Odd Space by Unknown

Published on Kiith Iopia on the 23 July 2003

-Part I-

Standing at the huge view ports of the massive command carrier, the Khar-Toba II, Major General Kiirt Sjet thought back to his recent trip planet-side of Hiigara’s satellite, Angel Moon. He had visited some family, and gone over the paper work of his next mission. It was much less exciting than his last, which was to find a shipyard that almost killed the entire crew of his fleet, but… perhaps this is a good thing. This one will be just to bring assistance to the Exploration Vessel, Lunar, that reported venting of atmosphere, and then absolutely nothing. It was presumed to have been struck by a micrometeorite, and in the total confusion, the communication system was burned out.

Nothing 3 carriers, and a few warships couldn’t handle. This would actually be an extension of his crew’s leave. A mission so trivial should be given a support ship, not a battle fleet.

“How much longer until the last few shuttles are onboard?”

“The last shuttle just took off from the spaceport, sir, and it’s reporting an ETA of 20 minutes.”

“Thank you, tell me when they’re docked, and the crew is unloaded.” Yes sir.”

In the 20 minutes it took the shuttle to dock with the Khar-Toba II, the fleet’s newest squadron of Missile Corvettes, the newly dubbed Requiem Squadron, was released from debriefing and was actively stationed onboard the Khar-Toba II’s sister ship, the Blue Nebula. And at the last minute the Hiigarain Fleet Command (HFC) took the carrier Kharak’s Revenge and placed it in a defense group that would help defend Hiigara from the Imperialist Tiiadan forces that still believe our Homeworld belongs to them, even though they stole it from us.

Instead, we were commissioned the newly built carrier Medusa. Though the carrier was brand new, most of its crew were combat veterans who survived the destruction of the Heavy Cruiser, Vengeance IV, either from escape pods, or those who were sealed in compartments for hours, while support crews hacked, and cut their ways to those still trapped.

When the crew was unloaded, the Khar-Toba II, the Blue Nebula, and the Medusa slid out of their docking ports on the enormous refueling station in high-orbit above Angel Moon. Soon the fleet’s Kharak-Class Heavy Cruiser, 4 Destroyers, and 5 Ion Frigates formed up around the 3 carriers and they were all enveloped in the, almost hypnotic, blues of hyperspace. Indeed, this would be a very boring support operation. What a walk in the park!

-Part II-

Five days later General Sjet’s fleet emerged from hyperspace. The trip was uneventful. But immediately after the fleet reverted back to real-space they all beheld a horrific sight. The Lunar was nothing more than a blackened hulk of a ship that was brutally ripped into two sections. The front portion contained the bridge, and forward crew bunks and the small docking bay that still held the vessel’s 5 escort Interceptors, while the aft section was engine compartments, engine-room crew bunks, and the ships main reactor, all being held together by the vessel’s spinal superstructure. Nothing else.

As near as our fleet’s analysis experts could tell, the Lunar was destroyed from the in side out. But since the hull was ripped apart at the mid-section, and not at the reactor, the possibility of reactor explosion was ruled out… at least for now. General Kiirt conversed with his long time friend, Lt. General Kiji, about what they should do.

“What should we tell HFC? What do we do now?” asked Kiji.

“We’ll tell them more about this situation once we have learned more, understood?”

“Yes sir.”

“Until then… don’t let the morale of the Blue Nebula go under, okay?”

“Yes sir. Until later, my old friend.”

An hour later a shuttle was launched from the Medusa that contained a boarding party. We were sending a patrol of specialized troopers that are trained to scan and find any traces of sabotage, and deception through physical or computer evidence. If anyone could figure out what happened here, they could.

With a loud click and hiss, the shuttle latched onto the forward docking port of the hunk of junk that used to be the Lunar. The squad leader, Lt. Niira, stepped out into the dark, airless hallway and took a reading on his portable scanner. Switching screens, he accessed the map of the Lunar, and began to march his soldiers to the bridge.

Communicating to Niira via a comlink, General Sjet had a few questions to ask him.

