Heion's Story

The roaring engine of a space ship whirred, the ship slowly descending down to the planet beneath them. The metal plating upon the ship reflected the sun out in bright beams around it, the two pilots in the cockpit visible through the middle of the ship, speaking to one another.

"Zis really thuh right place, boss man?" The larger of the two spoke, unsure of the whether any inhabitants would be found around this sector. "Dose Aschen boys love comin' to different sectors of the universe. Ya sure thuh place wasn't wiped?"

The captain, Arlos, waved his hand dismissively as he ran a hand through his blond hair. The ship finally landed upon the ground beneath them giving the ship a small rock back and forth. "If they were here, the place would probably be destroyed or worse: crawling with their boys. Let's just go out and check about. If it isn't safe, we'll leave. After all, we're here to explore, not conquer."

Much like usual Miarel was walking through the great expanses and beautiful fragrant forests of her home planet. There was so much history in this radiant splendour, but many of her kind merely maintained and ignored the beauty displayed. There was of course many a reason to keep such true profound grandeur in view, yes their cities were in the air, but the majesty below should never be neglected nor should their history. Some may have called her overly curious, but curiosity was rewarding and though their great spires and towers stood high in the sky, below there was natural wonder that should be cherished.

Right now she exploring a clearing ruins of their past cities dotting the areas whether old war machines overgrown and covered in flora or buildings where vines and greenery crept up. Remnants of their history, at times she wondered why no one chose to study all this. For one can learn from the past. As a species they had evolved a great deal, she was quite skinny with big feathery wings erupting from her shoulders and wearing green ensemble that provided for modesty. Although less like humans they did not have the prudish views of normal societies. In fact they only wore them out of comfort not need. And well that and to prevent bites and such by small insects.

As she regarded what appeared to have been a grand tower, she heard an engine and immediately her wings opened and she flew up high, regarding the source, immediately she noticed a ship. At first she was alarmed, but once again her curiosity won out as she carefully glided over the location and landed next to them, "Greetings Humans, welcome to Ahria. I am Miarel. You are trespassing on ancient ground and damaging the land. Can you please tell me why you have come here. We don't trade, nor do we converse with outsiders."

Arlos and Khonner both tared at the woman, her wings spread out...she spoke in Galactic Basic, or some dialect of Galactic Basic. Khonner was about to speak, however the captain shook his head as he rested a hand on Khonner's shoulder. Stepping forwards, Arlos spoke.

"Greetings, unknown species. We are from the planet of Heion, we are dedicated explorers of the universe and we wish to make content with as many cultures as possible." He gave a small bow, and let out a small sigh at what she said. "I'm sorry if this is your ancient grounds, Miarel, we shall learn from our mistakes and correct them in the future. Either way...we do not seek trade, only learning of the culture that lives here, and potentially setting up a base if at all possible for relationships between Heion and this planet."

Even though Miarel suspected they were trying to be polite, she still found their manners less than adequate. For one they did speak to her by name which she had given or acknowledge her race, it seemed like they had completely ignored anything but the presence of her. There request to even setting up a base was plain out of order. The reason Ahria had moved to the sky in their great floating metropolis was because they had realized they were hurting their planet. These men did not have that concern or respect, nor was she the one who could make such a decision, after all she was merely a citizen, "I repeat my name is Miarel and this is the Planet Ahria. If you wish to ever learn you would show respect. We are not an unknown species and nor do I personally believe you would respect our land." pausing she regarded them with stern stare, "It is not my decision or place. And if you ever hope of anything mutual you will stop speaking to us like we are inferior or even sub-human. We Ahrian's are a proud and intellectual species, we may be weaker in body, but our minds are highly educated and we realized how to save our planet."

Captain Arlos shifted his gaze to Khonner, who was itching to speak out against her. Muscle. Arlos merely thought to himself, knowing that Khonner didn't appreciate how he was being talked to. Regardless, he shook his head in disapproval and looked back to the woman.

"My apologies, Miarel...that is something we are to say to all new cultures we approach...you are indeed an unknown species to our own databases, and we do wish to know more, hence the two of us being sent here. We are scouts for the planet Heion." He listened to her once more...save their planet, huh? So the place above the planet was not merely just a single base...still, Arlos smiled despite her stern gaze. "I see...your planet was one we haven't been to, so knowledge of how things are done, your inhabitants, your culture, and so on aren't in our databases and nobody we've interviewed knows of this planet. We can take our ship up to the base up above, however you must understand the differences in our cultures."

