The Corrupted Star

by Martin HC

  This didn't have the effect he wanted, her eyes drew down and she turned to her side. For a girl that required no physical means of input to her ship, something Jill had picked up on too, she somehow made herself look busy by playing around with a hollow terminal as she huffed.

  “Don't worry, I said I'm fine with it, really I am, a little glad actually now that I think about it.”

  “Glad, why?” he asked surprised at her approval.

  She looked at him, sincerity taking a hold of her youthful features.

  “I was afraid you'd end up with someone as stupid as you, at least she's got sense.”

  “Well that's just unpleasant Tira.”

  “I know, think of the offspring, they might actually reverse evolution,” she smiled reassuringly at him, as if his future offspring really did depend on him finding a sensible woman.

  “Right we're done here, you're just being nasty now,” he said, huffing himself now and walking away.

  Jill walked up to her now, smiling at Haydn as he passed having heard the conversation.

  “Thank you, but I think it's a little early to be talking about children,” she said quietly, before speaking a little more loudly. “Why did you call us here?”

  “There's another powerful transmission, incoming this time, I'm trying to get a direction fix.”

  “Is that a good sign?” Haydn asked.

  Tira leaned towards Jill now and spoke quietly back, forcing Jill to lean down to listen.

  “I know I treat him like a big bumbling idiot, but he's my big bumbling idiot,” Jill nodded in reply, Tira's stare then became intense, her eyes almost piercing through Jill's own. “I don't think you're the type, but if you hurt him needlessly, it will be me that you deal with,” Jill only nodded once more.

  She leaned away from Jill now, her look relaxed and she spoke loudly again.

  “I can't tell you if it's a good sign or not, but something has definitely answered.”

  “Everything alright over there?”

  “Just some girl talk,” Jill answered confidently as Tira motioned to the display in front with her hand.

  Small windows indicating the transmission's strength and a source fix progress appeared in front, overlaying the external view and shrinking into the bottom corner, as if to reinforce her words. Jill figured out early on that they were purely for Haydn's effect, Tira had never needed them, she always just knew what was going on.

  “I've been studying the ships out there as best I can from this distance, there's no signs of life on them, I think they're automated.”

  “But if the station's transmitting, it's possible there's someone on it right?”

  “No, everything so far seems automated, I think the station is the same.”

  “So where is everyone then?”

  “The transmission's stopped now, I couldn't get a hard fix on the source but I have a rough direction.”

  “Couldn't have been a very big message.”

  “Big enough it seems, the drones are moving towards us.”

  Tira highlighted them on the Display, indicating their trajectories and distance.

  “They're fast, very fast and moving directly at us.” she told them.

  “We need to leave.”

  “Too late, they're firing,” she answered rapidly.

  Several invisible beams of energy struck Tira's shielding, flaring them up brightly as they absorbed and dispersed the power. Despite not making it through, they all felt the energy reverberate around the outside of the hull.

  Tira didn't even speak, she advanced herself, two lances of intense energy answered their enemies call, the first burnt straight through it's targets shielding, hitting the seed like vessel on the nose and drilling itself clean out the rear as it blew. The second beam killed its target in much the same way, but then it swept into the path of a third on comer, slicing it clean into two pieces. It didn't blow and all stealth on the split ship failed, allowing her fully to scan it as both pieces separated slowly and continued moving powerlessly under their own momentum.

  They were no match for her, she knew it and her teeth bared slightly as a malicious smile crept across her face.

  “They are drones,” she told the other two. “And most of their construction is designed to keep them invisible from the outside.”

  All ships shot passed each other and Tira threw out a third shot, hitting the target it tore through its shielding but failed to destroy the ship, she wasn't really trying to, she'd dialled back the power substantially, looking to find out just how much it took to kill one.

  She took a wide path orbit around the immense station, housing its star, the drones done the same but in the opposite direction.

  As they manoeuvred around to intercept her again, they slowly came together, merging to form a three pointed triangle. Energy reached out from the edges of each one, binding them together, and from their combined centre a build up of pure white light flared then discharged.

  The beam of power hit them squarely on the face, Tira's shields held but it was unexpected all the same, power fluctuated inside the ship as tremors vibrated throughout her hull, after ten seconds they fired again.

  “Wow, did you feel that? Are we in trouble?” Haydn asked her, his voice a little higher in pitch than normal.

  “No, we're fine,” she told him flatly.

  They fired once more but this time there was no tremors that ran through the ship.

  “I was curious to find out what they could do, I've been adjusting my shielding harmonics with each hit to see if I can better block their strikes.”

