The Mountain – a sequel?

  “The knife eared bastards had done it. Now we have ghost ships. Not those dead vessels salvagers find, no; those would be easy. We have real ghosts on real ghostly ships, plying the space lanes.” From The Scourge of Dirt a Memoir, by Commander Tell’el, Galactic Fleet Command.

  “What’s wrong ?” Commander Tell’el asked from the captain’s chair on the bridge of , a medium class patrol of the Galactic Fleet.

  “We are getting a ghost return from the Knife Ear’s newest acquisition.” Ker’ta replied.

  “Follow the protocol for such things, and redo the scan.” Tell’el stated, giving a sarcastic wag of his tentacles.

  “That’s the thing sir, I already did. Twice.” Ker’ta said, glowering at the screen.

  “What?”

  “As I just sai-”

  “I was being rhetorical.” Tell’el leaned back in his chair. “What has engineering said?”

  “They claim that everything is running as it should.”

  “” Tell’el stood from his chair, and waddled to the sensor scope. “Stupid outdated…What in the is that?”

  “It looks like a <18 meter> rowed boat. Sir.” Ker’ta stated. “And It’s heading straight for us.”

  From the second sensor scope to the right of Ker’ta, an artificial voice broke in, “There is a large diaspora of ships fleeing the area, Commander.”

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  “Computer, on screen.” Tell’el stepped back from the sensor scope and stared at the screen. Something in his bowels cramped as he watched Knife Ear ships flee their new acquisition. They were being followed. Just not by spaceships. He staggered backwards to his chair, and collapsed. “What is going on?” He took in a large gulp of air through his vestigial gills, then yelled, “Comms! Get a link to the ! Find out what in is going on!”

  As the crew watched, the screen showed a sight never before seen. Dirt-water ships gliding through space, catching up to ships that should have been faster than they by orders of magnitude, and attacking them with archaic weapons of war. They watched in stunned silence as peppered a , causing its engines to sputter out, then the boat rammed it, and sent over a boarding crew. An with biological debris scattered across its deck and hull fired a salvo of nine shells into a modern , blowing it in half. A , still leaking radiation, “surfaced” behind an unexpecting bulk transport, and fired upon it; the transport exploded like a

  thrown at the ground from near orbit.

  “Sir! We are getting distress signals from the ! They’re screaming about and boarding the ships, then there’s nothing but silence.” The Comm officer spoke into the silence. “What do we do?”

  Shaken from the brutality of the one-sided battle going on, Tell’el took a breath, “We will render assistance to those left behind. This is not our war to poke our into.”

  Ker’ta swore. Loudly. “Sir! The boat! It’s closing on us!”

  Then an apparition of some sort of Round Ear appeared on the bridge. It wore hardened animal skin with metal plated riveted to it, and a skirt also made of the hardened skin. It carried a shield in one hand, and on its hip was a short metal sword that oozed dark intent. It looked around the bridge, then it’s eyes lost focus, as it seemed to look through the ship itself. Finally, it spoke. Not words so much, but like a pounding inside the skull that portrayed its meaning, “The have roused the wrath of the world. They will be delt with. Do not interfere, or you will be next.” The specter crashed its right fist into its chest, then vanished.

  “Sir? What do we do?” Ker’ta asked, his pulse erratic.

  “…We…observe…” Tell’el took another breath through his gills. “We observe, and report this up the chain of command.”

  -

  <48 hours later>

  “Commander Tell’el, thank you for your report. We have had several corroborating reports from deep space sentries, but nothing so close to the mark as yours.” Garta said. “We will be investing a quarantine fleet around that planet for the foreseeable future.”

  “Sir, yes Sir!” Tell’el threw up a salute with his left side tentacles.

  “And between us?” Garta smiled, “Those pointy eared deserved this.”