Deep in space, a single cargo ship would reside. It had no lights on, and the only thing keeping the ship from seeming totally hopeless was the life support, and the distress signal that the ship let out at hourly intervals. The distress signal displayed the following message.

"Hello? My name is Bartos Karzan, I'm a member of Heion's Interplanetary Police Force. Our vessel was attacked, and I require immediate assistance! I am in the command room, please come quick..."

Afterward this, the signal distorted into static and stop, then continue an hour later. The ship floated silently in space...

Sailing through space, a small ship picked up a distress signal saying that they were under attack. Curious the man named Toh that piloted the ship decided to check out the distress signal. Changing course, he went to where the message originated from and noticed a cargo ship sailing through space. The vessel would fly around the ship looking from any means of entry while trying to contact the ship. "Hello? Does anyone come in? I have answered your call for assistance." Toh spoke.

Sukarma was badly lost, functioning only from everything over-engineered to take punishment, even while looking with her 6m compact radio telescope for pulsars. Nothing in her pulsar map matched. Where was she! Behind the sarcophagus she monitored gain analysis and signal waterfalls for teltalle marks of the neutron stars.

Then transmission harmonics and signal level of a carrier wave with broadband electrical noise decoupled her sense of 'hearing' with searing pain. She had the gain turned up a lot to hear quiet pulsars on such a small dish. After a moment to stabilize her connection to the tool mounting nexus she spooled up another small dish module to an arm to try and fix a position in space. The mounts still occilated in her head from optimization patterns disturbed by the sudden dismount.

Normally others would know how to demodulate an unknown digital signal on some channel but she just made the equipment go! At least she knew how to listen to the stars. Parallax inside her head from the other dish informed a sense of hearing that mapped into navigation. The cloud of instinctual points was definitely nearby now that the gain was turned down. Dorsal, ventral, and lateral stabilizers quieted as she stopped flexing her limited resources into them. She'd need the resources to cover over holes and run the slip drive.

The slip drive was one of the most EM-Hardened modules she had next to the emergency weaver putting parts back together. FE shielding papered over the holes in her seared hull as the slip drive perturbed normal space. Her port side was numb but the rest felt like getting sucked into a tube as the field propagated forward. Her sense of awareness widened with other pained familiar sensations pouring into her mind from the coupled space. Sensors read everything was fine but the growing spatial hysteresis throwing shadow data into her sensors. Shadows on interior cameras. Short whines of pain came from inside her sarcophagus but behind her. She didn't know how the slip drive worked but now alone it became singularly terrifying. The engine arms mounted together with a loud jostle of physical anchor and FE pressure stabilizers. Then it happened again with her avatar hearing the bang of an explosion from outside her sarcophagi. Frantic interior monitoring systems layers rained onto her consciousness but found nothing but darkness and hums from intrinsic radiometry. The engines were stable even if some of the power systems were slightly unbalanced. The ship was depressurized so there couldn't be a sound outside.

Sukarma calmed down and pointed the engines toward the radio source. The power system was well in acceptable parameters after a number of bypasses and outright replacements. There had to be an engine test sometime not just waiting here forever. She engaged the engines and slip tunnel shot off into the distance. She's relieved she doesn't have to stay in slip-space long after 10 seconds in when something knocked thrice upon her avatar's reinforced vault.

About a kilometer away from Bartos a blue blur of slip tunnel raced in to which some seconds later collapsed tail end with the slight rumble of a minor gravity pulse. Shaped like an elongated marine creature with tentacles the ship was dark blue with light blue streaks and mottle all over its surface. Eight tentacles at the front pointed forward ten meters and thirty meters of ship body behind it. A skirt at its rear relaxed organically releasing four much larger tentacles at the back containing engines. The entire port side of the ship was burnt through 10cm of organic coating. Holes could be seen through layers of armor plating and reinforced superstructure. A tentacle broke from the group of eight and expanded to reveal a small dish.

