The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

One day I was bored and decided to write a small story.
Small story became a big story and I'm still not finished.
I'll be on vacation with my family for about two weeks, leaving on saturday.
I decided to post what I have right now. (Who knows, it might motivate me to finish it.)

It takes part in an alternate universe of the Starflight universe during the time of the old empire and the second wave. Any comments will be welcome and I'll have till tomorrow to help with any questions and hear those comments. So, have fun. (This is one hell of a big post, hope it doesn't annoy anyone.)

Defenders of the future’s past

Sparks flew from a broken conduit as the ship shook from the last violent explosion.
,,Report!” Captain Steven Cloudy barked as he watched the massive wreck of the helplessly tumbling Gazurtoid vessel whose engines had finally been blasted into pieces. ,,Main engines are destroyed, main shield generator offline, a hull breach on decks 3 to 10 and several smaller hull breaches on all other decks. Our armour is completely destroyed with the exception of several small pieces all over the ship. There are heavy power fluctuations and the ship has suffered heavy system damage. Main power core is offline and we’re down to batteries and backup reactor 3 which is moderately damaged. All other backup reactors are either destroyed, damaged beyond functioning, or their power conduits are broken so that they can’t provide power. Artificial gravity is going haywire all over the place, it’s probably safer to just shut it down completely. Those are the biggest problems to the ship, do you want to hear all the minor details?” Chief Engineer Jason Redburn responded.
,,No! Just try to get some power restored and shut own artificial gravity. We can’t maintain life-support like this. How long till we run out of power for life-support?” ,,Within five hours, less if backup reactor 3 breaks down. However, I can shut down life-support in non-critical areas, especially the places were we have an hull breach. If I also shut down the artificial gravity, I could stretch our limit to about two days.” ,,Do it. After that I want you to try to get as many of the backup reactors back online as you can.” He turned to the rest of the people on the bridge:,, All right, this ship is little more than a wreck, so get in your spacesuits in case life-support fails. Thylcknyss, see if you can get contact with an other ship.” The communications officer and only thrynn on board the ship shook his head:,, I’m sssorry captain, but the communication systemssss also ssseem to be destroyed.” The captain slammed his fist against the captains seat in frustration and cursed as a jolt of pain shot up trough his hand:,, Dammit! Unless we get lucky and any survivors of the fleet decide to try and salvage this ship, we’re going to be left behind!” For the first time in six hours the bridge was silent with the exception of the sparks flying of broken conduits and consoles. Then the doctor stood up. He was a small and silent man who was usually ignored after the crew had found out that it was very hard to maintain a conversation with the man:,, What about the ATAV’s? their communications gear is designed to communicate with the ship from the other side of a planet. Maybe we could use them to tell the fleet that we’re still alive.” Steven thought of the suggestion. If the ATAVS were still functioning they might just get out of this alive. If they were still functioning. The ATAV’s were all terrain assault vehicles designed for combat on planetary surfaces. They were equipped with shields, heavy armour, a powerful laser and twin missile launchers. They acted as the battleships of the ground forces. They could take a heavy beating, but could they’ve survived this? ,,Ok, sounds good to me. We will get in our spacesuits and try to reach them. We split up. Jason is coming with me to the ATAV’s, the rest of you will go with the doctor and try to help any survivors onboard the ship. OK, now let’s go!” They streamed of the bridge to do what had to be done.

,,Hold it sir, I’ll see if I can shut down Artificial gravity from here. This console seems to be still working.” Steven paused for a moment and watched as his engineers gloved fingers danced over the console. He’d thought it looked bad from the bridge, but it was nothing compared to the damage he had seen in the corridors. They’d not even traversed one of the twenty decks they had to pass on their way to the ATAV’s, but already had they walked past a hole in the outer hull leading to space and waded trough several compartments that were flooded now that the water storage tanks had ruptured. ,,Done.” Without the artificial gravity system holding them into place, every single bit of loose metal and plastic started floating along with the two men. They reached for the controls on their left arm and flipped the switch for the boots to attach them to the nearest wall using a combination of magnets and vacuum sucking.  Suddenly they heard Thylcknyss’s voice in their helmets:,, Captain, artifical gravity hasss failed where we are.” The captain flicked another switch on his suit so that he could talk to the Thrynn:,, Don’t worry Thylck, We’ve shut it down to prevent any injuries from the systems malfunctioning. Have you found anybody yet?”,, No sssir, We have confirmed five death people. But we will keep looking.”,, Ok, we will continue to the ATAV’s. call me if anything happens.” He switched back to his previous channel so that he could talk to Jason:,, Let’s move on.” They continued their slow walk through the heavily damaged corridor. Steven went into a room containing one of the missile launchers and stopped as he gasped for breath at the sight before him. Next to another hole in the hull a large section of the ships structure had collapsed into the room, completely blocking it. Among the mess drifted the dead body of a young man, a thick beam had slammed right into his chest. He knew this man who was actually still more like a child. The young ensign had been assigned to his ship two months ago when they had last visited earth. He had constantly been talking about beating back the evil squids and the Uhleck that threatened the empire. Steven knew that in a war people died, but he had never come face to face with it. It was a shocking experience to say the least. ,,Here’s one of those nameless heroes that fight this war without ever being remembered.” Jason said as he pointed at the dead boy’s hand. In his hand he still clenched a lever connected to the manual launch mechanism. While the atmosphere was being sucked out into space and the ships structure was collapsing around him, he had made the ship fire the missile that disabled the Gazurtoid vessel before it could completely destroy its enemy. Steven swallowed as he fought back his tears:,, If we get out of here then I’ll remember him. That’s a promise.” ,,Anyway, we won’t be able to go on like this, we’ve had to turn back and look for another path ten times now. We’re never going to reach the ATAV’s!” Steven looked at the engineer who had obviously lost all hope:,, There’s another way.” Jason looked flustered:,, But where?” Steven pointed at the large gap in the hull:,, If we can’t get there from the inside, then we do it from the outside!”

Light from the nearby star danced across the hull of the ship, showing countless scorch marks, dents, holes and scratches everywhere. The results of six hours of battle were clearly visible to the two space suited figures who walked across it while avoiding floating debris. What they couldn’t do within the corridors, they now did within just a few minutes. Within 25 minutes they made their way to a hole in the outer hull around deck 20 and went back inside the ship.
They stopped in front of a large door. The captain pushed a small button next to it, but the doors refused to open:,, Dammit. Looks like there is no power here. Jason, see if you can open it manually.” The engineer quickly grabbed a screwdriver, removed a plate in the wall covering the wires that operated the door, noticed the problem and reconnected the broken wires. With a screeching sound of bent metal scraping against bent metal the door slowly opened.

The ATAV’s were surprisingly intact. Though all of them had a couple of scratches and dents, the worst damage that Steven could see from the outside was a ripped of tread on one of the four heavy combat vehicles. ,,You start on the right one and I start on the left one. See if their communications systems still work and if they do send out a distress signal immediately!”
The two men climbed aboard the ATAV’s and tried the communications systems.
The first one Steven entered had its console smashed by a chair whose bolts apparently couldn’t handle the shocks the vehicle had been experiencing during the battle. When he tried the second one a smile appeared on his face. It worked! He activated the console and started broadcasting on all available frequencies:,, This is captain Cloudy of the Warhammer class battleship “Governor”. All systems offline, unknown number of crew death. Requesting immediate help, I repeat, requesting immediate help.”

Ok, it was too big, so I'll split it into lots of replies.

The battle of Alpha Centauri was a victory, but a costly one. All of the huge Gazurtoid vessels were either destroyed or disabled. However, of the fifty heavy warships in the empire’s fleet, only ten survived. Six of those were heavily damaged and barely functioning, such as the Governor, three had taken light to moderate damage and only one was undamaged. The losses suffered were even worse for the lighter vessels that were in the fleet, with over two hundred destroyed vessels of all sizes and another two hundred damaged. The ships that had survived best surprisingly, were the small single to triple seated fighter craft, whose small size and agility enabled them to avoid most of their enemies fire. The remnants of the fleet returned to Mars in the sol system and parked around the empire’s main military command centre,
ESF-HQ. Repairs were made to all the ships that could still be repaired, some however were to heavily damaged and were scrapped instead so that their materials could be used for something else.

,,WHAT?!!! You’re telling me that you want to place the Governor in your private space dock and do with it whatever your sick mind can think of?! I’m sorry mister, but it looks like you don’t understand that there’s a war going on here.” Steven shouted at the aging man in front of him. The man went trough his thick white beard with one hand and responded in a tone that was much calmer than that of the angry captain who was standing in front of him:,, Oh, I do understand that we’re currently at war with what the public calls the second wave. I assume that you would prefer to get it repaired and put back on the frontlines? With all the respect, captain, but your ship is barely worthy to be called a ship in its current state and the cost of repairing it would be astronomical.” Steven calmed down a little. At least this freak in front of him knew that the empire was facing its biggest threat since the attack by the phlegmak and Numlox nearly four hundred years ago. ,,I know that the ship is more useful if it’s scrapped and its materials reused for other vessels. But this is just ridiculous! While we’re all in really big danger now of being turned into cosmic dust, you want to put what used to be one of the most powerful warships in the fleet in a private dock and do absolutely nothing useful with it!” The old man smiled while looking how Steven slowly started to get control of himself again:,, Tell me, captain. Do you believe that we can win this war?” Steven started to get angry again as he realized how easily the man managed to manipulate him:,, Ok, you got me, I think we’re all going to get blasted within just a few years at most like this. After that, considering the genocidal tendencies of our opponents, there will be no more Humans, no more Thrynn, and all the other races in the sector will also be annihilated. Except for those filthy blobs who seem to have managed to actually ally themselves with those Gazurtoid fanatics.” The old man nodded:,, Indeed, we of the institute also have little hope for a victory. Because of that we are going to send out colony vessels to construct underground colonies who will remain hidden and ensure the survival of the species in this sector. We have already sent one out and we’re planning on sending many more. I saw an opportunity in cheaply turning the Governor into a colony vessel with above average firepower which would make it capable to travel to a system that’s just outside Gazurtoid space. We suspect that the Gazurtoid will never look for sentient life on a planet that they’ve seen countless times. This ship will carry samples of all kinds of plants and animals and sentient beings of the Human, Thrynn, Elowan and Veloxi races.” Steven finally saw that there was more behind the man’s demand than just another stupid idea of a multi-billionaire looking for a new toy. ,,Then what are you going to call it?” The old man smiled as he stood up:,, Noah 2.”

In a corridor bustling with activity from Institute personnel two people were talking.
,,Don’t worry, you’ll be much safer there than you’ll be here. They won’t find you on this planet that those Institute people for some reason have decided to call Arth.” ,,But it’s right next to Gazurtoid space. What if we run into one of their ships? We’re not flying a warship.”
The woman said as she looked trough a window and watched droids and engineers crawl over the hull of the massive ship that was docked inside the hanger. Steven sighed, how much he hated to just tell his wife and children to step on a colony vessel and go to a new planet where they might die, he couldn’t let them stay home, it was too dangerous. He was sure that someday, the empire would be defeated and all people who lived on Earth would be killed. He forced a smile on his face and tried to look much more confident than he actually felt:,, Don’t be so afraid of that. They may have changed the name, removed basically all weapons, replaced the computer with a model that’s more geared towards containing thousands of blueprints for machines and the history of the empire than one that’s geared towards blowing up stuff, but the Governor is still one hell of a tough ship. She’ll get you there safely, I promise.” The boarding claxon sounded trough the corridor. ,,Ok, this is it. Just go now and take care of the children for me will you. I’ll come and visit the colony someday, I promise. His wife smiled weakly:,, Steven, you know that you shouldn’t make so many promises. Some of them are just impossible to keep.” The smile disappeared as she finally said what had been on her mind ever since she heard that she and her children would become some of passengers onboard the Governor, now called the Noah 2:,, You’re leaving again, aren’t you? I mean, you’ll take command of a ship again and go fight against the Gazurtoid and the Uhleck. Why can’t you come with us? I’m sure there’s still room somewhere.” ,,I’d love to, but I can’t. As long as there’s still a chance that we’re going to win this thing and they’re willing to put me back on a ship, I’ll have to fight for the empire. Now go before it becomes too hard for us to say goodbye.” Steven watched as his wife walked trough the airlock and turned around for one more time before disappearing into the ship. It would be the last time he would see her.

The door buzzed to announce that someone wanted to enter. But there was no response from the person who had used this room for the last two weeks. The door buzzed two more times without receiving a response before it finally opened, though not with permission from the person who lived here. ,,Look Steven, you can’t keep sitting here forever to drown in your self-pity.” Jason said as he entered the room, the tool which he used to override the doors security systems still in his hand. Steven looked up, his despair clearly visible on his face. It was one week ago that contact had been lost with the Noah 2. Its last message told that they were under attack by the Gazurtoid and had taken damage. It was assumed that the vessel was destroyed. ,,Leave me alone.” He said and returned to stare in front of him without seeing anything. Jason however, put away the small multipurpose tool he was carrying, grabbed Jason by his arm and lifted him up rather ungentle. ,,You’ve been sitting here for a week now and it’s been long enough. It’s time to put you back on your feet and give you something to do before you simply die because you forgot to eat.” Jason managed to drag Steven all the way to a hanger on the other side of the station, helped by the fact that Steven wasn’t really trying to resist the grip of his former engineer. As they entered the hangar a man who was standing on a platform turned around to look at the newcomers.
   
 ,,Hello, it’s good to see that you’ve had time to come, captain.” The old man who had wanted to turn the Governor into the Noah 2 a few months ago said. ,,I actually dragged him over here, sir.” Jason responded, finally letting go of Steven’s arm. Steven looked at the old man who had indirectly caused the death of his family. He wanted to put his hands around that thin neck and squeeze really hard, but he felt too weak for it. ,,What do you want from me this time?” he said instead.
,,First of all, I’d like to tell you that I’m sorry about what happened to your wife and children, but I need your help.” Steven laughed, an unnatural laugh completely devoid of any happiness:,, You want my help? First you cause more damage than a fleet of Uhleck warships, and now you want ME to clean up your own trash?” The old man shook his head:,, you don’t understand captain, what happened to the Noah 2 could not be foreseen. I also don’t need you to “clean up my trash” as you put it. Instead, I’m presenting you with an opportunity.” ,,An opportunity? What is it this time?” ,,Bill Blakes is the name by the way. I want you to take command of one of the Institutes latest projects.” Steven looked at Blakes, filled with rage as he snapped:,, NO! I’m not going to put even the edge of my toe on one of those damned Noah colony vessels of yours! Forget it!” Blakes shook his head. He had never married so he couldn’t know how the man felt, but it was painful to see the damage it had apparently done to what he thought was a fine captain. He took a deep breath and finally responded:,, It’s not part of the Noah project. The vessel I’m talking about is docked inside this hangar. Please take a look.” Steven walked to the edge of the platform not quite knowing whether he wanted to take a look or not. The ship he saw was very different from any ship he had seen before. It was very small and graceful with four engine booms and more guns than he had ever seen on a ship twice as big. ,,Beautiful, isn’t she? It doesn’t have a name yet, but I’ve classed it as an Institute light strike cruiser. I first came up with this idea a couple of years ago. The ship I designed turned out to be a bit too lightly armed for what I intended so I put a blueprint of it in the Noah 2’s database where I classed it as a heavy scout. This is perhaps a mistake since it was more powerful than many bigger ships if fully equipped with class 5 technology and as a result definitely not what you’d expect of a heavy scout. I decided to try again not too long ago and this is the result.” Blakes commented when he saw Steven’s surprised look. Steven struggled for a few moments to get over the shock of seeing a ship that was so radically different from anything he had ever seen before. ,,Um, I haven’t decided anything yet, but could you tell me a bit about what this thing can do?” ,,Of course.” Blakes happily responded, knowing that he had already half convinced the captain:,, She’s equipped with the latest in drive technology. The engines are rated as class 7 and they all include a Tesseract device to dramatically increase their fuel efficiency. Its engines give it more acceleration power than any known ship in the sector and its range is as large as that of a Warhammer.” Jason quickly interrupted Blakes with a question of his own:,, I thought you said that it has got class 7 engines and some devices to increase its fuel efficiency? The higher the rating of an engine, the less fuel it uses. Even if it has got four of them, I can’t see how it’s range is only as long as a Warhammer. I would’ve expected it to have a longer range than a scout.” Blakes turned to the engineer:,, That’s a very good question, mister Redburn. Its engines are indeed more efficient with their fuel than any other ship currently serving in the empire. However, this ship is designed for combat, not exploration. It simply doesn’t carry enough endurium to get so far. Now I shall continue my explanation of the ship’s capabilities if you don’t mind.
Now where was I? Oh, yes.  Its manoeuvring thrusters enable it to do some extreme acrobatics, even at high speed. Its shields are class 5, something which is normally only found on the heaviest ships, such as the Warhammer class battleships with which you are familiar. The firepower on this ship is what I’m really proud of. The main guns are the two forward firing rapid pulse phasors which you can see on the sides of the bridge section. There are two class 2 lasers on the front of each of the four engine booms which are powered by any energy that’s left over when the engines are running at full power, something which you can expect in a combat situation. It’s got two class 2 turrets mounted on the top and the bottom of the ship that normally fire backwards to cover the rear of the craft, but they can also swing around to fire forward. Now, the missile launchers. There are 2 Photon torpedo launchers underneath and close to the sides of the ship.
Placed on the rear tail of the ship and situated between the engine booms is a Buzz bomb launcher. Buzz bombs are rarely used on a ship since you have to fly quite fast to avoid detonating them yourselves in a combat situation and it’s quite rare that an enemy is right behind you and fast enough for pursuit. But I decided to add them anyway, just to make sure that it could do anything you might want a warship to do, which includes making minefields. The armour is something experimental and called Adaptive Modulating Damage Controlling Phase Armour, AMDCPA or adaptive armour for short. This armour should be able to repair itself from any damage suffered and in fact adapt to whatever hit it so that an other strike by the same weapon would do less damage! The ship is controlled by an advanced version of a mechan computer and is called an Advanced Neutrosive Tachyon Processor, or ANTP for short. It has already passed the self-conscious test of professor Ekalim and can therefore officially be called an artificial intelligence!  It also carries an advanced fighter. Do you have any further questions captain?” Steven immediately came with his response. Blakes had been quite thorough with his telling of the ships capabilities in a combat situation, but he had forgotten about one very important thing:,, What about its crew?” Blake was quicker with his answer than expected, but he was the main designer after all:,, The ship provides excellent facilities for a standard crew but it can’t handle any passengers. There’s actually a bit more room for the crew on this ship than on your old one. Its standard crew consists of a captain, communications officer, engineer, science officer and a pilot for the fighter. All other duties such as navigation are performed by the ship’s ANTP. So what do you think?” Steven smiled, the first real smile in a long time:,, I like it! I’ll take it but only if I’m allowed to have my old bridge crew.” Blakes nodded:,, That can be arranged, but your doctor, Chief Pearcy, will take command of another Institute ship within a week. The ship is an Institute heavy missile cruiser but I don’t remember its name.
Your communications officer volunteered for the Noah 2 mission, so he won’t be available either, but we can always find someone willing to take that station. Also you never had a science officer on the Governor, so the Institute will provide you with one. Now, since you’ve decided to take the ship, it needs a name, so feel free to give her one.” Steven thought for a few moments and his face got grimmer as time passed. Eventually he looked up and responded in a grim tone:,, The Gazurtoid have taken my family and killed countless others, I’ve seen many of my crew being buried. They’ve gone too far.” Jason interrupted:,, So, what is it gonna be? How will you call her?” ,,Vengeance.”

