Thursday, April 21, 2011

Intro 1: Heeding the Call

"Operation Stellar Shrine" by SizarieldoR
a StarCraft fanfic
http://www.thehelper.net/forums/showthread.php?t=137647 for list of chapters

2481 C. E.
BATTLECRUISER "VINDICATOR"
CONFEDERATE EXPEDITIONARY FLEET "LAMBDA"
OUTSKIRTS OF TERRAN CONFEDERATE SPACE
Space was cold and dark, Chester thought, but behind the thick glass and the multiple plates of metal that made up the battlecruiser’s hull, it was warm and good enough to live in. He was observing the star-sprinkled emptiness on the other side of the huge bridge window, waiting for his friend Boris to come. The bridge was empty with the exception of a couple of permanence operator on one of the consoles on the lower level and Chester himself. Most of the crew of the Vindicator, as the battlecruiser was called, were resting.
Chester was a young scientist in his twenties. His Ph. D. in physics from the Umojan academy made him one of the most skilled specialists on board and placed him far above the meek Confederate scientists. He was also far less content with his service under Confederates, which won him the animosity of important people in the ship’s hierarchy, but also helped him become friends with Boris, one of the lieutenants. Boris Paskirov also had to hide his dislike for the high command of the fleet, the best thing one could do if expecting promotion, but Paskirov nonetheless was a member of the liberal officers’ party aboard.
As Chester was staring at the starry infinity laid before him, the monotonous beeping of the board computers suddenly changed and signals began to be heard. He walked to the dispatcher to see what was going on.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ one of the operators said. ‘I just intercepted a human transmission coming from somewhere nearby.’
‘It’s not encrypted… Opening…’ the other murmured, when he gasped. ‘It’s a call for help! Somebody’s been stranded in local space and they need “immediate assistance.” Wow, I better call the Vice-Admiral, here’s the coordinates. What was your name again?’
‘Chester. Need me to do anything for you?’
‘ Yes, make your pals coffee. These birds may see some action after all. Whoever sent this message is dancing rock’n’roll. And it’s not any of his favourite songs that’s playing.’
Chester quickly left.
Ten minutes later, the big ship was teeming with life. For several weeks now the fleet of one giant battlecruiser, six smaller Wanderer-class battleships and the accompanying auxiliary vessels had been wandering idle in this backwater sector of human space. So bloody backwater that it was hardly human anymore, Chester thought to himself. As he was staying out of the way of the military personnel on his way to the telecommunications hall, a hand grabbed his shoulder.
‘First to see it, eh?’ It was Paskirov, with a wide smile on his oval angular face.
‘Yes, I was doing the most adequate thing a scientist could do when the Confederates are preparing for a fight – staying out of the way.’
‘I, for one, am skeptical these pigs will get to shoot on anything bigger than the local dinosaur or mastodon. Don’t worry. I’d love some action, but… Oh, gotta go,’ Paskirov said and continued towards his battle station.
The fleet was preparing for engagement with an unknown enemy. The batteries on the hammerhead and on the wings of the big Vindicator were warmed up and ready to launch a hail of deadly lasers at anyone - or anything – that dared engage the mighty battlecruiser. Near it, forming a warp jump formation were the six other smaller Wanderer-class warships, prepared for the enemy, and behind them were the two science vessels and the cargo ships that transported whatever scientific apparati the Confederacy gave them to examine the planets. Paskirov was feeling nervous. He hoped that there would be time to sleep tonight.
The ships jumped to the designated nearby coordinates. They were near a dusty yellow-ish planet whose thin, wispy clouds revealed numerous thin bodies of some liquid, probably water, twisting on parts of the surface and around two seas that this hemisphere seemed to have. On the Vindicator’s deck, Paskirov was hearing admiral Anders’ orders to approach and scan the planet. Once the damsels in distress were localized, the real Confederate soldiers were going to come and scare away whatever brutes were irritating the fools on the surface. The operators found the position – it was around the equator, on the same side of the planet the fleet now was. That would make raining death from directly above both easier and scarier. Paskirov could see the excitement on the face of the old pig and felt tempted to join in the euphory. He needed to be calm, however, as optimism in war could easily turn into arrogance, then into underestimating the enemy and, ultimately, an unexpected defeat. He took a deep breath as the ships were approaching the atmosphere.
