Downfall of Protectorate

“WARNING! SHIELDING SYSTEM — OFFLINE.”       A small space skirmish occurred in the asteroid field of the Faetto Gordoss star system. A punitive squadron of the Miniknog, numbering twenty corvettes, pursues two larger U.S.C.M. transport vessels filled with hundreds people, using their small size to gain an advantage over bulky space liners. The outdated armament of the transport ships was not designed for effective combat in such confined spaces, and only one out of ten projectiles could hit the target. Additionally, any shattered fragment of an asteroid could easily overload the old and undermaintained shielding of this piece of rusty debris called a spaceship. “INTERNAL STRUCTURE DAMAGE DETECTED.”       The fight was brutal. Corvettes under the command of Apex pilots circled the space liners in pairs at high speeds, periodically sending volleys of EMP pulses. Their plan was not just to destroy the ships — but to leave people suffocating as an example for anyone who dares to cooperate with the rebels! The U.S.C.M. shooters shot a couple of enemy corvettes out of the shootout — but with each lost ship the remaining ones became more and more aggressive. Pierced by a random microasteroid, the first space liner flew off course a few moments before it was torn apart by a powerful energy release — the erchius reactor was severely overloaded, and even such a small damage to the system was enough to cause a violent reaction. The last thing people on the remaining ship could see through the portholes was a bright purple flash of light, that engulfed their relatives and friends. All hope was disappearing… “ATTENTION! BASE HULL INTEGRITY — 93%.”       Suddenly, a whole armada of various ships appeared from the warp! At first excited, people were horrified when they saw a crudely drawn sign on the ships — a purple skull with tentacles in place of a mouth, crossed with two bones. They were pirates! And there were a lot of them. Fighters, frigates, cruisers — even Minicnog corvettes stopped firing for a second, stunned at the sheer number of the enemy. But it seems that no one noticed who these ships were chasing — a small civilian-sized ship was executing evasive maneuvers with the last of its strength, leaving a thin cloud of smoke behind it.       — “Why did you even start insulting this guy?! Could you just ignore the fact that he called your ship a “piece of space junk” and fly past?! You could just fly by and not call him Captain Assface!” — it was not clear what emotions Pluog was trying to express: anger, panic, or irritation at the number of troubles they get into. Arbora, in turn, seemed proud of what she had done.       — “Yes, I HAD to do it! No one daresss to speak about my ship like that! Now this bandit can rethink his choice of words, while his entire dreadnought is busy with cryptomining. Okay, now all we have to do is fly through that asteroid field over there and… wait, isn’t that U.S.C.M. ships over there?”       — “It looks like it. I heard that some of them are seriously engaged in humanitarian aid nowadays”.       — “It seems that they are being chased…”       With a frightened look, as if knowing what would happen next, Ploog tried to convince her:              — “Arbora, no…”       — “Arbora YES, let’s go help them!” Dodging volleys of flak shells exploding all around, their ship turned sharply towards the path of the U.S.C.M. spaceships.       — “Let’s hope it really works this time…” — Arbora pressed on the throttle lever all the way down, past the glued on red tape. A metallic screech stretched across the entire interior of the ship as it began to maneuver around the relatively small gaps between the asteroids. “DANGER! BASE HULL INTEGRITY — 74%. LEAVE THE DANGEROUS AREA”.       Their ship flew right over the battlefield, leaving the asteroid field with only a few fragments of stones stuck in the hull. The pirates appeared soon after, but they were met only by the punitive squadron of the Miniknog, which had already prepared a defensive formation.       “Oh shit, it’s the feds! Forget the girl and deal with them before reinforcements arrive!”       “A criminal flotilla has been spotted! Don’t let anyone escape and wait for reinforcements! Glory to Big Ape!” … A major space battle is raging in the asteroid field of the Faetto Gordoss star system. The Miniknog punitive squadron, whose original purpose was the space liners of the U.S.C.M., carrying hundreds of Apex citizens and undercover rebels, was attacked by a heavy pirate fleet. Shortly after, the Miniknog war fleet arrived to assist in a surprise anti-piracy mission, and soon the entire area around was set ablaze with volleys of weaponry. This was exactly the distraction Arbora needed. Using a series of console commands, she contacted the surviving liner.       — “Leave while they are distracted, now!!!”. The pressure was enormous, anyone would have screamed in her place.       — “This is a closed channel, identify yourself.” — the pilot, a middle-aged man, seemed confused and lost, obviously not thinking clearly from the fear.              — “Ugh, there isss no time for that!”              — “I repeat — this is a closed military channel, and in accordance with paragraph 7 of the Code of the United Systems Colonial Marines, any violation of the terms of use of the radio frequency spectrum can be recognized as an aggressive act towards…”       — “If you want to live, you will do as I sssay, and you will do it RIGHT NOW!”       Explosions sounded through the intercom of a U.S.C.M. pilot, and a girl shout broke through the static. “ATTENTION! BASE HULL INTEGRITY — 35%. DESTRUCTION IS IMMINE…” — Viridis' voice breaks off when the ship’s speakers burn out. Pluog was putting out fires and repaired the hull all over the ship as much as he could, but most of the rooms had to be sealed off.       — “…Copy that, plotting a course for an emergency FTL jump. The coordinates will arrive to you shortly. Over”. — The last message didn’t reach her, but Arbora already knew what to do. The lock-on alarm sounded almost simultaneously with the start of the pre-launch calculations of the FTL jump. 4%… The pirate cruiser began to aim its main gun at the seemingly microscopic Arbora’s ship in an attempt to make the last shot. Macroplasma boosters are weapons powerful enough to attack large warships and disintegrate medium—sized asteroids, but the velocity of the projectile is so small that the entire weapon system must perform a series of trajectory calculations before each salvo. 27%… The Miniknog fleet didn’t want to miss on this opportunity either. Several unmanned AI interceptors flew out from the hangars of the giant silver flagship as soon as the target was confirmed. Small drones encircled the banged up civilian spaceship, chipping away at its hull from afar. No one interferes with the plans of the Big Ape and go unpunished. This small ship is no exception… 51%… Pluog ran out of the swung open airlock door.       — “All the fires are out, but it’s just hell of a mess out here. The shield generator now is as good as a flower pot!”. The feathers on his right arm were almost completely burned off, showing the pink skin covered in burns. 89%… The cruiser’s gun fired its salvo. Plasma projectiles no smaller than a five-story building were slowly approaching the target, illuminating nearby surfaces and destroying everything that was unlucky enough to be too close, including interceptors launched by the flagship. 100%! “Finally!” thought to herself Arbora, hitting the button of the FTL jump.       The space around the ship trembled, stretched, and collapsed in an instant, only to immediately return to normal. The released macroplasma projectile flew through empty space, barely scratching the hull of Miniknog flagship. A retaliatory volley of hundreds of laser guns was not long in coming…       At the other end of the FTL jump, space swelled, burst like a boiling bubble, and instantly recovered, violently pushing the little ship into a new system. They escaped…       Floran girl made a sigh of relief and completely sank in her chair, trying to calm herself down. She closed her eyes. So much has happened up to this point. So many thoughtless actions — and for what?