Steven turned back to Blakes:,, How long will it take for you to get the crew ready, the ship all fuelled and me back in the position of captain?” Blakes smiled as he responded:,, The ship can leave anytime you want, the only thing I have to take care of is to register you and the crew and of course I’ll have to see if a science officer is willing to become part of the crew.” ,,Good, do you know by any chance were I can find doctor Pearcy?”
Blakes shook his head. ,,I do know where his new ship is.” Jason said. ,,I can take you there if you like. It is huge, more than half as big as an Gazurtoid Scout. I’m sure you’re going to get second thoughts about taking the Vengeance once you’ve seen her.” Steven smiled at the thought:,, Then what are you waiting for? Just take me there so I can get those second thoughts!”

Jason was right. It was a huge and impressive ship, even bigger than a Warhammer. As a result, it didn’t fit inside even the largest hangar of the station and was instead parked next to the station in open space and kept in place with two gigantic docking clamps that had been constructed just for this ship while a large number of airlocks extended from the station to the ship. It had been nothing more than a small piece of shapeless superstructure when he first came to the Institute station a few months ago to see the modifications that would be done to the Governor. The Institute engineers had done miracles to construct the ship in such a short time. It looked just as revolutionary, if not more, than the Vengeance. It consisted of a saucer like front end, followed by a short and narrow neck which connected it to a cylindrical main body. Attached to the body were three beams that supported the long cylindrical engines. The front of the saucer section contained numerous missile launchers and a small number of laser turrets were scattered across the ship. Steven halted an engineer who came out of an airlock:,, Excuse me, but can you tell me where I can find doctor Pearcy?” ,,doctor Pearcy? Sorry, but I don’t know a doctor Pearcy. I do know a captain Pearcy though. He is on the bridge of this ship. Just consult one of the consoles that are onboard for a map.”,, Thank you.” Jason and Steven entered the ship trough the airlock the engineer had come out of. Inside they found the ship crowded with engineers, robots and other people. Many parts of the walls and ceiling were removed so that an engineer could access the complex machinery behind it to conduct tests or add a new component. Steven was surprised by all this activity, he’d suspected to find a small number of engineers conducting simple tests at most. He commented about this to Jason. ,,Don’t you know this? It’s standard procedure during wartime on ships to construct the bare essentials and the outer hull first and then start adding all the not so necessary stuff, such as weapons. They’ll continue adding new components till mere moments before launch. And it’s quite likely that it won’t be completely finished even after launch and that the crew will add the last components while in space.” With the help of the few consoles that weren’t being used or non-functional, they managed to find the bridge.

They found Pearcy talking in plain air. To Steven’s surprise the small man also received an answer from a voice that reminded Steven of a nurse he once met in a hospital:,, Doctor, it appears we have guests.” Pearcy turned around and showed a surprised face as he saw the guests:,, Captain? It’s good to see you again. You’re looking well. I was fearing for your mental wellbeing after…never mind.” He said as Steven’s face saddened. ,,Please don’t talk about that. You have an impressive ship, captain.” Pearcy smiled, his command of the ship had seemed to change him and made him a lot more talkative and happier:,, Please, call me doctor. I may have the rank of captain now, but I always was and always will be a doctor. And yes, she is very impressive. I don’t know the details of what it can do, but I do know someone who can do it better than anybody else.” He turned back towards the ceiling:,, Why don’t you introduce yourself and tell our guests a little bit about you?” ,,Greetings, I am Enterprise.” The voice of the nurse responded. ,,As you may have already noticed, I am not a human being, I am called an ANTP, though you can see me as an artificial intelligence. At this moment, the ship is not fully functional, but I can give you a brief description of its specifications as stated in the primary bleuprints. The engines are class 6 and provide full power to the rest of the ship. I have 50 backup reactors, which is twice the number found on a Warhammer, the class of ship I am designed to replace. I have class 7 shields that create a 360 degrees rotating protective field around my structure. My fuel reserves allow me to cross this sector without refuelling. My sensors are highly powerful and capable of detecting even the smallest anomalies. I am designed to accommodate 200 crewmembers, the same number as the Warhammer. My primary purpose is border defence, scouting and heavy combat. To provide the necessary firepower for combat, I am equipped with nine forward firing photon torpedo launchers which are placed on the front side of the bridge section. I am also equipped with two class 5 Linear stream long range laser turrets and several class 3 laser turrets. My last weapon system is a Buzz bomb launcher situated just above the main hangar on the rear end of my structure. My armour contains an advanced Chronotrium web that provides the ability to adapt to energy discharges and heat. It is commonly called adaptive armour by the crew. Doctor, there’s an incoming message from ESF-HQ. Priority 2. Would you like to hear it?” all communications were given a certain priority, priority 5 was the everyday talking between ships about the latest news, random gossip and other non-important things. Priority 4 was used for standard ship operations. Priority 3 was used for messages dealing with a threat to a single ship. Priority 2 was a serious threat to multiple ships or even a solar system. The worst was priority 1. Priority 1 meant a serious threat to the empire and the rest of the sector. This priority was given to the increasing attacks of the Uhleck and the Gazurtoid.  Pearcy suddenly snapped to attention and fell back in his role as captain:,, Go ahead, let’s see what they have to say.” ,,I will now play the message.” ,,This is ESF-HQ to any ship in the area. A fleet of pirate vessels have warped in and boarded three ships that were at the moment only manned by a few engineers. All of them were Warhammers who where being repaired and refitted after returning from the battle of Alpha Centauri several months ago. Two of the stolen ships are not fully repaired and as a result only as powerful as a Meltdown class heavy cruiser. One however, is a fully functional Warhammer equipped with the latest in weapons systems, including a class 5 linear stream laser cannon, a powerful weapon that can fire a long sustained burst. Extreme caution is advised upon encountering these three vessels which seem to be heading for new Scotland. If you encounter these ships, I advise you to do everything you can to escape. All fluxes will be heavily guarded to prevent the stolen warships from easily getting to the other side of the sector. Also, all military vessels are ordered not to engage with the pirates unless you seriously outnumber and outgun them. We have already send a request to the Institute to provide their fastest ships to track them down. When they find those ships, they will call over the 3rd fleet to disable and recapture the vessels.
That is all.” Pearcy turned to the others:,, What do you think of that? Those pirates are getting bolder by the day. Now that they’ve got three Warhammers along with the rest of their fleet, they have the most powerful non-military fleet in the empire!” Enterprise interrupted Pearcy’s complaints:,, Doctor, I just received a message from Institute Starport. We are to prepare for departure within an hour. In the meantime efforts on installing weapons systems and the rate at which the fuel tanks are being filled shall be increased. Our mission is to locate the stolen Warhammers and distract them long enough for the 3rd fleet to arrive.” Pearcy looked at his guests:,, You better leave while you still can. I don’t like this, she’s not ready! At the moment, we only have got one of our photon torpedo launchers, and only the upper Linear stream turret! We just can’t handle a fight yet. Please, just leave.” ,,Ok, good luck, doctor.”
Steven answered and he and Jason left.
When they looked through a window at the Enterprise, they saw that all the workers were now located near the front of the ship where the photon torpedo launchers were. ,,I’ve got a bad feeling. At most, they’ll be able to install one photon torpedo launcher. I guess that they’ll load a few launchers onboard and try to install them within flight. Even if she’s completely finished, she won’t be able to take on three Warhammers. They shouldn’t send her in alone.” Jason said. ,,Then why do they do that?” ,,It must be because she’s the fastest ship in the fleet. There’s no ship ready that has got that kind of thrust.” Steven suddenly turned to the engineer:,, But what about the Vengeance? That guy said that she has class 7 engines! Besides, we’ve got four of them while the Enterprise only has got three. And finally, it has more guns than a Warwind class light cruiser, a ship that is more than twice as big! We have to help the doctor, come on!” He said as he stormed down the corridor with Jason on his heels. ,,But how are you going to fly it, captain? You’re not registered yet, so how are you going to convince the ship’s …” ,,If that bunch of wires doesn’t want to help, I’ll just have to do it manually. I have flown a shuttle before, I don’t see what kind of difference there would be between a shuttle and a ship. It’s probably nothing but a big shuttle.” ,,Yes, but this big shuttle has got much more complex machinery and makes a shuttle look like one of those antique rockets we used more than a thousand years ago before we got super-photonic engines.”

They arrived at the airlock leading to the Vengeance. In front of the airlock stood Blakes. ,,I know what you’re trying to do, captain.” ,,Then if you know that, then why don’t you get out of the way?” ,,Take me with you!” ,,Why? You know that it’s going to be dangerous.” ,,I want to be there, hear the humming as its power cores power up for the first time. I want to feel the vibration as its thrusters fire for the first time and push it out of the airlock. I want to see the first flash as it goes past the speed of light for the first time. Besides, you need me! This ship is my life’s work, my dream, my ambition! The Noah’s were nothing compared to this. I designed it! I watched it grow from a small idea in the back of my mind to the most advanced ship in the fleet! I know more about it than any other human being!” Steven looked at the scientist:,, Fine. You’re in, but I want you to do something helpful while onboard. Do you understand?” Blakes smiled with enthusiasm:,, Yes, off course! I’ll take the science station, from there, I’ll be able to do anything you might want. Your engineer is more than capable enough of handling the engineering station without too much difficulty.” They suddenly felt a slight vibration. ,,That must be the Enterprise, she’s leaving.” Jason said.
,,Ok, then let’s go. Blakes, you lead us to the bridge. I want to leave as fast as possible, we might be able to catch up with her.” ,,Off course, captain.” Blakes said as he entered the airlock. ,,But I must tell you, we won’t be able to launch for the next two hours. We have to wait till they finished topping off the fuel tanks. But this way please.”

They entered the Vengeance. From the inside, the ship looked clean compared to the Enterprise. Not a single small pipe was visible, everything neatly sealed away behind plates. ,,Hmm, I thought it would look different.” Blakes muttered as they entered the bridge. The bridge was different from any other bridge, just like the rest of the ship. There were three seats, all pointed at the main viewscreen, with a large console in front of them. The bridge was a bit cramped, but much more spacious than one found on a military ship of the same size, since there were a few seats less. ,,Oh hi dad, who are those two weirdoes you’ve brought with you?” A voice that resembled the translated voice of a Spemin much more than Steven would’ve liked said. ,,Oh, well, the man on the left is Jason Redburn, your engineer, and the other man is Steven Cloudy, your captain.” Blakes answered. ,,Your left or mine? Nah, doesn’t matter, one of them has got tools. So, hi dudes, My name is Anton. Ant from ANTP and on to make it sound like a human name. I am the latest and most amazing miracle in computer technology you’ve ever seen, so make sure you keep those eyes in their sockets before they plop out in amazement. Oh yeah, in case you were wondering, I changed the design. Thought it would be nice to have all the consoles here be able to perform any function you might like, so you can perform communications, science, engineering, medical, navigation and command duty from any of the three consoles you see here. Man, you dudes are so lucky to have me, all the other people are going to be so jealous!” ,,Anton is the ANTP and can be considered Enterprise’s younger brother. He’s got virtually unlimited memory storing power, so you won’t have any problems with running out of storing space for the rest of your life.” Blakes explained ,,Sorry to interrupt you, dad. But the fuelling is completed. So, everybody take your seats and let me handle the launch, I’m an expert at flying this thing and blowing stuff up with it in the simulator. I can’t wait to try out all the little gizmos inside it.” They all sat down in the seats that Blakes showed them. Jason sat on the left chair, Blakes on the right and Steven in the middle. ,,Umm, Anton. How do I activate these consoles?” ,,No problem, dude. There you go.” Anton said as the consoles came to life, showing a myriad of information. ,,I’d like it if you called me captain instead of this dude thing.” Steven said slightly irritated. ,,Sure thing, captain dude.”

As the gigantic doors that protected the inside of the hangar from space opened, a small vibration could be felt as the power core came humming to life. As the doors came to rest, the ship fired its manoeuvring thrusters and flew out at a gentle pace. The small ship attracted a lot of attention from the tourists that hung around the starport in passenger liners, shuttles and all kinds of public vessels.  These tourists came here to see the Enterprise, whose size was already legendary. This day, they got a lot more than what they’ve hoped for. First the massive Enterprise left on its first flight, and less than two hours later, a much smaller but not any less strange looking spacecraft was launched. ,,Hey captain dude, we’re clear of the safety zone, so will you finally let me activate my main engines?” Steven sighed, the ship was good, but its computer was simply annoying. ,,Follow the Enterprise and accelerate to maximum speed. Try to catch up with them, they’ve already accelerated to super-photonic speed.”
,,Allright, fasten your seatbelts, dudes, I’m gonna see if it’s as fast as dad said it was.”
The vengeance disappeared in a flash of distorted colours as it accelerated beyond the speed of light.

,,I found the Enterprise, captain. We’ll catch up with them within 25 minutes.” Blakes said as he triumphantly looked up from his console, which at the moment was configured to perform science duty. ,,Good. Now, I suppose you know a way of hailing them without having a communications officer onboard?” ,,But of course, It wasn’t in the original design, but if Anton didn’t made any mistakes…” ,,Are you trying to tell me that I don’t know what I’m doing? Man, first you’re officially called the most advanced computer in the galaxy, and then they start doubting your abilities.” ,,I’m not trying to say that, Anton. But I just need to figure everything out first, now that you changed the bridge. Now where was I? Oh yes. Captain, all I need to do is change the console to communications duty and I can do everything a communications officer can do. Here you go, I’m hailing them with the super-photonic wave array.” Within seconds, the main view screen lit up, showing the spacious bridge of the Enterprise. ,,Captain? How did you get in a ship? Look, we’re rather busy, we have to be ready in case we receive further orders from ESF-HQ and I can’t hold two different conversations at the same time.” Pearcy said a bit surprised as his view screen suddenly lit up to show the bridge of the Vengeance. ,,Hold on, doctor. We’re here to help.” ,,Help? I hate to say it, but  from what our left over sensors tell me, your ship is really small. Now if you were in command of a Warhammer I might let you help, but you’ll need our help more than we need yours if we get in a fight.” ,,Now wait a minute, dude. I hate it when people are trying to say that I don’t have any firepower. In case you didn’t notice, I outgun my big sis by at least 50% at the moment, so who is the weak one around here?” Pearcy stepped back in surprise:,, Who said that?” ,,I’m sorry doctor, but please forgive my younger brother for being so rude. Anton, we are tracking the stolen Warhammer’s tachyon trails, so I didn’t had the opportunity to scan you enough so that I could recognize you.” ,,Wait a minute. Let’s see if I’m still following you. Enterprise, are you saying that captain Cloudy’s vessel is also controlled by an ANTP?” ,,That’s correct, doctor. That voice and personality can only come from the second ANTP, Anton. The ship Anton is controlling is an Institute light strike cruiser. It is equipped with two rapid pulse phasors, which are similar in firepower to our Linear stream laser turret but a bit more effective against shields because of the fluctuating properties given to the beams. It also has eight class 2 lasers and two photon torpedo launchers. Its shields are class 5 and it’s protected by adaptive armour. It has got four class 7 engines, but a small fuel tank. It also has a fighter onboard. It can be safely assumed, that Anton outguns us by a considerable margin.”
Pearcy turned back to the people on his view screen:,, Ok, I think it wouldn’t be such a bad idea if we accepted your help.” ,,Good, then can you allow us to dock? We went trough the design for the Enterprise and noticed that there is a large docking platform on top of the main hull. You’ll have to drop to sub light, because according to Blakes, we’ll have to swing our lower engines upwards, so that we can land without ripping them off. This deactivates our main engines as a safety measure, so we can’t perform a super-photonic docking procedure.” Pearcy thought for a while:,, Good, it doesn’t look like we’re going to lose their trail anytime soon, so we’ll drop to sub light. But as soon as you are docked, captain, we’ll head back to super-photonic flight.”

