"LUNAR: Tales From Crystal Tokyo"
LUNAR:
Tales From Crystal Tokyo
By
Daryll Pung
Episode
2-11: Derailment
Rated:
R
Somewhere
in the Alpha Zone, 10 January 2738
The
SLS Bahumat
The mighty RSN battleship shuddered slightly as gravity beam fire nailed
its shields. It turned; a salvo of
red torpedoes streaked out, drilling one of the remaining enemy battleships;
there was a flicker as its shields collapsed, and the remaining Phoenix torps
slammed with concussive force into the battleship's engine grid.
Plasma and ichor trailed out as the ship drifted aimlessly; small
explosions blossomed, followed by an immense one as the devastated vessel's main
core breached.
"Status?" demanded Sailor Geminga, gripping the armrests of her
chair as the shockwave hit. The Bahumat
was not unscathed; several char marks dotted the bridge, and sparks still
occasionally sputtered from a wrecked console.
The reek of ozone hung heavy in the air.
"Shit," snarled Sorcerer Derrelli.
"This damn console's blinking in and out on me.
I've gotta get to Engineering. I'm
kinda useless up here, otherwise."
"Go," Sailor Geminga said gruffly.
"Other than the Bahumat?"
Commander Shelia Thompson spoke up, referencing her armrest display. "Two enemy battleships remaining; about half the
remaining ships are left. We're
nearing projected weapons range of the Gate, but it does not seem they are
operational, although there is a massive amount of energy build-up.
They may be ready to activate weapons at any time.
The unknown ship is now moving; it's arcing wide to the right of this
little engagement; it may be running away."
She was interrupted by the view on screen 1, as the Bahumat
finished its turn.
A stream of Negatorpedoes issued from the nearest battleship.
Shelia's eyes widened; yellow point-defense blaster fire reached out to
obliterate the incoming fire.
They were mostly successful. The
last one was exploded scant millimeters from the shield arc.
The explosion rocked them slightly.
"Death rays recharged!" called tactical.
"Target the two remaining battleships!" barked Sailor Geminga.
The Bahumat settled, and ducked under a DK cruiser, ignoring the
green beams pounding into its shields. As
it came out from under, it swerved to port, unleashing the port proton cannon,
which was already crackling red. The
super-intense beam raced to the targeted battleship; as the beam tapered off,
another explosion brightened the blackness of space.
The Bahumat was already turning towards the last remaining
battleship, and another beam blazed out.
"All battleships destroyed!" called tactical.
"Engineering reports no major damage," Shelia said.
"Shields level two holding at 65%.
The remaining ships are dropping back slightly."
"We scared them," grinned Wizard Duke.
"I'm not so sure," Shelia said grimly.
"That little ship is now behind us; we are between it and the Gate.
It's accelerated; closing rapidly. There
is a massive amount of subspace radiation being generated aboard it."
Sailor Geminga frowned. "Target
torpedoes on that ship, and the remaining cruisers.
Blasters remain on point defense; set a course for the gate. TPA?"
"Ready," tactical reported, as Duke complied, bringing the nose
of the Bahumat about.
Sailor Geminga nodded. "Commander
Thompson, you have the bridge. I'm
going to prepare to destroy the gate. Take
out that unknown ship, and the rest of the cruisers, and then the gate."
She stood, and moved to the TPA console, strapping herself in.
Shelia sighed. "I have
the bridge. You heard her. Scan that little ship; I want to know everything we can about
it. Let me know when it's in
torpedo range."
"Commander!" called Duke.
Shelia's eyes widened, as a green, whirlpool-like effect of energy
rippled in the confines of the Gate. It
began to expand.
"Damn," she whispered.
"The scan of the unknown DK ship is complete!
No weapons in evidence, but there is a massive subspace generator; it's
going full bore! The shielding is
like nothing we've ever seen on a DK ship.
It is now in torpedo range; it is still closing rapidly," science
reported abruptly.
"I don't like this," Shelia said through gritted teeth. "Target TPA on the Gate!
Report when in range! Ghost
torps on that little ship!"
"Won't work!" tactical snapped.
"The subspace field it's outputting is too strong; they'll
prematurely detonate. Only Phoenix
torps will make it through the effect!"
"Fine! Use 'em!
Science, is that why they have that generator? What are they going to do, ram us?" Shelia said,
whirling. Sailor Geminga was
charging her attack, with her eyes screwed shut in concentration.
"I don't know," science replied.
"We're still analyzing it! But
I have a sneaking suspicion that is merely a side benefit, and the generator is
for another reason, which is as of yet unknown!"
"That ship is now in blaster range!
The torpedoes are having little effect, and we can't get it with too many
torpedoes due to its vector," tactical reported.
"I know," snarled Shelia.
"But the gate is currently highest priority; the damn thing's
opening, after all!"
