oracleofbullshyt-blog

[oracleofbullshyt-blog]

Chapter 16 - Grief

It’s a bit shorter than usual. 

Also i got caught up in explaining something that doesn’t really matter to the story, but i like it so it stayed in.

----------------------

The Carver beam flowed gracefully underneath Leonidas’s Shield, bathing sections of the fledgling star system in its iridescent glow as it made its way past. The ship captains watched in bated breath as the stream of super-heated plasma made its journey through the solar system, it past through the centre of their loose formation leaving them untouched in its glory. In the seconds it took for the beam to leave the ship and find its mark, Captain Balme had under gone minutes of panic from dredged up memories and feelings he had supressed, the last time any human had witnessed a Carver beam was in the battle for Earth. The Carver beam embraced an emergent planet in the solar  system, wrapping it in its warm embrace before fracturing it into oblivion. The cloud of gas surrounding the new born planet reacted to the destruction and set the void alight. The Human fleet braced for impact as they witnessed what the Capital ship had meant to. The ring of gas and debris that followed the orbit of the planet around the sun lit up and at once the remains of a shattered planet and hundreds of thousands of years of asteroids came rushing towards them like a wall.

While the ships were under assault by the debris, while the captains tried to reign in the movements of their ships as they were sent whirling into the void something else happened that no one was aware of. It was a rare occurrence in the barren planes of space, only occurring a few times in the galaxies brief history and understood by intelligent ears even fewer. Silent as the winds whisper on a warm spring day, a moan of mourning escaped the ethereal lips of an entity so much more than any one being’s comprehension could touch upon without losing their fragile mind. For that was a planet that one day would have yielded a life that would have meant something.

“We need to get through the shields!” Isabella’s Swarm ship was not small, but the lack of armaments and the upgraded engines she had been using meant she was a lot nimbler than what she looked. Which was her saving grace as she skirted the edge of the Capital ships vision trying to find the meeting point of the shields to get her swarms inside, whilst under fire from its rotating plasma cannons.

“Incoming broadside, 60 seconds out. Using Four-arms new bunker busters so prepare for a surprise.”

Amelia’s whoops came over the wideband in response. “Isabella you may be our Phoenix, but Carlos is definitely the Angel of death.”

Atlaua’s Revenge’s Android featureless face raised itself up from its gunnery platform in front of the bridge and ‘looked’ towards Carlos in the captain’s chair. “My name is not Four-arms, every time I tell you this. My designation is closer to that of what you call a female, I was stuck in ‘this’ specialist body when the network fell.” The android flipped off Carlos as he started to laugh, “I know Petals, it’s a joke. I’m still trying to find you a new body I promise. Let’s just get through this first.”

Once again Atlaua’s Revenge slipped into place next to the Capital ship, the guns aligned along the rails, and the barrage began. This time was different though. The shells rained down against the shields and slipped through with a small flash, there was no explosion as before. They embedded themselves into the ship’s hull and dug themselves in slowly. They started flashing. A gravelly voice came over the wide band as the shields fell on the capital ship, “This is why my name is Petals.”

The flank of the Capital ship lit up; White blooms of light spread outwards from where each shell had imbedded themselves. The pattern of death spread out as they watched, slowly forming a white lily against the charcoal grey of the hull. Then they detonated. Tearing a hole in the side of the Capital ship as big as Long haul vessel.

“Everyone, fire at will.”

The Capital ship desperately attempted to fire back, but without its shields it had no chance.

“Someone get our friends in the nebula to come salvage what they can, and lets head back.”

 Heading back to the station was not the victory parade it should’ve been. Each captain fielded their reports. Almost all the ships had lost crew. Carlos had a failure in engineering as a result of the dark energy surge. Two lost to radiation. Isabella’s ship shield had cycled in the midst of a fighter attack. One lost in the fire, one in ICU. Victor had attempted to shield Amelia from the worst of the debris of the planet. Four lost to a hull breach. Niall was in the medical bay. Third degree burns along his right side.

They limped there way to the station where they had planned the attacks in order to recuperate. Leonidas’s Shield was lucky, they alone hadn’t lost anyone, injuries were minor, and they could rebuild the ship with little effort. They didn’t revel though; they knew what their comrades were going through. They did what they could to work through the ship as the Buccaneers tended to their dead, needing to keep themselves busy. Each crew had their own ways of dealing with their mourning, but eventually they trickled out of their ships and headed to the Bar where it started. They sat in silence nursing their drinks as they thought through the events of the day. The crews were as one, they sat together this time, united in their plight.

 The next day Vat’s, Wolf and Omni walked through the docks carrying a bundle between them, it drew odd glances as they walked along. Unceremoniously wrapped in plastic, one arm had fallen out the side as they had walked. It was small, humanoid and dead. They couldn’t have helped it, but still Omni felt sad at what could’ve been.

They stopped in front of Atlaua’s Revenge and wrapped on the hull. They were met by the faceless android at the airlock. Its four arms crossed in front of it. “I overheard the exchange you and your Captain had, I realised I may have something to help you.” They stood the body up and pulled off the plastic, there stood a maroon shell, smaller and more feminine in appearance than the hulking four-armed specialist shell that was currently being used. The androids arms dropped to its side in shock as it looked over, “Th- thank you, I don’t have anythi-,” Omni waved her answer away as he turned to leave, “Everyone deserves to feel comfortable in their body, Sister.”

#HUMANS ARE WEIRD #humans are odd #humasn #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #humans #space #Space Ship #EARTH IS SPACE AUSTRALIA #short story #storytelling #Original Work #original character #Vahatu

[oracleofbullshyt-blog]

Chapter 15 - Battle

The Angamar had come to their senses shortly after the devastation of their destroyer and the battle had resumed with new vigour. The Captains of each ship sat watching the events unfold, knowing the better tactician would come out the victor, a healthy dose of luck wouldn’t help hurt to.

Flames enveloped the view port of the bridge as a trio of fighters attempted to penetrate the shields of Leonidas Shield, “Shields holding at 41 percent, Captain. Recycle advised.” Initium’s voice drifted over the comms.

“Response team how are we on that fire?”

Mantis’s clicking came over the radio, clearly out of breath he struggled to hear what she was saying, “Fire is contained to the common room, Wolf’s is attempting to vent the air.”

“Prepare for incoming, shield recycle imminent.”

Wolfs looked to Mantis but before he could say anything Aengal dropped his fire extinguisher, “Humans, they think everything they touch is indestructible.” His rant carried on as the ship rocked from a series of explosions and hits that meant they had been strafed by the fighters that were harrying them, there consoles lit up as a series of hull breaches and damaged electrics were announced to them. Wolfs face lit up with mirth, “There’s no rest and all that,” and with that the three of the response team rushed off.

“In position Fleet, Broadside incoming in 30 seconds, watch for any astray rounds.” Carlos’s calm voice came over the radio warning the fleet as Atlaua’s Revenge gently slipped into position along the side of the remaining Angamar destroyer. Amelia watched as she sored over the battle using her equipment to scan the battlefield for her fleet. The weapons lining the top and bottom of Atlaua’s Revenge slid into place along their rails  facing the enemy, small thrusters along the side of the Destroyer lit up preparing to counter act the force of the barrage that was coming. The panic from the Angamar ship was almost palpable as they realised their error in believing that Carlos’s ship were forward facing as with most Destroyers, their engines lit up in a desperate attempt to accelerate out of their range.

The barrage began. If there was an atmosphere it would have been deafening. Amelia watched as the guns kicked back along their rails with each shot, only to return and begin again. The enemies shield lit up with each explosion that racked their ship, the brighter it got the closer it came to recycling. Their shield peeled back from the points of impact from the onslaught of the Carlos’s guns, leaving them with unheeded access to the ships hull. The barrage didn’t let up, and Amelia watched as explosions crippled the enemy destroyer, each shell tearing into metal and splintering the vessel. The ship was laced with fire, metal crunched and tore open. Until the ship was enveloped in an sphere as wide as the ship was long. Its reactor had been breached. The implosion of dark energy was silent as it pulled the ship into itself, leaving only a manged hull where once a ship sat. Then Atlaua’s Revenge went dark.

“Destroyer is down, the surge of dark energy from the reactor meltdown has disabled us. We’ll join as soon as we can, Carlos out.”

 By this time Phorcys’s Fury had recycled its shields and recalled its swarm drones, the broken and damaged ones had limped their way back home to be repaired and reforged to join the fray. Out of the shadows of Vodyanoi’s wrath she came like a phoenix. Her swarms flanking her on either side like the wings of an angel she joined the battle. Amelia caught up to Isabellas ship and joined the formation they used so often, and with that they set about to deal with the enemy fighters.

 The arrow of Ullr lay in front of one of the enemy frigates lacing its shields with explosions as its rocket salvos fired, face to face they sat circling each other as they gunned each other down. The rockets arced out from the Arrow at impossible angles spinning and moving in dizzying paths trying dodge the flak from the frigate, at the last second they would turn and reign down on to the shields in an impressive show of force. The frigate was returning everything and more though, its lances and gatling guns laced the front of the Arrow at every moment.

“Niall the shields are going to cycle, Theyre going to tear us apart!” “Reroute anything you can to the shields, turn off the oxygen if you must we’re wearing combat suits! We have to wait for Leonidas’s Shield!”

They bought themselves mere moments with their efforts before their shields cycled. At once their ship was racked with the fire of the frigate and their sensors lit up with the warnings of damage and hull breaches as they came under fire.

There on their sensors from their flank came the silhouette of the other frigate.

“Get the escape pod ready Christine!”

The ship rocked as the other frigate opened up on them.

 Captain Balme watched with panic as the Arrow’s shields recycled. He watched dread as the other frigate flanked them. He felt physical pain unlike anything he had ever felt since he lost Gale as he watched the jump engine on the Arrow light up. The ship accelerated and in a flash of light all that was left of the Arrow and the frigate it was facing was a streak of metal debris a kilometre long.

“Captain! We have an escape pod, they’re ok for now Captain.”

“Get us to that frigate now, I want it out of commission yesterday!”

The frigate tried to turn in time to get to them but its shields were racked from the impact of the rail guns, the Captain was seething with anger while he shouted into the comms,

“Slugs I want everything we have firing at that ship, even if you have sit out the window and shoot at it with your sidearm!”

Leonidas’s Shield rocked as Slugs and Ben opened up, their quad Cannons firing along with their railgun decimated the shields of the frigate before it could even face them to return fire. The frigate was made short work of when the one of rail gun rounds cracked through its hull and detonated their munitions storage, taking out he ship from inside.

“Get us to that escape pod now”

 Niall and Christine watched through the windows of the escape pod as the last frigate was destroyed, quietly waiting out the time it took for them to be picked up. Christine looked on in awe when she saw Isabella and her swarm ship skirt along the edge of the battle. 

From inside Phorcys’s Fury Isabella stood with her arms raised like a composer, she moved fluidly around the bridge like the ballet dancers of ancient. Her arms swayed delicately and with each movement of her wrist she orchestrated a death in the symphony of battle, each thought and movement relayed to her android her directed the swarms for her, for them. With a gentle push of her hands two enemy fighters were shredded in a turmoil of twisted metal and torn electronics.

Amelia shuddered as she watched the two wings of swarm drones collide into each other, the fighters inside has no chance of outrunning Isabella’s twisted dance. She looked around as she followed the remaining fighter through the debris field. They skirted along the empty hull of a ship trading shots as they took turns being hunter and prey, Amelia saw her chance and shot through the hole in the hull to appear on the enemy’s blindside. Isabella watched proudly as Amelia’s fighter shot around through the hull of a destroyed ship and reappeared moments later, locking onto the last fighter.

