Chapter 6 - Convoy In Distress
"This is a Republican convoy, I repeat, we are not armed! We are under attack-"
The Flytrap, heeding to the distress call of a fellow Taiidan, hyper spaced out nearby, holding position several hundred kilometers away, launching a cloaked probe towards the fleet.
The fleet of Republican colony ships puttered by, pursued by what looked like...cruise missiles. Same design, but the beast growths were present. This was a morbid cousin, mutated by the beast to some evil purpose...but what, they would see. Nearby the Somtaaw mother ship Kuun-Lan mobilized, along with its own small fleet.
The carrier had moved away from the convoy and the Somtaaw, holding position while the Somtaaw craft moved through the convoy, eliminating the cruise missiles as they came. The hideously ugly Recons and the more graceful Acolytes and ACVs weaved through the convoy, taking out the initial cruise missiles.
Out of nowhere another Somtaaw vessel approached, a new, exotic design of some type. The craft fired dual medium mass drivers at a cruise missile and destroyed it.
Suddenly it began launching small objects. Scanners went online and identified the objects as Swarmer-class drones. This new type of ship was a newer class of drone frigate.
From the tinted canopy of his Triikor Qu'jet braced for launch, hurtling from 0 to about 1/4 of kilometer per second in 3, before his craft slowed down enough so that he could regain control.
Around him other Imperialist strike craft moved into formation. They would do nothing...they couldn't. Somtaaw would engage. Being one super-carrier, against a mother ship...the chances would be rather grim against their favor.
Qu'jet looked around in his pilots headgear, grinning but unseen in his helmet. He looked to his wing mate, a Fiirkan painted in the Elite Guard colors. He seemed a little too young, but he had beaten him often in the simulators. A kid to be reckoned with.
He checked if the sound was on. What was his name? T'chet...yea.
"Hey 'Chet, if you get infected, I will burn you to death in plasma and send your soul to Sajuuk. Agreed?"
"Hey, I'll do the same, but they'll never get me!". The younger Elite Guard pilot gave a thumbs up and returned to watching and waiting.
Qu'jet chuckled and looked back, watching the battle like some movie. The entire fleet watched from a distance, as one of the ACVs failed in their mission. One of the cruise missiles slammed into a colony ship. He tried to suppress the screams from his mind, but couldn't...maddening! He remembered the Taiidan republic ships.
Just as bad...if not worse...
These were civilians, women and children! They never took up arms and they had never done anything!
Suddenly the colony ship, now plainly infected, turned around and faced its former brethren-ships, and launched a full volley of beast cruise missiles...he shuddered, not wanting to think about what happened to the crew. According to Intel, the beast broke down organic substances and converted it into itself. So the outside growths on that ship /were/ colonists, children...he stopped thinking about that sick thought.
I can't take this anymoreβ¦
He couldn't watch as another Taiidan vessel was hit, but this time they were luckier. The escape pods began launching, the giant craft scuttled itself before it could be turned into a launcher. The pods did not appear to be infected. A very lucky thing for them; better then to be one with...whatever the hell it was.
The Somtaaw capital ships began to filter in, the new drone frigate and three others of its type moved along, shooting out anything beast that floated by. A multibeamer began shooting the infected colony before it exploded.
One by one the republican colony ships exited through a slip gate. The Somtaaw vessels began preparations for hyperspace. A small probe deployed and headed for the Kuun-Lan, making scans and relaying them back as the probe scuttled, relaying telemetry data to the main computers, subsequently getting a estimate on the Kuun-Lan's destination. Relaying this to a smaller carrier fleet, the Immortal Emperor's carrier group, ironically the carrier he was formerly assigned to, the Flytrap collected its strike craft and hyper spaced out...but a single part of the giant game, a little child trying to assemble a galaxy-sized puzzle.