Science stared at two incoming reports of data, eyes widening.
As he compared the two, his throat suddenly went dry.
"COMMANDER! IT'S A
TRAP!"
Shelia spun. "WHAT!"
"The Gate's signal is one way!
The wormhole being generated goes nowhere!
And the small DK ship's subspace generator is overloading; I think it's
deliberate! At this range, we'll be
nailed point blank with a Force Eight subspace shockwave!"
Science paused, glanced down, and looked back up.
"Ten seconds to detonation!"
Sailor Geminga blinked, the energy from her attack fading as what had
just been said penetrated into her mind. She
half-turned as Shelia clenched her fists.
"Evasive action! Get us
out of here!"
It was, unfortunately, too little, too late.
The unorthodox Sailor Geminga had finally been outfoxed.
The DK suicide ship shuddered viciously; a sudden blast issued from the
ship, as it tumbled for a few seconds, with energy crackling up and down it. It exploded. Space
seemed to ripple; the Bahumat, which had turned sideways in an attempt to
escape, was nailed broadside.
Crystal
Palace in Crystal Tokyo, Planet Luna, Sol system, 10 January 2738
"Evasive action! Get us
out of here!"
Neo-Queen Serenity I gripped her armrests, rising slightly.
"No," gasped Luna.
The screen showed the spiraling starfield as the Bahumat desperately
tried to swerve; space seemed to ripple; and then the view was slammed about
suddenly...
Before it abruptly, ominously cut off.
Serenity's eyes closed, and she slowly sank back down.
She opened her eyes slowly, and just as slowly gazed around the room.
The expressions of misery and rage were expected; she was feeling the
same way. She composed herself, and took a deep breath.
"The new ships?"
"The crews are still green, your Highness.
They have not yet finished their training rotations," Sailor Neptune
replied slowly.
"The Destiny?" Serenity asked next.
"Repairs are taking a lot longer than expected; it is capable of
operation, but several key systems will be hastily put together and
insufficiently tested," Sailor Neptune answered.
Serenity nodded slowly. "I
understand, but we must come up with a plan to get to, and destroy, that Gate."
"Understood," murmured Sailor Neptune.
No one else could say a thing; all were stunned.
There was a soft gasp, followed by a sob, and Sailor Cygni raced out of
the room.
Serenity sighed. "Nirvana,
get me Sailor Betelgeuse."
The AI didn't even answer as it performed that task.
Somewhere
in the Alpha Zone, 10 January 2738
The
SLS Bahumat
Derrelli examined his displays; he couldn't know that at that very
second, the Bahumat had turned to run from the exploding DK suicide ship. He didn't know of the immense blast that had been unleashed.
He was about to find out.
He noted an odd reading in the drive field; an intense subspace
fluctuation. He frowned as the
readings got worse, and the reaction began speeding up in the chamber.
"Oh, this is-" he began.
Suddenly, things went haywire; sparks flew from every console, as small
explosions appeared at the inlet tubes to the reactor.
Derrelli barely had time to notice this; he was flying through the air
due to the shockwave that had just struck the Bahumat.
He slammed, hard, into the bulkhead, near the main entrance to
Engineering; he landed on something warm and soft.
He was dazed from the impact.
He glanced down. It was
Commander Jefferson; her head was lying at a strange angle to her neck. He
looked up, to see a wall of fire erupting from behind the reactor.
His eyes widened as the mass of flames swept towards him.
A quick glance showed no one else in his view, other than two engineers
overtaken by the flame and incinerated alive; Derrelli dove for the maintenance
hatch in the floor.
He got it open just as the blast of fire struck him with overwhelming
force.
The DK ships hadn't escaped unscathed; while they had been intelligent
enough to know to let the "special" ship get in close, they hadn't
gotten far enough away, misinformed as they were by their high command.
The end result was the rest of the little fleet was also caught up in the
subspace shockwave. Their hulls
were not so nearly as resilient as the Bahumat; all were destroyed
instantly.
Even as they exploded, the wave swept, the Bahumat still caught in
its grasp, towards the Gate. The
force quickly dissipated; by the time the Bahumat and the shockwave
reached the gate, the wave was a mere Force Two.
The Gate suffered no damage, even as small explosions marked the Bahumat's
hull, and the battered hulk was pushed into the vortex.
After the Bahumat entered, the Gate deactivated.
The irony was, as the Bahumat's core was beginning to breach, the
collapsing wormhole reacted with the escaping particles from the engine core.
This caused the formation of a subspace rift; the Bahumat was
propelled through, still bound by physics:
an object in motion remains in motion, until an equal and opposite force
is applied.
In this case, that "equal and opposite force" was an asteroid
belt; and the Bahumat plowed right into it, lacking the ability to
control its speed or direction, with huge pockmarks in its hull.
At first, it seemed as though fortune would favor the crippled behemoth,
as it cleanly missed every asteroid.