The fleet slowed down to avoid warming up due to friction with the air and began descending through the clouds. Paskirov could see the terrain reading on one of the screens. They were over a hilly area with a river flowing south of where they were. As the ships slowly changed their trajectory to a horizontal one and approached the site, the operators began seeing signs of life. The officers were summoned to the bridge in order to observe and as he walked into a better place to look at the planet, Boris gasped. In the middle of the landscape there was a wide flat area at the end of which, near some rocky elevations… There were ruins.
There were ruins of a pyramidal structure – not big from afar, but probably enormous at close distance. Ruins? Here? That was extremely unusual. How old were they? More importantly, who made them? Who? Or what? And even more importantly for a lieutenant, there was something going on in front of them. There were dark spots on the bare yellow-ish plain and there were clouds of smoke coming out. There was motion. There were the people.
‘Gentlemen, this is the theatre,’ Anders shouted in awe. ‘The people are out there and something is troubling them. It is time to kick in and restore order for the Confederacy,’ Anders said to the staff. ‘Prepare for action. Operator, tell the transport ships to deploy all forces 1 and a half kilometers from the enemy.Tell the support warships to unload 2 kilometers from the action. Yes, that’s you I’m talking to! Just do it, for heaven’s sake. Prepare to land and unload our boys 1 km as well. You know standard procedure, these are the reserves. Summers, Phry get to your companies and prepare to land with them. There’s no need for separate commander on land, boys, so I’ll keep you in line.’
Vindicator and the six other vessels stood still, floating a several hundred feet above the ground. Any higher would make the job of the dropships too time-consuming, but any lower would mean that the gravitational pressure downwards created by the ships’ anti-gravity systems that kept them in the air would be irritating and even harmful for any soldier who found himself under them. Paskirov could see the overall picture of the fighting. Closer to the temple were obviously the humans, who had improvised barricades and walls. The flashes suggested that there was fierce opposition to whatever was attacking. The attackers, on the other hand, were hard to identify. Paskirov thought they were some sort of animals, as there was a lot of motion in the groups of pinkish living mass spread through the rubble of the battlefield. Fodder for the tanks, obviously. The transport ships were now moving through the line of the battleships, their long steel hulls, decorated with antennae and guns, were slowly flying past pairs of huge laser batteries on both ends of Vindicator’s wings.
‘Visual from the battlefield, sir,’ an operator informed Anders. Paskirov looked at the footage. The defenders had some good machinery, he thought, looking at the scorched remains of vulture hovercycles and even tanks. He could tell individual corpses, but his attention was grabbed by the monsters moving through the smoke and charred steel shards. They had too many claws and teeth, and their pace was one of predators eager for killing. These creatures seemed to vary in size, he noticed. There were some small four legged ones, and there were bigger ones that seemed to stand erect. The extra claws they had made it hard to tell limbs and Paskirov wondered how much generations of merciless fight for survival were responsible for such a threatening visage.
The warships gained several hundred meters of altitude and moved over the deploying transport vessels, ready to attack the enemy alongside the land force, providing the needed air support.
‘Let the ships engage the enemy. Tell the Wanderers to open fire when in range. Let’s do some target practice, boys!’ Anders shouted. Several voices responded enthusiastically. Paskirov’s was not one of them.
The ships moved closer while the infantry and the tanks were forming up and aimed at the outer side of the combat zone. The batteries of the six Wanderer-class warships, along with the regular armament of the battlecruiser unleashed a hail of lasers against the ground where the enemy was supposed to be. Waiting any command, Paskirov thought about how he did not want to be on the receiving end of the beams. As the cannonade was beginning, the mighty side batteries of the Vindicator also fired couples of massive laser volleys, illuminating the interior of the bridge with bright reddish light as they sent rays of death straight ahead into the fray.
Down below, the infantry began to advance. The tiny black dots on the surface strolled forward.
‘Hold fire, all ships. The infantry’s advancing. Move towards the enemy!’
The cannonade stopped and the seven ships slowly headed to the temple. As they got closer, Anders ordered the smaller, more accurate guns to shoot at anything that does not look human. Meanwhile, down on the surface the first lines of marines and tanks entered the scorched zone. Paskirov could hear the soldiers’ transmissions.
‘Tanks, sir, they are really messed up. Something musta been tearin’ through ‘em, look at the wheels.’
‘Oh, God, this poor marine’s been torn into two.’
‘Man, I don’t wanna die with a claw in my head, Jimmy.’