“At this moment, what do you think caused the Lunar to rip into two pieces, while the ‘spine’ of the ship remained intact?”

“Sir, I’m not sure yet, wait until my group, and I, reach the main control system in the bridge. Then I’ll be able to tell you more. And don’t worry, sir, I will tell you everything I learn, once I learn it.”

“Thank you. Call in when you find anything at all, is that clear?”

“Yes sir.”

-Part III-

Stepping through the wide doors to the Khar-Toba II’s bridge a young officer looks around and spots General Kiirt sitting at his command chair looking out, through the main view ports, at the wreck of the Lunar. As the officer walks towards the general, Kiirt turns around and greets him openly.

“Ah, Intelligence Officer Riira Paktu how’s your new position in Fleet Intelligence?”

“Great sir, and uh… thank you, but I have some news that you will find interesting, and maybe, to some extent, odd.

“Lay it on me then.”

“Well, um sir, we did a sensor scan on the whole vessel, and noticed something a little off in the main reactor. It seems that it’s still running.

“Whats so odd about that?”

“Well nothing sir, but after a week and a half of absolutely no use, the reactor’s programming should have automatically shut it off. That’s why we did a more focused scan. And that’s when we found this…”

With that I.O. Riira set a small pile of papers on the console in front of the general. And as Kiirt looked them over he continued.

“With these new sensor scans we found the reactor was producing amounts of energy that are all but unheard of on a ship this size. I don’t know how, or why, but that’s what’s happening, sir.”

“I’m going to contact Lt. Niira and see if he, or his squad, have found anything else yet.”

“I’ll get in touch with you when I find more, sir.”

“Defiantly.”

Since Lt. Niira, and General Kiirt last spoke one of Niira’s troopers had accessed Lunar’s ship logs. And the last entry was dated 12 hours after the Lunar last contacted the HFC. All it contained were a few garbled sentences, and static. Not much more.

“… hull breaches ac…, … ain reactors…, … extra power…, … call HFC…, … mergency… peat emergenc…”

When General Kiirt first saw the scrambled video recordings he sat there staring at the holographic projection. After a moment Communications Officer Larii Kaalel walked over and whispered into the general’s ear, “I’ll be there in a moment. Tell him to secure the forward position of the Lunar, and after that have them find a place to set up camp. They’re sleeping over tonight.”

When the general finally got to the bridge of the Khar-Toba II, there were a few higher officers around the communication console. A few of them had looks of pure confusion. The officer that was stationed at the console was standing off to the side, having been pushed away from it, came over to Kiirt and told him what happened.

“Sir, no one in the Lt.’s squad has reported in yet.”

“Shouldn’t they have done that about 10 minutes ago?”

“Yes sir, but for some reason they haven’t, and we haven’t been able to raise them on any frequencies, Hiigarain or otherwise. Either their communication systems are down, or something has happened to them. And at this point, sir, either situation is possible.”

“Huh… get another patrol out there, but before they dock with the Lunar tell the shuttle’s pilots to do a fly-by of the bridge, and see if they can contact Lt. Niira on short-range comms.”

“Yes sir. But there is something else that could have happened to them.”

“Whats that?”

“Well about 5 minutes before they were supposed to check in, our sensors picked up a massive energy spike from the Lunar’s main reactor. After the spike, we tried to contact Lt. Niira’s group to see if they could check it out. But they never answered.”

“So what are you saying happened to them? This energy spike released a shit load of radiation that killed them through their radiation-resistant armor, or the spike overloaded every piece of electronic equipment they brought onboard with them?

“Sir, I don’t know. I’m only giving you the facts.”

“Sorry, I’m just a bit edgy here. Something about this place seems off. I don’t know… this is almost like a couple months ago, right before that Tiiadani fleet came out of hyperspace in front of us in that supernova. This almost feels like a trap, or something else… I just don’t know.”

-Part IV-

When the shuttle neared the battered ruins of the Lunar, the pilot broadcasted on all frequencies:

“Lt. Niira, do you copy? Is anybody on the Lunar reading me? We are sending another squad of troopers in to assist you. Lt. Niira, do you copy? Is anyone there?”