  “Well, can you get on with just killing them now? I don't like being a test dummy,” Haydn spoke from the side as all ships fired past each other again, the drones adopting a path that would take them back around the station.

  “If I must,” Tira grinned.

  She didn't do the same as the drones, she didn't intent to meet them head on again, instead she turned back on herself, coming around almost on her heel and the second her nose lined with the rear of the drones she battered them. Multiple rapidly fired beams lit up the route to their enemies backs, each beam tearing through them until all three blew and had been burned from existence.

  “Well that was fun,” Tira told them. “They are drones as I confirmed, completely automated and they use a mixture of light bending and holo imaging technologies to hide themselves.”

  “Was there any need to let them hit us so many times? You could have killed them all right at the beginning,” Haydn said, looking a little upset.

  “I was looking more at their tactical abilities, studying them, these are the feared Darkspace ghosts that collapsed an empire, I had to know what we're up against in here,” she reasoned out before turning her tone a little more to the sarcastic side. “I'm sorry if you got scared, Jill looked fine with it.”

  “I wasn't scared, Jill I never got scared, I just didn't know what you were doing.”

  “Well then, I'm glad we got that sorted out,” Tira finished up, only Jill smiled briefly.

  They flew themselves back around to their original positions and came to a slow stop.

  “Jill, are you alright?” Haydn asked, “you're really quiet.”

  “Yes, it's just, we are in Darkspace, a place I never thought I'd ever go, just having fought with Darkspace ships, six of them and Tira, well Tira took them apart like paper bags,” she answered. “You have shields Tira, real shields and you shrugged them off like children, when I first heard you tell us that it was too late, that they were firing, I honestly thought I was going to die. I was just a little overwhelmed is all.”

  “Do you... do you need to go lie down?”

  “No, thank you but I'm fine now. Like I said it was just a little overwhelming,” she answered him, grateful for his concern before changing the subject. “Is the station doing anything else?”

  “No, it's gone dormant, power levels have dropped again and there's nothing being transmitted at all now,” she answer
ed her. “Although, I do have a hunter fleet on sensors, making their way here.”

  “Hunter fleet? What are they doing? How did they find us here?”

  “They must have come in after us and they probably followed the signal that station was pumping out all this time,” Jill answered, seemingly having recovered from her small reality check.

  “I would have to agree, they will arrive shortly, what's even more interesting is that I'm seeing more Darkspace ships following them.”

  “I don't get it,” Jill said, “how does she do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “How does she make things happen around here without working any controls? How does she just know when ships are coming?”

  “I'm connected to the ship.”

  “How? Are you an advanced AI or a human?”

  “Neither.”

  Jill stopped, this was an answer she didn't expect, other than the standard 'what do you mean' reply, she had nothing, Tira seeing Jill's complete hesitancy, took the initiative to explain.

  “I'm not entirely human, as it were, I look human, act human and for all intents and purposes am human, but I don't age, need air, sleep, drink or food. My molecular make up is different, I'm made up of molecules not found here which are infused with energies that I can manipulate, energies that connect my neurological capacity to this ship for example, allowing me to project my will upon it and bending it to how I feel.”

  “Even that I don't understand.”

  “It messed me up too,” Haydn chipped in.

  “You said you're made from molecules not from here, if not from here, then from where?”

  “I don't know, I've never come across them anywhere else.”

  “So you're some kind of superhuman?” Jill asked.

  “Like a god,” Haydn followed up.

  “Don't be absurd, gods don't exist, and even if then they'd be nothing more than some advanced form of life, I've told you this before,” Tira answered Haydn, before answering Jill. “In truth, I have no idea where or how I was made.”

  “Made?”

  “Yes, everything I've learned about myself suggests I was made, so if there was a godlike being out there, it would be the creature that made me, not me.”

  “But like you said, gods don't exist,” Jill stated.

  “So you don't believe in gods either?” Haydn asked.

  “No, and I don't think I've ever met anyone that does.”

  “I don't believe in them myself but I wonder, who would make an immortal teenager? It's an achievement I'll admit, but having to deal with adolescence for eternity, that would be torture.”

  “You're an idiot, Haydn,” Tira told him.

  “Just saying,” he answered her. “What I really want to know is, where are all the aliens?”

  “Aliens?” Jill asked. “You mean like other forms of sentient life?”

  “Yes.”

  “No one knows, but if we're here and no aliens are, then really there's only one answer.”

  “Which is?”

  “Humanity wiped them out,” Tira answered for her.