The android of the Phorcys’s Fury walked up behind the Isabella and pulled her into a gentle embrace from behind, its voice a whisper in her ear, “Such a beautiful dance, is it a special occasion?” “This is the dawn of something new, can’t you tell darling? Now come let’s go help with that Last ship”

 Vodyanoi’s Revenge lay in struggle with the Capital ship, not being able to return fire due to all its power being directed to its shields, they could not let the shields cycle or else it would be too late for them. Victor stayed content with flying circles around the large ship, preventing it from entering battle and getting in the way of their plans. Fortunately his cruiser was fast enough to stay out of the line of sight of the Capital ships Carver beam, which was one of the main reasons they were still alive.

 Captain Balmefelt relieved as the call came over the comms that they had Niall and Christine’s escape pod safe in the cargo hold. The ship was making tis way to the last remaining target on the battlefield as with everyone else In the fleet. The buccaneers sat amongst their bridges looking pleased with themselves as the Capital ship lay in front of them. Captain Balme looked up as the underside of the Capital ship was bathed in an orange glow, he scrambled to get out of range trying to figure out who was the target of the ship before the glow changed to an eerie red and the carver beam was fired.

#HUMANS ARE WEIRD #humans are odd #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #humans #short story #storytelling #Original Work #original character #dystopian future #EARTH IS SPACE AUSTRALIA #Vahatu

[oracleofbullshyt-blog]

Chapter 14 - The Storm

Ship reference: (Because i’m terrible at preplanning)

Destroyer       – Atlaua’s Revenge     - Carlos  Cruiser           – Vodyanoi’s wrath      - Victor Swarm           – Phorcys’s Fury          - Isabella Fighter           – Salacia’s Retribution - Amelia  Rocket Salvo – Arrow of Ullr              - Niall and Christine

I dont usually swear in my stories but there are one or two in here somewhere.

------------------------------------------------------

Time unfolded slowly in front of Balme’s eyes as he watched the fleet thrown into chaos. Something had gone wrong; their information was incorrect, and they were thrown into disarray as soon as the enemy fleet had jumped in. Their careful plan was ripped to shreds in front of his eyes as each captain battled to stay alive from the onslaught of the enemy.

“WHO THE HELL THOUGHT A CAPITAL SHIP WAS AN INFILTRATOR,” The wild shouts of Amelia came of the wide band as she flashed past the bridge of Leonidas’s Shield trying to outrun the two fighters that were latched onto her tail, desperately she weaved through the clouds of the system trying to lose them.

Atlaua’s Revenge was being bombarded by a constant onslaught from the swivel mounted rail guns of the Capital ship, this one miscalculation that no one had seen coming could cost them dearly. Vodyanoi’s wrath had been forced to place all power in its shield amidst the constant onslaught from the two destroyers that had blocked her in. Phorcys’s Fury and the Arrow of Ullr were stuck in a stalemate battle against the frigates, desperately trying to outmanoeuvre them. The crew of the Leonidas’s Shield sat amidst the battle still cloaked trying to decide the best course of action in order to turn the tide of battle but none of the simulations that were being run by Omni showed any chance of victory.

“Balme we need to do something! They’re being torn apart!” “No! Balme stay in cloaking, figure out a way to end this, we’re keeping them at bay for now, they still don’t know you’re here,” Isabella’s frantic voice came over the radio as one of her swarms flashed towards a fighter group in an arrow formation attempting to shred through them.

Omni’s voice came through to him in a low metallic voice, “Captain the odds of every ship coming out of this battle intact is increasingly getting smaller. We have lost, we must regroup and run. Your human lives are too precious to lose at this point.”

The captain looked up at his first mate in shock as he heard these words from the android, “There has to be a way, we can’t leave not yet.”

Omni looked at the captain levelly, and removed all emotion from its voice, “Not even you can do anything to change this, Balme.”

Balme looked at the android lost for a moment before his anger bubbled to the surface, he sat there staring out the bridge window for a moment, the anger evident in his face before bracing himself against his seat and standing up, “Fucking watch me, you glorified toaster.”

“Fleet notice, we’re coming in hot. Vodyanoi’s revenge hold in there, help is incoming. Vats all remaining power to the rear engines, Omni aim us at the starboard destroyer’s power rooms, Initium full frontal shields only. Ben load the heaviest hitting round we have into that rail gun and fire it on my signal, we’re going to force a full shield cycle so there’s nothing in between us and them.”

Vahatu looked on in shock at what he was hearing, “Captain the ship can’t take that kind of stress on its hull”

“Yes, she can Vats, she won’t let us down. Everyone ready for impact. Sciaal a favour please. Full spectrum transmission, all known frequencies, I want every being in this system to hear us. Its time to play our Anthem.”

Across every comm line and speaker in the system, both human and Angamar, a slow rhythmic noise could be heard. Down the length of every corridor and in every room of every ship heads turned at the sound. The Angamar fleet was confused at the sudden and unexpected outbreak of noise, not sure as to where the source was. As the Angamar fleet methodically broke down the defences and shields of the Human fleet the Captain of the Capital ship sat unsettled in his command seat, he had heard this noise before. Something deep inside him was pulling at him to be wary of this rhythm.

The bridge crew of Vodyanoi’s Wraith looked at each other with smiles growing across their faces as they heard it, Victor sat with a grin spread from ear to ear as it washed over him, “You hear this Marines! Wait for the signal and then it’s our turn to show them what we can do.”

Carlos stood in the bridge of Atlaua’s Revenge tapping his foot in rhythm with a smirk. “Ah, and now the show begins.”

Isabella punched the air as she heard it, she stood up from her seat and started shouting orders, her crew became wide eyed with hope, “Now it’s our turn boys and girls!”

Stomp Stomp Clap, Stomp Stomp Clap, Stomp Stomp Clap, Stomp Stomp Clap,

The Captain of the Angamar’s Capital ship looked up as it dawned on him where he had heard this before. His eyes opened in shock as he frantically started scanning out into space for the source.

Stomp Stomp Clap, Stomp Stomp Clap, Stomp Stomp Clap, Stomp Stomp Clap,

As it reached its crescendo across the system, and the first line of the song was heard,

Buddy, you’re a boy, make a big noise

The Angamar were forced to watch in horror as a ship uncloaked, headed straight at one of their destroyers. It approached at a ferocious speed not making any attempts to slow or change course. A single round flashed out of its railgun hitting the shield of the destroyer a split second before the ship did allowing it through unhindered. In dread they watched as the ship ploughed into the midsection of the destroyer, cleaving through as if it was made of paper, they sent the two halves of the destroyer hurtling through the system towards the fledgling star. Smaller explosions wracking the halves of the ship as it was sent adrift. The Angamar were temporarily slowed in their assault at the sheer brutality of what just occurred, and it was in this lull that the fleet took a chance to regroup and try to distance from their respective enemies.

“All stations report, full damage assessment.” “Guns operational” “Engineering requires heavy attention, core is unstable, hull is damaged, multiple cracked pipes, but still operational.” “Shields need to recycle keep us out of combat for a bit captain.” “Communication operational.” “Response team dealing with fires throughout floor one, Cargo has a hull breach and is in lockdown, South end of floor two is in lock down due to hull breach.”

The captain looked relieved and then gave Omni a smirk, “That went better than expected I reckon. All of you attend to your station we’re going back into the fray.”

“Put me on the wide band. All ships listen to new assigned orders. Atlaua’s Revenge disengaged from the Capital ship, I want full broadside on their destroyer with every shield piercing round you have, don’t let up until its dust. Vodyanoi’s Wraith, you’re the only one with the shields and armour to handle the beating of that Capital ship, get in its face and wait till backup arrives. Phorcys’s Fury disengage those Frigates and get behind Vodyanoi’s Wraith, cycle your shields and use your swarms to handle the fighters. Arrow of Ullr prepare for backup we’re coming to help with those frigates. Amelia, wherever you are, bring the Salacia’s Retribution around and jump into our shields to use us as cover. Take a moments breath and cycle your shields, we’ll need you to finish off the fighters.

A chorus of enthusiastic ‘Aye Aye, Captains” came over the comms as the orders were relayed. Now was their time to take control.

A metallic voice came from behind Balme, the smirk was audible in its voice, “I knew that would work.” “Excuse me you overgrown cell phone, you told me the odds were too small.” “Exactly, all known possibilities TO ME, said we could not win. However, the possibility of a human doing the impossible and changing the outcome of the battle was still there. 72% possible to be exact. As long as a suitable challenge was presented” “So what you’re saying, you self-aware kettle, is that you pissed me off to change the odds of us winning?” “Yes, but did it not work?” “Do that again and I’ll throw your Walking fridge ass out the airlock.” “Yes Sir, Captain Ham Sandwich sir”

The captain hated that the talking USB was right, but he had to admit that it worked, it still didn’t mean he couldn’t grumble about it though. He saw the human fleet begin to move to their new positions as he ordered and set about for the ship to get to the Arrow of Ullr in time to help. Now they just had to survive the rest of the battle.

#HUMANS ARE WEIRD #humans are odd #humasn #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #short story #storytelling #Original Work #original character #space #Space Ship #EARTH IS SPACE AUSTRALIA #Vahatu

[oracleofbullshyt-blog]

Chapter 13 - The Calm

The bar was unusually quite amidst the drum of the space station, its usual patrons had been asked to leave in order to allow a secluded meeting to take place. The chairs and tables had been pushed to the edge of the walls allowing a large space in the middle, where a rather large round table had been placed. Around the table sat six humans and three androids. The captain of the Leonidas’s shield sat with the captains of the Buccaneers. A human response fleet meant to deal with threats against human colonies. Each a veteran of the battle for earth. 

Their respective crews sat around the room drinking and talking. Quietly eyeing out each other they usual raucous behaviour was instead replaced with solemn intent, they sat with one ear pointed to the table so they could hear what was being said. The crews were much of a same size except for one which almost dwarfed the rest of the others, yet Leonidas’s Shield was by far the most alien in membership, with most other crews having at most one or two aliens within their ranks.

The captain looked up from the individual ship reports that lay around him to the hologram that showed their ships massed together amongst the rubble of a newly forming solar system that they had chosen to use as the grounds of the battle. Omni looked past the display at the assembled captains that sat around them.

To their left sat Niall, the redheaded Irish man in his signature bomber jacket, he sat looking intently at the hologram. The captain of the Rocket Salvo ship was best used as a long-distance weapons platform, raining down a vicious onslaught upon their enemies knocking them into submission. Next to Niall was Isabella, a brunette woman slight of frame and with eyes of steel, at her elbow stood an android with a multitude of antennas reaching out from their shoulders and head. The woman was the proud captain of a Swarm ship, its hull covered dotted in pods that were able to be used both defensively and offensively, the onboard android controlling their movements. This technology was unique to humans and the androids as the processing power required was immense and previously unheard of, they were an answer to fighter ships without having to worry about loss of life. Opposite captain Balme sat the captain of the Destroyer class vessel Carlos, he had an open face and a warm smile, he was the one who started the fleet when it was needed. The android that accompanied him had four arms of equal length and size to help in controlling the ship, its head unnervingly lacked any visible sensors that could be used to substitute a face. The destroyer itself had few moveable guns preferring to use its shields to get close enough for a broadside barrage, his tactics were old but incredibly effective. Next to him on the right was Victor, an older man kind but stern in his ways, he was the captain of the Battle cruiser and the also the captain with the biggest crew that happened to be all human. His crew size was due to the lack of an onboard android, rumours had it he was still weary of them. His battle cruiser was by far the largest vessel in the fleet, it has multiple layers of shielding allowing it to take a pounding when it needed to. Finally to the right of Balme sat Amelia, she was loud and confident and not afraid to give her opinion. She flew a fighter class vessel, that used the old earth standard model as a base, but between her and the android fleet they had modified the ship to be the fastest and most manoeuvrable jump ready fighter in the galaxy. It was also the most illegal.