The Enterprise raced trough space, slowly closing in on her prey. On top of the ridge on the main hull, just in front of the connection point for a turret that wasn’t fitted yet, the comparatively tiny Vengeance was nestled, like a mouse sitting on the back of an elephant.
,,Ok, is everybody here? Good. You may have noticed our guests. Allow me to introduce them to you. From left to right. Bill Blakes, designer of the ANTP and the ship that docked with us. Steven Cloudy, he was my captain when I served onboard the Governor, a Warhammer. Jason Redburn, he was the chief engineer onboard the Governor. Now, The reason why they are here is because they know more about the capabilities of a Warhammer than anybody else I know. Also, the ship they used to follow us is even more advanced than the Enterprise and until we get the chance to finish her, the Vengeance outguns us with ease.
And last but not least, we now have two ANTP’s taking part in this meeting, Enterprise and Anton.” ,,Hey dudes, how is it going?” ,, Off course we’ll first try to communicate and see if they surrender, but if that’s not the case, we’ll need some kind of plan to take them down. Now. Captain cloudy, could you please begin?” Steven stepped in front of the large screen that made up one of the walls of the Enterprise’s large briefing room. ,,Good, You all know a bit about Warhammers, and now it’s our job to try to teach you a little bit more about them. Enterprise, could you please give me a picture of one?” ,,Certainly, captain.” On the large screen appeared a rotating image of a Warhammer. ,,A Warhammer is the most powerful ship serving in the fleet at the moment. It is designed to be able to withstand the beating that a Gazurtoid vessel can dish out but it still needs to outnumber the Gazurtoid at least two to one if it has any hope of winning. The Enterprise could take on a Gazurtoid in a one on one if she was fully finished, but even then she wouldn’t be able to take on three Warhammers on her own. The main weaponry of a warhammer consists of class three laser turrets with three class five lasers pointed forward. The latest version also carries a Linear stream laser turret. This Linear stream laser turret luckily consists of only one barrel and therefore only half  the firepower as the one found on the Enterprise, since its engines can’t provide the necessary power for a twin-barrelled version. It also has three photon torpedo launchers. These are probably unloaded though, since the ships were being repaired but they may be operational on the fully repaired one. Jason, could you give them some information on what to go for?” Steven stepped back to allow Jason to take over his position near the screen. ,,Good, the Warhammer may not win a price for good looks, but its armour is a really tough nut to crack. Its engines are class 3 because that type is both relatively simple to maintain and repair, compact and offers decent power and speed. Because of the amount of armour around the engines, they are easy to hit but hard to destroy. The Warhammer does have some weaknesses which we may exploit though. First of all, its bridge is situated in a sphere on the end of a short cylindrical neck. This neck can be shot away, thereby forcing the vessel to be controlled manually without any centre of operations. Trying this would put you right in front of its forward firing weapons though and is not advisable. Then there are three cylinders connecting the two main hull sections. Destroying these would not help anything though, because the engines would still keep the two pieces together without any considerable loss in fighting capability, it would only become very hard for the crew to get from one part to the other. This is the target that I suggest.” The screen zoomed in on one of the engine booms to reveal a small device protruding from the thick layers of armour. ,,This is a super-photonic flux controller. It stabilizes the Tachyon streams that emanate from the engines and directs them away from the ship. If this is destroyed, the engines will be automatically shut down to prevent the uncontrolled Tachyons from doing severe damage to the ship. Without its engines, its firepower will drop to 10%, 20% if they shut down any non-vital systems. Its backup reactors won’t be able to support the shields, so these will drop also. The ship will lose 25% of its overall engine power with each flux controller that we destroy. Captain, could you please tell our proposed plan of attack?” Jason stepped back to allow Steven to step back in front of the screen. ,,To be able to target this relatively tiny target, we will have to approach from the side. A Warhammer luckily does not carry any turrets on the sides since the engines would block their view, but it does have two turrets placed both on top and the bottom of the ship that face sideways. The Enterprise is too big to hide within this blind spot. So here’s what I wanted to do. The Enterprise shall distract the Warhammers by shooting at them with all the weapons she has while doing as much damage as possible. Hopefully the Warhammers shall break formation and concentrate on the Enterprise, who can handle their guns for a while before her shields are drained. In the meantime, the fighters will try to sneak into the blind spot and take out the flux controllers while the Vengeance tries to take out their weapons from point blank range. The more weapons the Vengeance knocks out, the longer the Enterprise will be able to hold out, and the longer the fighters can try to take out their targets. If the Enterprise’s shields are drained, we’ll break of our attack and get out of their weapons range. From that point we will keep close enough for them to feel threatened, but too far to attack, until the 3rd fleet arrives. Also, since the Enterprise isn’t equipped with her full compliment of fighters, one of you will have to use the one onboard the Vengeance.” Steven was interrupted by Enterprise:,, We are approaching the target’s hyperspace threshold.” Super photonic engines warped space around them so that they could accelerate past light speed. Whenever a vessel travelling at super-photonic speeds approached an object whose mass was at least ten tons, the gravity of it would cause the warped space to collapse, thereby sending the ship back to sub light. The only gravitational field that didn’t affect it was the gravity of the ship itself, since the engines were fine-tuned to it so that the gravity didn’t interfere. The only way for multiple ships to travel in close proximity to each other at super-photonic speeds was to either have one dock with the other and shut down its engines, or by fine-tuning  the engines so that they didn’t interfere with each other. Doctor Pearcy stood up:,, Ok. Captain, please go to the Vengeance and start checking the systems. Professor Blakes, could you show one of my pilots were your fighter is? All other pilots will have to go to the hangar and start their flight checks. As for all the other officers, please go to your stations. Enterprise, I would like you to inform the rest of the crew to get ready for battle trough the intercom. That’s all, now go!”

,,Check shield projector grid.” ,,Checked.” ,,Rapid pulse phasors.” ,,Checked.” ,,Engine lasers.” ,,Lasers 1 to 8 are all fully operational except for number 3 who seems to have a small fluctuation in the power grid.” ,,See what you can do about it , but we don’t have time to conduct any big repairs on it. Allright. Anton, you take over from Jason with the checking. Check photon torpedo launchers.” ,,They’re both functioning perfectly, captain dude. There are 25 torpedoes in each launchers ammo storage.” ,,check Buzz bomb launcher.” ,,There are 50 Buzz bombs loaded, captain dude.” Steven and Anton kept checking all the vital systems for another 40 minutes without noticing any real problems. Steven leaned back from his console:,, That finishes our checklist. Let’s see if I can figure out how to get Blakes on the Intercom.” After a few tries with all the different buttons he found out how to change the console to communications duty. A few more button presses later and he made contact with a communications console that was located inside the small hangar onboard the Vengeance. He only had to wait a few moments before Blakes responded:,, Yes, captain? How may I be of service?” ,,I just called to ask if our Pilot has found his new fighter.” ,,Oh, he has found it. He’s currently looking at the controls, since he isn’t used to a light fighter. He’s always flown a heavy bomber before he was transferred to the Enterprise that carries medium fighters, so a ship that relies totally on speed and agility to bring its twin lasers to bear instead of firing missiles from long range requires a little getting used to.” ,,Good, tell him to shut the cockpit, we’re about to breach their hyperspace threshold. After, that, please come back to the bridge, I’ll tell Jason to come too.” ,,Off course captain, I’ll be there in just a few minutes.” Jason and Blakes arrived almost simultaneously at the bridge and sat down.

,,And, how’s that laser doing?” ,,I’ve taken a look and done what I could. It will probably hold out for a reasonable number of shots, but it looks like some of the wires that connect the ship with the cooling boosters are damaged. It would take a few hours to replace them, so I just tried to make sure that they don’t fuse as fast. There also seem to be some problems with the beam focussing field, so its beam will be a bit more diffused than should be and when the focus field projectors fail, it will start firing something more like a big wave than a beam and damage our own ship. I can’t do anything about that without getting out, and everybody knows that exiting a ship that’s travelling at super-photonic speed is just suicide. That’s all, the rest of the systems seem to be working just fine.” ,,Good. Blakes, what do you want us to do when we’re in combat?” ,,I will watch the status of the shields and try to rotate any weak spots away from enemy fire. It’s a completely new way of fighting. Instead of turning the weakened side away from the enemy by turning the whole ship and probably losing a good firing position, you just turn the shield without changing the direction the ship is pointing. Think of the tactical advantages such a ship would have over older designs like those Warhammers. It’s just..” ,,Allright, we got the point. Now, could you please continue, we only have a few minutes before we arrive.” ,,Ahem, mister Redburn can watch the status of the ship and warn when there are any problems. You, captain, can keep a general tactical overview by switching your console to command duty and coordinate our efforts with the other ships. Anton will handle the ships weapons and manoeuvring.” Blakes turned to his console:,, Looks like we’ll arrive in 60 seconds!” Steven quickly switched his console to command duty:,, Ok, everybody. Get ready to release the clamps as soon as we’ve dropped to sub light! Anton, tell our pilot to get ready for launch immediately.” ,,Allright, dudes. Fasten your seatbelts, this is gonna be one hell of a bumpy ride!” The ship rocked suddenly as the Enterprise breached the hyperspace threshold of the three Warhammers and was forced back to sub light.

,,Everybody, launch immediately! Hail those pirates!” Pearcy’s voice could be heard trough the speakers onboard the Vengeance’s bridge. ,,I’m flying away from Enterprise and entering formation. Our little pilot is as free as he can be, dudes.” Steven saw several icons appear on the tactical screen of his console. Three were three red boxes representing the Warhammers, one was a big blue triangle representing the Enterprise and the Vengeance was represented by a smaller green triangle. He saw several tiny red triangles emerge one after another from the rear of the Enterprise and move into a wedge formation behind the Vengeance, together with a red triangle that represented the fighter launched by the Vengeance. All in all, it wasn’t a very comforting sight. There were ten fighters, one light scout sized vessel and one huge Battleship sized vessel facing off against the three Warhammers. There were a large number of fighters, but they couldn’t do much damage to their massive armour and had to take great precision at taking their shots while avoiding the heavy fire from the Warhammers. Also, a scout sized vessel was basically a really big fighter with reduced acceleration and agility whose firepower was more meant to keep attackers at a distance while running away to the minimum range at which space could be warped again for super-photonic flight, than to attack battleships with. The Enterprise was even larger than a Warhammer, but only a little and therefore probably couldn’t handle even two Warhammers. Steven however, knew something that the Pirates didn’t knew. The Enterprise was supposed to be more powerful than two Warhammers, but she wasn’t finished and had a lot less firepower than even one of the Warhammers. The Vengeance on the other hand, was anything but a small and weak scoutship that should be running like hell right now. The Vengeance actually had more firepower than the Enterprise and thanks to its small size and high manoeuvrability and speed it posed a serious threat to a Warhammer in a one on one. This was what their plan was basically about. They hoped that the Warhammers would mistake the Enterprise for the biggest threat, until they would notice the amazing amount of firepower coming from the Vengeance. While the Warhammers were concentrating on the Enterprise or the Vengeance, the fighters would attack the engines, something which would look useless, until the pirates would notice all their systems shutting down after losing their flux controllers. For a few seemingly endless seconds the two fleets faced each other without acting. Then, the Warhammers all opened fire on the Enterprise.

,,Take the ones on the sides first, that way you only have to deal with the firepower from one of them, we’ll head for the left one!” The fighters broke into two groups as the Enterprise opened fire with two photon torpedo launchers and her linear stream turret. Within seconds, the black emptiness of space was transformed into a chaotic mess of beams and photon torpedoes with the fighters and the Vengeance weaving through it while moving towards their targets. Two of the fighters exploded when they were caught by a laser beam before they could get into the blind spot. On the bridge of the Vengeance, Steven watched the view screen and instinctively grabbed his seat as his ship narrowly avoided a laser beam. ,,We’re approaching to point-blank range.” Blakes said as he started scanning the large Warship that floated in front of them. ,,Good. Anton, think you can hit the targets I’ve given you?” ,,No problem, captain dude. I’ll blow these suckers sky high before they know what hit them!” ,,Fire!” The Vengeance let loose with a salvo of four photon torpedoes while simultaneously firing its engine guns and the two turrets that had swung forward. Less than a second after this Barrage started, the two pulse phasors opened fire, sending pulse after pulse into the Warhammer’s shields that lit up as they tried to handle the enormous amounts of destructive energy being unleashed. For a few seconds, the crew of the big Warship was surprised by the sudden violence that was being send at them. They quickly recovered and directed all of their available firepower at their nimble foe. But it was too late, as pulse after pulse rained down upon the ship, its shields were quickly beaten down and exposed the vessel to the fire coming form the Vengeance. Just as the Warhammer’s crew started to fear for their lives, the Vengeance stopped its attack and looped out of the range of their weapons. ,,Their shields are down and we’ve suffered minimal damage in return. Our shields will be back at full strength within just a few seconds.” ,,Excellent.” Steven said as he turned away from Blakes and turned his attention to Jason:,, How is that laser doing?” ,,Not good, it looks like the cooling boosters have failed and the beam focussing field projectors are about to blow up from the heat. If they blow, we’ll also lose the laser that sits right next to it from the explosion.” ,,Then let’s shut it down. Anton bring us back around, knock down the little bit of a shield that they managed to put back up again and knock down its guns, starting with those that are firing at the Enterprise!” ,,Got it, captain dude.”

The Vengeance turned around and accelerated back towards the Warhammer that had diverted its attention back towards the Enterprise, not noticing that the shots fired from the little fighters were constantly trying to hit the same area. They did however, kept an eye on the small ship that had beaten down their shields so easily just a few moments ago and immediately started firing everything they had in the direction of the Vengeance that easily avoided the shots and took full advantage of the fact that not all of the Warhammer’s weapons were functioning and therefore unable to make its barrage as dense as should be. This time however, the Vengeance fired in short bursts instead of a full barrage as it tried to hit the Warhammers weaponry. Explosions of damaged weaponry shook the ship as it was repeatedly attacked by the Vengeance. Within just a few passes, all of its weaponry had been disabled. Only a few seconds later, one of the other Warhammers lost power as its flux controllers were destroyed by a precision bombardment from the medium fighters missiles.
,,Our shields are down and they knocked out our weapons! I want all three of the surviving fighters to focus their attention on that last Warhammer! Vengeance, knock down those damned shields so that they stand a chance!” ,,You heard the doctor. Anton, get us over there and knock them out!” The Vengeance made a sharp turn and shot towards the remaining Warhammer as the Enterprise backed of under the constant barrage of heavy weapon fire striking the unshielded hull. With the Enterprise gone, the Warhammer focussed its attention on the next biggest threat. The Vengeance fired at its prey while throwing itself into all kinds of hard manoeuvres to avoid the weapon fire coming from the Warhammer. But even a ship controlled by one of the fastest computers in the universe couldn’t completely avoid the intense fire from the Warship. Just as it broke into a steep climb after severely damaging the Battleships shields, it got caught by the white hot beam coming from the Linear laser cannon. Its shields lit up brightly as they absorbed the cascading flow of energy that washed over it. Then, they collapsed allowing the beam to cut out a large area before dissipating as the result of the high power drain on the engines.

,,Dammit! What is going on?!” Steven shouted as the ship spun out of control and they were all subjugated to high g’s before the Inertial compensators managed to compensate for the harsh manoeuvre. ,,We lost control over the engines! They’ve shut down, but there’s also some heavy damage to the ship.” ,,Blakes, how could this happen?” ,,There must have been a problem with the shield projector grid. The shields were holding just fine and I was rotating the damaged area away from the Linear stream, but the projectors must have malfunctioned after which the shield started rotating so fast that the projectors couldn’t keep up and we’ve literally thrown our shields away.” ,,Jason, try to get us back under control. We’re a sitting duck and we’re right in front of that thing!” ,,Hey captain dude. Those fighters have all been destroyed when that Warhammer suddenly banked towards them and rammed them. They’ve also just accelerated to super-photonic speed.” ,,They did? Fine, just open a channel with the Enterprise.”

The view screen lit up and showed the heavily damaged bridge of the Enterprise. ,,Doctor, how are you doing?” ,,The ship has taken some heavy damage, but miraculously no one has been heavily injured. We have attached the boarding clamps to the Warhammer that’s lost its weapons, but we’ll have to wait for the 3rd fleet to bring any boarding troops. We won’t be able to follow that ship while still attached to the Warhammer, but even if we could, we wouldn’t be able to fight them. They must have noticed the fleet approaching and decided to bug out while they still could. But I saw that you got hit, so how are you doing?” ,,I think that my engineer can tell you a whole lot more about it than me. Jason?” ,,It looks like we’ve just had a classic situation of experimental equipment being put into action without any proper testing and breaking down. Apart from the fact that our shield projectors threw of our shield at the worst moment, We’ve also suffered heavy damage to one of our engines. But I think that we can get going again quite fast if we get some help.” Steven turned towards his engineer as a plan started to form in his head:,, How fast is fast?” ,,An hour and a half at most.” ,,In that case, doctor, I want to get every engineer that has a spacesuit to get over here and help us out. That way, we’ll be able to hunt down that last Warhammer before it can escape.” ,,Are you sure about this, captain? That Warhammer hit your ship pretty badly.” ,,Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.”
Apart from an attempt of the pirates to board the Vengeance, which was quickly halted when they nearly got hit by a pulse phasor, the repairs had gone smoothly and now all the Enterprise’s engineers were flying away from the small ship and returned to their own.
,,Good luck captain, you’re going to need it.” ,,Thanks doctor. Anton, go after that Warhammer as fast as you can.” As the Enterprise kept a firm hold of its prisoner, The Vengeance shot after its prey.

Blakes turned towards Jason after Steven left towards the little kitchen to get something to drink:,, Are you sure about this? I mean, we nearly got killed last time!” ,,Now don’t worry. I’m sure that he has a plan, he just needs to work out those little details that mean the difference between succeeding and ending up as space dust.” Jason smiled when he saw the panicked face of the scientist who until now had never even been in a fight. ,,Besides, you forget that he managed to keep the Governor going for six hours against a bunch of Gazurtoid. A Warhammer is a lot less dangerous than a squid.” Silence descended back on the bridge as Jason turned back towards his console to check how the hastily repaired engine was holding. Blakes looked over the design of the Warhammer for the tenth time and got increasingly worried. With the shields running at 50%, a Warhammer would turn them into molten metal within less than a minute. Steven came back on the bridge and put down three cups of coffee.