About halfway into the belt, however, that fortune ran out, and the Bahumat
was struck a glancing blow along its port side; more of the hull was ripped open
to space. The Bahumat began
to slow, striking several more asteroids. Fortunately,
none were head-on; the belt began to clear.
The Bahumat, by this time, was barely moving; it struck a final
asteroid, spiraling slowly off, drifting slowly into the clear space of the star
system the belt revolved around. The
ship looked like a half-crumpled aluminum can.
Its hull was scorched, ripped, and punctured.
Small fires flickered in areas where emergency forcefields kept in the
ship's atmosphere. The ship was
dark. A trail of debris, gas, and a
slight trail of leftover drive plasma stretched out behind them.
It was a testament to the designers and builders that the ship still had
emergency power; the back-up life support was operating.
All over the ship, hatches and emergency forcefields had done their job
of protecting the ship's integrity as best they could.
Now, though, the surviving crew, mostly unconscious or stunned, faced a
new danger. The threat of their
ship exploding on them was gone. But
the emergency power was a high-tech battery core; it wouldn't last forever.
They had been spared a violent, explosive death to face a new threat of
death by freezing and suffocation.
The
Shroud, Dreyious Prime, Dreyious system, 10 January 2738
Heran grimaced as he slammed his drink down.
"How long?!" he demanded.
Neris lowered her eyes with a sigh.
"Another month, at least. And
I've made no progress into finding out who was after us; we didn't even get a
good visual of our foe, and the sensor readings were wrecked when the backlash
ripped the main core."
The fact that the damage was worse than expected due to energy
backlash was a sobering one, Neris reflected bitterly.
The backlash had resulted from the destruction of the weapons systems;
the Ghost torps still had been in effect, neutralizing energy in the field; and
the stored potential of the weapons had had to go somewhere.
So it did; right back to the computer core, and frying most of the
systems hard wired to it, including the sensors.
"Amount?" Heran asked bitterly.
Aaryx winced. "Most of
what we have. And we can't afford a
sensor upgrade, now."
Heran snorted. "We have
to replace the entire sensor system anyway.
If we sell the damaged grids for scrap?
Perhaps to someone who wants to learn more about DK sensors?"
"Maybe we can afford it, then," Aaryx nodded.
"But we'll be flat broke."
"We still have the Battleaxe; we can make a few smuggling
runs to build up some capital while we wait," Heran growled.
"When I find out who did this..."
A few tables over, Brad London grinned into his drink, overhearing
Heran's conversation. He avoided
looking directly at his quarry; he was using his peripheral vision to keep an
eye on them.
So... his attacks had been more successful than he thought, huh?
Good. And just wait until he
engaged the Battleaxe! Assuming it
survived, that is.
He glanced up to see his first mate sit down at his table.
"Well?" he asked.
"Ready when you are. The
packages have been delivered," his first replied.
Brad's smile deepened. "Excellent.
Let's go." He stood, holding his bottle of vizegrian wine.
Neris gazed casually after the two humans as they departed, her mind
wondering. Packages? she
thought. What are they talking
about?
Her attention was diverted by a loud commotion near the bar; she barely
noticed the two humans setting a pouch of credits by the bartender, who climbed
up on the bar.
"Patrons! Listen up!
A small Dark Kingdom task force is nearing the Shroud!
They are moving to surround it! Get
out now!" With that, the bartender dropped down, and with his assistant
disappeared into the back.
"Shit!" snarled Heran. "Let's
go!"
The exit from the bar was now packed with fleeing people of various
cultures; no one wanted to be here when the DK arrived.
Aaryx scowled. "We'll
never get out of here at this rate!"
Heran's anger peaked; dark energy blazed about his hands as he raised
them at the crowd. Seeing this,
Neris and Aaryx drew their GM blasters.
The sudden assault quickly cleared a path; they were out of the door
before the rest of the shocked and stunned bar patrons could react.
As they raced through the corridors to the docking bay and the relative
safety of the Battleaxe, Neris turned and made sure no one was following. She heard the hiss as Heran and Aaryx ducked through the
blast doors; as she turned back around, a blur struck her and slammed her into
another set of doors, which hissed open to allow her and her assailant through.
They hissed shut; no one heard the energy discharge that followed.
Heran and Aaryx reached the loading ramp of the Battleaxe before
they realized Neris was no longer with them.
A large crowd of people was issuing from the doors into the docking bay;
several shot dirty looks their way, but they were too busy running to attack
them.
"Damn," muttered Aaryx.
Heran's scowl deepened. "We
can't wait for her." Aaryx
could plainly see the indecision warring in Heran's features.
He growled as he arrived at a decision.
"She will be avenged. Let's
go," he snapped; both raced up the ramp, turning their backs as two humans
followed the exodus, dragging a cargo cocoon behind them, right for a small
shuttle parked back in the corner.