No answer. Switching comms to contact the Khar-Toba II, the pilot updated the general, or the communications officer who would inform him.

“Tell General Sjet there are no communications coming from anywhere onboard, and that I’ll be offloading Lt. Giile’s Strikers soon.”

“Yes sir. I will tell him personally.”

Pacing back and forth in his personal quarters, Kiirt ran through every option he could think of. He could withdraw from this sector and head back to Hiigara, but that would mean heading home without accomplishing a thing. And the only other option he could think of was that he could just stay here, and keep working. But that had its drawbacks as well; he could lose other troops, just like Lt. Niira.

Interrupting his hard thinking came a knock on the door. Startled, the general walked over to the door, and pressed open button. In a quick silent motion, the door slid to the right. It reveled the Intelligence Commander Kilraa, his face was stern and serious-not that it’s ever anything different- but this time it was even more so.

“Sir, I have some information that you should review. It’s most important that you do now.”

“Alright, lets see it.”

“Um… sir, you’ll have to send one of your top scientists onboard the Lunar to figure out what it is. The Strikers have sent back some, uh… footage that they don’t really know.”

“What kind of thing are we talking about?”

“Well… it seems to be a concentration of pure energy within and reactor. But we don’t really know exactly what it is.”

“Are you going over to see this?”

“Well, I was thinking about it, sir, yes.”

“Fine, than I’m coming to.”

“General Sjet, with all do respect, no… we cannot risk you to what ever this is.”

“I’m sorry commander, but you can’t overrule me on this. Im going, and that’s final.”

“Yes sir…”

-Part V-

Wearing gray, airtight suits General Kiirt, along with IC Kilraa, and the Strikers, he disembarked from the shuttle that carried them over to what is left of the Lunar. As they took the stair well up to the only passage that still connected the fore, and aft sections of the ship, the general thought he saw something out the corner of his eye. But when he looked there was nothing but an empty corridor.

When the group reached the long passageway, General Sjet looked out the viewports that made up the walls. Staring out into the endless depths of nothingness he couldn’t help but feel like there was something more to this existence, something different, yet the same. Realizing that he had stopped and that everybody else ahead of him he started to jog back up to catch the rest of the group.

“We are almost to the main reactor, sir. About another 5 minutes.”

“Good, then maybe we can figure out what happened to Lt. Niira and the Lunar.”

“General, sir, I really have to say something to you… in private.”

“Now Lt.?”

“Um, yes sir. Right now.”

“Okay… we’ll meet up with the rest of you at the reactor. We won’t be more than a few minutes.

A few of the soldiers looked at each other, but kept moving, not wanting to question the general’s orders. When the group was sufficiently out of earshot Lt. Giile spoke.

“Permission to speak freely, sir.”

“Granted… now what is it that you just had to say right now?”

“Why would you ever consider coming along with us on a vessel that was mysteriously destroyed?”

“I don’t have to tell you anything, but I will anyway. When I first joined the HFC, back when it was just a group of eager pilots, and a few military strategists trying to protect the Mothership as it stared to cross the galaxy, I was one of those onboard the corvette that dock with the remains of the Khar-Selim. While aboard I found the god-white corpse of my best friend since I was a teenager. I broke down when I saw him, I almost didn’t make it back to the ship. And ever since, I have tried to find out, or be part of the team that finds out why any vessel was destroyed. I hope that answers your question.”

“Uh… yes sir it does. And I’m truly sorry.

“Don’t be. Anyway, back to the present. Let’s try to catch up with the rest of your group.”

“Yes sir.”

-Part VI-

When the general, and Lt. Giile stepped through the thick armor doors into the Reactor Control Room they were amazed at what they saw. Floating where the Lunar’s energy was produced was a black, liquid-like, sphere. It shimmered as the surface rippled around and around in an almost hypnotic manner.

Checking the systems of the command console Lt. Giile found them active, but running on stand-by mode. With a couple flicks of his fingers he turned on the monitors, and radiation shielding in the RCR. This let them see what the ship saw in the reactor, and helped them conserve their suits power supply by letting the Lunar’s shielding protect them. The crew must have switched this off for some reason.