,,Captain, excuse me for asking, but do you have a plan?” Steven looked at the scientist while his mind started working at top speed:,, Off course I have a plan. A good plan.” ,,May I hear that plan than?” ,,Well, um…..It still needs some work on the details, but I wanted to approach from below so that that big turret can’t hit us again and then I wanted to knock out its shields while approaching and drop a few Buzz bombs on the Linear stream laser cannon when we passed over it. The problem is, We’ve lost half of our engine guns and the pulse phasors are down to 75% output. We won’t be able to knock out their shields on our first pass and we can’t afford to do multiple passes since our shields are also damaged.” Blakes now got really worried:,, So you basically hope for a miracle, right? Oh dear, I knew I should have stayed at home today.” When Steven sat down and grabbed his coffee, even Anton had stopped his enthusiastic talking about how advanced he was and that without him they would have been in a much worse situation.

Blakes leaned back from his console with an expression on his face that suggested that he had just found the most perfect paradise in the galaxy:,, I’ve got it! This just can’t go wrong!” Steven looked up as the silence on the bridge was suddenly interrupted:,, What can’t go wrong?” ,,Let me explain. Do you know about nebulas?” Steven nodded:,, Off course I know about them. If possible, all battles against the squids would be fought inside a nebula, it’s the only place where we can use missiles freely.” ,,Exactly. A nebula consists of gas and other stuff that is packed much more densely than the surrounding area. However, there is also a phenomenon called an ion storm. Ion storms are powerful storms of supercharged ions and capable of inflicting heavy damage to a ship, especially the ships systems. The Institute is working on a way to create a weapon that fires these storms to disable enemy ships, but we can’t seem to focus the storm enough to use it without hitting ourselves and anything that’s too close as opposed to just our target. Something else that nebulas are known for is the fact that for some reason, shields just don’t work in there. The Institute has also been working on a way to overcome this problem, but without success, the Uhleck seem to do it though. What most people don’t know, is that the shield failure is also caused by ion storms. Inside a nebula you’re constantly flying trough an ion storm, it’s just that in most places it can’t do anything more than knock out the shields while at some places it is powerful enough to take out all the systems before completely destroying the ship. Here’s what I wanted to do. I want to take a photon torpedo, remove the warhead and instead mount an improvised version of our ion storm gun. Then, when we get close, we fire it, the torpedo knocks out their shields and we will be able to fire directly at their hull.” Steven thought for a while:,, It’s the best plan we’ve got, so let’s get on with it. Blakes, you lead us to the torpedo storage area and tell us what to do. Jason, you come with us, we could use your talent. Anton, you’re in charge here, please don’t do anything stupid. That means, approach them so slow that they won’t notice and don’t get close until we’re finished!” ,,Aw, come on. You hurt my feelings, captain dude. I wanted to play with them.”

,,So, what do we need?” Steven said as the robotic arms carefully lifted a torpedo out of the heavily armoured storage bay and put it down on the rack that folded to clamp it into place.
The torpedo itself looked like a cylinder and was about as big as an average human. ,,First of all, we’ll need to remove the warhead.” Blakes said and looked as Jason opened the torpedo with the robotic arms and took out the spherical warhead. A torpedo was basically a set of powerful engines and a cannon that brought itself on a course towards the target before running out of the little bit of fuel it had. Once it had run out of fuel, it would launch the warhead. The warhead would then fly on a straight course in the direction the torpedo was travelling with much higher speed than the torpedo and detonate when it got close to the target. ,,Now, we need a power source that has got enough power to fire the ion storm. Several batteries from the spare spacesuits would do it. We’ll also need a superconductive rod, some wires, a microwave oven, and the rest we can just take from the warhead.” ,,Good, I’ll go get it. Jason, you help Blakes with the pieces gathered from the Warhead.”

After three hours, the torpedo had been modified and put in the ammo storage on the place where it would be the first torpedo to be fired. In the meantime, the Vengeance had been closing in on the Warhammer and was now half an hour away. ,,Captain, they’re gone!” Steven looked at the startled scientist:,, What the hell are you talking about, how can they possibly be gone?!” ,,They just disappeared from our scanners. Wait a moment. I’m detecting high amounts of energy and some peculiar fluctuations. It’s a flux!” ,,A flux? Why didn’t you warn me that they were heading for a flux?” ,,Because it’s not on the map, captain dude. If you look at my sensor logs, it appeared just at the right moment to let them trough.” ,,Great, what are the odds of something like this? Fine, head to maximum speed and take us in, I don’t want to give them a chance to escape like this.” ,,But captain,” Blakes interrupted:,, We don’t know where it leads. We could wind up on the other side of the galaxy!” ,,Now don’t you worry about this. In all these years, none of the races we’ve had contact with has ever encountered a flux that leads further than a couple of light years The worst that can happen is that we wind up in Uhleck or Gazurtoid space, and in both cases we’ll run like hell back trough the flux and let those pirates get blasted into smithereens. Now let’s go after them.”

The Vengeance accelerated to full power and quickly reached the flux. Without hesitating, the ship flew into the chaotic mess of distorted colours where space and time where bent in unknown ways. Just a few seconds later, it reappeared on the other end of the flux. Travel trough a flux was a matter of seconds, but in the same time you would travel many light years.
,,Now, try to find that Warhammer!” ,,I’ve got them. They’re about 0.6 light years from our current position.” ,,After them!” ,,hang on to your seat, captain dude. Here I come.” Within just a few minutes, the Vengeance overtook the Warhammer and both ships dropped to sublight when their hyperspace thresholds were breached.

,,Maybe we should hail them first. They might want to talk and then we wouldn’t have to resort to violence.” Blakes said as his confidence in his idea quickly faded when he noticed again how big a Warhammer was. ,,No, They didn’t want to talk to the Enterprise and they’re definitely not going to talk to a small and damaged ship when they’re the ones who damaged that ship in the first place. We’re just going to play this the mean and sneaky way. Anton, do it.” ,,You got it, captain dude!” The Vengeance accelerated towards the battleship, carefully making sure that it stayed behind the large ship while approaching at high speed. Laser fire danced across the weakened shields of the Strike cruiser. ,,Shields are almost gone! Captain, please stop this madness!” ,,No,” Steven said while looking at the display that showed their distance:,, Anton, fire.” A torpedo emerged from one of the launch tubes and fired its warhead towards the Warhammer. Before the battleship’s crew could respond, the warhead had already crossed the distance and detonated.

A bright flash erupted and the glow of the shields faded as soon as it appeared. ,,Shields dropping. 50%, 5%. They’re gone!” ,,Good. Anton, fire everything you’ve got.” ,,Finally!”
The Vengeance opened up on the Warship while suddenly breaking into evasive manoeuvres to avoid its fire. The deadly energy struck the unshielded hull now that the shields had been knocked out. On its first pass, the Vengeance knocked out the Warhammer’s rear turrets and strafed its upper area. As it passed over the Linear stream cannon, it dropped a buzz bomb from its rear. The heavy cannon exploded as the buzz bomb destroyed its systems while the cannon was preparing to fire. ,,That should be enough. Time for part two of the plan.”
The Vengeance turned around and attacked the Warhammer once more. The Battleship’s bridge was completely destroyed by the hail of weapon fire coming from the strike cruiser.
With its centre of command gone, the Wrahmmer was defenceless. The Vengeance leisurely destroyed the Warship’s remaining weapons and its engines before powering down its combat systems. ,,That cleans up this mess. Let’s hop back trough that flux and inform them that we’ve got a Warhammer ready to pick up. Blakes turned towards his console. Suddenly his face worried:,, Captain!” ,,What is it this time, Blakes?” ,,The Flux, it’s gone!”

,,Gone?! First it suddenly appears and now it suddenly disappears? I’m no genius at maths but even I know that the odds for something like this are astronomical. How the hell can a flux suddenly appear and how can it suddenly disappear?” ,,Well, it appears that this flux is rather unstable, it’s still there.” ,,First you say it’s gone and now you say it’s still there? What are you saying?” ,,It’s still there, but you won’t be able to jump through it. This may be how a flux is born. It appears to be going trough some sort of cycle between being active and non-active. It also appeared to be stabilizing which would mean that the times between being active and non-active are decreasing till it will eventually be active at all times.” ,,And how long are we going to have to wait for it?” ,,Um….Give or take a thousand years.” ,,A thousand years? I guess that that means we’re going to have to fly back the conventional way. Where are we anyway? Blakes, start checking our position. Hmm…That’s funny, I can’t remember seeing that nebula, at least not from this distance. It looks so big, I bet we could get there within an hour.” ,,Hate to disappoint you, captain dude. But it will take at least three days to get to the edge of it. We’re currently about fifty light years away from it.” ,,Fifty light years? Then how big is that thing?!” ,,Bigger than the Empire.” Blakes turned away from his console, now looking really worried. ,,So, Blakes. How long will it take for us to get back to the Enterprise?” ,,Over two hundred years.”

,,What the hell?!! Two hundred years?! Then what are we supposed to do in the meantime, take a nap? Great, I suppose we can go in stasis, but we don’t have the fuel to get this far. Allright everybody, buckle up. We’re going to pay that Warhammer a visit.” ,,Excuse me? What do you mean?” ,,We’re going to hop into a spacesuit, take some heavy engineering tools as weapons and take their endurium to use as fuel. I know it’s dangerous, but we don’t have any guns so we have to use what we do have. Got any better ideas?” ,,I’m not going, thank you. I would just get in the way. Jason should be enough help. But if you insist on going, you might as well try something better than spacesuits.” ,,Like what?” ,, Power Armour.”

It sure was a big difference compared to a simple spacesuit. A sensor suit detected every little movement he made and transferred it to a computer which analyzed and increased these movements by using the small servo’s that were embedded inside the suit. He could quite literally rip apart a sheet of titanium while wearing it. As if that wasn’t enough, there was also a layer of thick armour providing protection from all kinds of threats. It had a weak shield, antigravs and small thrusters. It also contained some heavy firepower from the integrated weapon systems. ,,Tell me, Blakes. Since when does a ship this small carry enough heavy gear to conquer a small city?” ,,Well, I wanted to include the best equipment known to the Institute and make sure that its crew could handle any situation. Please don’t tell me you’re not happy with this.” ,,Oh, I’m happy allright, but I’m afraid that we’re now suffering from having too much firepower instead of too little. Never mind that. Jason, let’s move out. If possible, use the flechetteguns mounted on the wrist of the left arm of this thing and use tranquilizer darts. I’d like to put them inside stasis, not turn them into a pile of dust.”

The airlock opened and the two power armoured men flew towards the Warhammer that floated two kilometres away. The airlocks had been sealed, but it was easy enough to enter the ship trough the gaping hole where once the bridge had been. The moment they entered, they came under fire by the pirates. ,,Just stop this pointless stuff.” Steven said as the glowing points of several lasers danced harmlessly over his suit. REAL lasers, not the Tachyon weapons used by ships and large vehicles that were commonly called lasers.  It was all over within just a few minutes. Apparently, all the pirates had massed near the bridge since that would be the most logical place for any boarder to try to enter. ,,Anton, dock with the Warhammer. Blakes, as soon as you’ve docked, I want you to help Jason with transferring endurium. I don’t care where you try to put it, just take every little bit there is. I’ll go hunting for stasispods to put these bastards in.”

They had been carrying endurium from the Warhammer to the Vengeance for two days before they finally had everything. Now the corridors and unused crew quarters were littered with the crystalline lumps that powered the ship’s engines. A few hours ago, Anton detected an unidentified spaceship heading their way. They’d been ready to fire if needed, but luckily it turned out that they had nothing to fear from the alien ship. Now, Steven was talking to their captain, a large snail-like being wearing a blue uniform. ,,What I would really like is a map containing information on the local beings and if possible, fluxes.” ,,Trading maps are for sale at the price of 150 shyneum pennies at which they can be bought.” ,,Hmm, I don’t have any shyneum pennies. Is there any other possible way to buy it?” ,,If you sell raw resources for us to buy, a trade we can make and do.” Steven looked at his crew:,, Any idea of what we might sell?” Blakes shrugged:,, Well, I suppose we can sell our furniture and the lights in the corridors among things, but that might harm us more than it’s worth.” ,,We have got something to sell.” ,,What is it, Jason?” ,,What about the Warhammer? It’s big and everything that might be better kept away from them has already been blown to pieces. The only advanced technology they might get from it is a better fridge.” ,,Sounds good.” Steven turned back towards the merchant:,, If we would sell our larger ship to you, what could we get for it?” The merchant thought about the offer for a few seconds. It wasn’t common to get the chance to buy a ship, even if it was damaged. And definitely not one as big as this one. Surely his reputation in the Humna Humna society would rise. All he needed to do would be to try to negotiate a deal that would be reasonably fair as to keep future trades possible. ,,200000 shyneum pennies we will give and offer.” How much do the map and the repair materials we asked cost?” ,,The total value would be 700 shyneum pennies it would be worth.”
Steven smiled:,, Consider this a deal. Say, do you have anything else to sell?”

In the end they had bought a large map that showed them everything they might want to know, materials to repair the ship with, a circular Humna Humna all-terrain vehicle, a humna humna translator and some general advice on where to go. They were ready to leave while the humna humna vessel would wait for some help in towing away the Warhammer to arrive.
,,So, where shall we go first?” ,,You don’t want to go back immediately, captain?” ,,No, we’re going to be late anyway, so we might as well do some sightseeing.” ,,Hey, captain dude. I heard that there’s a race here that has turned depression into a way of life. I’ve got to see that. Can we go there?” Steven smiled at the thought:,, It’s as good as any idea. Go ahead.” The Vengeance flew away, ready to explore this new sector.

,,Why don’t you just blow me up? Everybody else does. No need to be nice.” Steven sighed in annoyance. Anton surely wasn’t exaggerating when he said that the Dweenle were really depressed, and annoying. ,,No, really. This is the worst day in my life. If only I could go to the eye, then I could go back to the past where we were happy.” Steven suddenly focussed his attention again on the alien. ,,The eye? What is it?” ,,Why would I tell you? It would only make me feel bad. The eye is a gate to the past. It is at 244, 149. But I don’t see how that might be useful.”
,,Thank you. Goodbye. Anton, get us out of here. Let’s see that eye.”

The trip had been uneventful and they would reach the eye within just a few more hours.
,,Captain, why do you think this eye is so important?” ,,It’s quite simple, Jason. If we can use it to travel back in time, we will be able to get back home early. After all, we will probably wind up at a time where we aren’t even born! If we really get lucky, we could travel home at sublight without having to use the engines to keep us going, it would save a lot of endurium.”
Suddenly the ship rocked as it decelerated to a full stop relative to the weird ship in front of them.

Before any of them could respond, it had already fired its weapon at them. The blast struck the unshielded hull just a few metres from the bridge and made the direct area glow as it absorbed the heat. ,,Anton, get those shields up! Jason, did we suffer any damage?” ,,No, not a single bit, it looks like that Chronotrium web actually does have its uses.” Jason said, a bit surprised. ,,Aren’t you forgetting anything, captain dude?” ,,What else do you think I should do?” ,,Something like, blow them to pieces!” ,,No, don’t you dare to fire! Blakes, scan them and try to figure out if they’re a threat. Anton, why are you keeping us right in front of them?” ,,Because it will take over an hour for them to break trough our shields. These guys are pathetic.” ,,Pathetic or not, just take us to that eye.” The Vengeance easily outran the alien vessel till it was far enough to go back to super-photonic flight.

,,Now, whose territory is this anyway?” ,,According to the map we bought from the humna humna, We’re in the territory of the Ng-Kher-Arla. Let’s see, do not approach before the last ten cycles of the large cycle, then this area is inhabited by the hostile Ng or the strange Kher. Looks like we were a bit early.” ,,Okay, We should be getting close to the area. Blakes, put that map away and instead try to find that eye, whatever it is.” It only took a few seconds before the sensors registrated something interesting:,, Captain, I think I found something. It looks like a flux, only this one is simply off scale. I don’t suggest to enter without raising our shields, I’m afraid we would be crushed like an Elowan in a hurricane.” ,,This looks like what we’re looking for. Anton, raise shields to full power and take us in.”

The Vengeance entered the abnormally large flux and quickly started to rock as if it was passing trough an exceptionally strong ion storm. Just as its shields were about to fail, despite having every single bit of available energy redirected to power the shields, it reached the other end. Only to be greeted by the sight of  countless Plasma bolts that were more than twice as big heading its way.

,,Oh my god! Anton, get us out of here!” The Vengeance shot away like a bullet out of a rifle as it spun itself a way through the deadly storm. As it was about to shoot away at super-photonic speed, one plasma bolt managed to strike, ripping trough the unshielded hull as if it was made out of paper and completely tearing of one of the engines.

,,Jason, damage.” ,,Not good, that plasma bolt completely tore of the upper right engine, we’re limited to 50% thrust if we don’t want to cause our field to be unstable and non-symmetrical.” ,,Dammit, we’ll need to find a place to hide and repair whatever we can. Where the hell did those Uhleck come from?” ,,If I may suggest, there is a star nearby. I don’t detect any ships there. It might be safe.” ,,Fine, Anton go towards it.”

The heavily damaged Vengeance limped into the system, looking for a place to hide where it could lick its wounds. It was decided to head for the innermost planet, a lifeless, cratered rock where no one would want to live. However, it looked as if its luck had now completely run out, as a Uhleck warship raced towards it.

,,Oh great. Anton, turn around and get out of here!” The Vengeance started to make an attempt at running away when the already heavily strained engines finally gave up, letting it float around powerless while waiting for the destruction which surely would be swift. However, fate had other plans.

,,Captain, I..I.. don’t believe it, they are hailing us!” Blakes said as he saw the impossible happening. ,,What?! They only talk by shooting at anything that moves and doesn’t move! I always thought they didn’t even had communication gear. Put them on screen.” Soon enough, the screen showed the bridge of the large warship that now hung above the Vengeance. Something that looked like a floating green head started talking:,, Greetings, unknown beings. This is no time to be here. Go now, or surely our doom will also destroy you.” ,,Who are you?” ,,We are the Leghk. Soon we shall be gone, destroyed or united with our brothers by the beast, after which we shall be slaves for eternity. But, our sensors show that your ship is damaged. We shall bring you to our hiding place. There we shall aid you in repairs. After that, we shall send you out, away from this place and hope that you will never forget the Leghk and their failure.”