  The Viper's Trap

  There's a satisfaction in waiting sometimes, but only when what you were waiting for arrives, like on the rare occasion when a parcel arrives between the hours specified by a courier company.

  Feissa was satisfied now, very satisfied, she sat on her chair listening to her underlings explain how they'd taken Arlan and Brenn.

  The old engineer was no trouble to take, it was the ex mercenary who put up the struggle, despite their surprise and numbers, he'd still killed five of the nine men before being subdued.

  After being tasked to find the mysterious ship, Haydn and the odd girl, she knew searching for them directly would get her nowhere. She tracked the Ophelia instead, following them and the Mergence fleet to the three star system, watched the Ferren's arrive afterwards and then watched them all leave again in their different directions, a battered shambles compared to their entry. She followed the Ophelia as they made their escape, tracking them from port to port and then got one step ahead, predicting the next system they would appear in with everything paying off now, only fools rush in.

  “Very good my lovelies, I knew you had it in you, was the message delivered to Damon Osthorpe, the Ophelia's captain?”

  “Yes, they received the message, Osthorpe himself replied and told us he would be where we instructed.”

  “Fantastic, you can leave, oh and take that with you.”

  The underlings shifted nervously to the dead body of their boss, grabbing an arm each they dragged him from the room.

  “That beast of man killed five of them before they could take him down, yet you punish them for beating him on their way back here,” one sister told her condescendingly, now that they were alone.

  “Really sister, it is very upsetting that you value their well being above your own men, that kind of action only tends to end with a knife in the back,” her second sister warned her, emphasising the word knife.

  She hated having to tolerate them, they were extremely irritating to be around and for some reason she couldn't understand, always hinted at their upcoming and intended betrayal. Feissa had played this game many times before, it was surprising to her enemies each time she won, usually evident in their eyes directly before their deaths, but they only ever really had themselves to blame, for taking so much time to advertise their intentions.

  “I'm well aware who here is of value sisters, but it won't do me any good either if our hostages are beaten to death. I instructed them clearly, alive and unharmed. They failed to follow my instructions, are you suggesting I allow such reckless insubordination to flourish?”

  They had no answer for her, they simply grinned like sharks as the first spoke again.

  “The Ferren's know we have the hostages, they will provide rendezvous coordinates only after you have returned with the Ophelia and gained our targets attention.”

  “Ferrens?” she questioned. “You're changing the plan.”

  “It has already been arranged, you are to meet with the Ophelia and bring them here, once done we will rendezvous with the Ferrens and send the meet point to the stealth ship.”

  “I need the hostages to go with me, they will never give up what we want without them, or do you trust the Ferrens to hold all the cards.”

  The two cocky sisters exchanged uncertain glances.

  “The engineer will go with you, he's driving everyone crazy anyway, and I'm coming with you too,” the second sister cut in, before looking to the first “The barbarian stays here.”

  “Very well, it has been a while since I've had a real man,” the first told them both with a coy smile.

  They all laughed together, only Feissa really laughed, the two fools truly thought they were going to steal the prize for themselves, that they would take it back to their witches den and leave her to deal with the hunters.

  She let them enjoy themselves, the fools who'd dare soar to close to the sun, they would burn, she knew it and despite everything, it didn't make her happy. Killing them had no real appeal to her, the thought of killing never did, for her it was always purely tactical, in a world of pirates, mercenaries and cartels, the weak perished. It was always the game she loved.

  An Unwelcome Reunion

  “I told you we would find you again.”

  “And incredibly you did. Haithe, was it? Even chased me all the way out into Darkspace, a man of your word.”

  “Yes, the mastery of your tactical abilities have allowed you to always be two steps ahead of everyone, to be nowhere yet everywhere, tell me, is the good Fleet Admiral Y'Riell any the wiser to your ploys?”

  “You really have the wrong end of the stick here, did you come all the way here to chase me? Or did you have other reasons?”

  “What other reasons may there be?”

  “Well funnily, everyone thinks you're Ferren but you're not, your officers are mixed Sciesin and Mergence,” he answered, thinking alou
d. “You run around, in a Ferren lookalike fleet and attacked the Mergence, why is that? Why are you really here?”

  It shook the false hunter commander to know his prey had learned of their genetics, it was a closely guarded secret, most of those at the highest levels of the Mergence and Sciesin governments weren't even aware. They would never understand, how could they, living in bubbles of ignorance had made them all blind. The rebuilt strength of the Ferren Republic was now at a level where they could once again strike.