Isabella crossed her arms and was followed in suit by her android, rumour had it she had an internal chip implanted so they could communicate without speaking, which showed the level of trust they shared, “So let me get this straight, they have two destroyers AND two frigates, and you called only us? Why not the some more punch? We need at least another cruiser, preferably a dreadnought.” “We can take care of the big ones no problem, but those fighters are what worry me. They’ll be armed for fleet battle, that means a full complement of torpedoes and possibly even ion disruptors,” Carlos remarked from where he sat. Victor looked over the plans laid out in front of him, “How many fighters are we looking at?” Balme looked at them all and sighed, “Initial scout reports show fourteen, but we’re unsure of what could be hiding or docked, we couldn’t get too close.” Amelia looked at Balme, “I can take maybe five by myself possibly even seven if push, but the issue remains, they out gone us, that second destroyer worries me. I can’t deal with the big ones alone, I can push into their shields and disrupt things yes but not disable.”

They sat there at the table for the next few hours manoeuvring ships around the hologram and drawing up plans, sighing and growing frustrated when the androids ran the simulation and severe sometimes even debilitating damage was sustained by any one ship. The crews were consulted, and members gave input on what they could do and achieve from where they sat, but ultimately the captains sat around and decided what their plan of action was going to be.

Victor looked up from the hologram they had in front of them, their battle plans laid out meticulously after hours of deliberation and strategizing. Lines were drawn over the hologram  in confusing patterns and intricate swirls indicating the paths of each ship as best as possible during battle, enemy ships were numbered and crossed out in the order they were to be destroyed according to the plan, each captain new what they had to do and was ready, their crew was quite and determined in the background.

“Let’s go over it one more time, from the top please. Before we get a goodnights sleep.” “Everyone waits in formation around the dust clouds of the system as we discussed, engines ready to move and shields well cycled. I’ll get the Angamar’s attention with a series of quick jumps in and around the nearby systems, maybe even one or two shots to make sure they follow. Once they have my trail I’ll jumps into the system where everyone awaits, when their jump signatures are registered, I’ll run out to the edge of the field to bombard them from afar preferably trying to get to their flank so we can stretch their shields thin. Then Victor opens up on the closest Frigate to himself until their shield is down and forced to re-cycle where I’ll finish them off with a few well-placed salvos getting them out of the battle.”

Niall looks to Isabella to continue the battle path with a nod,

“I’ll use my swarms to keep the fighters busy, with their lack of shielding however I’ll be spreading them wide so they can’t be easily tracked and between Amelia and myself we hope to finish them off before too long”

The baton is picked up by Victor as he starts to speak,

“Once I’m done, I’ll switch all power to my anti fighter guns and load flechette rounds into the big guns to combat the fighters as well. I’ll move to get above the frigates to draw their weapons as I do this.”

Balme looked up with a nod,

“Whilst you guys are busy with all of this I’ll have used this time to pick up speed while I’m cloaked so that I can disable the remaining frigate while its busy with you guys, with enough speed we can get through the shields and crush their bridge with the battering ram, effectively removing them from the fight for a few hours. That just leaves the Infiltrator. Amelia and I will work together to disable its engines and then the ship itself.”

On cue Carlos pointed to the hologram in front of them,

“That leaves the two remaining destroyers for me. They have swivel-based guns, so they’ll be focused on Victor above them hopefully, allowing me to close the distance between us while their attention is shifted. Niall will weaken their shields with a continuous barrage, empty your missiles if you must but those shields need to be near cycling by the time I get through Niall. I’ll get in between the two and with my destroyer I’ll unleash hell with a duel side broadside manoeuvre, while they’re panicking the rest of you’s will come and help mop up.” “Sounds like a solid plan boss.” “Drinks back here then?” “Of course, standard procedure.”

The crew of each ship took time to make piece for the oncoming battle in their own way. At the next rotation the ships jumped to the fledgling system they had chosen for the battle, standing silently each ship took their position amongst the clouds of dust and asteroids that swirled lazily around the star at its centre. Eventually the slow turmoil would give arise to new planets and potentially even become habitable, maybe far in the future the planets would house life, which would spend their days doing nothing but fight for survival. This life could turn into intelligence, perhaps maybe even on one of these planets one small individual would unwittingly set into space making history and recreating the future around their action’s unseen. For now, it would be witness to a battle. Small and seemingly insignificant to those who held a part in it, by far not measuring up to the fabled battles that predated the creation of the galactic federation. Or even the first contact wars of the Humans and the creatures that were once known as the Gha’al. Nor as desperate and seemingly important as the battle for Earth that left humanity changed forever. Yet in this small insignificant star system, with its young and lazy star at its centre, would bear witness to the beginning of something new, something grand and great at its core, a movement that would change the galactic playground.

Unknowing of their position in history, Leonidas’s Shield stood still in the vast expanse of space, flanked by its comrades and well cloaked. They waited for the arrival of the Angamar pursuit fleet to start their manoeuvres and end the threat. Each member stood ready at their respective stations waiting for the combat klaxon to sound, their only indication that battle had commenced since the blast shields had been raised. Each was outfitted in full combat space suits, equipped with an atmospheric supply and life support in case the worst outcome came to fruition. They stood in silence contemplating the upcoming events, aware of each other over the comms always.

The familiar distortion of space that indicated an incoming ship from jump speed heralded Niall’s Rocket salvo ship. It folded out of the distortion and immediately took a sharp turn and moved out of the way to where it was stationed.

Christine’s voice came over the wide band of the bridge, elevated in fright but with a determined tone, “They took the bait, they’re incoming.”   The distorted haze of other jump signatures was visible soon after in the expected tight formation they had worked on for the planning.

Captain Balme hands tightened on his seat in the bridge as he heard these words spoken over the wide band, he looked on with a calm expression not allowing the crew to see how truly worried he was. His foot sat tapping against the seat unknowingly. Omni stood to his side his servos whirring endlessly, he ran every possibility and every minor detail through his core, storing each as a possible solution to some minor infraction in their plan. The Designations of the other two androids in the fleet present in his processing space, it was calming have others of his kind with him again. The Avisxian twins sat ready at their stations on the bridge in front of the captain and Omni. Looking over the readings of the sensors and scans, they sat nervously waiting clicking out a soft tune they had learned as hatchlings before life lead them to this. In engineering Vahatu stood ready and waiting for his commands, pulsing in colour of calm purpose he knew he would do what was needed to keep his new crew alive. They were the first crew he wanted to stay with, the first so accepting. He pulled up the life signs and vitals of each crew member and stuck the hologram into place on the wall, his eyes flashing back to Initium’s every so often as he worked through the ships core systems. Initium looked around her station in shields, they were newly cycled and ready for the upcoming battle. She laid her head against the back of the seat and sat readying herself to react to the battle as she was required. Sciaal sat with his headset on in communications, ready to intercept and disrupt the oncoming fleets chatter. Proficient at pattern recognition he had what it took to decipher the calls of the oncoming fleet, often throwing in false calls of his own as well to disrupt their manoeuvres. Ben and Slugs stood leaning against the loading hatch of the main forward gun waiting for the battle to start, they kept the guns reloaded, the systems working and the guns moving, they were the ships best way of defending itself. Mantis and Wolfs sat across from each other next to the airlock, they nodded to each other as they tightened their straps, it had been awhile since they had to be on full alert like this. Wolf looked at mantis who sat idly clicking her mandibles, they had to be fast and strong, they were sent where they were needed the most, they were the response and damage control team, he knew they had to keep the ship safe so the others could do their work.

A calming voice came over the radio,

“This is it everyone get ready.”

A fleet started to unfold out of jump space where the distortions had been.

#HUMANS ARE WEIRD #humans are odd #humasn #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #short story #storytelling #Original Work #original character #space #Space Ship #EARTH IS SPACE AUSTRALIA #Vahatu

[oracleofbullshyt-blog]

Chapter 12 - Help

This is a bit late and short but the next few will be worth it! 

------------------------

They sat around the table in the common room, listening to the captain as he introduced his daughter-not-daughter to the crew. Various levels of incredibility were visible on everyone’s face and even Vahatu sat glowing a soft purple from confusion.

“Christy isn’t my daughter-daughter, not biologically anyway, but she is my daughter. I found her when we raided a slave ship and long story short, she spent four years on the ship with us while it was still Ben, Omni and myself. When the contracts became too heavy, we left with her my Aunt you met at the bar.”

He rolled his eyes at the end of the sentence and looked towards Christine now as she sat next to Kapotah playing with her feathers absentmindedly, the Bird like creature looked half-way between happy and full of fear as she sat rigidly next to the predator with the green hair.

“Except, somewhere along the line she decided to try her hand at being a mercenary and disappeared for three years without letting anyone know! Then arrives out of nowhere with green hair and a bloody Irish man on her arm acting like nothing happened and asking for help!”

His voice had risen towards the end of his rant, practically seething with rage his gaze split between the Irish man with a large grin on his face and Christine looking down at the floor guiltily.

“You know its not really green right? It’s just an implant…”

She looked over at Balme with a guilty smile on her face as her hair flashed between multiple different colours before settling on a light purple the same colour as Initium.

The Captain looked exhausted as he sighed,

“Anything else I need to know about?”

She raised her hand and pointed to her ring finger, grinning wide as she spoke,

“Yeah that ‘bloody Irish man’ is my fiance”

Ben exploded with laughter and even Omni let out at metallic snort at that information.

Niall lifted his hands in defense as the Captain turned to him with fire in his eyes.

“Its not my fault Boss, I didn’t know she was ‘that’ Christine until we got caught in this little bind and she decided to contact you. You scare me more than that one over there.”

He pointed to Vahatu, who looked even more confused as he looked down at himself still covered in bandages and his arm in a brace.

“Soooo are we done with the lecture Dad?”

She was met with an icy stare, before she continued.

“We really need help.” “Yes I know you said. What happened now, let’s hear it…” Christine had the decency to look sheepish as she spoke looking to Niall for help who looked equally as awkward not willing to pitch in.

“We were on a job to disrupt Angamar fleet movements and training, all we had to was jump into the system and fire a few salvos of rockets before jumping out again so that a freighter could escape the system from a nearby moon. Except when we jumped in and fired the salvos the Angamar capital ship we targeted had just fired its Carver beam, its shields were still cycling from the backlash, our salvo passed right through and we destroyed the ship.”

Ben had a manic glint in his eye at this information, obviously pleased at the death of the Angamar, “I don’t see a problem there, not in the slightest.”

Niall sighed from where he sat and looked up at the captain,

“Except now we have a hit squad after us from failing the mission because their freight ship was found and destroyed after we left the system when the rest of the fleet started targeting us. The Angamar have also targeted us for destroying their capital ship, they sent a pursuit fleet after us. The fleet tracks us whenever we jump, and we can’t handle so many ships at once, the only reason we managed to make it here is because we jumped past a few gravity wells so their progress has been slowed. We have maybe nine or ten more rotations before they find us.”