“Just to find the one person who gave me the life i wanted…”

You don’t know if he survived that disaster. You don’t know if your tribe is still alive. And not only that, but you don’t even know how far away you are from your friends and family. And you still have hope?

      ”… and repay him for his kindness.”

And will he approve of what you’ve been doing all this time? Or will he see you as nothing more than dirt under his boots? Think about it…       — “Heeeeey, wake up, flower garden. I can’t believe you fell asleep at the wheel and still managed to stop the ship.”       She opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw was Pluog actively snapping his fingers in front of her nose. It was a dream, right? A very strange dream… Well, there’s still a lot of work to do, so there’s no time to think about it.       — “No, it was Viridis. These emergency protocols have finally come in handy.” Her body was sore and thoughts were still cloudy from this “rest”, but she still returned to the steering wheel: “These guys from U.S.C.M., have they not answered usss yet?”       — “Their ship has not shown up on radar yet, I don’t know what they are pulling there.”       “The radars don’t work, you dork. Emergency protocols allow only subspace communication signals…”       At the moment of thought Arbora realized that the surrounding area looked completely empty. There were no planets nor stars nearby, nothing to orbit around.       “Wait, did this guy send the wrong coordinates?”       She opened her personal PDA to check the negotiation logs when she noticed a huge message thread. “Emergency AI Notifications? Why do I have it and how did I not notice it?”. It was full of various data about the ship’s power cycles, system configurations, damage. The list was large and difficult to understand, but one of the recent posts stood out the most: “FTL DRIVE DAMAGED. ERCHIUS CRYSTAL AFFECTED. CALCULATION ACCURACY OF THE DESTINATION POINT MAY BE UNSTABLE.”       — “Well, ssshit…” … The U.S.C.M. space liner has arrived at its destination — one of the many unnamed stars, an ordinary white dwarf star with a couple of planets, no matter how boring it may sound. Their FTL trajectory curved around a nearby pulsar, so electromagnetic interference easily obscured their path. Most of the systems on the ship either burned down from EMP blasts or were smashed into useless junk — it’s a miracle that the emergency oxygen generator is still working. True, it will not be enough for the amount of people onboard, and considering that the FTL engine made some strange gurgling sounds before it stalled, there are not so many options left. Wondering what he needed to do next, the pilot finally allowed himself to lean back and stretch…       — “Sergeant O’Connor, situation report!” — the captain’s voice, rough as sandpaper and loud enough to make the ears ring, was enough for the pilot to instantly jump up from his seat like an opened spring and put his hand to his head, saluting to the old person before him.       — “Most of the ship’s main systems are inoperable, Captain! The emergency systems are already enabled, but we have to find a suitable place to land on and repair the ship as soon as possible.”       The captain frowned, muttered something to himself, then nodded as if he had decided something: “Don’t worry, we’ll figure something out. Find a good planet to land on. We all need to rest after what just happened. I bet our rescuers are even more exhausted than we are, hehe.” For a second, he looked like he remembered an old friend. — “Roger that, Captain! Will be done ASAP!” — the sergeant returned to the pilot’s seat with a deft movement and quickly set a course for the orbit of the nearest planet…