‘Then shut up and stay in formation, soldier!’
‘Oh, dear, something moved there. I can swear I saw something. It’s coming!’
‘Don’t worry, man, we’ve got your back. Just stay cool and be ready to shoot’
‘Yeah, they’re over there!’
‘Contact!’
‘Aargh!’
‘Kill it!’
‘It’s too fast’
‘Die, sucker!’
‘Hold on!’
‘My arm! I’m bleeding!’
Soon, shooting, blasts, screams of men and screeches of the aliens mixed up in the radio receiver, making it impossible to hear tangible sounds. On the bridge, Anders stood and waited for any radio contact with possible survivors. That’s not what he should be doing, Boris thought.
‘Permission to speak, sir?’
‘What is it, kid?’ Anders asked vexed.
‘Should not we try to just surround the beasts and pin them down, while the ship’s weapons kill them from a safe distance? I mean, it is what our ground forces are extremely capable of, plus, we are taking casualties…’
‘Don’t tell me how to fight, lefftenant, I’m the CO around here! The marines will do fine! Now, get to…’ but he did not continue, because there was connection with the people on the surface.
‘Attention, survivors,’ he said as if boasting in front of somebody, ‘This is Admiral Hugh Anders of the Confederate Expeditionary Fleet Lambda speaking. We have received your request for help and our ground forces are already deployed and engaging the enemy. Soon, you will be provided medical help and commodities. Until then, stay alive.’
The voice, which replied to him, however, was cold and metallic.
‘We are glad to hear this, admiral. I am Captain Williams, the highest ranking surviving officer of the Confederate force whose remains you see. I would tell you more, but I need to help my men right now.'
‘Erm, right, yes, I see, captain,’ Anders said with a note of surpsise in his voice. ‘You will tell us everything… else when on board.’
The admiral angrily murmured something.
Down below, the soldiers were winning. Horrible as the aliens would prove to the crews later, their numbers were not large enough to exploit the initial advantage of surprise that their terrible looks had earned them against the humans. Some hours later, it was all over and the bloody bodies of marines and aliens lay among the destroyed machinery in front of the mysterious temple.
Later, Anders ordered his troops to establish defences around the temple and to tend the wounded. Marines and tanks found their places as the medical teams searched the field for anyone alive. In the meantime, Anders and several officers, among which Paskirov, went to the survivors.
The survivors amounted to about 200 men. They were an unusual sight. There were Confederate marines and firebats and Confederate weapons and other Confederate military things, but about half the men were not the usual kind of soldier. They were lightly armoured and equipped with sniper rifles. Most importantly, Boris thought, their behavior was unusual. They were not chit-chatting among each other, nor with the new troops as the others were doing. They were staying awkwardly aloof, waiting for an order, like springs waiting to unwind. Boris could not see their eyes because of the multi-vision goggles they were all wearing. Even their wounded, as he saw later, moaned far less than the usual grunt, let alone swear.
A figure approached Anders. Boris turned and saw one of the snipers walk to the admiral. The man was different – his face was showing and he had a red beret. There was a contrast between the two men, the surprised elderly, clean Anders in his shiny uniform and clean service cap, and the stone-faced younger officer, covered in soot, dust and probably blood.
‘I am Captain Williams, sir. I am the most senior EO after colonel Hughes was killed.’
‘Yes, I see,’ Anders replied. ‘Your men are probably exhausted from the fighting, don’t worry. My boys were a little surprised, too, when meeting the enemy. Quite a nasty species you found here, capt’n.’
Surprised and dead, Boris thought to himself.
‘Their numbers were larger than what you had to deal with, admiral. We called for help immediately when seeing them. I was commanding one of the infantry companies. We were fortunate we already had a base of operations next to the ruins, otherwise we’d be dead. Before you had the chance to arrive.’
‘Right. Now, let us to the ship, shall we?’ Anders invited him.
‘Indeed.’
But as they turned to the dropship, Williams suddenly realized something and hurried back towards one of the surviving tents of the defenders.
‘I forgot something, Admiral. I will be with you in a minute.’
Boris waited and looked around. It was now twilight and in the growing shadows he could see his fleet’s SCV’s and engineers examining the scrap of the destroyed vehicles, looking for parts that could be used to repair what was still repairable. Another bedtime was approaching and both he, and Anders, were getting nervous.