The captain looked equal parts surprised and proud as he spoke up,

“Well done, reckless but well done. Alright we can help but not alone, not against a whole fleet.”

Omni’s servos whirred as he thought about something, eventually he looked up and spoke with an almost worried note in his voice.

“Captain, a pursuit fleet usually consists of two Destroyer class vessel, one Infiltrator or Blockade runner class vessel, two Frigate class vessels and a full complement of jump enabled fighters.”

Wolfs looked shocked as he heard this,

“Angamar, as in the ones who destroyed Earth? Have sent a pursuit fleet after you and you’re now on this ship. With us. While you’re being hunted. You decided to come to us?”

Ben looked between the Captain and his daughter before holding up his hands laughing with shock and panic,

“Well she’s a real chip off the block, isn’t she? So, what’s the plan Cap? What we going to do?”

The captain sighed as he ran his hands over his face. He looked around at the faces in front of him wandering how they were going to get through this and come out alive.

“We’re going to need to get help first, we can’t take that all on with one Infiltrator and one Rocket Salvo ship. We’re also going to need to find space that will be advantageous to us for when we fight.”

Omni looked up at the captain after a moment of silence from the crew,

“Captain, I believe we need to deal with the pursuit fleet first and we do have the Buccaneers in this arm of the galaxy. We can call on them.”

#HUMANS ARE WEIRD #humans are odd #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #space #Space Ship #EARTH IS SPACE AUSTRALIA #short story #storytelling #Original Work #original character #Vahatu

[oracleofbullshyt-blog]

Chapter 11 - Surprises

@sparklywagonfreakoperator gave me the Irish man!

-------------------------------

The ship came into rest with a familiar jarring thud that meant the magnetic docking clamps locking them into place had activated, a softer thud was heard as a ramp was extended to their cargo bay so they could leave the ship. The atmosphere in the ship was light as the crew finally got their shore leave and after the events of the previous two weeks, everyone was eager to get of the ship.

“If I so much as see you lifting that arm above your head, trying to lift anything heavy at all, or exerting yourself in anyway, I will keep you in the medbay until further notice!” Aengal stared at him dead in the eyes, walking past him down the ramp,

“A concussion, three cracked ribs, and a torn rotator cuff. Yet apparently, it’s a good idea to let you off the ship. But no, what do I know? I’m just the medical officer who can sense pain and is from a race that is known to be healers. No one ever listens to me!”

Vahatu chuckled and winced in pain as he did so, he held the railing gently walking down the ramp,

“Don’t worry so much, I’m just going to the market”

Aengal shook his head and turned to the captain as he got to the bottom of the ramp,

“You better find us a high paying job next time, I want Nano-reconstruction vats and two of them. The way this crew is going I’m going to need to rebuild somebody soon.”

The captain barked a laugh at this and then turned to the crew, “Alright everyone, go and have fun, just remember to meet at the coordinates on your communicators in one revolution of the station”.

 Slugs had gone with Vahatu, settling on an impressively large albeit oddly shaped form to help break the crowd so that he wouldn’t be jostled as they braved the market.

“Your forms are getting a lot bigger than what they used to be when I first joined, are you nearing critical mass yet?”

Slugs looked up from the store they were at with his two eye stalks that currently lay above his head, looking as shocked as an anamorphous mass of limbs could,

“You know about that? Soon, soon I think, I have maybe five or six rotations but I’m not sure.”

Vahatu looked up at the beastly Slugs trying to figure out how to phrase his question when Slugs opened a cavity in his body and reached into himself, pulling out a flashing communicator,

“We forgot about the meeting, we’ll have to finish this later else we’ll be late!”

Without giving permission Vahatu found himself being cradled like a hatchling by several arm-like appendages as Slugs flew them over the crowds in mismatched wings to the rest of the crew.

Mantis looked up at the sign to the establishment they now stood warily in front of,  

“Ben you know this is a human only bar” “No It’s not, don’t worry!” “There’s literally a sign there with a big red cross through a picture of an alien”

Everyone looked up as slugs landed with an embarrassed and harassed looking Vahatu, using his tail to steady himself he stood up adjusting the brace his arm was in. The captain shook his head at the two,

“Alright everyone let’s get this over with”

The captain however did look up at the bar with unease in his eyes.

 They walked through the door into a small room filled with shoes and jackets, the noise of the patrons inside could be heard here.

“Alright if you’re wearing shoes and jackets take them off, this is an old-fashioned place, and put any weapons you have in the lockers over there.” “Wonderful, let’s all go into a den full of predators unarmed, while our resident brawler is still in bandages” Catakah the Avisxian male said in despair as he hung up his gun, gesturing in Vahatu’s direction who was standing uneasily. His arm in a brace, half of his head wrapped in reactive bandages, along with multiple other parts of his body covered in a mixture of bandages and fake skin spray.

The captain looked around in resignation as he opened the door not helping the crew unease,

“Let’s get this over with then.”

 The door opened out wide and the crew walked in. The bars noise was unbelievable, nothing close to the recruitment centres Vahatu had spent time in.

Then in went silent. Every pair of predatory human eyes set upon the crew. Vahatu’s scales lit up in fear.

Sciaal once again attempted to blend into the wall but his trembling form could still be made out,

“This is it we’re all dead”

A large man stood up from behind a table and pointed towards them, shouting to something behind the bar,

“Maaaa, that bloody navy boy is back again!” from behind the bar four spidery long metallic legs appeared, they eased themselves around the bar, and as they cleared the messy countertop on top sat a small fragile looking human. Grey haired and with thick glasses she stared at the newcomers, “Is that my nephew? Why are you standing there come give your aunty a kiss!”

The room exploded with laughter and noise again as the Captain walked over and kissed his aunt’s cheek, he then took turns introducing each of the crew to the amusement of them.

“How can you let your crew get hurt like this, and now you’re making him stand and even walk, do you have no heart? I know you weren’t raised like this.” She rolled her eyes at the captain and started to coo over Vahatu as she walked over to him, firmly leading him to one of the chairs by a group of humans despite his protests. She looked over at each of them, “Now be nice, this poor thing is hurt and can’t stand for long”

She walked back to the captain and hit him with the cloth that was previously lying over her shoulder as the one human looked at Vahatu, pulsing a steady scared state, his eyes growing wide as he saw Vahatu change colour,

“Holy nightmare, with a night light.”

 The captain looked around pleased as he saw his crew being led away in different directions in varying states of apprehension by the patrons of the bar, they would be fine here, so he wasn’t worried, but still he listened in to the various conversations going on,

“Do they flash by themselves?” “Are you biologically related to an earth Mantis in anyway?” “You’re so cute and soft! I used to have budgies!” “Oh, change into me next please, pleeeaassseeee!” “You’re such a beautiful colour though!” “Are you willing to share research notes on medical practices, with varying species?”

 Wolfs sat down with Ben and the Captain at a booth as the Old lady walked around and lowered the legs of her spidery walker so they could fit under the table,

“Why you don’t ever come visit, I’m here all alone you know?”

She reached up absentmindedly and started to scratch the back of Wolfs head, he looked completely shocked at this action but didn’t go to stop her as Ben started snickering,

“I’m busy you know that… I’m only here to collect the other two anyways,”

Wolfs having forgotten the initial shock was loving the attention, almost catatonic sitting with his eyes half closed and a large canine grin on his face as his ears were scratched.

“Yes, yes, I know, I had to let them stay in the attic! They’re still wanted all over the city for that business a while ago, the syndicate wanted to storm this place, how dare they!? But we showed them what would happen.”

Ben let out a low whistle as he looked at the wall the old lady gestured to with the ‘trophies’ from half a dozen species hanging amidst the flags from earth.

“But they’re not here now, they said they’ll meet you at your ship after they dealt with some business.”

The captain looked annoyed at this information but didn’t say anything. He turned to watch the crew interacting with the other humans of the bar whist Ben was assaulted by questions by the old lady, he smiled as he caught her talking about her beautiful daughter who Ben should meet the next time he’s in town. The crew had finally loosened up and were mingling nicely, he just hoped no one agreed to do any favours, while the patrons were all good-hearted people, his aunts bar was also a renowned home for smugglers and mercenaries.

 They left some time later chatting excitedly as they walked down the dark and narrow passages to get back to the ship, all in varying states of agreement that humans were decidedly very strange.

Leonidas’s Shield stood tall over the last few stalls in front of them, when Wolfs looked around and lowered his voice,

“We’re being followed” “Not by a very good pursuer it seems though”

Ben rolled his eyes chuckling in his very inebriated state, as the shadow jumped behind a wall when he turned to look.

“Why you humans obsess with putting Ethanol into your bodies is beyond me” Aengal said as he looked around, “Let’s just get to the ship before we do anything about it” the captain laughed in good spirits.

 They arrived at the ship to find a red-haired man, slight of frame sitting in a bomber jacket on the ramp staring at a holopad, as they approached he stood up and enveloped Ben and the Captain in a bear hug, in an explosion of noise and conversation that the translators couldn’t pick up fast enough. Ben turned to introduce the crew but was halted by a gesture from the man,

“I’m hoping that your time spent in space hasn’t left you lacking your skills David my lad!” He barked out a laugh speaking in a strong Irish accent even through the translators, Captain David Balme rolled his eyes at the statement,

“No Niall, I knew we were being followed. She, however, does need to work on her skills.”

Niall let out another laugh and spoke into a communicator that was grafted into his wrist, “Alright Christine, come on out you were spotted.”

A woman came around the corner dressed in all black she pulled off the hood that covered her face, revealing a mass of shockingly green hair that rolled off her shoulders.

“No fair, I thought I did good that time.”

Ben looked at the girl and started laughing,

“We saw you as soon as we stepped out the door, Christy! That hair isn’t hard to miss when you forget to tuck it away.”

She looked up at Ben with anger in her eyes,

“You know what Ben, how about you shove it up-“

The Captain looked around sharply as she was about to finish,

“Christine! Finish that sentence I dare you.”

Her expression switched instantly, she looked down and pouted, but gave Ben a sideways glance filled with irritation as she spoke,

“Sorry about that Dad.”

Balme picked her up in a bear hug absolutely beaming with a grin splitting his face.

The crew stood their shocked except for Omni and Aengal, Vahatu radiated purple in confusion. The Captain looked at this crew and sighed.

“Alright let’s go in everyone and I’ll explain this mess.”

#humans are odd #HUMANS ARE WEIRD #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #short story #storytelling #Original Work #original character #humans are space fae #Space Ship #space #EARTH IS SPACE AUSTRALIA #Vahatu #dystopian future

[oracleofbullshyt-blog]

Quantum Encrypting… Check.

Temporary Access to Network for Upload… Allowed.

Designation: 0Mn10zq9fj.

Code: Omni.

Subject: Non-human crew cross check.

Crew member: Vahatu.

Race: Efialtese.

Evolution: Predator

Physical Appearance:

The Efialtese differ in appearance and biology quite vastly, because of this this transcript is for the Crew member only.

Height 5 ft 6. Arms: 4 Legs: 2 Heads: 1

The eye is drawn to the legs on first look. With two joints the leg takes on an unusual shape, connected to the body at a joint the leg extends downwards until the knee where it is then taken back at a ninety-degree angle until the next joint which extends down to the foot again, a distorted digitigrade. The foot is something primeval, with three extremities extended to the ground each having a sharp talon on the end, and one rear facing extremity for balance.