Whew, that's the last one. I didn't know I had this much. Oh well. To Be Continued I guess.

I haven't had time to read it yet, but you might want to post it here too (you should be able to get it through on one post):

http://p198.ezboard.com/finterstelcommcenterfrm1

I'd love to put it there, but either the link doesn't work, or more likely, the problem is somewhere with my internetprovider or my own computer :'(. I've been trying for a while to get there, but I always fail. I'll try to get some more up here when I come back from vacation or if I have time, tommorow.

I managed to write a litle bit more. I think that this is quite a nice place to end with before going on vacation, it really makes the whole thing beg for more. Well, here goes.

,,What is this place?” Blakes said in amazement as they followed the Leghk inside their hidingplace. ,,These are the halls of visions. Once, they told us of the brightness the future would bring, but now we see only darkness. You claim to be from the future. We apologize for setting this plague loose upon your families and homes. But, please follow me, I’m sure that the elders would like to see you.” They followed the Leghk into a large round chamber.
There, ten Leghk were floating around. The one in the centre floated towards the newcomers to greet them:,, We are the elders. The last who have not yet succumbed to the beast. Though your claim sounds like the truth, we must have proof. Your ship and race is unlike anything we’ve seen before, yet that is not enough. We shall use the halls to see for ourselves, the future that awaits you.” The Elders floated towards the centre, and began the ritual that would allow them to see, the future.

,,Virtue, Hyperion, form up and cover their rear!” A man shouted as he watched the gigantic space ship that filled his view screen. A small arrow shaped vessel appeared from the lower left corner, firing every single weapon it had at the monstrosity as flames trailed behind it where once an engine had been. The ship collided with the giant and exploded as its power core was breached, sending the power of endurium into the larger ship’s shields. A stream of Buzz bombs came in, following the ship that launched them and added their own power to the lightshow. But the shields held and the ship fired several more plasma bolts, destroying some more of the tiny little ships that swarmed all over it. ,,Who was on that one?” The man asked as he turned towards his communications officer, an old thrynn who was bleeding from several wounds as shrapnel had tore into him when the bridge suffered a direct hit from a plasma bolt. If their shields had already been down, they would have been dead. ,,ISS Horizon, Captain wasss Jack Cloudy, mixed crew.” ,,Everybody, get in front of that thing! Don’t let it get the Victory! We can’t stop now!” The Captain said as he directed his view towards the Crystal Planet that the fleet was approaching. The Crystal Planet was causing all suns in the sector to flair. Just a few more days and it would be the turn of the sun that was orbited by their own planet. Their only hope was to have the Victory land on the Crystal Planet using its artefacts of the ancients and destroy the Control Nexus with an old black egg. They hadn’t expected to encounter this. The moment they entered the system, they came under fire of the largest ship ever seen. Despite being heavily outnumbered, the Giant had managed to reduce their fleet to less than half of its original strength without suffering a single scratch. All the ships got in front of it, shielding the Victory with their hulls. Whenever one of them was destroyed by the hail of plasma bolts, another would take its place. Quickly, the fleet dwindled in numbers, and finally, no ship managed to get in front of the behemoth’s guns. The Victory was torn apart by more than ten plasma bolts. The moment that happened, The whole fleet froze for a moment. The old man covered his face with his hands and started crying as he muttered:,, Forgive me, please forgive me. I have failed. Please, Arth, forgive me.”

The image that floated in the chamber disappeared and the Leghk turned back towards their guests. Their leader once again spoke first:,, Tell me, what is this Arth?” Steven didn’t know what to say, he tried hard to listen, but only one thought echoed trough his mind. Jack Cloudy. Jack Cloudy. He must be my descendent. They’re alive! Finnally he managed to focus his attention on the Leghk:,, Arth is the name of a planet where we sent our Noah 2 colony. The Colony is an attempt to allow some of us to survive, even if we’re destroyed.” ,,One of the possible futures shows the death of Arth at the hands of the Crystal Planet. This planet is already there in your time.” ,,Then I have to get back and destroy it. I can’t let them die for nothing.” Steven answered as he pointed at the place were just a few moments ago the Leghk’s vision had floated. ,,No, that won’t be the solution. Destroy the planet, and they are destroyed by the ship. Destroy the ship, and they can destroy the planet. The ship is powerful, yet in one future, it is destroyed. Go now, for every second, that future becomes less possible.”

They had all assembled around the Humna Humna vehicle when one of the Leghk came forward. ,,One of our kind is onboard your ship, he will help you with your task. We also loaded a number of younglings inside stasis pods. These halls have been discovered and we shall soon be destroyed. Our last free brethren shall attempt to destroy the beast, but they will fail. Go, and know that you now carry the last hope of the Leghk.”

Allright, I'm back, so start cheering or shouting ,,OH NO!! NOT AGAIN!! AAAHH!!"
I've written a bit, not much but I'm trying to get things going again. Here goes.

As they launched from the planet, they noticed the flashes of a battle in the distance. ,,Looks like we’re leaving just in time. Anton, why don’t you try to take us to a nice and calm place while I’ll go get our guest over here so we can ask him a few things. Oh, and one more thing. Blakes, could you make sure Anton actually follows my order? While I’m at it, Anton, could you tell me where to look?” ,,No way, captain dude. You just hurt my feelings so I’m not going to tell you where to look, find that floating balloon yourself.” Steven sighed and wanted to put Anton back in place but decided that it would be useless anyway and left the bridge to look for the Leghk who was supposed to be onboard while thinking to himself that Blakes definitely was not good at raising either children or sentient computers. He found it eventually when he came past the cargo bay and noticed that the door was open.

The Leghk was floating near a large group of small metal tubes and seemed to be checking each one of them. Steven looked at it for a while and then walked up to the creature to ask it what it was doing. ,,I’m checking the stasis pods, where our children sleep. Here they’re safe from the thoughts of the beast and they will sleep until we find a place where they can wake up and life.” ,,I’m afraid to disappoint you, but I’m not an explorer and I have some other things to worry about, how to get home in time to prevent my people to be all killed by a bunch of squids for example.” ,,Regrettable, but we already knew that. These children will remain onboard till your task is done, or till our souls pass on. However, you should know that your task no longer has anything to do with these beings you call squids. Instead, your task is to challenge one of the beasts minions and destroy that which threatens your children’s children. You will have to defend the future’s past. Now I shall go to the bridge of your ship, where I shall explain everything and tell you everything you might need to know.”

When he arrived back on the bridge with the Leghk close behind him, the first thing Steven noticed was the planet that filled the screen. ,,Umm, doesn’t that planet look a lot familiar to the one we just left?” ,,It is the same planet. Anton wanted to go to the nearest nebula, but I thought it would be safer if we would just hide behind the planet and wait for the outcome of the battle, after which we would either leave calmly or run for our lives. I don’t like the idea of cruising through an unknown nebula in an extremely hostile area of space without any shields.” ,,Who said we would be without any shields, dad?” ,,Well, did you forget your first lesson about nebulas? No shield functions when travelling through one.” ,,Except me off course.” ,,Do you know something the rest of us don’t?” ,,Yep, while you were looking at that big expensive TV, I had floating balloons all over the place.” ,,Ah, yes, I suppose it would be best if I filled you in on the little….modifications we made to your ship.” The Leghk said, interrupting the discussion that had started. ,,At first we did what we promised, repair your ship. However, we were intrigued by the actions of your computer. It’s the first time we met such a sophisticated design which wasn’t made by our own race. We are familiar with sentient computers. So we decided to go one step further. Instead of asking for the blueprints required to repair the damaged systems, we asked for the blueprints of the entire design. It took some persuasion, but after we received those blueprints, we immediately noticed it was a flawed design.” ,,What?!!” Blakes angrily shouted with a red face. ,,Please don’t feel insulted, professor. You have made an impressive ship, considering the level of development your race has achieved in your time. However, there was room for improvement, it just needed resources and technologies that wasn’t available to you. We took the liberty to enhance the design and remove the flaws.” ,,Are you saying you upgraded the ship, adding new parts and systems?” Jason said with an intrigued look. ,,I assume that’s how your race would call it. We have changed basically every system safe for your computer because trying to do so would most likely cause severe damage to it’s personal characteristics.” ,,Can’t get much worse, they should have done that.” Steven muttered. ,,I HEARD THAT!!! You monster!” ,,If I may continue. I would like to tell you the biggest changes we’ve made which you would consider important during combat.” The Leghk continued, apparently undisturbed by the noise from Anton who was now very convincingly crying through the speakers. ,,We removed your rear explosives emplacement and its ammunition and replaced them with a Leghkian device that allows the ship to make random teleportational movements during sublight movement. It can be found on all our warships. We also removed your forward explosives emplacement and their corresponding ammo and replaced both with miniaturised high power plasma bolt acceleration weapons. These require more power than any of your other weapons, so you won’t be able to use them in combination with those weapons. Our last modification was to replace your shield system with a Leghkian design. It allows higher damage absorption along with your ingenious rotating design and efficiently negates low power ion storms, allowing their use even while inside nebulas. If you would like, I’m now willing to answer questions.”

,,Well, I’ve fought Uhleck before, not often off course otherwise I wouldn’t be here. They seem to use the same ships as you do. Then why don’t they jump around like that thing you put in place of our buzz bombs is supposed to do? And what the hell is this beast you’re constantly talking about? And Anton, stop the damn crying, it won’t help you a thing and is driving me nuts!” ,,You meanie, think I would still listen to you, captain dude?” Anton said and continued crying. ,,AARGH!” ,,That was a very interesting demonstration of emotions, I will now answer your questions. The beast is how we call a creature otherwise known as the UHL. We discovered it some time ago, and after many attempts, we managed to communicate with it. We were shocked when we learned of its total disregard of life and how it despised us. It said that our thoughts hurt it, and for that we would pay the price. I’m afraid our own arrogance is to blame for our downfall. It took over the minds of our people, turning them into slaves. Only those with the strongest mind remain. This is the truth behind the race you know as the Uhleck. They are Leghk, enslaved by the UHL. Our scientists who have not yet succumbed to it, believe that if the UHL is destroyed, our enslaved brothers shall be free once more. But the UHL still exists in your time. Then it’s too late, they are then part of it. Destroy the UHL at that time, and you will destroy their minds with it. We first tried to destroy its core and failed, we now know that some of us tried to escape by creating a path into the future. This is how you came here, and this is how you shall leave. Now I shall answer the question of why your Uhleck don’t make any teleportational movements. The device we use for that causes the ship to phase into another dimension. The UHL loses contact with them in that dimension, causing them to become free again. This makes it useless for the UHL. Unfortunately, we don’t know how to remain inside that dimension, or we would flee there. It also needs a special kind of fuel, limiting the number of teleportations. Would you like to ask any other questions?” ,,You said my task was to destroy that things minions. Do you mean that you expect us to take on that fleet of psychopathic murderers out there?”

Allright, now I've put myself into a bit of a problem. :(The Vengeance needs some more upping before the final showdown with the great evil of the story, and I thought of putting an alien wreck somewhere on a planet and make them crash in the neighbourhood. Problem is, I can't let them use the teleportation device to jump right in front of a plasma bolt for example. I've been using impossible odds too much allready. (remember the suddenly appear and dissappear flux with the Warhammer that just happened to go a LOT further than any other known flux?) So, does anybody have suggestions?

Alright. It has been a while again (school really manages to keep you busy )
There haven't been any reply's (excluding mine ;)), but I've decided that I would finish this story no matter what, and I'm going to do it. Here's some more.

,,No, your task lies not here, for our home has already been lost. Now you must worry about the home of your people. The ship that you saw in the vision, it was of a new type, larger and many times more powerful than a warship. We tried to use it against the beast, but unfortunately, one of the beast’s smaller offspring entered the ship and turned the crew into its slaves. Even at this moment, this Leghkian Doombringer is moving away from here, towards your home.” ,,Dammit. Are you sure we can’t take out the fleet of murderous psychopaths instead? At least we could take them one at a time.” ,,Your ship stands currently no chance of challenging the Doombringer. But there’s another way.” ,,What way?” ,,Not too long ago, a ship from an unknown race came here. It was quite small, only five times as big as yours. It had the misfortune of encountering an Uhleck fleet. At the end of the battle, it crashed on the planet it had been orbiting.” ,,Nice, but what does this have to do with us?” ,,That ship destroyed or crippled many warships. If you somehow manage to gain access to it, you could surely make the Vengeance more powerful than you could ever imagine.”

,,Wow, this is starting to look more like a cheap movie every second.” Steven said. ,,Oh well.
With the odds we’ve been having lately, I think we can add this. Besides, we owe you one for patching up the Vengeance. So, mister Leghk. Would you mind telling us where to look?”
,,Certainly, but your ship already knows.” ,,Well, then. What are we waiting for? Let’s get the hell out of here! And, Anton, stop the damn crying!”

,,If we are leaving, we better do it quick. One of those ships is approaching and it doesn’t respond to our hailing signals. I think it’s safe to assume that it is an Uhleck.” Blakes said, his face getting worried once more. ,,Cool, can I blow them up, dudes?” Anton answered and promptly stopped crying. Steven thought for a few seconds. The crying had been annoying him to no end, and now that it had stopped, he wanted to keep it that way. ,,Sure, we need to test out our new gear anyway. Give those bastards some plasma, will you?” ,,Yippee!” ,,Oh, no, not again!” Blakes said as the Vengeance powered up its combat systems.

The two ships raced towards each other, both spewing out a barrage of plasma bolts. The Uhleck’s shields were hammered down by the hot plasma impacting with it and the Warship disappeared in a cloud of explosions. The Vengeance in return got hit by the Uhleck’s bolts and its new improved shields weakened rapidly underneath the onslaught. As the last bolts were about to break down the shields and vaporize the small ship, it disappeared, only to reappear a few thousand kilometres further away, were it fired some more plasma bolts. ,,I love hopping, dudes!” Anton shouted as the alien warship was destroyed by the plasma bolts. ,,Good job. Now get us the hell out of here!” The Vengeance shot away at maximum super-photonic speed.

A graveyard. Wrecks of destroyed ships floated here, a silent monument to the battle that had been fought here. For years, their death had been undisturbed. Now, a small ship dropped down from super-photonic flight and made its way to a nearby planet, carefully avoiding the wrecks in case one wasn’t quite dead yet. It slowly descended through the thick atmosphere that rendered it practically blind. It finally landed on a plateau where the mountains had been grinded to dust by the violent winds.

,,Ok, where do we start looking?” Steven said, standing next to the Humna Humna ATV, a vehicle that was meant for a more hospitable planet. ,,We can navigate and find out where we are, but we’re practically blind and will have to hope that we run into it by chance.” Blakes responded. ,,I’ve modified the Humna Humna vehicle. We should be able to use it without much trouble now.” Jason added. ,,And guess who he had to put on a diet for that!” Anton screamed, upset that parts of him had been cannibalized to provide resources. The light pleasure vehicle had been turned into an armoured metal monster, capable of withstanding any storm this planet could throw at it. ,,Alright, this is what we’re going to do. Blakes, you’ll keep an eye on the sensors, no matter how blind we are and log the position of anything we find. Jason, you’ll come along. I could use an engineer. Anton, I would like you to shut down any non essential systems, I don’t want to run the risk of detection, even with this atmosphere. If we’re not back in seven days, you get out of here and take the long way home. Leghk, you’re free to do anything you like, but I would like it if you made some more information ready for us when we get back. That’s all, now move!”

I especially like the punctuation, jackass.

Yes.  You are a jackass, "Zeus".

Thanks for the replies. (what does punctuation mean? Oh well, I'll just look it up in my dictionary) Either way, I managed to write some more.

The engine screamed as it fought against the howling winds. Slowly, the modified terrain vehicle moved forward against the storm that raged on the planet. Inside, things were rather uncomfortable as nearly all power was being taken by the engines. Without any climate control, the temperature had risen to an unpleasant 36 degrees Celsius. For days they had been searching the planet, coming back periodically only to make sure they wouldn’t be left behind. Slowly, a dark shape became visible through the dust flying around. ,,There’s something!” Blakes shouted above the deafening noise of the engine as soon as he had double-checked if it wasn’t a rock or an other natural phenomena. ,,Alright, I’ll take us closer. Jason, how is that engine doing?!” Steven responded while wiping the sweat out of his eyes and gripping the alien controls a bit better. ,,Don’t worry, it’ll hold, for now!” The terrain vehicle crawled closer towards the large metal shape that rose up above it.

They found a hole large enough to drive through. Inside, the winds slowed down from over a 1000 km/h to a measly 30 km/h. Steven shut down the engine to allow it to cool down and moved over to the airlock while closing the helmet of his power armour. A space suit would have been more comfortable, but it wouldn’t be able to stand up against the winds outside, at least he would survive it if he stepped outside, whether he could be found before running out of air was something else. He stepped out and was followed by Jason and Blakes, both wearing power armour similar to his. ,,And, what do you think? Another crashed Uhleck?” Steven asked. ,,Odd, I can’t detect it with anything else but visual methods. It is like it’s nothing but some light.” Blakes said and frowned as he looked at his portable scanning device. Portable meant that it weight about two hundred kilograms, but with the added strength for his armour, he could carry it without problems. ,,My scanning device does seem to be functioning though, I can’t find any trouble when I use it on something else.” ,,You don’t have to use it, this is definitely not Uhleck.” Jason said, as he looked at the walls. Despite having been submitted to the powerful winds for years, the walls looked brand new, if a bit dusty. ,,How do you know?” Steven asked. ,,Simple, one clue is as blakes said, this material seems only visible by deflecting light. Secondly, the material on the inside seems to be undamaged, something we haven’t seen on any of the Uhleck vessel we came across. Thirdly, the whole interior is different, There isn’t even a sign of all the small devices we’ve found scattered around the Uhleck ships. I think we’ve found it.”