‘Ready?’ Anders asked, irritated, when Williams hurriedly came back.
‘Yes, admiral,’ Williams replied, and Boris could swear he sounded more at ease now.
They walked towards the dropship and then into one of the conference rooms of the battlecruiser.
‘At ease, gentlemen,’ the admiral ordered the lieutenants. ‘Go rest, I will talk with Captain Williams alone.’
The officers went away. Paskirov and Stephen Summers went towards Chester’s cabin.
‘What the hell were these guys, Boris?’ Stephen asked with excitement.
‘I have no idea, Steve. One thing is for sure, though – they do not look like people who are usually fooling around,’ Paskirov replied tired.
‘I sure hope old Andy decides to call it a day and take us back already. I’m sick of walking around this ship doing nothing. My life’s passing away in inaction, Boris, haha.’
‘Think about the admiral, whose life has already mostly passed, Steve.’
‘Well, he did find these sorry guys here. It’s enough of an event to generate a satisfactory amount of reports and of reasons to get out of the back yard of the galaxy and back to Tarsonis. And, besides, there’s these ruins. God knows how they got here.’
‘That’s more material for reports, indeed. We could have found aliens, what do you know.’
‘That’s something for Chester to contemplate on, really. I wonder if grandpa will really send anybody to take a look at the building,’ Stephen whispered as they were approaching the scientists’ cabins.
‘I doubt. He’s never been really into archaeology. Or analyzing anything, for that matter.’
Both laughed. Shortly, they summoned Chester and went to the cafeteria.
‘How was down there, Boris?’ Chester asked, the dim lights of the empty cafeteria illuminating his black skin.
‘Lots of guys have gotten… expended. Plenty of wreckage and death, really. There were even more killed aliens, though. Creepy to look at. Professional predators, so to speak.’
‘Ah, I suspect some wild evolution has been going on here. Too bad we can’t stay around longer, there are professors from the university who would be happy to get some data about things that are dangerous enough to threaten the Confederate military,’ Chester smiled.
‘Did you see the ruins? They are the strangest thing on this mission of ours yet,’ Stephen asked.
‘…which is not much of an achievement,’ Boris noted.
‘Yea, very unusual, I saw them. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until somebody who cares sends real explorers here. The Confederate drones they use for scientific work here act more brainwashed than the infantry, at least when dealing with science. It’s like my colleagues’ brain center for curiosity has been amputated and replaced with one about obedience,’ he frowned.
‘Let’s see if Williams is the liberal type, shall we?’ Boris noted.
‘I, personally, doubt, man. He’s more the obedient type. I mean, look at how he behaves,’ Stephen remarked.
‘Yes, but his tone towards the old guy in charge is not one filled with respect. Even old Andy himself is starting to realize that. He’s noticing the lack of kudos in Williams’ words,’ Boris explained.
‘As you wish. Chances are, in my opinion, that this Williams guy is another re-socialized troop. I don’t know what went wrong with HIS re-socialization, but he’s still a wheel in the Confederate war machine more than he is a Homo sapiens,’ Stephen replied.
‘I’ll go get whatever information I can on my own computer, you two. I’m off,’ Chester said. ‘Good luck with the Williams guy.’
‘Let’s hope Anders loses his temperament against the captain, that would help,’ Boris thought aloud.
‘Shouldn’t take long,’ the scientist replied.
‘We’ll be laying an ambush for the new captain once his interview with Anders is over, good night,’ Paskirov said.
A while later, Paskirov and Stephens were walking towards their cabins but using the longest route possible, trying to encounter Williams in the corridors. Eventually, they did and pretended to be surprised.
‘Greetings, captain. I am Lieutenant Boris Paskirov and this is my fellow Lieutenant Stephen Summers. We are delighted to meet you,’ Paskirov began.
‘Aye, good day to you both. Can I be of service?’
‘How do you like our ship and our supreme commander?’ Stephens inquired.
‘The ship is fair enough. The commander is outside of my judgement.’
‘You know, we are curious about what happened down there before this fleet arrived. How did these aliens come? Was it hard to hold them off?’ Paskirov asked, faking interest.
‘Before you arrived, we were fighting for our lives. The aliens were pretty scary to stand against. It is probably easy to look at the footage, but when two of those dog-like ones jump in front of you, it is time for reflexes. Ahem, they are a tough foe, yes,’ Williams replied.
‘Let’s go to the cafeteria, we can sit there,’ Summers suggested.