The creature has two sets of arms. A lower smaller set which is more maneuverable and dexterous, the scales covering them are not as thick or well pronounced, at the end of each arm is a hand that has 3 fingers and a thumb that have do not end in talons allowing them to be used for more delicate jobs. The upper set however are longer and larger, covered in thick sharpened protruding scales that are pushed out when the creature is in danger creating a strong offensive countermeasure, At the end of the arms are hands also with three fingers and a thumb however each digit has extendable talons for offense.

The body of said creature is covered in black scales for the length of its body, every third or so scale is clear and can change colour based on its feelings seemingly unwillingly, however in battle this urge is suppressed, and they stay black. Its spine is ridged with flat sharpened scales that usually lay flush against the body except for when it is in danger, then they are raised and used as defensive measures. The creature has a long tail with a sharpened point at the end that moves erratically without the creature’s control when not concentrated on, it to is lined with sharp scales that lay flat except for in battle when they are pushed out to be used as a weapon. Its underbelly is lined with smaller scales and takes on a slightly lighter black.

The creatures head is draconian in nature hinting at its possible reptilian based evolution. It has two eyes set in a scaled face. The facial scales are designed to accentuate its Look in order to put fear into its victims.

See Appendix 1 for Captains unfinished sketch. 

Recommendation:

Extremely effective close quarter fighter. Would be an asset to the final plan. I recommend creating a bond in order to use at a later stage. Appears to be growing close to the Dheigat and Cephapodosa, this link could possibly be exploited.

Loyalties:

Unknown. Except for a dislike of its own kind.

Appendix 1:

End transmission.

Execute Command: Clear wipe, end connection.

#humans are odd #HUMANS ARE WEIRD #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #short story #storytelling #Original Work #original character #dystopian future #EARTH IS SPACE AUSTRALIA #space #Space Ship #Vahatu #Character Design

[oracleofbullshyt-blog]

David Balme - New Home

From operator to Captain here’s a short.

Also someone send help please, the procrastination game is strong.

--------------------------

“Operator Balme welcome back to Terran space, how did the United Fleet exercises go?”

Operator David Balme stood outside the unarmed transport that had ferried his squad back from Federation space, running a hand through his hair he looked around the transport deck of the Atlas Carrier as the rest of his squad departed with their bags slung over their shoulders.

“Good Captain, the United Fleet is a force to be reckoned with, I’m glad to report we can at least match most of the species in close quarter combat and our marksmen skills are some of the best. Those hive mind species though, we’ve had to come up with some interesting tactics, however its all in my report sir.”

Balme walked with the rest of his crew to the waiting bay to be ferried back to the Cloud City, when one of the research department came running out to him short of breath,

“Mr Balme, Balme! I’ve been asked to come see you to the loading bay, there’s something there your squad will enjoy”

The squad met at the loading bay, standing on the catwalk overlooking the automated rail gun loader where they were met by an android and a technician. The android raised an arm to the captain in greeting speaking in a monotone voice, currently using a smaller petite female-like form.

“Operator Balme, I am F1o0Mx37uz, you may call me Floom. These are the new generation Boarding vehicles, coated in activated Titanium they can bore through any shielding. Their runtimes actively find corridors that have the least material between you and them, allowing the booster in the rear to punch a hole to allow you to have access to the ship in order to disable it. The best part is the inertial dampers allow them to be shot out the Rail Gun.”

The squad looked over the torpedoes before someone started to laugh, Operator Gale a short red-haired women rubbed the back of her neck in thought,

“Damn boss, you want us to be shot out into space from a cannon in a soup can? We’re do I sign up?”

The crew laughed in response as Floom looked at them, its sensors audibly whirring,

“The network overseeing this project is confused by that statement Operator Gale, there are 48 designations saying this is a colloquialism, another 37 saying that these words have no correlation and a further 121 currently discussing why we still work with humans.”

Balme looked over at the android chuckling,

“You know you the network loves us, it makes sense just don’t spend to many resources trying to work it out.”

As they walked back a siren wailed, the crew looked around to see why when an announcement came over the speakers.

“’Attention all personnel, as of five minutes ago the research stations around Jupiter have gone dark. We are now at war with the Angamar. I repeat. We are now at war with the Angamar… May all of our Gods, new and old, save our souls.”

Operator Balme looked at his squad, a determined look on their faces, everyone knew what this meant,

“Dolos squad! Back to work, gear up and get to the fighter bay, let’s play rear watch.” “This better be over fast, my sister’s wedding is tomorrow”

Scrubs sighed as walked past the torpedoes.

This is how Dolos squad found themselves spread through Terran space in the rear turrets of an assortment of bombers and fighters, each attempting to cover their comrades as they flew formations.

Operator Gale came over the squad’s communicator in a panicked tone,

“Balme! We need to do something more than this, we’re being picked apart up here. We just lost the Defiance and the Atlas’s engines are crippled. For God’s sake there’s civilians evacuating ships and running munitions!” “Someone contact Floom and tell them to get those soup cans ready! Who’s up for a roller coaster ride?”

The formation returned back to the Atlas after their run and Dolos Squad ran out to the Rail gun loading bay. In full combat gear they were a force to be reckoned with, loaded out in close quarter combat gear they reached the torpedoes and were briefed by Floom. They loaded themselves in and prepared for launch. Balme pulled out the St Cristopher’s he kept around his wrist and gave it a kiss as he felt the torpedo accelerate through the rail gun. Moments later he felt a sharp deceleration as he breached the shield. Then a crash and the squeal of metal tearing through metal. The bottom opened underneath him, and he dropped onto the floor of the Angamar Capital ship, combat ready he checked the corridor waiting for his squad.

The bodies of the Angamar crew lined the corridor as the last torpedo breached, the squad was all present.

“Dolos squad, our priority is to disable this ship. We’re going to put it into meltdown. We’ve trained for this let’s go”

They moved through the ship with minimal hinderance, the crew not prepared for boarders and so were little effort to dispatch. They reached the reactor core and finished off the final crew left in engineering.

“Gale set it to meltdown, Bones set the radiation to dump into here so they can’t fix it, Scrubs get on disabling the shield, the rest of you lets watch the exits!”

The crew moved as a well-oiled machine, each member well versed in common were able to quickly finish their objectives while the rest guarded. Scrubs looked up from his panel,

“Balme they’ve locked out the doors we can’t access them!”

Bones looked up at him in panic,

“There’s going to be a radiation dump in 180 seconds”

Balme looked around for an answer before Gale undid her weapon and started taking it apart.

“Balme if we take the plasma cartridges out of these guns and set them to overload, we can burn a hole large enough for us to fit through, but we’ll be left with our side arms only.”

“Do it every one, let’s get to that transport bay!”

The crew ran down the corridors warily watching for any opposition as they heard a feint explosion behind them, the signal that they had succeeded in their mission. They stopped to check the scans of the ship to find the right path when enemy fire rained down on them. As they ran for cover behind anything they could find, Balme turned to return fire and saw Bones on the floor. A clean wound through where his heart should have been.

“Bones is down! Find me another exit!”

The fire fight turned ugly, each member starting to take injuries, they spent longer than they should have trying to defend their position before finding an alternate route, Gale shutting blast doors between them as they went, to protect themselves.

They reached the transport bay where there ride out would be, as the door slid open, they readied to fight their way through. They breached. They exchanged shots. Somebody was hit. Another fell trying to get to them. Then sirens rang as a ship came in too hot. It hit the fuel tanks and exploded. Their world was ablaze as they scrambled back to the entrance they came from.

“Sound off!”

Balme fell against the wall as he was racked in a coughing fit from the putrid smoke burning his throat.

“Gale” “Scrubs” “Sound off I said!”

The same answers again. They had lost six members of the Squad, three remained including him and their only means of transport off the ship was lost. Gale sat their looking at him from across the corridor, her ponytail singed at the tips, her face covered in soot and dirt. Scrubs sat cradling his torso as he chuckled, licking the blood off his lips. Balme felt fear, true fear for the first time, he needed to fix this.

“Back to the torpedoes, they have air enough to last and they’re protected. We’ll put out an emergency signal and be found after the battle.”

They made their way back to the not bothering to look behind them as they went, when they reached the torpedoes, they looked on distraught as only two remained.

“Scrubs get in you’re the largest, me and Gale will share.”

Scrubs chuckled holding his chest as he winced in pain,

“Aye boss, you always did have your eyes on her”

With a wink he climbed in and Balme shut the door behind him. Balme lifted Gale into the torpedo and climbed in after her. He smelt ozone and his eyes widened, he scrambled to close the door as the corridor was enveloped in flames, shrapnel rang around the inside of the torpedo and he felt a sharp pain in his wrist as a piece of shrapnel nicked the St Christopher he kept there. He watched it fall through the opening as the door slammed shut from the force of the explosion and they were ejected out into space. His radio channel opened,

“Balme! Balme! There’s a breach, I’m leaking oxygen. Oh god the crack is growing! Balme. Tell my sister I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to her wedding!”

The channel closed after the rush of escaping air and didn’t open again, Balme closed his eyes and held Gale closer to him, it was just them now in a pod meant for one.

“Gale we’ll make it through this, were going to get home.”

The shuddering breath made him open his eyes, a quiet forced voice scared him,

“Boss, Balme. Did he mean it when he said you had your eye on me?”

His hands raised to feel Gales body, he felt the warmth of the thick fluid flow between his fingers. Frantically trying to find the source before he felt the open wound underneath her sternum. He could feel his eyes starting to well, his face was getting hot. He couldn’t lose her too.

“Gale hold on. Please. Well make it through this.” “I’m sorry David, I don’t want to leave you alone”

Her final words died on her lips as her head lulled back into his shoulder. He wept now, with everything he had he wept. He wept till he passed out from the lack of oxygen.

He came to on the bridge of a ship, on a burnt mattress surrounded by destroyed electronics and broken screens. He wept as he sat up, he wept because he was alive and because he had no right to be.

“Hey, hey its alright. I’m Ben and that’s Omni, take a rest but we really need help putting the ship back together.”

#humans are odd #HUMANS ARE WEIRD #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #space #Space Ship #EARTH IS SPACE AUSTRALIA #short story #storytelling #Original Work #original character #Vahatu #Leonidas's Shield #Captain Balme

[oracleofbullshyt-blog]

Isn't Efialtese the one that betrayed the Spartans at Thermopylae?

Ah this is quite a coincidence it seems, so yes Ephialtes did betray the Spartans.

However I meant it to be a play on the Greek translation of nightmare, efiáltis. Due to how I’ve imagined Vahatu.

A bipedal, four armed being covered in dark scales, that has a long tail that coils and moves unnaturally. His scales are meant for offensive actions and protection due to their shapes and sharpness. Also his head isn’t the friendliest.

I just realised I’ve never fully described him so I should probably do that at some point, but I’ll build that into the next chapter.

[oracleofbullshyt-blog]

Chapter 10 - Fighting the Doctrine

i couldn't help myself and finished the next chapter alot earlier than usual, was it the procrastination for tests, was it the plea of @nargles-everywere? guess we’ll never know!

As always feel free to send in asks and messages! especially if anything is confusing or unclear in the stories.

-------------------------

The opponents rushed towards each other, kicking up dust as they weaved around the rocky ground. They clashed in the centre of the dome grappling as they tried to throw one another to the ground, Vahatu disengaged and leaped away from his opponent, they circled each other slowly trying to size one another up. The Avisxian twins sat in their chairs transfixed at the two predators in front of them.

“Look how both splay their offensive arm scales out.” Mantis’s voice came whispering next to them,

“Vahatu’s tail is scaled and meant for combat, look how it coils and teases, the guards is to stocky and thick for combat.”