The
Battleaxe
As the two arrived on the bridge of the Battleaxe, the deepening
whine of the power-up of the small ship's engines became clearly audible.
"GO!" snarled Heran bitterly, as the doors hissed shut behind
them. The viewscreen showed the
rapidly retreating docking bay as the Battleaxe backed out, swerving
violently.
"Shame," muttered Heran. "She
was a good lay."
Suddenly, a vicious blast rocked the little ship; green beams slammed
into their shields.
The Dark Kingdom had arrived.
"Evasive action!" snarled Heran.
"Bridge to engineering; FTL as soon as you're ready!"
"You got it, boss!" came the reply; Heran glared hatefully at
the viewscreen. Four DK
battleships, six cruisers, and fourteen destroyers were spread out in an
enveloping net formation. They were
headed right for the space between the four battleships.
"We're being hailed, boss," reported the comm officer.
"The lead DK battleship is ordering us to come about and surrender.
They say they've been informed we would be here, and are waiting for us;
they're saying we're trapped and have no way out."
"Assholes," raged Heran. "Who
the hell informed on us?!"
"FTL drive energizing," Aaryx's voice reported.
A vicious jolt abruptly threw everyone on the bridge about like rag
dolls; the small ship rolled over on itself, going into a tight spiral. Debris and plasma billowed out behind the small vessel.
It was a few seconds before Heran could drag himself to his feet, near
the viewscreen. Dark blood flowed
down his face; the bridge was ominously dark, with sparks and smoke issuing from
several consoles. The burning
flames near the back of the bridge provided the only illumination.
"What the hell was that!?" snarled Heran.
"Don't know," gasped Aaryx.
He was lying near the tactical console, his leg bent back under itself.
His face was a mask of pain. "But
whatever it was, it felt internal."
Green emergency lighting flickered on.
There was a burst of static, followed by a garbled transmission. Heran could barely make it out.
It clarified abruptly.
"Engineering to bridge. Do
you read?"
Heran staggered to his chair, and pressed a panel as he slowly lowered
himself in. "Go ahead."
"That blast was from nearly a half of ton of high-powered explosive
that detonated near the antimatter pods; as a direct result, we're powerless
except for emergency power. The
core is fucking gone. It'll take a
lot of money to repair it. Here's
the kicker, boss; the explosives were old GM style reactants.
The GM doesn't use them anymore, but..."
Heran gritted his teeth in an effort to control his rage.
He mentally reviewed the personnel aboard the Battleaxe.
As it had its own dedicated crew, the only person he needed was Aaryx.
Everyone else on the bridge was dead anyway.
And they would need a diversion to escape in the one FTL-capable shuttle
the Battleaxe carried.
"Very well. Get a
damage report together. Get this
thing moving as fast as you can, preferably before the DK reaches us. Bridge out." Heran
stabbed the panel. He carefully
looked at Aaryx.
"What's the drill?" grunted Aaryx.
Heran grinned, that evil, nasty grin that boded no good.
Aaryx repressed a shudder.
"We're getting out of here."
A
Small, Unmarked Shuttle
The DK ships swarmed over the spiraling, wrecked ship; as they did so, a
small shuttle crewed by a pair of humans passed by on the fringe of their sensor
range. They were too interested in
the ship in front of them; the lead battleship locked on a tractor beam, and
began drawing the smashed ship in close.
The human at the helm guffawed in triumph.
He brushed his blue bangs out of his eyes, and gazed at the sensor
reports of the area.
"Apparently, the first present worked well," grinned the second
human.
"And we have our own present," chuckled Brad London.
"FTL energizing; transit in three minutes."
"Sir!" exclaimed his first, pointing.
A massive explosion ripped out, from the general area of the docking bay
on the lead DK battleship. Brad
magnified the view of the area; even as debris from the now-exploded Battleaxe
spiraled out, combined with debris, plasma, and ichor from the DK battleship, a
small shape was discernable, blasting past the DK ships.
"Two occupants aboard that shuttle," his first reported.
"I'm guessing its Heran and Aaryx."
"The second present?" Brad asked.
"In place and transmitting," nodded his first.
"We'll know exactly where they go." He paused, and glanced at Brad.
"How'd you guess that they would do that?"
"Past history," Brad nodded, uncapping his wine and taking a
swig. He swallowed, and glanced at
his first mate. "We're talking
about the fuck who killed a planet full of his own people to facilitate his
escape from the DK."
"Damn," his first mate said with a smile.
"You have really thought this through, haven't you?"
"Yep," grinned Brad, taking another sip as the FTL warning
beeped. He leaned back in his seat
as a blue glow materialized around the shuttle's stern, drawing in particles.
The shuttle appeared to stretch to infinity for a moment, before
vanishing in a bright blue flash.
STAY
TUNED!