‘Yes. Your men look pretty dangerous, I have to admit,’ Paskirov continued on their way there.
‘We are ghosts, a special corps. This was one of our first missions. I am not authorized to say more.’
‘Were you in the temple?’
‘Yes, we did enter it. But that’s enough.’
‘Well, you probably deal pretty bad damage with your rifles. Are they a Canister model?’
‘Yes, the new C-10. They are very effective against the aliens. This is so, because the aliens have some parts of their bodies unarmored, as I observed. A bullet there saves time and trouble.’
‘How much target practice have you done with your rifle, there?’ Summers took turn to ask.
‘Enough.’
‘How big was your group when you landed on this planet?’
‘We were about five hundred men, both fighting, and supporting personnel.’
‘Why did you land here?’
‘We heard… I cannot tell you that. I am sorry.’
‘Right. Where are you from, Williams? Tarsonis? I think I know your accent,’ Summers changed the topic.
Williams said nothing.
‘How old are you?’ Summers asked again.
‘I was born in 2456,’ he replied.
‘Nice. I was born in 2457. Boris here is ’58.’
They entered the empty cafeteria.
‘Anything else you need to know?’ Williams asked, ever coldly.
‘Sure, do you have a girl?’ Summers said.
Williams turned and aimed a cold sight at Summers.
‘No.’
‘I have a girl – she’s in Tarsonis,’ Paskirov said. ‘I’m from Tarsonis myself, I met her at a ball. My family is kinda old, you see, and…’
‘I think Williams is not concerned with personal matters, Boris. Want to have a drink, capt’n?’
‘As a matter of fact, I want to have a rest after the last 36 hours. I’m going to my assigned cabin.’
‘Right. Don’t worry if you find yourself disagreeing with the admiral, captian. People like me or Steve do it all the time,’ Paskirov said. ‘Good night.’
‘Good night to you,’ Williams replied. There was a minute of silence.
‘Of course, you did save the day those last seconds,’ Summers said.
‘Had to.’
‘Yep.’
‘You think he’s joining our side?’ Paskirov asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Yes.’
‘Early to tell.’
‘Right.’
‘Well, bedtime?’ Summers said.
‘Good idea, I need sleep after all this. See you tomorrow. Relatively speaking.’
****
CONFEDERATE EXPEDITIONARY FLEET "LAMBDA"
PLANET 2481L36CT, UNKNOWN SYSTEM
TEN HOURS LATER
Sun was now rising at their coordinates. The personnel on the ground had salvaged what could be salvaged and any repairs were affected. The rescued soldiers were loaded onto the ships with Williams and three of his ghost troops remaining on the flagship Vindicator. The fleet was preparing to leave and head back to Confederate space and the prevailing mood was one of relief that they are getting back home, where life continues.
In the battlecruiser, Paskirov paused his contribution to the preparations and went to Anders in one of the halls. The admiral was smoking a pipe looking at some papers.
‘Sir, aren’t we doing something about the ruins we discovered?’
‘What? Oh, boy, you again. No. That’s none of our business, lefftenant. We just picked these lost sheep and we’re flying back home.’
‘But, those are the first remains of an alien civilization that mankind has seen, sir. Should not we at least send some of the scientists to examine it?’
‘I don’t care what that is, lefftenant, it ain’t my job to care. We already charted enough planets, it’s time to get back. Now leave me, I’ve got damn paperwork to do!’
‘Yes sir,’ Paskirov exited.
Such a waste, he thought. We probably haven’t even charted this planet. Well, hopefully he would be assigned to another commander sometime in the future, a cleverer one. But first – stay on schedule.
Everything was packed and the ships began moving upwards to space and away from the planet. At fifteen kilometers above the surface, the human ships began moving forward and gradually moved into a suitable position for a warp jump homewards.
Warp space was one of the most useful discoveries in contemporary Terran history. It facilitated transfer of goods and information through space and, as some argue, made an interplanetary political entity such as the Terran Confederacy possible. Warp space technology enabled, as the name suggested, moving in what could be considered another dimension as a medium for taking shortcuts. Warp jumps could be long or short, depending on the ship’s capabilities. Long jumps required special warp engines enabled the ship to enter it and exit it, but not every vessel could be equipped with them. Their size and energy consumption meant that only bigger ships could make warp jumps. Also, warp travel required careful input of coordinates. It was extremely dangerous to just aim at a random point in space, among other things, because exiting warp space too close to a planet or a star could have disastrous consequences for the ship. Nevertheless, Terran technology was developed enough to offer a degree of accuracy that even enabled groups of jumping ships to exit warp space in the same formation they had entered it. So, despite any risks, warp travel was not something Terrans would abandon soon.