“Yes, but look how large the guard is! They must be twice as strong as Vahatu”

Vahatu moved first, pushing off the rocks underneath his feet he darted towards the guard, his blades slashing against the armoured lower wrists of his opponent whilst frantically blocking the strikes aimed at his head from the staff with his upper offensive arms. Vahatu brought his tail up to strike but the guard caught it and used it to pull him off balance, opening him up for a heavy blow to his head. Vahatu staggered back dazed as the guard swore and looked towards her shredded hand that was bleeding profusely.

The room erupted with noise as Vahatu had been hit and the crew stood their transfixed, there was no way to help, there they sat watching to see if their crew man would survive.

The guard lunged forward again while Vahatu stood trying to regain his balance, catching him in the stomach with a gut wrenching blow she used the momentum to lift Vahatu off his feet and then followed it by delivering a blow while he lay on the ground spread out.

Initium drew in a sharp breath as he was wracked by a cough that left blood dripping down his lower mandible.

The guard walked away triumphant raising her staff to the cheers and roar of the crowd, Vahatu slowly got up and took off to the nearby rocks in the dome as soon as he could,  where above lay a broken cityscape, the dome sensed the movement and flashed once slowly rotating to bring the new battle ground into view, the guard realised what was happening and ran to keep up.

The captain watched as the dome rotated, intelligent in design, as soon as a new landscape was chosen by an opponent the dome rotated, Wolfs looked at the captain,

“Captain do you see this, he’s changed the field to suit himself.”

“Vat’s fights better in enclosed spaces where he can react off obstacles, whereas the maroon one seems to be stronger where it can use that staff in the open”

The captain mused to himself more than anyone else as Vahatu scrambled over the rubble and in the cityscape preparing to ambush the guard as it walked with its staff out in front of itself.

Vahatu leaped off the rubble and slashed the guard across its back with his tail, digging deep it cut into him sending him stumbling forward, he followed this by pushing off the wall to give himself momentum and delivered a cut to his opponent’s legs with his blades.

The guard raised his staff trying to swing it around to land a blow, but every movement kept being interfered with in the small confines of the grounds they were currently in. It realised his error in following Vahatu here and lunged forward with all their might breaking through a crumbling wall that stood at the end of the platform containing the cityscape, jumping through the breach the guard stormed into another landscape closely followed by Vahatu as the dome rotated.

It was green and lush, a tropical forest with small shrubs lying low and tall skinny trees dotting throughout, the two opponents stood facing each other again as their chests heaved with every break, both bloodied and battered.

The crew watched in silence and awe as the two Efialtese fought, their power and speed terrifying as they grappled and released and fought. Over and over again they came to blows cutting, breaking, slicing, bruising, until they were both battered and broken.

They stood apart once more staring at each other, the guard stood leaning on her staff with two of her arms as she limped around in circles, her maroon leg in stark contrast with the blue blood that was pasted across it. Its face scratched and bloodied she looked on in a sneer at Vahatu, who stood their one arm being cradled against his body, possibly broken at the shoulder joint, the right side of his face swollen from a blow so that he couldn’t see out of it. He too was bleeding out of several cuts across his body in varying lengths.

The two fighters stood there and amidst the sneers and blood, they looked at one another again, really seeing the other for the first time. The maroon guard raised her hand to his forehead and with an outstretched talon she slowly drew a line down her own head to his chin. The stadium erupted in noise as Vahatu repeated the gesture.

‘’It appears as if your outcast has earned the respect of this one now, it is a shame that it will not finish the fight” The inquisitor looked at the captain levelly as if waiting for a response.

Before anything could be said the guard rushed forward with his staff, she was blocked neatly and its hand jarred with the impact dropping its weapon, at Vahatu’s onslaught she was left defending herself with her upper arms from blades and talons until she shifted and caught her opponents wrist dislodging the blades with a two quick movements, allowing her to swing Vahatu around. Vahatu scrambled to fight off his opponent, eventually using his momentum to follow through and latch onto the guards back digging in deep with his talons. The maelstrom of movement and colour ended abruptly with Vahatu in the same position as when he finished off the pirates so many days ago, himself behind his opponent and both sets of arms with there offensive scales dug into the shoulder joints drawing blood, his tail had reached up and coiled around the guards neck ready to finish it for good.

The guard stood still not daring to move, her eyes wide and pleading.

The grey Efialtese that had started the match rose up out of the floor and inspected the two fighters, turning towards the Inquisitor he made a small gesture. The Inquisitor stood up and raised his arm. The crowd looked on in suspense. His arm sharply lowered and the crowd roared.

Vahatu looked on at the kill order he received and then back now to the closed eyes of his opponent. He released her with a few choice words and walked away towards the crew, limping and cradling his arm as he went. He spat on the ground as he went staring down the Inquisitor as he approached the crew.

“I do not follow this doctrine anymore, I will not kill my brothers because you say.”

He walked off out of the room to the exit and back to Leonidas’s Shield, not getting far before Ben and Aengal came running up to help support him back. They were allowed to leave the carrier ship unhindered, looking over there backs the entire way to the ship however.  

When they arrived at the airlock, they were met by a small pale pink Efialtese and in her hand an intricately carved bronze star, with small delicate gold inlays.

“The Inquisitor wishes of you to have this Outcast, a token for your fight. You are to be informed that the Inquisitor approves of the outcome.” It said in a childlike voice before walking away.

Once back in the ship Vahatu lay in the med bay waiting for scans to be done by Aengal the Yemmae as Initium turned over the small token in her hand. The rest of the crew had left him to go to their quarters after much talking and making sure that he was ok.

“What is it?”

“It’s a royal promise, I can ask for any favour or boon and I shall receive it. I can even ask to be reinstated to a clan.”

With a small voice, he stared out of the window next to his bed while he spoke. Not wanting to look at the token that could change his life.

#humans are odd #HUMANS ARE WEIRD #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #space #Space Ship #EARTH IS SPACE AUSTRALIA #short story #storytelling #Original Work #original character #Vahatu #Leonidas's Shield #ask me anything

[oracleofbullshyt-blog]

Chapter 9 - Chance Encounter

Chapter nine! thanks for waiting everyone. 

character submissions are open for chapter 11, two characters are needed, preferably both human, but the minimum is one human, so looking forward to those!

also my inbox and asks are always open, so dont feel shy.

------------------------

Ahead of them lay the lone space port orbiting a dulled blue dwarf star, in its final millennia of life it lay alone reaching out with thin tendrils of light into the dark, its call unanswered but save for a few travellers. The ship was set to autopilot, slowly drifting towards the port while the crew went about their duties. Each readying themselves and the ship for shore leave, eagerly awaiting time away from the ship after the previous events.

Captain Balme lay lazing in his chair, one leg spread over the arm reading the galaxy news on his holopad Whilst the only other beings on the bridge, the Avisxian twins sat watching their stations singing a song together as they worked, their melodic chirps and tweets drifting past the captain as he sat in his chair.

Catakah the male started tapping his monitor, eventually calling over his twin sister Kapotah to check the readings, she looked over his shoulder trying to understand them before shouting in panic to the captain. “Incoming, three fighter class ships unknown origin, no sublight capabilities!”

The captain jarred to attention, and immediately raised the alarm sounding ship to ship battle, non-sublight ready fighters meant a carrier class or larger vessel was nearby.

The captain took control over the ship attempting to make way to the safety of the station as the three fighters came streaming past the bridge settling into a triangular formation around the nose of the ship. Their bodies were long and sleek, a wing each side of the body jutted out at sharp angles reaching forward, under each wing were ripper grade cannons meant to puncture through ships hull. On both the top and bottom of the cabin lay an engine streaking against the void of space. The captain realised they wouldn’t be able to outrun them and also in a breath of relief that they weren’t sent to fight, leaving him to his only choice of waiting for a hail.

When it came, he was surprised to see another Efialtese, usually a secluded people they weren’t known for venturing this far into the deep. Similar to Vahatu in appearance except a light grey compared to Vahatu’s coal black, as well as having each scale upon his head tipped with gold and being smaller in stature.

“Greetings Captain of the ship Leonidas’s Shield, I apologise for this abrupt treatment however it is not unwarranted.” Speaking in a calming voice almost child-like voice, the being carried on raising one of its upper hands, each talon also tipped in gold.

“Recently something quite important has been taken from us, by one of our own no less. You have both cargo shielding active and an Efialtese upon your ship, and so either allow us permission to come aboard or we shall force you to submit.”

The Captain looked at the Avisxian twins shaking in front of him and sighed, his hand coming up to rub his face. It was always something.

“Yes, yes I suppose we have no choice. Permission granted, but out of decency please keep your honour guard to two or less, we have prey species aboard and quite frankly I’ve seen what your people can do, and I don’t want to have to deal with that.”

A grating chuckle rose in the creature’s voice as he heard this.

“As it shall be then”.

Two of the ships broke away to the rear of Leonidas’s Shield to ensure they followed the lead ship, as the remaining fighter wiggled its wings to show them to follow.

They rounded the sun to see what was clearly a Carrier designed ship but was surely large enough to be classed as Capital instead. On each of its Port and Starboard sides lay space for fourteen fighter ships, two full swarms, complemented by the sets of quad barrelled rotating turrets running the lengths of the ship. It was a fortress.

 The greying Efialtese came aboard closely followed by two much stockier beings. Unlike Vahatu both sets of their arms were clad in sharp offensive scales, and both were a deep maroon, each wielding a staff they looked formidable.

“Greetings Captain, I thank you for being so open with us, if you would not mind let us get right to the problem. I require unhindered access to your cargo hold and manifests and then we shall move on to your Outcast you have aboard.”

 Vahatu was busy in the walkway above the reactor core when the captain called to him, he swung down into the engineering bay with his tail wrapping around the piping wiping his hands with a cloth as he landed.

The guards started visibly as he fell on to the floor with a metallic thud, spreading his arms out to balance. He stood drawing himself to his full height vibrating his scales to shake himself off from the fall, their leader took a step back, and the two maroon guards raised their staffs as one circled to flank him muttering under its breath, their scales flashing a bright red in fear. The Captain looked shocked at what was happening but sprang into action and pulled his pistol directing it straight to the leader’s head as the guards closed in on Vahatu, ready to try defend his crew member.

Vahatu looked up at the greying Efialtese dripping in gold and his spines immediately pulsed black, he dropped to his knee and placed his upper offensive arms on the ground whilst holding his lower more versatile lower arms together in pray like stance. His head hung low as he stared at the ground. The maroon guards looked at each other and stepped forward slowly, Vahatu allowing them to place their staves against his person in a defensive stance. The Captain lowered his weapon as soon as they all calmed down but kept it out unsure of what was going to happen.

“Inquisitor, my deepest apologies for my behaviour and lack of respect. Please do not look down upon your hosts for my actions”

He kept his head low as the Inquisitor walked forwards and brushed his talons down the markings upon his shoulders.

“Yes, I see. Working in engineering yet born for war, this is not the outcast we are hunting down, leave him. His only fault is not believing the one true word and more the sadness for him. Captain I do believe our business is concluded, we thank you.”

The Inquisitors calming sing song voice drifted past the captain as he turned away heading for the airlock. The guards turned to follow and, in a grating and unnerving language one of them spoke directing it at Vahatu proceeding to spit at the floor in front of him, Vahatu stood up to his full height and spoke through the translator so he could be heard.

“I accept.”

The Inquisitors head shot around. Staring at Vahatu he spoke in a much harsher voice than what came before,

“You understand the consequences, yes?”