“What is that?” asked Kilraa.

“As far as we can tell it’s just a sphere that gives off energy spikes every 2-3 days.” Answered the Lt.

“And how long has it been since it last spiked?”

“2 days.”

“Is it safe to be here, now?”

“Of course, we have the radiation shielding on now. And besides… we always have these in case of an emergency.” Flipping a switch Lt. Giile opened a compartment that held four 3-foot long assault rifles, and 15 or so smaller pistols. “Oh” Is all Kilraa could say.

Tossing a rifle to General Kiirt, and Kilraa he gave one to his second in command and kept one for himself. He also gave a pistol to everyone since there was enough to go around.

As he did so an alarm went off in the control room. Checking what was happening Giile shouted over the alarm that another spike was coming. They all looked out the viewports at the sphere as it pulsed with an unseen power.

-Part VII-

Suddenly several black creatures came out of the floating ball. Kiirt recognized them as Lt. Niira and his group by the patches they wore on their arms. As they stepped out onto the metal floor the creature that was Niira looked up at them in the control room and pointed at them. With that the rest of his group ran and jumped up to the windows and started beating it with their bare hands. Under the poundings of the nine soldiers, somehow holding to the polished surface, they viewports gave way pretty quickly.

With professional accuracy the Strikers pulled out their firearms and began firing. But before many rounds were fired the black troopers pounced on them. And began beating them, breaking every bone in their bodies. Luckily General Kiirt, Lt. Giile, IC Kilraa, and 2 other soldiers were off to the side near the wall when the dark soldiers came through.

Not wasting any time Lt. Giile herded the 5 of them out the near-by door and jammed it closed. Being the most cool headed of the survivors he grabbed his comlink and tried to reach any of the carriers.

“That wont work Lt. The energy spikes disrupt all comms within 5 km.” That was Kilraa, having noted everything that happened during the spikes.

“So what do in the mean time? Hold up in a utility closet?”

“What do I look like, a genius? All I know is that there is absolutely no way we can contact anyone outside this ship with a comlink that size, while that-that thing is giving of energy. And that is, of course, if those people, or what ever they are, don’t kill us first!”

“Stop fighting! We need to get word to the fleet, and you two bickering will NOT help us any!” shouted the general.

“Your right sir. Kilraa, is there any way we could activate the Lunar’s comm system?”

“Let me think…um, if we could just patch into the energy from that thing, we might just be able to have enough power to send a quick distress signal on a tight-beam signal to the closest vessel.”

“Great, than lets do it.”

“Two problems Lt. First, we’ll need to activate the reactor, from the reactor control room. And second, we’ll have to survive!”

-Part VIII-

Both of Lt. Giile’s troopers volunteered to activate the reactor. Each armed with one of the assault rifles they carefully made his way down the corridor. While one of them stood in front of the door to shot anything that might remain in there, the other un-jammed the door. After a brief moment the door opened and the trooper in front of the door fired several rounds into the now empty room.

Taking a few seconds to make sure the room was cleared they set to work activating the reactor. Everything went smoothly, until the reactor was up to 97%. Out of nowhere 2 of the black creatures came out of the shadows behind them and started beating them. Luckily, one trooper managed to grab the pistol at his waist and fire a shot right into the monster’s chest. Instead of blood splattering everywhere, the thing just absorbed the shell. A split second later he fired another shot into its face. That’s when the monster flew back onto the wall on the far side of the room. Helping his fellow solider, he quickly killed the last creature.

Securing the room again they noticed the control system had been shutdown. Not only that, it had been destroyed. Realizing that there was nothing else they could do from here they started their trek back to the bridge. And it wouldn’t be easy because one trooper had a broken leg, and arm, and they were still in “hostile territory”.

In the main bridge General Sjet, Kilraa, and Giile waited for the reactor to be restored to full power. Everything went rather quickly until it got to 97%, when it stopped gaining power. And after about 20 minutes the two soldiers returned. Explaining that there was no way to get any more power out of the reactor they had to come up with a new plan.

