The captain gnced at his screens again. The whole atmosphere on his bridge reflected how he felt, but there was little that could be done about that. It was hard not to feel this way after your routine trade run turns into whatever this is. They couldn’t even get what they came here for now seeing as Iridia was now a dead world with a toxic atmosphere. There was nothing of value here anymore. Not for them, and certainly not for anyone else. Not unless they had the credits to dump on an expensive restoration project.

  Behind him he could hear a couple of his subordinates talking. It was hushed, but he could hear it clearly enough. They were worried about whoever did this, but he had to wonder. Why? Why attack Iridia of all pces? More importantly, why would it be bombarded and not invaded? Now that he has had time to process this event, these were the questions he was asking himself. It just made no sense to him, there was nothing to be gained from ying waste to an unimportant backwater like Iridia. Yet that is exactly what has happened here, and it utterly ruined what would have been a very good day for him, and the cn. Now they would have to find somewhere else to offload this cargo they took from that Valorian convoy they had hit.

  That was going to take a while, especially given that his hyperdrive was only capable of about 200c, which was faster than most Valorian freighters, but it wasn’t all that fast. Still it was more than enough for him, most of the time that was. Now he was faced with the prospect of spending weeks hunting for a new friendly port to sell his goods at. He had a couple of ideas for that, but those alternates were affiliated with other cns. As such, they weren’t exactly friendly to ships of his cn. Unfortunately they would have little choice now that they had lost their most important trading partner, worse none of their other partners had much food to spare. So they would need a new agreement with some minor agricultural colony, and soon. Before another cn war breaks out. Those are never fun, or of much good to anyone.

  His line of thought was ended when suddenly someone informed, “We have company, eight ships closing fast.”

  He gnced at his screens and saw them. Fighter sized, but of a design, he had never seen before. They weren’t yet in combat range, but they would be soon. He ordered everyone to prepare for fighter combat, before gncing to the dy at sensors, he asked her, “Anything you can tell me about those ships?”

  She shook her head, “The computer doesn’t recognize them, and I am reading nothing on their hulls. No shields, no weapons, no life readings, no propulsion, no nothing. Not even a psma trail.”

  He gnced at the screens, the craft were clearly accelerating, and certainly looked menacing. Yet he knew nothing about them, and apparently, his sensors could not grant him any intel on them. He didn’t like that. Not easy to fight an enemy you knew nothing about, and he had a hard time not considering them an enemy. Most everyone out here was an enemy afterall, and something told him these aliens weren’t going to be peaceful

  When they entered weapons range moments ter that feeling was rewarded with a volley of particle bolts, strafing his active shields. Thankfully he was ready for battle, and they didn’t need to st long, just long enough to make the jump to hyperspace. Accompanying that first volley was a comm burst in Cathamari. "Pirate vessel, power down immediately or be destroyed."

  It seemed that these aliens knew who he was. Yet he knew not who they were. It wasn’t entirely surprising, while his ship was not broadcasting the cn fg, it was recognizable. Not to mention he knew his ship had a bounty on it, and that bounty was posted on quite a few nearby worlds. Most of those worlds were in Valorian space, but he was also wanted by Krall authorities. Along with a few minor powers in the region. Although he should have been safe here since his ship didn’t have an active bounty with the Cathamari.

  The pilot studied the pirate vessel. Someone during all the trading with the Krall had thoughtfully obtained a guide on local alien vessels, including ships with active bounties. That guide also mentioned what to look for in identifying a pirate. The cn mark embzoned on the side of the ship was the only real tell, as they didn’t look all that different from a regur ship.

  The ship was a cruiser, with a rather sleek streamlined hull. Smooth round lines, and shaped roughly like a squished cylinder, with the rear fring out to make room for several very rge and prominent engine clusters. The bow of the vessel featured a long protrusion heading downward. That protrusion had a split in the middle to make room for a long barrel running through it, one that ran the length of the underside of the ship. This split in the lower protrusion met, and merged with a rge bulbous structure at the end of the protrusion. That bulbous structure appeared to be the ship’s primary navigational array, and mounted the forward deflector generators.

  The ship had several other simir, if smaller clusters mounting secondary navigational arrays. In addition the ship had an active shield grid, that seemed to be more advanced than what the typical Cathamari cruiser carried, and as a result more powerful.

  She also noted its armaments, a series of particle and ion cannons, along with a few ser banks. Those sers seemed to be her primary anti-fighter weapons, and therefore the only real weapon to worry about. That spinal gun looked intimidating, but it was an Ion Pulse gun intended for use against rge ships, not small agile fighters like her 1204. It was much the same for the other heavier guns that equally cked the tracking to fire on fighters.