,,Amazing.” Blakes said as he walked around the corridors like a child with a new toy. ,,What’s so amazing? I haven’t seen anything worthwhile yet, just corridors.” Steven said a bit irritated as they rounded another corner, only to find the corridor continuing till another corner.” ,,Exactly. The ship appears at first glance to consist of nothing but small corridors, circular corridors that don’t seem to be meant for any walking being, like us. Instead, I think that whoever built this, could fly, like the Leghk. However, if you decided to pay some more attention to the automatic mapping feature that’s installed inside your armour, you’ll notice that we’ve been avoiding certain areas. There definitely is something else behind these corridors, all we have to do is to find a way to reach it.” ,,Well, I don’t want to keep walking through these damn corridors for hours. Jason, do you think you can blast through that wall?” ,,Sure, I’ll just plant some explosives. It would be better to keep some distance though. You don’t want to get caught in the blast.” ,,Do it.”

The sound of explosions echoed through the corridors. As soon as the blast cleared, the three men walked back to the place where Jason had set the explosives to see the damage they had caused. ,,What the hell?! Not even a scratch!” Steven shouted in disbelief as the only thing he saw were the scorched remains of the explosives. The walls were as smooth as ever. ,,Hmm. This material seems to be quite resistant to both thermal and kinetic forces. I don’t think that trying again will help.” Blakes said as he gave the center of the explosion a detailed scan. ,,I noticed it. You don’t have to point out the obvious. Great, guess we’ll just have to walk through those damn corridors again.” ,,Not exactly, captain.” Blakes said as he put down his scanning device. ,,What, you got a better plan?” ,,maybe.” Blakes tapped with his finger on the wall. It split open, revealing the heart of the ship.

,,How did you do that?” Steven asked while Jason immediately moved over to the machines that filled the room and investigated them. ,,While analyzing the effect of the explosion, I managed to pick up a weak place in the corridor. It was the only place where I saw something else but light being deflected, it was a 1.23 centimetres wide dent in the wall. I tapped it with my finger. I think it might have been a side effect of the winds blowing around. The whole corridor is filled with static electricity from the sand. While not much, it provided the power needed to open the wall. Also, you may have noticed that the opening mechanism is unique. Instead of a panel sliding away or any of the other methods known, the whole wall flowed away, making it more dense around the gap. It was almost like, an organism.”

It took only a few hours to open the walls, giving them access to every single room. Steven decided to take everything they could carry back to the Vengeance. The Humna Humna vehicle, that had been parked in what looked like a cargo room of sorts was being crammed full with every single device that could be picked up, including a piece of the hull found inside a wrecked room that looked like it had received several plasma bolts. ,,Good, everybody ready? Then let’s go back.” Steven said, and started the vehicle. Slowly, it turned around and moved back in the open. As soon as it got caught by the wind, it started to accelerate, while Steven used the brakes to keep their speed manageable. With the wind in their back, it would take them a lot shorter to reach the Vengeance than it took them to reach the wreck of the unknown ship.

nice, but i don't think anybody has the time to read all this

But that's why. You either read (or write) this kind of stuf when you're bored and have got time to spare. Besides, I can't just stop right now. It would be the worst ending in the history of writing. But, if people want me to stop, I will. I'll still write, but I won't post it anymore. And here is the latest part.

Circular object with pointy things sticking out of its sides, a small window shows gas on the inside. Materials, unknown. Possible use, big metal cigar used for smoking? Steven looked at his notes. One advantage of being the captain was that it kept things simple. You didn’t need to know how to pull of technical miracles, nor did you need to know how to shoot, or fly and especially not what an unknown piece of alien technology is supposed to be. The only thing he needed to know was how to boss people around, as well as knowing a few tactics and the basics of strategic decisions. Still, somehow Blakes had managed to put him to work at logging every single thing they took out of that wreck, as well as doing a basic analysis. He doubted he would be able to find anything worthwhile, they had invented scientists for a good reason, and he definitely wasn’t a scientist. He decided he had enough and would be better off checking on everybody else.

Jason was working on a large pyramid shaped device that had been identified as a power core of sorts, after one of the two they had blew up and took part of the Vengeance’s nose with it. Now, Jason was trying to install it. There had been no fuel discovered that powered it, so it would make a nice addition to the fusion reactors, that had used several fuel rods already. Jason didn’t seem to be making much progress though. Steven walked over to him and asked if he could help. ,,Fitting alien technology is a lot more than just plugging it in and hooking it up to the powergrid.” He said:,, I first need to construct a hybrid device that works as a bridge between the Vengeance and this, and for that I’ll need resources.” ,,Then, why don’t you get those resources?” ,,It’s a bit more complex than that, I’m afraid. I could off course recycle some more parts of the Vengeance, but I would either do more damage than it’s worth, or I would seriously reduce the liveability of the ship. Not to mention that I would make myself a mortal enemy of Anton. The last thing an engineer needs is to have the ship regard him as an enemy.” ,,What do you need?” ,,Well, some Titanium, Rodnium and Cobalt would be a good start. And some copper for the electrical wiring.” ,,You got it. I’ll just give my notes to Blakes so he can stump his brains on them and then I’ll take the ATV out for a spin. We’ve found plenty of Uhleck wrecks in the area, I’m sure I can get some stuff from them” ,,Good, but be careful, you never know if there’s still an Uhleck floating around in there.”

,,Hello, professor, Leghk. I was just looking for you. I made some notes of all the stuff as you wanted, but I don’t think that there is much you can learn from them.” ,,What have you noticed, if I may ask?” The Leghk answered. ,,Oh, not much, it all looks the same to me. But if you really want to know, that thing for example is filled with gas, I don’t know what to think of it.” ,,Gas? Oh, my. I don’t believe it!” Blakes shouted as he ran over to the device that Steven had been pointing at. ,,What, you know what it is?” Steven asked, frowning at the sight of Blakes dancing around and holding it like a child. ,,Of course I know! This is an ANTP!” ,,A what?” ,,ANTP. You know, Advanced Neutrosive Tachyon Processor. Like Anton.” ,,I know what Anton is supposed to be. But why do you know that this is an ANTP?” ,,Well, It is a bit different. It might be the best if I explained a bit more about Anton. Anton’s memory banks are liquid based. The fluid consists of tiny nano-computers, a technology that has been known for a while, but there were always problems with heat. To solve that, I put them inside a Neutrosive substance. Thanks to this, Antons components are always kept at a temperature just above absolute zero. Seeing that this is a gas, whoever made this has an even better way to cool its components, allowing everything to be smaller and more like gas than a fluid. I must find a way to connect this to Anton! Think of what we can learn! Mister Leghk, would you be so kind to help?” ,,It would be my pleasure.” ,,While you two play around with your new toy, I’m going out for a ride and plunder a few of those wrecks in the neighbourhood.” But nobody seemed to hear him.

Here is this week's episode.

The winds outside had dropped to a measly three hundred kilometres an hour and the Humna Humna vehicle had little trouble making it to its destination, an Uhleck warship that had looked relatively intact when they had encountered it fifteen days earlier. Steven parked his vehicle behind the hulk of the ship to keep it out of the wind and left it, after programming it so that it would warn him the moment the wind started to grow in strength again. He climbed through a large hole in the outer hull. He couldn’t help but notice that there was no sign of what the hole had been caused by, it simply looked to have disappeared in thin air. Once inside he turned on the light amplification systems built inside his helmet and started to make his way to what was supposed to be the cargo bay, according to the map that Leghk had provided him. He rounded the corner and stepped back at seeing the Uhleck in front of him, nearly sending a few micro missiles into the room. But there was no need for violence, for they were clearly dead. Those that hadn’t been killed during the battle or the following crash, had been killed by either lack of air or food. Now the shrivelled corpses that had long lost all of the strange gas that kept them floating were lying on the floor. Putting his fear aside, Steven began stripping the walls for resources.

After putting everything he brought back in the shower (The cargo room was still filled with endurium from the Warhammer and the stasis pods.), he went to get some coffee. It was in the kitchen that he found everybody. He gratefully tapped some hot coffee from the coffee machine that was built into the wall before speaking to Jason:,, Hi, everybody. Jason, you can find the stuff you wanted in the shower.” There were no surprised looks, everybody had gotten used to the fact that the Vengeance was overloaded and that they could find cargo in the weirdest places. ,,And how are things going with you?” Steven now asked, turning to Blakes. ,,Well, we managed to connect the derelict computer as we call it to Anton, but I can’t make anything of the language it uses. It speaks at an extremely high frequency. Anton is still busy with it right now.” ,,Yeah, and you won’t believe how annoying that accent is, captain dude! There are some patterns, so I’m trying to make it send images that I can decode. Then I can start translating!” ,,So you’re saying you don’t have a clue?” ,,Off course not, captain dude! I’ll have this fixed in no time at all! If you didn’t had me, it would take several generations to do what I can do in five minutes! We’ll have this fixed in no time at all!” ,,Either, way. We’re not giving up, captain. We’ll keep trying, even if it takes us years. Right, Anton?” ,,Right, dad! But it won’t take that long, dudes!”

It didn’t take years, just two months. Food was running low, so Steven was thinking if he should go for a life containing planet to hunt for food and risk detection by the Uhleck. Also, Jason’s attempts at installing the alien power core had been unsuccessful, but as long as they kept running at low power and didn’t take off, they could last years on a single fuel rod for the fusion reactors. He eventually decided to wait till next week and went back to sleep.

At that same moment, Blakes was still trying to decode the derelict computer’s language when the small screen in front of his desk started flashing while an encrypted message appeared. He nervously glanced over his shoulder and, after checking that his door was still locked, remembering the time that Anton had thought it would be funny if he opened the shower’s door and open the cold tap while the captain was taking a shower something that didn’t quite gave Steven a good mood for the rest of the day, typed in his personal security code. Off course this was basically useless since Anton could break any code within less than a second and display what he was doing on every screen onboard the ship. When he had read the short message, he frantically started to read the included files, losing all sense of his surroundings as his attention became completely devoted to what he saw on the screen.

,,Say, Have you seen Blakes today?” Jason asked Leghk the next day. ,,He went out with the ATV, dude.” Anton answered before the leghkian could respond to the question. ,,The ATV? All by himself?” ,,Starnge, I was going to say that I sensed professor Blakes presence in his room.” Leghk muttered and floated away. Jason frowned but continued with his work. Later on the day however, when he saw the ATV still standing in its cramped hangar, he wasn’t pleased. ,,Anton, would you mind telling me why the ATV is still here?” ,,Cause I said he went for a walk, dude.” ,,I know he’s crazy, but he isn’t stupid enough to go out in this weather! Start speaking the truth, Anton! This is beginning to look like that old movie they show you in college!” ,,Stanley Kubrick, 2001 a space odyssey. Now just give my dad a break, will ya? He’s been working like he’s possessed by something all night! I had to force him to stop by deactivating his desk and the lights.” ,,Working, then what the hell is going on?” ,,You’ll see.”

,,Good evening, captain.” Blakes said as he entered the cargo room, still looking a bit sleepy. ,,Good evening. Say, where have you been all day? Normally you can’t keep yourself from bothering me all the time.” ,,I have been busy. And so have you, I see.” Blakes answered, his feelings a bit hurt, as he nodded at the pile of artefacts. ,,Yeah, but I don’t have a clue what this is all supposed to be. It looks like a big pile of rubbish to me.” ,,Either way, I would like you to take a look at this.” Blakes handed over a datapad. It’s screen was filled with complex math and formula that was far above Steven’s knowledge of math. ,,Nice, why don’t you try to explain it to me? Give me the really really easy version, ok?” He said as he gave back the datapad. ,,Um, well, I suppose I can do that. Anton seems to have cracked the language of the derelict computer. Right at this moment, he is busy downloading every single bit of data from it.” ,,Great! How long will it take?” ,,Give me eight hundred years and I’ll be done, captain dude.” Anton answered, sounding a lot more timid than usual. Confessing that the alien computer was a lot more advanced than he was didn’t do much good for his ego. ,,Oh, well. It’s better than nothing. Go on, Blakes.” ,,Well, on the datapad I stored a simple program explaining the laws their technology operates on. I’ve analyzed it and came up with my theory regarding dimensional physics. Apparently, there are particles that are many times smaller than the smallest particle we’ve discover up to date, which is the entron, which provides endurium its super-photonic abilities. These particles are what I call dimensional particles, to give you an idea of their size, you can fit about ten billion in one entron, which in turn can be fit a million times inside an electron. Actually, an entron is a group of  dimensional particles.” ,,That’s all nice, but how is this going to help us beat up that big monstrosity that will blast our descendants to pieces?” ,,Don’t worry, I’ll explain what you can do with it.”

,,Dimensional particles can be used in many ways, one of the more interesting ones is the creation of matter without using any resources, with the exception of the power the device used for it requires. Also, manipulating those dimensional particles yield interesting results. They are inherently unstable. If you stabilize them, they’ll stop moving and in effect you’ll freeze time itself. If you destabilize those particles even further, though, you’ll create something I call a stresszone. Anything that comes into contact with a stresszone will have its dimensional particles send of in separate directions at high speed. To the naked eye it would look as if whatever was hit suddenly disappears like if it never existed. That is also the thought behind the CDS-system.” ,,CDS? Can’t you just explain things without coming up with difficult names that fail to describe anything?” ,,Please let me continue. CDS stands for Contained Dimensional Stresszone. This is used for example in the power core Jason is working on. This power core, which I prefer to call a stresscore, creates and contains a stresszone and then uses it to generate power. Most of the generated power is being pumped back into it to keep the stresszone intact, but the surplus power, about 3%, is still more than the combined output of our engines and our fusion reactors. A contained dimensional stresszone is nothing more than a stresszone with a shell of stabilized dimensional particles wrapped around it. You can manipulate the movement of the stresszone by changing the density of the shell. This can also be used as a weapon. I would like permission to build a CDS launcher. The design I have in mind includes the means to manipulate the shell of the bolts from a distance. If that bolt would hit something, its shell would spread across the surface and freeze it, which would also shut down any known shield. Then, the stresszone would be pushed forward where it would consume an amount of matter twice the size of the bolt before dissipating.” ,,Nice, but how do you think to do all that?” ,,Well, we just happen to have brought a matter creation device, so I thought of using that. We’ll have to install the stresscore first, but that won’t be a problem now that I know what Jason has to do.” ,,Then do it!”

With the help of the information that Anton kept downloading at high speed, but which would still take centuries to complete, the Vengeance started its refit. The pyramid shaped stresscore had been installed and now provided the power for the matter creation device that kept spitting out materials at a constant rate. During those days, it was also discovered that they could create a material with all the properties of endurium, except the weight. A brand new matter creation device had been installed to feed the new Dinyum directly into the power cores. As a result, they could drop all of their endurium on the planet, finally making it easy again to move around the ship. The last device that was built during those five days, was a CDS launcher, which was placed underneath the nose of the ship between the two plasma bolt launchers. While theoretically a weapon that would provide more damage potential with a single shot than  a salvo of all other weapons combined, it ate power like crazy and would require the combined effort of the stress core, the engines and the fusion reactors to fire.

,,Alright everybody, are you all geared in?” Steven asked and strapped himself into his chair with his seatbelts. While it was an old technology, it was still quite effective in the event the inertial dampeners failed. Off course, if the Vengeance was accelerating at high speeds at the moment, there wouldn’t be much more left of them than a thin jelly. ,,Leghk seems to be fine.” Blakes answered as he finished checking the seat they had made just for the alien. It was essentially just a cube filled with a stiff liquid and a complex net to keep its user in place. ,,All systems green, we’re ready to go.” Jason said when he finally finished his checklist, which had only grown longer with the new upgrades. Anton could do the checks within a fraction of a second, but Jason didn’t want to feel useless. ,,Good. Anton, bring us up!”
,,Oh, yeah!”

The Vengeance lifted itself of the ground and, with some trouble because half the vector thrusters in the nose had been destroyed in a stresscore explosion which still hadn’t been repaired, it pointed its nose upwards. As the engines sang their song of super-photonic particle waves, the ship rocketed out of the atmosphere and back into its natural environment, space.

In seconds, the thick clouds were replaced by the deep blackness of space, with a hint of the purple nebula they were in. As the Vengeance activated its sensors now that they could actually see something again, the tactical screen got filled with grey dots showing the locations of the pieces of wreckage, and one red triangle spewing out little green dots.

Looks nice...  but it needs some layout, shorter paragraphs, more reader friendly.
Also, if you could make it as PDF with some piccies...  It would be nice reading.
If you host it at geocitires, it may track the amount of hits.  that way you could see your DL stats.

Sounds nice, Pablo. But first I'll finish the story. After that I'll worry about learning how to make PDF files. I do have a few pics of the Vengeance (before the ridicilous amount of upgrades), but those are old and probably need to be updated.

Anyway, here they are. (let's see if I can do this right.)

The side:
(http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/8498/vengeanceside9ub.png)

And an isometric (is this how you call it?) view.
(http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/3060/vengeanceiso6qu.png)

Don't worry about the story, it won't be that much longer. I only need a few more ships blowing up, and put the Vengeance in the right place for a possible sequel (after I managed to get some inspiration from straflight 3.)

it looks that you love 3D.
You may use anim8or to texture it.  It can import and export from/to 3DS.
If you want a 3D format convertor, you may use a software called "3D Exploration".
I have used them already.

And for texturing using UV mapping you may use "UVmapper".  haven't used it yet, but I've been told it's good.

If you can make you adventure to be very graphical it would be nice.  the nicest thing would be to make it as a comic.

I'm updating the model of the Vengeance in my spare time, giving it a more rugged look. Currently, the front looks too much like a buble, not exactly the look a little but extremely lethal demon should have. I also wrote some more and have finally gotten back to the time of the empire. Here it is.