-Part IX-

“Alright, we need to come up with something that will get us off this rusting tomb. There has to be some way, we just have to put our heads together… and quick!” said the solider that wasn’t hurt.

“Kilraa, do you know if those Interceptors are operational?” asked Kiirt.

“Well… there’s only one way to find out. The Lt and I will go and check it out. Sir, why don’t you make sure nothing gets in here, this may be our only safe place on the ship.”

Armed with 2 of the assault rifles Kilraa and Giile made their way down to the small hanger. There was barely enough room for the 5 Strike Craft, mechanics, and the pilots. But now there were only the 5 fighters. Carefully going through each Interceptor’s control panels while Lt. Giile stood guard, IC Kilraa discovered that all 5 of these ships were straight from the factory. The only time they were used was when they were being docked in the tiny hanger here.

Barely able to contain his excitement Kilraa ran all the way back to the bridge to report his findings to the general.

“Sir those fighters are brand new! They haven’t had enough time to get their engines clogged with junk. This is perfect!”

“Yea, well have you ever considered that not all of us here will be able to get back?”

“What do you mean sir?”

“Tell me, what do you see over there?” pointing to the corner where the injured solider was sitting down trying not to fall unconscious, “what about him, huh? There’s no way he could pilot with only one arm, and there’s certainly no way we could fit TWO people into one Interceptor.”

“I’m sorry sir, I guess I forgot about him.”

“I have an idea sir,” said the hurt Striker, “if we could isolate the power we currently have, we could use it to detonate the Lunar.”

“Good idea, but remember that things is still jamming transmissions. We wouldn’t be able to escape if we did that.”

“But remember sir, that I can’t pilot and ship in my condition. I could overload the power cells from here and-”

“-No, I’m not going to let you do that.”

“Sir, when I enlisted in the Hiigarain Armed Forces I took an oath to protect my superior officers. You, sir, are a superior officer. And I’m not going back on that oath!”

“Sir, if I may… he’s right. It is his job to serve, and protect you.”

“… Okay, though it is what he’s been trained to do, and I still object to it, it seems to be our only option. Giile, you and your 2 soldiers rig this thing to blow from here. Kilraa, you and me are going down to the hanger to prep those Interceptors for flight. When you guys are done head down and join us. Sound good? Let’s go!”

-Part X-

When Giile and his uninjured solider finally got to the hanger, Kiirt and Kilraa had gone through the pre-flight sequences on 4 of the 5 Interceptors they would be using. Calling the Lt. over to where they were, he showed them the basic controls they’d need to fly back to the Khar-Toba II.

“Alright, this is the flight stick. Up, down, left, right, you can figure it out. But these are what you gotta worry about.”Pointing to a couple switches, and lights on the main panel.“This switch will activate the autopilot for when we get closer to the carriers. And this one will turn on your comm. unit; use it to warn the Khar-Toba II that you’re friendly as soon as you clear the hanger here. If not, you’ll be tagged as ‘enemy’ and be targeted with everything they got.”

“Cool. Anything else we gotta know before we lift?” asked Kilraa.

“No, that should be it. Lets get on board.”

Grabbing his comlink from his belt, Giile gave his “detonator” a timetable.

“Okay, when you see us on the sensor screen, count 20 seconds and press the button. You got that?” “Yes sir. And thanks for being a great Lt. Make sure my family knows that I did all I could to keep them safe.”

“Absolutely, I’ll tell them personally.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Within 10 minutes all 4 of them we in flight suits, and in the cockpits. But in the shadows lurked the creature formally known as Lt. Niira.

-Part XI-

Checking over his monitors, General Kiirt gently nudged the Interceptor forward on its repulsor-lifts until he was behind Lt Giile, who was in position to launch.

“Just another few minutes and we’ll be sitting in the hanger of the Khar-Toba II, okay sir?” said Giile.“Great the sooner we get off his blasted hunk of junk, the sooner we can blast it out of the sky. There’s no way I can let this keep drifting through space.”