Now, the ships’ engines were warming up for a long jump. The ships were standing in high orbit over the temple planet, waiting for the fancy lights of warp space. Chester had completed his tasks on the warp engines and was now next to one of the few windows on the battlecruiser, located on the right side. Although the right couple of long-range batteries was hiding some of the view, stars and the star that kept this unknown system together were still visible. He was regretting the loss that it was to leave the temple unexamined. Stupid Confederates.
At least the stars were nice. The view of the enormous emptiness, the grandiose void between him and them was relieving. The stars were sparkling, and… Something materialized in the distance. Two tiny bright objects suddenly appeared and began approaching the human fleet. Chester looked more carefully. They were yellow and approached fast, judging from the rate of getting bigger. Ships, it seemed, they came out of warp space. More Confederates, perhaps, that had received the signal for help. But why were they yellow? Were they some sort of star cruisers that tourists used?
The objects kept approaching and Chester was astonished. They did not look like human ships. They were round and, looking directly at them, they had a dark spot in the middle surrounded by gold. Chester was hoping that the guys on the bridge were seeing this.
And, indeed, they were. Paskirov was astounded. The operators were trying to establish communication with the two ships, but in vain. Anders was getting nervous, since the fleet was already warming up for a warp jump and he was not in the mood for anything but getting home. Still, the executives watched, while the various dispatchers, operators, and engineers still could not hear anything.
The two ships approached and were now several hundred meters from the battlecruiser. Paskirov observed them, when he heard a “thump”. He looked.
‘Sir, somethnig’s wrong with Williams!’ Paskirov shouted.
Williams was now standing against a wall, holding his head with one hand. His face was twisted in pain.
‘V-v-voices,’ he uttered.
‘What?’ Anders said.
‘Maybe it’s from the golden alien ships, sir,’ Paskirov answered.
‘They are… in my head. Argh!’ Williams was trying to stand upright.
‘Get a medic!’ somebody said.
‘No, I’m alright. I can hear them, in my head. They are saying hello,’ the ghost responded.
‘You can hear them?” Paskirov asked in amazement.
‘I guess I can, Paskirov… Sometimes their voices appear.’
‘Captain, tell them that this is Admiral Anders of the Confederate Expeditionary Fleet Lambda speaking. We are here to… Wait, you told them that?’ Anders interrupted.
‘Yes, I did, go ahead,’ Williams uttered, leaning on a nearby wall but otherwise better.
‘Ahem, we are here to rescue Confederate forces from an alien attack. Who are you.’
A few seconds of tense silence in the bridge followed.
‘He says his name is… something like Zahraldis. He is Protoss and is the do-er, leader, erm… Executor of this fleet here,’ Williams then explained. His eyes stared into the emptiness for a short while again and he continued. ‘They are here to take object R, admiral. They want it. Back.’
‘How the hell do they know it’s with us,’ Anders angrily muttered. ‘None of you knows anything about this object, AM I CLEAR?’ he screamed at everybody on the bridge.
Several voices answered ‘Sir’ and then Summers broke the uneasy silence.
‘What shall we do, admiral?’
‘Williams, tell these… Protoss… that anything discovered on this planet is Confederate property and belongs to the Terran Confederacy and the human race. They hace no claim over anything we discover here. Let them leave,’ Anders said.
‘Yes, admiral,’ the ghost focused. One second later, he turned to the old man. ‘They say that what we found is a legacy of somebody, whose name I could not get, and that it rightfully belongs to their fleet, as the first-borne of the same somebody. They are ready to use force.’
‘Well tell them that their stories do not count here, captain. Let all ships arm up. Nobody defies the Confederacy.’
Paskirov clearly did not like where things were going. For one thing, these Protoss had one more big vessel than the Terrans did. It was beautiful, really, he thought. A ship made of gold, sleek and oval, with tiny blue lights in the interior, between the three enormous plates that covered whatever structures it had like the scales of a bud. Of course, if it were not turned straight at them it would be better, and… suddenly the hollow front half of one of the ships filled up with tiny blue lights like a cloud of moths. The other one followed.