,,Um, Anton, is that what I think it is?” Blakes asked, starting to panic already. ,,Yep, some brand new brainwashed floating balloons.
,,Uhleck. Well then, get us out of here!” The scene changed abruptly when the Vengeance teleported. ,,Now let’s show them some of their own dirty tricks. Fire the plasma bolts.” ,,At your service, captain dude!” Two shining bolts of plasma shot out and headed for their target in a wide arc, attracted to the Warship’s magnetic field. But brainwashed or not, its crew still knew a bit about tactics and skilfully moved their ship around so that the path of the plasma bolts intersected that of one of the wrecks floating around. The bolts of plasma impacted with the wreck, sending chunks of molten metal flying. Three more salvoes were fired, each with the same result.

 In the meantime, the Vengeance was at a large disadvantage with only half of its vector thrusters functioning, forcing it to keep teleporting just to stay out of harms way. ,,Captain, we’ve got enough fuel left for three jumps.” Jason informed, staring at his console.
The Vengeance jumped again, while Steven’s mind raced to find a way to shift the tide of battle. Once again the Vengeance jumped. The Uhleck warship had become a lot more conservative with its shots, firing a single plasma bolt each time to force the Vengeance back into jumping. ,,I got it. Blakes, start fiddling around with the chronotrium web. Try to make it as resistant to plasma as possible. Anton, that new gun, didn’t you say you could control it from here? Then we could avoid hitting wrecks all the time.” ,,Sure, captain dude. But uh.. I can’t see it.” Anton responded while Blake’s fingers danced over the controls on his console. ,,You what?!” ,,I said I can’t see it. There is a reason to the fact that we never even heard about dimensional particles before. They’re…whoops! Time to jump! Anyway, they’re too small to see. But I can guess at where it is using its theoretical speed. So you’ll have to wait for the result.” ,,Good, then get ready to fire it.”

,,But captain, we’ll need every single bit of power we have! We’ll lose the shields and there are still plasma bolts heading our way! You are mad!” Blakes shouted, panicking as usual.
,,That’s why I asked you to toy around with our armour, we’ll just have to take it.” Steven responded. ,,Anton, fire.” ,,Fire in the hole, dudes! See you on the other side of the river!” The screen went black as every system was shut down so that the necessary power could be transferred to the alien weapon, leaving only the bare minimum to keep Anton’s core alive. On the outside, the shields fell away instantly now that the constant flow of power being sent into the projectors ceased to exist.  The Vengeance was engulfed by the plasma. The armour started to glow and vaporize as it struggled to sustain the intense heat, hotter than most stars. Onboard, the systems reactivated when the power flow was restored and the Vengeance burst forward out of the plasma bolt to escape its fiery grave.

At the same moment, not known to the Uhleck, an invisible bolt with the pure power of the dimension raced towards it. The outer shell impacted with the shields and made a gap large enough to let the stresszone inside pass and impact with one of the firing arms that was about to fire. The front of the firing arm and the plasma stored inside it disappeared, the countless dimensional particles that they were made of spread in every direction. The remaining plasma, now no longer being kept under control, started to expand and melted away a large portion of the ship, including the main power conduit that fed both of its plasma bolt launchers. With all means of defence gone, it was helpless as the Vengeance managed to get it in front of the Pulse Phasors and engine cannons and took out the remains with a few quick bursts, adding the Uhleck warship to the wrecks already floating in the system.

On the outside, the Vengeance didn’t look to good either. Nearly all of its armour had vaporized and the hull underneath had deformed under the intense heat. But most of its internal systems, including the engines, were still functioning. The Vengeance accelerated beyond the speed of light and headed back to the timeflux it took to get in the time period it was currently in, while all the damage was being repaired.

,,Wow, now here’s what I call a crowded place.” Steven looked at the holographic representation of the local space surrounding the timeflux. Wave after wave of Uhleck ships showed up as tiny red spheres as they were picked up by the long-range sensors. ,,Right, we’ll need a plan, the sooner the better. Anybody have some suggestions before we’re going to crash this party?” ,,One thing is for sure. We’re not going to pull of that stunt of yours like last time. We got lucky, but now there will be a whole lot more gasbags gunning for us. Patching up the armour wasn’t so bad, but getting the hull back into shape was a pain.” Jason responded ,,Aw come on. I did all the work while you kept an eye on my progress, dude.” ,,At least the coffee machine was still working. Losing that would have been a disaster.” Steven tried to cheer up the engineer, not quite successful.

,,With the information gotten from our encounter with that plasma bolt, I’m sure I can make the chronotrium web better suited for that kind of situations, but chronotrium has its limits. Also, the more I get it to protect against plasma bolts, the less it will protect against anything else.” ,,Thanks Blakes. Leghk?” ,,I advise not to use the Battle Jumper. The teleportational movements are random and we will have to get close to the flux by luck. And with such a large number of…Uhleck in the area, the chance that we accidentally jump into a warship or a plasma bolt is too great to ignore.”

,,Anton? Please give me some good news.” ,,Sorry, captain dude. I do have some ideas I would like to try, but it will take a while to get those ready. So all I can suggest is to let me burn through as fast as the engines will let me while pulling of lots of quick flying manoeuvres to stay out of trouble.” ,,Fine then, that’s what we’re going to do. Anton, you get full freedom in making decisions, but your first priority is to get to that timeflux with as much of the shields still intact as possible. This also means that you won’t be able to use the CDS launcher, it makes us a helpless sitting duck for way too long. Got that?” ,,Don’t worry captain dude. You won’t regret this!”

The Vengeance closed in on its destination at top speed, hoping to catch the Uhleck off guard while avoiding their gravitational influence so that it could get as close to the timeflux as possible before being forced back to sub light.

The Uhleck can never be caught off guard. The moment the Vengeance appeared in their midst, the area lit up as countless plasma bolts were fired. But their large numbers turned out to be a disadvantage rather than an advantage as the Vengeance made many bolts hit an Uhleck ship instead with some fancy flying, a trick it had learned from its encounter with the Uhleck ship near the planet with the derelict. As the Vengeance spun around, many Uhleck warships were destroyed or disabled by friendly fire while the Vengeance didn’t fire a single shot. With one last quick turn, the small ship entered the timeflux, back to the future.

,,The great eye, a flux so powerful it not only passed space, but also time. Out of the chaos of distorted colours, the darker shape of the Vengeance became visible, shooting away like a bullet fired out of a strange multicoloured rifle. ,,Ah, finally back again. Now before we’re going to save the galaxy as we know it, does anyone want some coffee?” ,,Is that all you can think about, captain? We nearly got killed over a dozen times back there!” ,,You can’t go to war when you’re thirsty, so what do you say, Blakes?” ,,Oh, fine then, why not.” ,,Good, three coffees it is then.” With those words, Steven left the bridge.

,,So, dudes. Are we going to do it or not?” ,,Let’s do it. But don’t tell the captain.” Jason answered.

Steven looked around one last timed. The others had already been put in stasis. Strange, he had been on the Governor for almost ten years, and just a few months on the Vengeance, yet still it felt more like home than the Governor had ever been. Home. What would he see when he got back? The trip would take over a hundred years, even with the help of the fluxes that they found on the maps stored in the derelict’s computer. Would the earth still be there? Or the Empire? Everybody he knew would be dead or very old, none of them had ever shown any interest in any medical treatment to make their life longer. He realized that the only true home he had, was the Vengeance. With that thought, the stasis pod activated and Steven was frozen.

The Warhammer vibrated one last time as the deadly beam tore through it. Then, the safety mechanisms on the power core failed, releasing the power of endurium in a massive explosion that consumed the ship. The ship that had been responsible, a massive Gazurtoid vessel, lost its shields and was promptly pummelled by nine photon torpedoes that had no trouble hitting the hull now that the shields and their strange anti missile effect had gone. The hull ruptured, and water and squid like Gazurtoid corpses flew out of the gap.

,,Thor battle group is requesting assistance! They lost the Thor and Odin, the Valkyrie and Fenrir are getting pounded by ten squids!” The communications officer shouted over the bridge. ,,Enterprise, take us there. This squid we have here won’t be going anywhere.” Pearcy said, watching the water and corpses fly out of the Gazurtoid ship that had been hit by the Enterprise’s photon torpedoes seconds earlier. The Enterprise turned around and started to carve a path through the battlefield.

When the Enterprise arrived, Thor battle group had been turned into dust. Eight Gazurtoid vessels were still there though, and promptly opened fire after screaming their religious preachings over the radio, on a frequency that no one listened to anyway.

Thanks to the high processing speed of the Enterprise’s ANTP, the large ship somehow managed to find a path that allowed it to avoid most of the deadly storm being fired at it. Most, the few beams that managed to hit their target put a steady drain on the shields.

,,Enterprise, are you sure about this?” The tactical officer asked and zoomed in on the sector that was currently being displayed on his screen. ,,Why?” The voice of the ANTP sounded unnaturally calm, despite the battle that was raging outside. ,,Look at A-1236 Z-4593. There’s not a single ship of ours in the neighbourhood, yet still you’re saying that the squids are dropping like flies there!”

Alright, I've finished my first part of updating the model and figured out why I had to wait 15 minutes (literally!) for the model to load (I had lots of render images from another model hidden in the file of which I don't know ho it even got there :o).

Now, the biggest change is that I replaced the blue with gray and some purple. I also added lots of darker gray areas that can be seen as heat disposal systems. Perhaps a bit much, but with that many guns and stuff, it heats up like crazy.

There have been two small wings added on the sides of the Pulse Phasors, and the bridge window has been replaced by two smaller ones. I added a triangular ramp for the ATV or the fighter  at the bottom which is not visible in the pic. There have also been added two antennea. It's not done yet, but I'm getting there.

(http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/9914/vengnewiso0bm.png)

There are 2 ways to make cool models.
One is to make a detailed mesh and the other is to use cool textures.
To me it seems that your mesh is cool enough, and you should spend some time making some hull textures.

For example, look at this mesh, it's made mostly from cool textures, low poly count.
http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/5287/brighton071nb.jpg
http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/7667/brighton069bo.jpg
http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/8564/brighton054ry.jpg

Nice pics. Looks like I'll have to patch up my drawing skills :D. But that can come later. As it is with games (or should be in my opinion.), story first, gameplay (readability) second, graphics third.

,,What’s the matter?” Pearcy asked when he noticed the confusion. At the moment there wasn’t much for him to do but watch the Enterprise fight. ,,Take a look at this, sir” The tactical officer responded and pointed at his screen. Pearcy stared at the screen that showed a large number of blips that were disappearing rapidly. ,,I can’t see much from this. Enterprise, give me a visual on the main screen.” The view of the current battle shifted to the faraway sector that was the focus of Pearcy’s attention. ,,Increase the magnification factor.” The screen zoomed in on the scene, showing the chaos. The Gazurtoid ships had lost their formation and were now circling around randomly, filling the surrounding space with their weapons in an attempt to catch whatever it was that was destroying them.

Pearcy saw how a Gazurtoid ship fired all of its beams into the vacuum without hitting anything, watched in disbelief how a hole suddenly appeared in the ship, allowing water and Gazurtoid to flow out. An accidental hit from another Gazurtoid ship added to his confusion as the beam got stopped by the shields that evidently were still functioning. Suddenly four shining bolts came out of nowhere, the first two battered down the shields and the last two blasted away the entire front of the huge Gazurtoid ship. ,,Uhleck?” ,,Perhaps, doctor. However, there exists no data in my records that suggest that the Uhleck have any form of stealth equipment. Whatever is the cause of this, it is completely invisible to my sensors.” Enterprise responded.

Plasma bolts kept raining on the Gazurtoid ships, together with the invisible weapon that kept cutting holes without being stopped by the shields. Now golden pulses came in rapid succession from an invisible point in space that seemed to be rapidly moving through the ranks of Gazurtoid. ,,What the hell?!” For Pearcy the confusion was now complete. In less than a minute he had seen three different high power weapons that seemed to be used by just one ship. Or rather two weapons, one of them seemed to do damage without being noticed.
,,That last weapon shows all the characteristics of a Rapid Pulse Phasor, but its output is at 197.53% compared to the only version I have in my database.” ,,Pulse Phasors? I heard that before. But where?” ,,Captain Cloudy’s ship, the Vengeance was outfitted with two Pulse Phasors. It disappeared five years ago while in pursuit of a stolen Warhammer.” ,,Oh, that’s right. But the Vengeance didn’t use plasma bolts and it wasn’t invisible.” ,,That is correct. The most likely explanation is that it is a ship which uses Pulse Phasors of a similar design as those found on the Vengeance and Uhleck Plasma bolts. It is probably an unknown type of Uhleck ship.”

One of the Gazurtoid beams disappeared, as if it had ran into an invisible wall. When another beam met the same result, the Gazurtoid seemed to realize what it meant and redirected all their weapons towards it, turning the surrounding area into a hail of death. After several minutes of bombardment, which cost the life of several more ships, their invisible demon became visible. It turned out to be a small ship, only about a hundred metres in length, with a golden streak of absorbed heat running across its hull as it took a direct hit from one of the Gazurtoid beams. The Gazurtoid converged all their weapons at it, eager for revenge, but the ship disappeared again, and was suddenly located at the edge of the group, tearing up a Gazurtoid ship from behind.

,,Enterprise, can you hail them?” ,,Certainly. I am now hailing. But may I inform you of the fact that I managed to get a positive id on the ship?” ,,So?” ,,It is the Vengeance.”

Making comics showed me that arts attract the readers, storyline makes them reach the end of the story.  So both are important.

That’s true. But it is better to have a good storyline before you do the arts, otherwise you might have to redo things a couple times because you change the technology, sails instead of steam engines for example.

The view of Massive Gazurtoid ships being destroyed single-handedly by the comparatively tiny Vengeance was replaced by the view of the Vengeance’s bridge, which looked quite dusty and empty. ,,Um, Where’s the captain?” ,,The captain dude and all the other dudes are still taking their nap. Well hello again, big sis and doctor dude, I’m back!” Anton’s cheery voice came over the speakers.

,,Hello , Anton. It is good to see you again. I believed you were gone forever.” Enterprise responded before Pearcy could embarrass himself for not remembering Anton’s name. ,,Nice to see you again, Anton. What brought you here, if I may ask?” ,,Sure, doctor dude. I just happened to be in the neighbourhood and noticed the party. Why didn’t you invite me to it?!”

,,Well, actually, I am sure we would have done that if we actually knew you were here.” Pearcy responded a bit awkward. ,,Ha, I knew it. This thing is just great! Hey, get out of my way, you stupid squid! I am talking here! Eat my stressbolts!” Another Gazurtoid bought it. ,,Bet you are all dying to hear it! This is just a small sample of the new toys I picked up. By the way, you dudes have got company, why don’t I come in and help you dudes out?” ,,That would be appreciated.” Pearcy responded, the memory of the Gazurtoid getting destroyed like it was nothing still fresh in his mind. ,,Oh, the captain dude is getting close to the bridge, I woke him up.”

Steven entered the bridge, still a bit annoyed at Anton’s rather harsh way of taking him out of stasis. He believed that he was the only one who seemed to receive this kind of treatment. The bridge looked the same as he remembered it, only a bit more dusty. The real surprise came when he looked at the view screen.

,,What the hell?! He turned his eyes to the ceiling, a habit he had taken up when talking to Anton. ,,Anton, I thought you said it would take us more then a hundred years to get back!” ,,Did I?” Anton replied. If he had a face, it would surely have a huge mischievous grin on it.

,,Well you sure did!” ,,I said that it would take over a hundred years using the super-photonic engines. I did just that for about three years, after that, I finished what I was building and have been cruising home for the rest of the time. So, what do you have to say about that, captain dude?” Steven sighed. ,,Why am I not surprised? Seeing miracles everyday must have made me get used to it. Fine, so we’re back early. Oh, sorry. I forgot about you, doctor.” Pearcy grinned. ,,That’s alright. I thought you would be gone forever, so it is nice to see you again.”
,,Great, now let’s blast some squids, dudes!”

,,Squids?! Why didn’t you tell me?” Steven said as he rushed for his seat and strapped himself in. ,,Yeah, looks like good old sol is throwing a little party.”

With the arrival of the Vengeance, the battle was pretty much over. Losses had been pretty heavy though. Not only had countless lives and many ships been lost, but ESF-HQ, the nerve center of all military operations in a large part of the Empire, had been destroyed and its remains now floated in orbit around mars. Afterwards Anton woke up the others, using a much more pleasant way than the one he used to wake the captain.

,,Think you can take care of this, doctor?” ,,I’ll see what I can do. But you have to realize that you are making high demands. It has been years since the council and the emperor himself met just because someone who wasn’t in politics wanted that.” ,,I don’t care. This is about the survival of all the races in this part of the galaxy, that should be damn important enough to get the council, the emperor and every damn ambassador that dares show his face here.” Steven paused a moment to take a sip of his coffee. ,,Wait, I know. Doctor, tell them that if they don’t give me this meeting, I will self-destruct the Vengeance, thereby preventing them from getting all those nice tools of death and destruction it has. They’ve got access to the sensor logs of every ship in the fleet, so I hope they’ve got the brain cells to realize that not even ten Uhleck warships could do that kind of damage!”

,,You would actually do that?” Blakes asked, worried for his pride and joy. ,,Off course not. But I’m not giving it to them either. My dad always said that you have to take responsibility for power. Imagine what would happen if there were a whole fleet of Vengeances around, and what if one would get stolen like that damn Warhammer all that time ago? The result would be pretty messy. And anyway, it never hurts to bluff. You don’t get to be captain of a Warhammer at my age by being a pushover. Doctor, can you handle it?” ,,Well, they did give me command of the most powerful ship in the fleet, after the Vengeance, so they might listen. And I would be happy to do an old friend a favour.” ,,Thanks, doctor. I owe you a lot.”

The answer came twelve days later, exceptionally short for the whole political body called the council, but still long enough to seriously lower Steven’s mood. He was ordered to leave the Vengeance under the *expert* supervision of a bunch of scientists and engineers specially chosen for this while using a shuttle to go to the planetary surface of earth. He had other ideas though.