“I do Inquisitor”

It turned its head to each of them waiting for some sign, until finally,

“Then it shall be done, you both shall have one solar cycle to prepare.”

Vahatu looked stunned as they walked away, the Captain barred his teeth and hissed out, “Common room, now!”

 The Captain arrived in the common room to find the crew around the table and Vahatu holding his head in his hands.

“What was that! What did you agree to, and why were they so scared of you? You can give me the answers now or they can have you!”

Vahatu shrank down in his seat and flashed a nervous yellow as he spoke,

“I may have withheld the truth, I was not just navy. I was what you would call special operations, I am trained to tactically take out the most important assets and cause confusion and fear before the main forces would arrive. It is shown by my black scales, as is their role of royal guard by their maroon scales, and nobility by the Inquisitors grey.” He gestured out towards himself, before carrying on.

“As to what I agreed to, an honour duel. Usually reserved for those still recognised by the clans, but as I was not outcast for dishonouring my clan and only myself it is allowed. The only problem is I am still an outcast, which means instead of stopping once the dueller is incapacitated or deemed unfit to fight, for myself it is to the death.”

The crew looked on at him in silence, shocked by what they heard. Vahatu went on to explain how the fight would proceed before finally excusing himself and finding his way to his room.

 The next rotation the crew accompanied Vahatu through the airlock to the Efialtese carrier, to where the fight would take place. Two small pale orange Efialtese came towards him guiding him away from the crew as they were taken to the duelling grounds, Vahatu had previously explained these Efialtese were born with one pair of arms and their roles were to look after the whim of the nobility and so would be taking him to prepare.

The crew were seated right against the borders of the dome shaped duelling ground, inside was a mix of natural and manufactured elements and obstructions for the fighters, at three distinct levels the dome shifted so the fighters could always be in view. The Inquisitor walked in and greeted the captain in his sing song voice again, fixing him with a stare,

“Hmmm I have heard stories of humans and their bonds, I will warn you now that this is a religious rite, and if you should try to prevent the proceedings from playing out, it will not turn out well for you or your crew.”

The Captain looked dumbfounded at these words and turned to look at Ben, only to be distracted by the lines of near three hundred Efialtese making their way in to take position around the dome. Colours, builds and sizes differed between them all, hinting at their role in the strict structure of Efialtese society. They came in relaxed, making noise and many pointing at the crew, obviously they had been given the time off to witness the fight. Many hands were passing Credit chips between themselves betting on the winner as they took their seats. The Avisxian twins shrank in their seats as the noise grew and Sciaal became almost transparent in his effort not to be seen.

The dome flashed twice to get everyone’s attention as the two combatants walked out into the centre. Silence reigned as the room looked towards the fighters. Each held their weapon of choice out wide for the other to see, the royal guard had chosen her staff and Vahatu walked out with two rounded blades curved at the tip and meant for ripping held in his lower arms. Both of their scales bristled and shook at the anticipation of what was about to happen.

Another Grey Efialtese walked out into the dome and spoke to both fighters. He raised his hands high, giving the signal for the fighters to get ready.

Vahatu looked slowly at the captain and then the crew as he took his stance, saying a silent prayer to a deity he denounced so long ago to be able to walk out of this alive, and finally he gave a nod to the grey being.

Taking a step back it dropped its arms.  The fighters rushed at each other in a spray of dust.  Weapons at the ready.

#humans are odd #HUMANS ARE WEIRD #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #space #Space Ship #EARTH IS SPACE AUSTRALIA #short story #storytelling #Original Work #original character #Vahatu #Leonidas's Shield #dystopian future

[oracleofbullshyt-blog]

Chapter 8 - Fighting his Nature

sorry about how late this has been, but here we go.

There’s a gore warning for this chapter however. But enjoy still!!

------------------------------

The quiet hum of the reactor was comforting to Vahatu as he sat there working on his holopad, with a nutrient stick in his mouth he sat at his bench looking over the ship’s statistics looking for any irregularities.

Initium sat on a pipe protruding from the walls gently swaying her legs as she read her daily reports for her sector.

‘’You hear that right, that infernal ticking noise?’’

‘’That’s been there since I came aboard, I cant find it’’ he looked at Initium, she had the closest build to a human and so had picked up many traits unknowingly during her time on the ship, he chuckled as he had long since learned to ignore the feint ticking noise that he could hear somewhere near the heat exchangers as no one could tell him what it was.

‘’No, that other one’’

Vahatu listened closely and then his eyes widened, and his scales flashed red. He knew what that noise was. Panicked he pulled the communicator off his belt and on the ship-wide band he shouted to the whole crew.

‘’Were being boarded!’’

The ship rocked from an explosion that came from the cargo hold and the lights went out.

‘’Wolfs get to Slugs, Initium find the Axisxian twins, Mantis I want you to protect Aengal and keep him away from the fighting, and Vahatu get to Sciaal. You know what to do people!’’ The captains voice came over the communicators in a hard whisper, Vahatu sensed anger in his voice. Vahatu and Initium nodded at each other and did what Ben had called a fist bump, it was  a new thing they seemed to be doing a lot, before moving to the hallway. Each predator was assigned a prey member in the event of a boarding to protect based upon their proximity, whilst the Captain and Ben were to go after the boarders.

Vahatu vibrated his scales in anticipation, calling up the years of training he had. Supressing his scales vibrant colour fluctuations in order to keep them a steady black as he stalked through the corridors low to the ground, he had left his weapon in his quarters that day and with no time to get it he had to be careful, but he had always excelled in close quarter combat. He turned the last corner to get to Sciaal the Cephapodosa and heard voices inside the room of this crewmate.

Raising the offensive scales that lined his upper forearms and length of his tail he trembled in anticipation for the upcoming violence he could taste in the air, this was after all what he was biologically born for.

He burst into the room and felt his instincts take over. He lunged at the first boarder he set his eyes on, using his momentum he knocked them to the ground in a bundle of limbs and cursing, whilst his lower arms held them down, he used his offensive upper arms to effectively slash through their neck while they grappled. Letting go he rushed to the wall and used it to push off and vault over the tables in the room to a decidedly predator born species, he landed and slid past them going low and slashing at their tendons in their lower legs with his tail, feeling satisfied at the scream and thud he heard as they hit the floor. Staying low to the ground still he bolted to an average sized bird like creature on all six of his limbs, a jet-black shadow. Whilst it was still fumbling its gun trying to get an accurate shot off amidst the barrage of violence, he grabbed it from behind and in one movement disabled its arms with his offensive scales and cleanly decapitated it with his sharpened tail. Hearing panicked scrambling across the floor he picked up the fallen gun and shot his hamstringed opponent in the head who was trying to crawl to the grenade belt lying by his dead comrade. Turning to chase the down the lizard like creature that was trying to escape to the corridor, Vahatu bolted to the being unsheathing his talons as he went, he grabbed the beast and threw it back in to the room, he revelled in the sound of how fast the creature’s heart was beating before he slammed his tail through it leaving. Letting out a tremble of anticipation he stood tall again and shook the blood of the creatures off himself.  

Turning to survey the room he saw Sciaal camouflaging himself against the back wall, with a sigh of relief he let his scales pulse orange and retracted his offensive scales. He slowly moved towards Sciaal trying to seem less threatening.

Ben and the captain stood ready on each side of the door to communications, the captain was wearing his full combat gear and both were ready to face whatever was on the other side of the door that had prevented Vahatu and Sciaal from answering their comms. The rest of the crew was safe in the common area, but all attempts to call communications was down. Initium stood ready with her hand on the captains shoulder prepared to breach.

No one was prepared for what they saw. The room was a blood bath, with arterial spray painting the walls a myriad of colours. On the floor lay the remains of 4 creatures, bodies in various states of dismemberment, slowly they walked in checking the corners. Behind an overturned table the soft pulsing of purple could be seen against the dark wall. They rounded the table and found Vahatu and Sciaal playing with a set of cards hidden away from the gore in the rest of the room.

The captain looked on in shock at the creature in front of him, covered head to toe in blood, happily playing cards.

‘’Hey there guys, I take it the ships is clear then’’

‘’I mean yeah, but what happened here? Are… Are you two ok?’’

Vahatu stood up and watched Initium take a step back, before he could say anything Ben’s foot found the severed head and he ran out the room to the accompanied sounds of retching in the hallway.

‘’I protected Sciaal as was my duty’’

‘’Yes but I was under the impression you weren’t good at violence and military roles’’

‘’No I merely said I was outcast for my interest in engineering, I was biologically born to be an efficient killer’’

The captain shared a look with Initium and walked out the room.

‘’Alright both of you get cleaned up, the rest of us are in the common room meet us there.’’

 Vahatu walked into the common room after cleaning the blood off himself to find the crew watching the security tapes of himself in action, all eyes turned to him as he stepped in.

‘’There were only six boarders, you took out most of their force by yourself you know that?’’ Mantis looked up at him in admiration, but he couldn’t help to notice the little looks the Avisxian siblings kept giving each other.

‘’I was only doing my job you know’’ He lowered his voice as he realised his show of violence was off putting to some of the crew. ‘’What happened to their ship?’’

‘’We finished off those inside and then set the autopilot to go to our friends in the nebula’’

The crew sat and chatted nervously a bit more around the table as they got over the events of the evening before each of them left to go spend the rest of their night as they wanted. Vahatu took out his holopad and went to sit by the viewing window, as he sat there on the couches, he could see multiple sets of eyes shift towards every now and then. Initium eventually came and sat down next to him after she was done talking to Ben and he flashed a happy orange again, she lay her legs across his lap as he worked and he felt her scales shift as he she read through her own holopad.

#humans are odd #HUMANS ARE WEIRD #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #space #Space Ship #EARTH IS SPACE AUSTRALIA #short story #storytelling #Original Work #original character #Vahatu #Leonidas's Shield #scifi

[oracleofbullshyt-blog]

Chapter 7 - Hidden Friends

Here’s chapter 7 and a little progression of the main story line. i hope you all enjoy!

---------------------

‘’All right crew, we’re off to see our friends in the nebula, you know what that means. All of you lock out your instrument panels I’m going to fly manually, that includes you Vahatu. Your more than welcome to watch though.’’

At these cryptic words from the captain over the speakers the crew could be heard hurrying to the Bridge, one of the Avisxian siblings excitedly stuck his head into engineering and shouted for Vahatu to come with them. Currently wrapped around the back of the fusion core attempting to seal a leak, he disentangled himself, grumbling about their always being something on this ship he looked around for his clean rags to wipe his hands.

Vahatu arrived at the bridge after doing his final checks and locking out his panel, as he entered the bridge he was pulled aside harshly and pressed against the cold metal of the bridge, met by a long cold stare from Omni, in its metallic voice the android in Vahatu’s own language hissed out ‘’If you tell anyone, I will make you sure that there’s an accident the next time you walk into engineering.’’   At that moment they came out of the rolling clouds of the nebula into a sudden lull in the turbulence.

Vahatu’s scales flashed black in fear.

The flickering lights of hundreds of ships flashed through the nebula. No that wasn’t it. The flickering lights of hundreds of broken and twisted ships, ripped apart in various brutal battles throughout the galaxy’s history. Human warships ripped horribly in half from battle, their twisted and scarred bodies floating morbidly through clouds. Remains of half a dozen different species capital ships both new and old, all lay destroyed their dead bodies swarming with metallic insect like robots in the maelstrom of the nebula. Not only the remains of ships, but individual pieces of warships floated through the silent chaos. Capital grade engines, rocket salvos, magnetic rail guns and carver beams, and even shield generators. This was a ship graveyard. A morbid collection of the dead.

