:: Unknown ::
Kachiia stared out the viewport at
the surrounding stars. Always they overwhelmed her with their
sheer beauty. It was the only good thing about this post. As a
Taiidani commander in their Imperial fleet she was charged with
guarding their boarder and preventing Pirates, such as the
Protectors, away from trade lines and freeports. And to watch
their ancient enemy. Long ago they had ruled over a large swath
near the core. Few records remained from that time, but many were
found detailing the Kushan. While contradictory, no one knew what
to beleive. The Kushan were either peace loving scientists, or
vicious conquerors sitting on their spoils. Kachiia perferred to
play it safe.
The Kaikau iii (Watcher iii) was an older carrier, but viewed as
more than capable of dealing with the pirates. Turning from the
viewport she gazed across the bridge. "Guard duty is too
hard upon setient beings" Kachiia thought "they always
must deal with boredom." The Kaikau had an extensive
holo-cube library, but the crew had exhausted it a mere month
after the beginning of this patrol. Kachiia was startled as
Barua'us came charging on to the bridge, straight towards her.
The burly sensor technician was clearly vexed by what the
datasphere he held contained.
"What's wrong Baru?"
Kachiia asked. Ignoring the use of his nick name, which he hated,
Barua began speaking so fast Kachiia couldn't catch it.
"TheregoneImeanititsalloverwerescrewed, Kachiia" All
Kachiia heard was her name, and before she could say anything, he
started again. "Scout group Kou Taii was intercepted by a
massive unkown bogie hypering out of the Kharak system." He
said it slow and deliberately, reigning himself in. "They
completely destroyed the Scout group, and a dropped sensor
package detected them hypering towards us. We're screwed
Kachiia." His voice broke, and no one rebuked him for
falling into lower Taiidan while addressing a superior. There was
no need.
"Any idea what they have?" Kachiia asked, panic at the
edges of her voice. The sentiment was imediately echoed by the
entire bridge crew. Sub-Commander Ar'hakk grabbed the data disk
and jammed it into the nearest reader. He read it aloud, as if to
reaffirm it.
"One Mothership size vessel,
ten ships of Frigate size, approximately a dozen heavy strike
craft, and nearly three dozen interceptors."
Silence reigned. While they could handle small pirate fleets they
couldn't approach something of that size. With four assault
frigates and a support frigate, plus 2 wings of interceptors,
this was untenable. Their hyperdrive engines required more fuel,
so they couldn't escape. Stumbling over the words, Kachiia
ordered the fleet prepared and tried to think about things other
than death or surrender. Like being able to run.
Sub-Commander Ar'hakk wondered fitfully what Kachiia had in
mind. There was no way she could retreat, and he knew her well
enough to know that she wouldn't activate the self destruct
protocols. Surrender was the only option for her, and if she took
it, he was fully authorized to take command, and utilize the
scuttling protocols. Anything to ensure that their ship did not
fall into enemy hands...
As the carrier group rushed away from their
designated intercept point, an odd thought came into the head of
Ship-Leader Makk'arh. What if those Kushan bogies wanted them to
flee this way? It would require in depth knowledge of the fleet
commander though, and because of that he dismissed it. Still, it
nagged on, and though he normally worried, Makk'arh found many of
his own worried postulations ridiculous. They'd only been away
for two standard Imperial years, and standard deep space protocol
demanded that no communication occur between Imperial pickets.
Command could contact them, though rarely did it do so. He
remembered the last time a Command message had reached them. It
had only been static, and was filed as a comms glitch, the relay
stations were known to go down from time to time after all.
Makk'arh realised he was sweating, cursing his paranoia. He
ordered Comms tech 3rd Varls to send a tightbeam message to
Kachiia fromk his ready room. Breathing heavily, Makk'arh relayed
his suspicions to fleet command.
"Makk'arh, your paranoia has reached new
hieghts today."
Kachiia shook her head slowly. She should have
expected this from him. As it was she didn't think she could calm
him down now. He was to worked up over his theory.
"But, Kachiia, we've been isolated for a
long time, and we haven't heard anything from Command in months,
save the..." Kachiia let his whining drone into the
backgound as she tried to practice Ka'wahaii, the ancient trance
art of her family. Nearly always she did this for insight into
some problem, now she did it for respite. From Makk'ahr. From the
coming confrontation. She relaxed very little, despite her skill
in the craft, and found her thoughts again wandering to their
luckless situation. As she struggled with her tension, the seeds
of a plan began to form in her mind. She was shaken out of her
reverie by a Gunner she didn't know. The braying alarms connected
in her mind.
"What's wrong?" She asked, glancing
at the chronometer. It was too early for trouble.
The Kushan Destroyers had jumped right into the
middle of their formation. There were five of them, as well as a
pair of support Frigates loaded with fighters and 'vettes. They
held the advantage over the shocked Taiidanii, who were now
rushing to full battle alert. Waiting to see if they would fire.
To be continued...