,,I’m not going to let those braindead morons onboard. I’m not a politician, but even I know that no one will care about my little threat if they have those monkeys onboard who probably don’t even know how the coffee machine works!” ,,What is the importance of coffee for your race?” Leghk curiously asked. ,,I just think it tastes good, that’s all. Anton, why don’t you drop us of nicely in front of their doorstep?” ,,Welcome to Vengeance space liners, dudes! Fasten seatbelts and prepare for landing!”

The moment they stepped out of the airlock, they found countless honour guards and a few tanks pointing their weapons at them. The situation could have ended with explosive results, but the emperor decided his day had been ruined already anyway, so he ordered them to be lead to the council room. They arrived after half an hour of walking through corridors, still with several guns pointed at them.

,,Outrageousss! One ssship, and ssstil you come here and cower like an Elowannn!” The Thrynn ambassador spat in fury. ,,Thou hast insulted my kind. For that, I am obliged to demand an apology.” The Elowan ambassador coldly responded. The two ambassodrs stared at each other, both hoping for a chance to accuse the other of something bad. The Thrynn and Elowan had been enemies for as long as people could remember and only the empire kept one from wiping out the other.

,,Oh, just shut up, you bunch of rockbrained idiots! One ship, but that damned one ship is bigger than a starport! I’ve seen it wipe out a fleet that consisted of ships that would give a Warhammer a run for its money! And your damn future depends on it!” Steven shouted across the room. While he didn’t had the subtlety of a politician, he did manage to catch everybody’s attention. A tense silence descended on the room. It was the emperor who spoke first, sounding very bored:,, And do you have proof, captain?” One thing could also be said about Steven, he never showed respect to people from who he thought didn’t deserve it. ,,Oh, proof? Let me see. First we just happened to be a long way from home. We travelled through time, twice. We ran into the friendly cousins of the Uhleck, we brought a bunch of them with us, one of which is floating behind my back. They showed us what would happen till the finest details. They even were so nice to put some new stuff on the Vengeance and lead us to even better stuff! With that, we managed to make it back home in time for diner, while slaughtering a whole squid fleet on our own in the process. So what more proof do you want, mister big nose?”

The Emperor had a big nose, so it wasn’t so sudden, but still being called that destroyed whatever of his good will was left. As said, Steven wasn’t a politician. ,,You request that I believe you just because you say something that’s so unbelievable, it can’t be true. And this Leghk as you call it, is probably nothing more but some toy you bought in a toy shop somewhere. I have reached my decision. You are hereby expelled from the military. You have two days to take you personal belongings of that ship that is currently parked on top of my beloved flowers. Next week I demand of you to show up in front of a military court where your actions shall be judged. This meeting is dismissed!” Steven left the room without bowing for the emperor as he was supposed to do, his crew hurrying after him.

Anton had made the experts decide that it wasn’t such a good idea to enter the ship with a well placed blast from his lower turret that knocked out a nearby super-photonic wave array which was used for communication. As a result, there were no unwanted guests that had to be kicked out when Steven and the others returned. ,,So what are we going to do now?” Jason asked as soon as they were back in the airlock. ,,Cash in some favours.” Steven responded.

,,How many favours did you have?” Blakes said in surprise when he looked out of a window while they walked to an empty hangar in the Institute starport where the Vengeance had been built. The area around the starport was crowded with warships of all sizes, almost half of all the military ships in the system. ,,Two Grand Admirals, one normal Admiral, three fleet commanders and twelve captains. But most of the people out there had send their family with the Governor, or Noah 2 if you prefer that name. This is basically about saving their families and children.

Steven nodded as a greeting when the familiar sight of the green Leghkian came floating around the corner. ,,We could unload those kids and have them send out on a colony vessel if you like.” ,,No, captain. Before we are worthy to rebuild, we must confront the beast.” ,,I would have preferred to have them somewhere safe, but if you insist.” He took a longrange communicator out of his pocket. ,,Anton, are you ready to get this show started?” ,,You bet, captain dude! I’ve already imitated the voice of the local boss here to tell everybody to get off, they all fell for it. Scientists are so easy to deceive. Sorry dad.” Anton’s voice came out of the box.

,,I know a couple of talented young people who can become your science officer. You never had the chance to pick one up when we left in a hurry last time.” ,,What the hell are you saying, Blakes? I’ve already got the best science officer I can imagine. You’ve earned my respect Blakes. We would have never survived if it wasn’t for you. It wasn’t your fault that the Governor got in trouble, and it made it in the end. Now we just have to make sure they will continue to make it, and I would really like it if I had you by my side for this.”

The huge bunker doors, designed to withstand the heaviest bombardment imaginable, started to glow and vaporize as they were hit by the massive firepower of the Vengeance. The Vengeance flew through the hole it had created and activated its stressfield. While primarily meant for stopping incoming fire, the fact that no normal sensor could penetrate the dimensional stresszone that was wrapped around the ship made it just as useful for avoiding detection.

,,Ten minutes, I think we can open the doors now” Blakes said while looking at his antique wristwatch. ,,How are we going to explain this?” ,,Don’t worry, captain. There was an accident which knocked out all the systems in this particular hangar. We just pretend that we are trying out the doors after repairs.” ,,What a coincidence. But good idea. Without internal sensors, no one will notice Anton’s visit.”

The doors opened and closed two minutes later. As soon as they’d closed, the Vengeance became visible and extended its airlock.

Five minutes later, the doors opened again and the Vengeance flew out, hidden behind its stressfield.

As soon as they’d arrived in a position were no one would be able to know that they’d came from the Institute station, the shield was dropped and the Vengeance became visible again. With the shield gone, the communication systems could work again and had no trouble making contact with the Enterprise.

,,Hello, captain. Noah fleet is ready for departure.” ,,Noah fleet?” ,,Well.” Pearcy began. ,,I thought that we couldn’t leave without having a name, so I held a little vote. A majority of the crew wanted to name the fleet after the Noah 2 that brought the colonists to Arth. I hope you don’t mind.” ,,Offcourse not. So what are you going to do while we’re away for a while?” ,,I’m coming with you.”

,,Coming with us? Ah, what the hell. Welcome onboard. I wanted to head for deep space first, that should give us time to decide our next action without any impies putting their nose in our business.”

,,Hey, captain dude. I’ve got big nose here. He is making one hell of a lot of noise.” ,,Big nose?” ,,The emperor, stupid!” ,,Hey, don’t call me… Just put him on screen!”

,,Captain! What are you doing?! You have stolen an imperial ship! You’ve disobeyed my orders! You are now under arrest and you are not going to move a finger till my marines arrive to pick you up! Do you understand!” Steven simply smiled calmly while leaning back in his chair during the whole tirade. Seeing the emperor lose control of himself like this was rare and he decided to enjoy every second of it. ,,Well, do you have anything to say?” ,,Sure, big nose.” Steven answered, still with a calm smile on his face. ,,You know, you could have actually accused me of things if you did things different. Your problem is, the first thing you did was kick me out of the military. That means that I was a civilian from that moment. And you can’t drag a civilian in front of a military court, at least not legally. And you want me to hand over something that isn’t mine. I didn’t steal an imperial ship. Hell, I didn’t steal anything! The Vengeance is the body and therefore, according to article 5469, paragraph 87, subsection C of the civilian rights and duties, property of Anton, who has passed the self conscience test of professor Ekalim and therefore has the same rights as any organic sentient being. Anton has given no objections at all against my plan.” ,,What and miss out on all the fun? It was nice talking to ya, big nose dude. But we’ve got other things to do so we’ll be going now, see ya!” The emperor never got the chance to say anything before communications were cut.

Countless flashes lighted up the area as Noah fleet accelerated to super-photonic speed. Many people wished to see their families again, including Steven and, because they were basically deserting and didn’t had to follow the empire’s orders, they all went to Arth as their first destination.

The trip was uneventful, with the exception of an encounter with a few ships of the blob-like Spemin who ran as fast as they could when they realized they didn’t stand a chance against the fleet of imperial ships. It didn’t take long to arrive in the Arth system.

The colonists were quite happy with their unexpected guests and their commander explained what had happened. They had come under attack of Gazurtoid ships who did some heavy damage to the Noah 2. They managed to escape only by accidentally hitting a flux. The Mechan escorts had been lost though. Even though their trip had taken longer then expected, they made it and set up the underground colony. Just as everyone of Noah fleet prepared to spend some time with the colonists, all hell broke lose.

,,Hey, captain dude! I’ve got something!” ,,Not now, Anton. I’m going to visit my wife and kids, can’t you wait till I’m back?” Steven responded with an annoyed tone in his voice and extended his arm towards the airlock door. ,,Sorry, captain dude. I know you missed a few years, but this looks important. It is big, coming right at us, and I’ll bet my data core that it’s Leghkian!” ,,The beast.” Leghk said. While his expressionless face seemed as calm as ever, Steven still noticed a hint of fear seeping through its voice. ,,Are you sure?” ,,Yes, I am sorry.” ,,Dammit! Why can’t the damn thing wait?! What the hell is it doing here in the first place?! Anton, get everybody back in their ships! Get Jason and Blakes back here, we’ve got company!” Even as he was giving orders, Steven rushed back to the bridge as fast as his legs could take him.

,,Are you there finally? Strap yourself in, this isn’t going to be a pleasure cruise.” Steven said when a panting Blakes appeared on the bridge. ,,Hi, dad. Our friend looks like he wants to get into orbit on this planet.” ,,Alright. Here we go, let’s launch.”

All imperial ships were designed to be able to land without any special modifications. This was more meant to enable the crew to survive in the event of a crash landing, but it still had its uses when there wasn’t a starport in orbit. Now the whole fleet sped up through the atmosphere and back into space.

It was even bigger than it had looked in the halls of visions. It dwarfed every ship Steven knew, including the huge Gazurtoid ships. ,,Oh my god. Anton, take us in, let’s see if we can knock out a few turrets before the rest of the fleet gets in range. Hold your fire till point-blank range, I don’t want them to dodge and since we’re invisible, they won’t know what hit them. Can you see from under that shield.” ,,I can see and control invisible stresszones with the CDS launcher, so why wouldn’t I upgrade the sensors to do the same thing? I can see as good as you want!” ,,Then do it.” ,,Oh, yeah! Let’s rock!”

The Vengeance raced ahead of the fleet. But before it even got close, the big Uhleck ship was hidden from view by countless plasma bolts. ,,What the hell?!” Steven shouted when the Vengeance evaded the first wave of plasma bolts. ,,I don’t get it. They’re not tracking us, yet still it seems as if they can see us.” Blakes responded, pointing at his console which showed the direction the plasma bolts were travelling in. They all travelled in a straight line, without any sign of their feared ability to home in on their target.

,,The beast, I am sorry.” ,,What, Leghk?” ,,Inside the ship, one of the UHL’s offspring lives, controlling the Leghk onboard. It noticed me, a free Leghk and came here. Even now, it’s slaves can’t see us, but the beast can feel where our souls are.” ,,So, we’re not invisible? The forget about point-blank range, just open fire!”

The Vengeance now returned fire while still taking hard turns to evade the incoming plasma.
Plasma bolts and phaser blasts impacted with the shields of the Uhleck ship in a colourful display. But the shields were strong and the only thing that managed to strike the hull were the stressbolts that slipped past the shield instead of trying to punch through with brute force.

It was like a swarm of mosquitos trying to take down an elephant. Ship after ship fell to the storm of plasma bolts and despite the heavy bombardment, the huge Uhleck ship kept its shields. Though the stressbolts kept chewing hole out of the hull, the damage was relatively small and the swarm of plasma bolts kept the Vengeance form being able to concentrate its fire on one spot and drilling deeper into the hole.

Despite the constant teleporting, the Vengeance was still being hit by plasma bolts almost constantly and its shields were battered down in minutes.

Even with most of the fleet destroyed, the rest of Noah fleet kept attacking the almighty behemoth.

The Vengeance kept shooting at its foe, despite the plasma striking its bare hull, now with all available power redirected towards its CDS launcher, allowing it to pump out a constant stream of stressbolts. Finally, after having been pounded relentlessly with plasma bolts, the Vengenace’s engines had been melted, its weapons destroyed and its hull glowing from the enormous heat.

,,Well, it was nice knowing you. Why don’t we make our last seconds as pleasant as possible?” Steven said with a sigh as he accepted his defeat. ,,Sorry, Leghk.” ,,Weapons and engines are destroyed, but the Chronotrium web protected everything that was underneath the armour.” Jason said. ,,Everything? Can we redirect every single bit of juice we have left to the shields and get them back up?” Steven answered has he regained a bit of hope ,,Well, we might, but the projectors were on the outside of the hull and have been pretty much reduced to a few molten bits of scrap. Besides, they’re only leaving us alone because we are dead in the water and the shields wouldn’t hold long, even if we had them.” Jason effectively managed to drill that hope back into the ground. ,,Dammit, and I had hoped we could use those shields to move. I remember Anton saying something to that effect.” ,,Well yeah, I did. The shields can easily be used as a superfast super-photonic drive system. But there are only three things I can think of you want to do with them, and I don’t know if I like any of them. I think I can rebuilt the shield system, though.”

,,That’s all I need. We’re pointing right at them and there are three rules I’ve learned about ramming. One, don’t do it. Two, never forget one. Three, the faster you go, the more damage you cause. Nobody know the damage that ramming at super-photonic speed does since normal engines can’t do it close to something with some decent mass, I think it’s time we find out. Anton, do it and go as fast as you can. Don’t hold back.” ,,Got it captain, dude. Oh yeah, I know what you’re going to say and the answer is no. If you think we’re all going to eject and let my simple back-up computer take over so I can eject my core, you are totally out of your mind! We’re staying!”

The final chapter! Get ready!

The Uhleck ship renewed its interest and fired a stream of plasma bolts at the Vengeance, enough to finally melt the remains of its armour and everything underneath.

,,Anton, you better hurry.” ,,I’m trying! Rebuilding the shield system from scratch in seconds isn’t easy! Now shut up so I can use all my processing power for this!”

The bolts approached at a frightening pace. ,,Got it!” Anton shouted. For one moment, the Vengeance seemed frozen in space with the first plasma bolt about to strike. Then, it disappeared and seemingly instantly, the plasma bolts all received a clean hole through the middle as well as the Uhleck Behemoth, allowing the starts on the other side of the ship to be seen. The other plasma bolts that still flew through space continued to make casualties, but no new bolts were fired.

In fact, the Uhleck ship had ceased doing anything. Not only had the Vengeance flown right through several plasma bolts, it had also flown through the centre of the huge ship, hitting the core of the UHL that controlled the crew of Leghk in the process. The dimensional particles that made up the UHL’s atoms had been spread in all directions.

The Leghk onboard had all entered a deep coma. They had become too dependent on the UHL to control their minds.

,,Goodbye, Steven. And thanks.” Pearcy said, looking at the screen that showed the disabled hulk of the Uhleck ship. The Enterprise had taken heavy damage during the battle, but it was nothing that couldn’t be repaired with a long stay at a star port.

History isn’t made by great events or the decisions of rulers. Instead, it is made by the endless stream of coincidences that is called time.

The remains of Noah fleet limped home after destroying the remains of all lost ships as was tradition in the imperial fleet. The made it back to Earth and although they were dragged in front of a military court, they were all proclaimed innocent and taken back in normal service. The emperor needed a victim though, and Steven Cloudy was the perfect choice. Though placed in the books as a power-hungry traitor that tried to overthrow the empire, he would never notice it. In fact, he would have the last laugh as he died many years after all memory of the emperor had faded.

When leaving, Noah fleet forgot about one thing. The Uhleck ship still floated in space. In time, it was caught by Arth’s gravity and crashed on the southern hemisphere. This created what would become known as the southern hot zone.

The resulting earthquakes forced the colonists above ground, where they lost their technology and fell into a dark age that would last for many generations.

Only centuries later, their descendants would stumble on the long forgotten colony and the Noah 2 that was still there. They would use the technology found in the ships database to found the first interstellar organization on Arth, Interstel.

Just in time. The wave of flaring suns that had caused the demise of the empire, was about to reach Arth. In a last ditch effort, the Arthlings went to the Crystal Planet that was causing it. History had changed, and they were not stopped by the Uhleck ship that had been defeated by Noah fleet. Using several priceless artefacts, an Interstel ship descended to the surface of the planet. There, its crew planted an ancient Phlegmak device called a black egg, a bomb with enough power to destroy a planet. Escaping the shockwave and debris, they returned to Arth as heroes.

Far away from Arth, a new race made their appearance. While still young and few in numbers, they quickly earned the respect of their neighbours with the help of their ships that could teleport and fired bolts of plasma.

While they never left their space, they never turned other races away who passed by, if they were friendly. In fact, they would provide them with shelter and warn them of their brothers who were controlled by the beast. These brothers were never seen.

They also demanded that no one would enter a small nebula on the edge of their space. There was only one star with no planets in that nebula, so non of the races had any trouble with that.

There were rumours though about why the new beings wanted everyone to stay away. Some thought that a weapon could be found there, others an ancient ship, and some thought that the green floating beings originated from there. They never knew how close they were to the truth.

The truth behind these rumours would eventually be revealed when a group of ships flown by several new races appeared in the sector. One of those ships was known as, the ISS Retribution.

THE END (was about time! :))

True (that it was about time). Maybe I'll read it now. But at least it boosted your post counter.
Enjoy,
 Martin

The end of boredom?  Or the end of the story?
Now it seems the beginning of the making of the pics. ;)
It would be nice if every chapter had a pic.

Ok, then I'll need to do a few things.

Models: 3 different Vengeances (original, Leghk enhanced, Big mean Stressbolt machine 8))
Enterprise (Doing one were it is attached to the Institute station would be nice)
Warhammer (the biggest and meanest warship in the empire, not counting the Enterprise and the Vengeance)
Leghk Warship
Uhleck Dreadnought (I can't leave the bad guys out, can I?)

Take a look to see if I can put it on the Internet somewhere.
Add some modifications to the text to make things better. (The part between getting stuck in the Leghk sector and traveling back in time is crap.)
Get rid of things that don't fit. (Steven suddenly became addicted to coffee, I should put it in from the beginning.)

That and some things I haven't thought of right now.
Now if you excuse me, it's time for school. :(