “Yes Sir” the Tactical Officer said and began the task of passing face to face orders to the bridge crew and to have it relayed from deck to deck. “Sir text ready for display” the Communication Officer said, and punched the message transfer to the main view screen. Yabrin sat motionless as he read the message scrolling across his ship’s screen, in fact he had to read it several times before the words began to sink in, it was not a threat and not a demand for surrender. It really made no sense, but there it was, “GREETINGS WE ARE KNOWN AS THE TRADERS, WE HAVE COME TO TRADE. WOULD YOU CARE TO LOOK AT OUR MERCHANDISE?”
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