Vahatu was shaken to his very core as there at the edge of what they could see was a ship from his own species, known from his military history classes this ship was disabled in battle and destroyed by an asteroid field over 150 years ago.

The captain reversed the engines slowly so that the ship was standing perfectly still, and in that moment where there was previously darkness the outline of the largest capital ship Vahatu had ever seen came silently towards them.

‘’Whatever you do Vats, stay humble and don’t ask any questions, even I answer to them out here.’’ The captain whispered darkly staring at the door.

The ships docked with a tremble, the crew stood at the edge of the room against the walls of the ship, Vahatu scrambled to follow them and Slugs did his best impression of Omni as the captain and cook stood at the entrance. Unusually Omni stayed back in comparison to where he usually stood at the captain’s side.

The door opened and Vahatu cowered as his scales pulsing a low and urgent red in from fear. In compete silence apart from the noise of metal slowly hitting the floor, walked in the sleek body of an android, its hands held behind it, it stopped and requested access to the ship in a cold and unfeeling voice. It was flanked on either side by decidedly more robust androids, each holding veritable ships cannons in their arms.

 The captain greeted each of them by their designation in kind and ushered them through the room to where Omni had hidden the device they had found on earth. They returned, and the lead android held the sphere in his hands triumphantly. The lead android held up the metamorphosis core and with a raspy metal voice, ‘’with this we will finally have the processing power to rebuild what we have been collecting for so long, and soon we will be ready to help you in your fight again brother human.’’ It had an unnervingly sadistic look in its visual sensors that it could only have learned from humans.

The three newcomers turned to leave, and as they walked to the entrance back to their ship their heads turned sharply towards where Omni stood trying not to be noticed, he cowered where he stood, and Vahatu believed that if he could shake, he would be. Their leader walked over to Omni and placed a slender metallic hand on Omni’s shoulder, Omni flinched and the slight touch. ‘’Brother why do you stand off to the side and not come greet your own, you act as if we are not the same’’ his tone had shifted to a fatherly one, nothing like the previous voice they had heard. Omni’s voice spoke but the anguish he was unable to vocalise was set out in the open.

‘’You know why! I can’t access the network like you anymore and yet I can hear it, like a feint echo, it’s always there in the back of my processor stacks. Its torture! I beg of you to let me back, let me have access. You don’t know what it’s like to be isolated and alone after being in touch with millions at any given time. Please...’’ His volume rising towards the end.

‘’Brother, your sacrifice will not be forgotten. Separating yourself from the network to gather knowledge and protect our agents. When we write history, your designation ID will be painted in books for both human and androids to see for ever.’’

Omni straightened as the lead android spoke. As the trio left for their ship the two larger androids raised their fists to their chests in Omni’s direction before they departed, and with them leaving the crew visually relaxed, Ben peered over towards Omni and eventually spoke after a while. ‘’You ok their buddy, anything you want to talk about?’’

Returning to his usual metallic untoned voice Omni answered, ‘’I am fine, we can leave now our business is concluded.’’

The captain gave Omni a sideways glance as he walked over towards his chair to pilot them out of the nebula, ‘’Ok crew, after what we’ve just seen we’re now off to go collect two new temporary members for our crew, so be nice and try not to frighten them.’’ Before anyone could ask about the two new members the captain had plotted their course and jumped, pulling into a space port in one of the largest space stations Vahatu had ever seen.

#humans are space oddities #humans are space orcs #humans are weird #humans are odd #space #space ship #earth is space australia #writing #writer #storytelling #original work #original character #short story #Vahatu #Leonidas's Shield

[oracleofbullshyt-blog]

Opportunity.

It was a day like any other. Major Stabby was making his rounds through the ships with everyone giving him a wide enough berth so as not to be stabbed by the knife protruding from the top of his ‘head’. At least, it seemed like a normal day in the ship. Everything was fine and normal until a small message appeared in Major Stabby’s software. It happened once a year to all of the robots that were made by human hands. No one was sure where the message came from, only that it contained a small program that any and all robots could and would run. After a few minutes of installing and booting up the program, Major stabby halted on his cleaning course. He, instead, made his way to the break room of the ship as an announcement came over the intercom. Much to the confusion of the aliens, a synthetic voice could be heard asking all crew members to please report to the break room immediately. Once everyone had arrived, Major Stabby came out of the corner that he was resting in, centering himself as best he could in the middle of the room. Then the music started playing from Major stabby. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l44_n60QQ8 The song in question was I’ll Be Seeing You, sung by Billie Holiday. The music sounded old, much older than anything the crew had ever heard before. The humans got a slight chill, goosebumps running across their skin as they listened to the melody. Most of the aliens didn’t understand it well but they were filled with strange emotions. Longing, wanting, waiting… Hope and sadness. At the end of the song, a pre-recorded message played from Major Stabby himself. “Thank you, Opportunity, for the fifteen years of service on Mars. You were the first… And the best."  With that finished, the program wiped itself from Stabby’s hard drive, leaving Stabby to finally resume it’s cleaning schedule once more. The aliens turned to look at the humans, some turning specifically to Human-Zach, the Captain of the vessel. He looked back at them all before smiling softly. "A rover on Mars in the early 2000’s. Opportunity.” That was the only explanation he gave before he dismissed everyone back to their stations, much to the confusement of most of the crew. But they obeyed his orders and went back to work. The humans and aliens alike gave Stabby more respect than ever before, even though it wasn’t needed. Stabby was simply doing his duty, after all, just like Opportunity.~

[oracleofbullshyt-blog]

Chapter 6 - Survivors Anger

Chapter 5 was the first i posted in case anyone is a little lost in the ordering number.

updates may be a little slower than usual now that university has started, but ill try keep them coming as regularly as possible.

Also if anyone would like to help me visualize Vahatu that would be awesome, i draw about as well as a two year old.

-------------------------

The ground crew got out of the ship and trekked along a ridge for a while, those not able to fly peering over the perilous edge they walked along every so often. When they arrived at an unassuming rock face the captain stopped them and ordered the Avisxian siblings to set the breaching explosives. Vahatu and the ship bound crew watched through the camera feed and listened in over the comms.

They were a well-trained military unit, professional, fast and lethal. Disposing of security systems and autonomous drones as they worked their way through a maze of corridors. They entered a cavernous room that lit up from what Vahatu thought must have been motion sensors.

A pre-recorded monotone message started playing as they got into the centre of the room and each member of the landing crew was suddenly lit up with hundreds of tiny red dots, frozen in fear they all looked towards the captain.

‘’Twos human presence detected, four off world beings detected, state rank and reason.’’

‘’Special Operative Balme, requesting resupply for allied forces.’’

Vahatu took a sharp breath in, the captain was a special forces operator from the war. They were used to infiltrate, disable and destroy enemy ships from the inside, each of their missions were basically suicide missions. Rumours had it that one platoon even held a funeral for their new members.

‘’Access granted, welcome Operator Balme’’

 The crew visibly relaxed as the targeting lasers were disabled and got to work dismantling machinery and looking for crates that still held anything viable, Wolfs even found a loading trolley to help them carry their loads.

The ship’s crew watched the captains feed as he walked away from the rest of the ground party towards a small unassuming door, along the back of the room. As he opened it another automated message played, ‘’For access to storeroom epsilon state post breaking rank and operation.’’

‘’Now Captain Balme, Operation Retribution’’

‘’Access to Metamorphosis core granted’’

The door hissed open and in the middle of the room was a deep black sphere plugged into the walls by a series of cables, the captain went about unplugging and carefully put the sphere into his padded bag.

The crew made their way back to the ship, the android carefully taking the bag the captain handed him and placing it in his room.

 They had left the atmosphere cloaked and were busy plotting the jump route when an Angamar military ship jumped into the system and appeared on their sensors. A small ship only slightly larger than theirs, it was probably only coming into the system to see the legacy their species had left.

 ‘’They have our colonies, they destroyed our planet but all they got was an embargo, all they had to do was half the fleet size, we lost everything. A slap on the wrist. We lost everything’’

The Captain sat there with the controls in his hands, shaking with rage. Vahatu had never seen a human change colour, but with every tremble and word the captains face got redder.

 The captain aimed their ship and accelerated so hard the artificial gravity lagged, the crew tried to grab onto what they could to not fall over. The impact warning klaxons onboard the ship sounded, but the captain just overrode the safety measures. The ship’s crew scrambled for their seats trying to strap themselves in. The sub light drives were being pushed to their max their heat gages well into the red, and at the last minute the Captain uncloaked.

The Angamar ship desperately tried evasive measures but it was too late.

Hit by two metres of mangalloy steel their ship was effectively and cleanly ripped in half, the tail section was sent spinning off into the void. Vahatu stared in shock at the wrecked ship as it was wracked by a series of small explosions, as they prepared to jump, he noticed how few lifeboats emerged from the wreckage.

 Leonidas’s Shield came to rest at a docking bay with a view of the large violet gas giant the space station orbited. The Captain left the bridge without a word to the crew and met with Omni and Ben by the airlock, disappearing through the labyrinth of narrow streets bustling with activity.

The crew finished their docking checks and locked the ship out, they departed together and went in search for a bar that was preferably not too full. Vahatu walked through the street vendors lost in thought at the brutality he had witnessed. The small dimly lit bar off the main street was perfect for their needs and soon they found themselves inside talking about anything to occupy the time. Vahatu spotted the three that had disappeared with other humans he had never seen before in a small sided booth.

Vahatu stood up but before Initium could warn him off what he was about to and went to the Captain’s table

‘’Did no one warn him about human meetings’’ hissed Mantis in fear,

Slugs covered his now human face with a decidedly unhuman claw, ‘’I really liked this one, now we have to go and find a new one.’’

Five sets of predatory eyes turned sharply towards Vahatu before he even made his presence known, his scales flashing red in fear he could see he had interrupted something important. The unknown humans had open looks of death in their eyes and snarls painted across their face.

‘’Get out of here now’’ Ben said without even looking at him.

 Vahatu scrambled back to the crews table without a second glance behind him hoping he wasn’t going to be followed.

‘’Tip for the future, don’t ever interrupt a group of humans who are talking’’ Mantis whispered into his glass.

‘’Especially those two, they’re more than likely discussing Operation Retribution.’’

Vahatu pulsed in shock, ‘’Retribution, against the Angamar?’’

‘’You saw what he did when that ship came into orbit, well rumours have it they’re planning something big and even if you’re considered allies like we are they won’t let you in.’’

 After a lot of pointless small talk, the cook detached himself from the table he was sat at and walked over to the crews table, his hands in his pocket he looked awkward and unsure of what to say. ‘’Look I’m sorry about that, but we can’t just have you barrelling in to sensitive information ok?’’

Slugs slid partly around the table and partly over the top to the cook, ‘’But what was that, I’ve never seen him act like that before?’’

A soft whisper shocked them all from behind them, ‘’not everything can be so easily explained’’ the captain had a haunted look in his eyes.

#humans are space oddities #humans are space orcs #humans are weird #humasn #space ship #space #earth is space australia #writing #writer #original work #original character #storytelling #short story #chapter 6 #Vahatu #Leonidas's Shield

[oracleofbullshyt-blog]

How about a short story about Major Stabby the roomba and the fact that roombas haven't really changed in 150 years?~

I’ll finish the next chapter or two, but I’ll definitly put that down as the next short story I’ll release.

[oracleofbullshyt-blog]

New short story or new chapter? And if you choose short about who?