At that moment, Giile hit the throttle and shot his nimble fighter out into open space. Again using the repulsor-lifts to push him into launch position, Kiirt punched his throttle and saw the stars fly out around him.

“This is General Kiirt Sjet, request you ‘tag’ me as a friendly.” “Yes sir. We’ve got you on our scopes, I’m going to transfer you to a pilot, and he’s going to talk you down. Alright?” “Absolutely, just get me back there ASAP and I’ll, personally, throw a celebration. Kiirt out.”

Sitting at the sensor console, the young officer noticed 5 strike craft leave the Lunar. Quickly contacting his superior, he showed him the display. Immediately after that, he called down to the flight deck and got 2 pilots from Requiem Squadron scrambled. Within a minute, they were cleared to launch.

-Part XII-

Watching the sensors the injured solider tried not to let emotions drive him crazy. Yes, he was going to die. If he didn’t blow up the reactor, than many more were at a possible risk. He saw one fighter launch, then 2, then 3 and 4. But then he saw a 5th one launch.

Confused but sticking to his orders, he pressed a button that brought up the reactor screen. He was about to press another button to start the chain reaction that would overload the power core and blow up the ship when the door flew inward. Immediately 3 black soldiers pounced on him and killed him. Leaving only a crumpled corpse laying next to the computers, they retreated into the shadows.

* * * * *

As Kiirt was almost half way to the Khar-Toba II, a deep, pain filled voice crackled over the tiny ship’s speaker.“You sent me over there Sjet. You are the one responsible for the hell I went through. And YOU are the one who is going to die…”

“Lt Niira? What did you see, where did you go?” asked the general

“We went to a place where pain is unimaginable, where there is no light… only darkness. We went to a place that makes hell look like heaven. A place you will soon be visiting,” hissed Niira.

With that Niira started to fire at Kiirt. Shooting with an unbelievable accuracy he quickly destroyed the engines on Kiirt’s Interceptor, leaving unharmed… for the moment.

Seeing what was happening, Giile banked and started shooting at the Strike Craft that was Niira. Firing in rapid succession only 3 rounds struck Niira. Disabling his engine, Niira started to drift. And as the 2 Requiem pilots formed around the 2nd disabled Interceptor, Giile couldn’t shake a strange feeling that had just settled in the pit of his stomach.

After a second a laugh crackled over the speakers. A laugh that was somehow filled with pain, and excitement. A laugh that sounded as if it came from a mortally injured person that was eagerly awaiting death. It took him another second before it struck him like a meteorite.

“Get away from him now, he’s going to-”

And at the exact moment there was a brilliant explosion. Engulfing Niira and the 2 pilots in the Missile Corvettes and sending a shock wave out which sent Giile tumbling in space.

-Part XIII-

After a day of debriefing General Kiirt, IC Kilraa, and several other officers were debating whether or no to request additional help from a science vessel. But after a long discussion it was decided that the Lunar should be destroyed. And since Kiirt didn’t want anybody to get within 3 km of the ship the group also decided it would best be done using the high-powered ion blasts from one of the Ion Frigates. * * * * *

With all other vessels out of range of any debris that may damage critical components, a lone Ion Frigate waited for the count down to end before it would fire. The captain insisted that no other ships be around when it blew up because of the radiation that may be given off when the reactor went.

As the timer slowly ticked away, the captain of the frigate made sure all shields were at 100%, and that the single cannon to which the ship lent its name was fully charged. And as the timer neared the end, the tension in the bridge was unimaginable.

3…

2…

1…

Right on queue, a scarlet red bead of charged ion particles streamed across empty space and pierced the hull of the broken ship. And as if in slow motion, the Lunar was ripped apart by a huge explosion. First the reactor was swallowed by the inferno. Then the rest of the aft section. And as the fireball made its way up to the bridge, the frigate sent out a small probe. It broadcasted the names of all the soldiers that died there.

As the lone frigate turned to join up with the rest of the fleet, General Kiirt couldn’t help but wonder… what other kind of strange things are out there? And which ones will be pleasant, and which ones wont?

-The End-