  Entering weapons range, she joined the rest of the flight, and fired a half powered warning volley into the cruiser’s shields, while the lead fighter sent out a comm pulse in Cathamari. The pulses struck the shields of the target with the expected result, no damage. That volley however wasn’t meant to do damage, but get their attention. Something it did quite well seeing as a moment ter, they got their reply in the form of several ser bsts fired in their direction. None of them scored a hit on any of the eight fighters in the wing. She sighed, and following instructions, split off with one other. It was time to start her attack run.

  With skilled movements, her fighter rolled into an attack run, as she armed torpedoes. Using her active sensor data, the onboard computer would program those weapons with the data needed to penetrate the shields of the cruiser. At the same time, she locked onto her first target, a series of shield emitters on the port side of the ship.

  Several ser emitters rotated to fire on her fighter. Warnings blinked on her hud about being targeted and even highlighted which turrets were targeting her fighter. Her training kicked in, and she vectored her thrust hard to port, just as the sers fired. Angry red energy pulses sailed past her fighter in the blink of an eye and headed off into the void, a clean miss. She maneuvered back on angle for her attack, and seconds ter fired her first photons at the cruiser. Blue streaks leapt from her craft, to strike the cruiser. They sailed right into the shields, and one of them detonated on impact with the shield, the alien defense screen fred a golden yellow for an instant. The other projectile however got through, and exploded against the hull of the cruiser, rocking the alien ship, and damaging her shields in this region.

  The ship shook, and someone called out, “We just lost the number seven shield!”

  Before he could respond to that, the ship shook again, “The number twelve shield has failed!”

  He shouted, “Remodute the shields to compensate.”

  Then he gnced at the engineering dispy. This wasn’t a case of the shields failing, they were taking hits to the hull. In other words they had lost those shields to battle damage, and this fight had barely begun. On the same dispy, he noted the time left before they could jump, four minutes, seventeen seconds. That was how long they would need to st before they could make the jump to hyperspace. Maybe he should have invested in a faster charging hyperdrive?

  Turning to his weapon’s master, he shouted new orders at him before telling the dy at the helm, “Increase speed, and try to keep those fighters away from our shield emitters.”

  She nodded. Her hands moved to execute his orders, and he felt the ship start to roll, moments before it shook again. This time thankfully without someone reporting another failed shield grid. He gnced at the clock, still feeling worried, but he was sure his ship could hold it together. The question was how much damage was he going to take in those few minutes.

  Gncing at the tactical dispys, he smiled when he saw his sers finally connect with one of the fighters. The high energy bolt of photons struck it cleanly center mass. No shield appeared to intercept the hit, but to his surprise the fighter survived the strike. Seemingly without damage. He had to wonder who these aliens were. They had a wealth of technology outside of his experience, and none of it made sense to him. In any case, it made it all the more important that he got back to the base, the cn needed to know that they had a new enemy.

  Her hands flew over the controls, as the ship came out of a role, and slipped through an opening in the cruiser’s shields. It had taken a few hits, and several passes over the hull but they had finally done enough damage to create a gap in the shield grid. Locking her cannons on targets as she saw them, she began firing as the 1204 she flew zipped over the surface of the alien cruiser, hovering mere meters from it.

  Angry blue bolts of energy tore into the hull one after another, rupturing compartments, and breaching the armor. She detected several energy fluctuations, and then suddenly the cruiser rolled. She had to change course to avoid a collision with either the ship or its shields.

  Her energy signature was also spiking big time. The pilot had no doubt the cruiser was about to do something, but they had never seen anything like the readings they were getting. She set her sensors to record, and locked onto a few new hull targets.

  A renewed volley of powerful compressed particle bolts ripped into the unprotected hull of the cruiser. Moments before her shields in this sector failed. That was her main target, as the Coto was sitting just outside of weapons range waiting for the shields to fail. The pilot didn’t think the cruiser had detected the destroyer either, so when it moved in to attack it would be quite the surprise.

  What happened next betrayed her expectations. Warnings rippled across her hud, seconds before a swirling blue, red, and purple energy vortex opened right in front of the cruiser. At the same instance, she accelerated full throttle straight for the vortex. The pilot and her wingmates, fired into her hull, dealing a fair amount of damage. Not enough to stop it however, and the ship disappeared from her screens, an instant ter. The vortex vanished the instant it was through. She did not know how, but the cruiser had somehow escaped.