‘Sir?’ one of the officers dared ask.
Obviously the docks were there somewhere and two small clusters of small ships that were leaving the big ships. That could not be good. Also, there were bigger ships approaching. Probably as big as a dropship, Paskirov thought. They looked more menacing, with two big triangular wings pointing backwards and another pair of smaller wings at the tail. There were about 40 of them, as far as he could see. They were not heading towards the Terrans, though, but were only flying around the huge carriers. For now.
‘Captain, tell these Protoss that they will have to take whatever they want from the scorched wreckage of this here Confederate battlecruiser,’ Anders said with disdain.
‘They say that they find our conditions acceptable, admiral,’ Williams replied in a low voice.
‘All ships attack formation. All batteries, open fire!’ Anders shouted.
The order was met with a wave of doubt among the crew. The admiral, however, did not share his men’s concern. The battlecruiser and the six Wanderer-class ships commenced an attack on the aliens.
Paskirov noticed that at first the Protoss fell back. However, after the initial hail of lasers, the enemy ships one by one assumed an attacking formation and headed towards the flagship battlecruiser. Several golden fighters made an attack move from above and against the bridge. The anti-air batteries took down several of them, either making them explode, or burn as their hulls got damaged. The surviving fighters, however, managed to fire several missiles at the top side of the battlecruiser. The missiles hit the neosteel surface and exploded in bright flashes, taking away rather huge parts of the armor.
‘We are not going to make it,’ Paskirov thought. ‘This old idiot will kill us all.’
He could not give an angry look at the admiral, however, as he saw three tiny flying machines, the kind of which first took off the enemy carriers, heading straight towards the bridge. Each of them fired two bright projectiles from their air cannons and hit the surface of the Vindicator meters from where Paskirov was. They flew past the bridge, but were hit by three homing missiles shot from somewhere behind the battlecruiser and exploded in mid-air above the left wing of their ship.
The battle was taking an unfortunate turn for the humans. As expected, Paskirov thought to himself, and there was an increasing number of reports for the Terran ships sustaining damage. Even though the batteries of the battlecruiser were formidable, the shiny golden enemy carrier had more than gold for defence. Whenever a laser hit the ship, Paskirov noticed, there was a blue glow where the hull should be sustaining damage and nothing happened. Their smaller craft also had such a feature, even though not as effective. Anders’ initial confidence was slowly melting away like the ship plating of a Wanderer-class vessel under focused Protoss fire. Williams was staying back with a nervous look on his face.
‘Captain, I am re-considering my position. Tell the enemy admiral, whatever his name was, that we want a ceasefire,’ Anders grunted.
‘Yes, I shall try’ Williams replied and focused. After a few moments, he turned back to the admiral. ‘Zaraldis informs me that we are to cease firing and make a warp jump to a designated location.’
‘WE stop firing? What does he think he is saying, I am not…’ Anders shouted.
‘Sir, do not forget that they… Were lucky this time,’ Paskirov tried to calm him down. It was an effort in diplomacy, trying to make an arrogant old Confederate come in peace with hard reason, Boris thought.
‘Well, alright. We’ll wait to fight another day and all. Ask him where he wants us to go.’
‘He is inquiring into how we measure space and time,’ Williams remarked, as the battle was abating.
‘A scientist! Quickly!’ Paskirov called.
Immediately, several engineers of the crew ran in, among them Chester, ready to interpret. The humans and the Protoss got to some conclusion over the length of the battlecruiser and time measurements and the Protoss shortly gave a direction and a distance of several light years.
‘We will be sending small groups of ships, a group at a time, while they will hold the rest of us hostage until it is confirmed from the other side that our group has arrived,’ Williams explained.
‘Damn! I already hate these arrogant Protoss, captain!’ the admiral’s fury erupted. ‘How dare they!’
‘They’ve got the bigger guns,’ Paskirov whispered to Chester.
The Terrans’ ships engines began warming up and the jumping commenced, as agreed. At gunpoint, the fleet slowly flew to an unknown planet in uncharted space, by the orders of an unidentified alien species with unknown technical capabilities. Yeah, just perfect, Boris was thinking. Nice mess the old fool got us into. Who knows what will happen to us and Williams’ sphere now.
The battlecruiser was last. Anders had already sent the tired crew to rest, hoping that there really would be another day they could have the chance of fighting these Protoss.

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