PROLOGUE
The whole ship shook as a powerful torpedo hit it.
“Our shields are down to 10%!! We won’t be able to take another hit like that!!” said one of the officers on the bridge. The ship’s impulse engines were disabled and warp core critically damaged, so they had no way of escaping. The attacks have suddenly stopped.
“They’re hailing us, Captain!”, said the same officer as before.
“Onscreen”, Captain responded. Once the connection has been established, there was only blank blue on the screen. Everypony on the bridge went completely silent, awaiting the attacker’s speech. The silence lasted a few seconds, before unknown voice finally said “Disappear...” and the connection was closed and another shot, stronger than before, hit their ship again and vaporised it.
CHAPTER 1
--==2 weeks later==--
--=Location: Earth Spacedock=--
Captain Xereth and a few of his commanding
officers were called into the Admiral Quinn’s office on a meeting. As they all sat down, Admiral started with his mission briefing.
“I assume you haven’t heard of the incident that has happened two weeks ago in Alpha Quadrant?”
“...The incident..?” replied Captain Xereth, “What incident?”.
Admiral Quinn didn’t change the emotion on his face “A heavy cruiser, U.S.S. Chaika disappeared shortly after sending out a distress signal. Your mission is to go there and find out what the heck has happened to it. I have chosen you and your crew, Captain, because you have the most powerful and advanced ship in our whole fleet. I am sorry to have cut your holiday break short, but we need to clean this up. I will upload the coordinates to your ship. Dismissed.”
As Xereth and his officers walked towards the shipyard, Twanda, his tactical officer asked:
“Sir, do we know what we are even dealing with here? A ship cannot just ‘disappear’, not even a Federation one!”.
Captain Xereth chuckled and he replied “Don’t worry, we will be fine... we even have the newest possible shields and weapons... this time we’re equipped more than we should be for frontal attack!”.
As they have arrived to the shipyard, their starship, U.S.S. Fallen Sword, was already waiting to be boarded. It was a ship they had “stolen” from the Anponyans, who called it Kumari escort and was equipped better than any other Federation ships and the maneuverability was a lot better. As for the armor, the ship didn’t have much of it, so it’s main defensive option was speed and steering. As they boarded the ship with the remaining crew of various races and specialities, they all headed for their rooms to unpack their luggage, and to their stations right after, prepared to start their adventure.
Captain Xereth first went to captain’s quarters before going to the bridge, where his main bridge officers were already at the bridge.
Captain nodded to one of his officers to open speakers all over the ship and starts talking:
“Everyone.. this is your Captain speaking... I apologise for cutting our holiday short, but Admiral gave us this mission and the pay is good, so let us start our adventure!”
Right after, the ship towards the given coordinates and jumped into warp.
--==Location: Starbase 24, Orion Sector==--
U.S.S. Fallen Sword came out of the warp near the Starbase 24. It is one of the starbases around the galaxy, where other ships can resupply with the supplies that can’t be found on Earth.
“This is our first stop.. We will have to get a few samples of Crystaline Entity that we have to deliver to Dorzana station... Just a simple side task, still worth it’s money. Mat, you have the bridge while the rest of us are gone.”
Mat was a Breen. Always had a breen suit on him with a breen helmet, of which visor has been light green, indicating he was a ‘reformed’ Breen. He never took that helmet or suit off, which resulted in him getting a nickname ‘Aponymous’. He also had to have a voice translator installed because he could only speak in Breen, which sounded like random gibberish.
“Aye aye, Captain Xereth.” he replied. Xereth could almost find a hint of happiness in there.
As soon as U.S.S. Fallen Sword came into the transporter range, Xereth and 3 of his bridge officers, Twanda, Mondelik and Xayersi beamed down to Starbase 24, where they were greeted by a Ponyrengi. Ponyrengies (lol, Ferengi ripoff) were usually harmless traders, shorter than a usual pony that you could find around. They loved to to scam to get more and more money, and sometimes they would even betray their best friend if there was enough money thrown in for them.
“Would you like to look at my wares? I can offer you some rather rare commodities for a great price!” the Ponyrengi said. Xereth knew it was a scam. It would probably be a rock from another planet, which the Ponyrengi would name a ‘rusty diamond’ and would want to get a million energy credits for it, when it was worth probably around 50 energy credits maximum.
“No thank you,” Xereth replied. He motioned the officers to ignore the Ponyrengi and just follow him.
“WAIT!” yelled the Ponyrengi behind them “Are you sure you do not want to see my wares? I recently got some torpe..” was all he managed to say before Xereth rather rudely replied “Not interested!” and kept walking away with his officers.
They soon reached the science part of the Starbase, where they were greeted by Charlena. She quickly spotted the rank that Xereth wore and addressed him so.
“Hello, captain! What can I do for you today?” She said, with a bright smile on her face. Charlena was an unicorn and a local scientist on Starbase 24 and she was pretty cute, too. Xereth could only hope that she could join his crew and replace the old and grumpy Xayersi.
“We came from Earth Spacedock with a mission to pick up some Crystaline Entity samples and deliver them to Dorzana Station. I believe you have been informed about that,” replied Xereth.
“Oh, yes, yes, right away, captain! Please, follow me to the storage. The samples are there,” said Charlena and walked to the storage. Xereth and his group obviously followed.
As soon as they picked up the four boxes they all kindly said their goodbyes to Charlena and made their way towards the transport pad, ignoring the annoying Ponyrengi, who was still trying to sell them a rock and a damaged torpedo.
Xereth activated his commbadge to open a communication with the transport room on U.S.S. Fallen Sword and ordered to be beamed up along with the officers. They stored the boxes into the cargo bay, made their way back to the bridge and took their positions.
“Twanda?” Xereth started a tiny conversation with her “Have you ever seen a Ponyrengi sell anything useful?”
“Never, captain.” she replied.
“..And I doubt we ever will. Well then, turn the ship towards Dorzana Station and go into warp 15. We’ve got a long way to go.”