Sukarma tried to hail the other ship across multiple microwave bands and terrestrial AM/FM with the multi-band transceiver. Her young voice heard a mix of emotions at the scene, "There's someone here! Hello?! This is deep space exploration ship Sukarma with NASA. Is anyone there? Does the other ship need help?"

To any attempts at contacting it, the floating cargo ship remained in its place and didn't respond to any messages coming its way. It merely...remained in place. There were holes dotting one of its hulls signifying a battle had taken place and the ship hadn't been repaired since then. Other than this, there was a docking bay which was closed. However...as the two ships came closer, it began to open. In response to the other messages sent to the ship, there was a brief static, then the sound of a finger tapping the microphone that was broadcasting.

"H-Hello?" The voice asked, the pitch was a bit deeper than the original voice in the recording however this one sounded similar enough. "Oh...oh God, thank you..." At this being said, the transmission cut off with the docking bay still open and waiting for help.

When Toh saw the docking bay doors open, he steered his ship into the docking bay. "I am on my way, just remain calm." He spoke as he landed inside the hanger. Once inside the ship, Toh exited his ship with only a sword as his weapon. He then began to make his way through the hanger to see where everyone was on the ship.

Ion engines engaged to follow the other ship moving into the hangar. docking wasn't an option she'd just make things worse. If she was going to jump from one to the other she had to be close. Sukarma edged parallel to the docking bay doors then cut the engines to curl the arms fore to arrest her motion. The retro engine lines blew out on one side so it wasn't worth risking a spin.

Equipment layer arms peeled back the interior wall to reveal the sarcophagus. Hidden in the middle of the ship's white tile interior it is giant reinforced vault. Protecting and supporting the avatar while she slept or was otherwise unconscious.

Internal dead anchors pushed away soundless to the depressurized volume with a jolt. Sukarma was still presenting into her 1.6 meter tall avatar. The bare harried foot stumbling out quarantine FE fields turns yellow on orange. There were people out there! She looked over the interior and was glad her organic coating kept away an unhealthy green glow.

She ran over to the airlock folding open on the outside to make a concave ellipsoid space on the good side of the hull. The seal opened to her tentacle-haired form running full bore into the void. A flicker of FE field propels her at the docking bay. Arms tucked she aimed for a low angle to the floor.

Communications sprout with Sukarma's excited voice, "I can't dock but I'm coming!"

Sukarma had her field surgery unit backpack on while going in feet-first. She planned for a small skid to a stop across the hangar floor.

The ship was derelict inside of the docking bay, brown blood stains coating parts of the walls and the floor. Alongside this, there were many singed holes in the walls typically around the areas where the bloodstains were, indicating a battle of some kind took place.

Inside the docking bay and from the intercom, a voice cleared its throat as if it were going to speak, however it was cut off by static. The static disappeared again only for a crash to be heard, the person behind the intercom standing up and shouting out. "What was that?" Afterwards, it cut back to static for a few moments and then turned off...

When Toh heard the person speak before it cut off, he put a hand on his sword and began to actually run through the ship looking for the bridge of the ship. Whatever was on the ship was still here and that man was in trouble. Of course while in his rush he did not notice the second ship docking.

As Sukarma got closer to the deck then tried to stop she gains a rapid awareness that the thin brown patches that coat everything wasn't paint. Non-stick organic coating lacked much friction which sent her flying across the room toward a bulkhead brown fracturing under her feet. While she kept upright her mouth was open in a soundless scream into vacuum until pounding headfirst into an airlock upward from the other ship that docked. As Sukarma let herself in with the large buttons on the console she rubbed her head.

Airlock cycled with her exchangers inflating letting her smell the blood and ichor coating the walls. She worries to herself, "Is that blood? I guess you were right, dad."

Sukarma removes the two parts of a stacked gauss hand cannon from a her back compartments. While moving fore her hands hesitated from fear assembling the gun but she was glad EI didn't shake. She waited until her wrist's power spike into the grip made the comforting whump of charging before calling down the hall, "Hello? Is anyone there?"

She didn't recognize any of the technology but why was everything in English? Sukarma's avatar absently looked for ship network Wifi while her external form affixed patches over bullet holes she could reach in the external armor from her position by the dock. The last thing she needed was sudden depressurization when opening a door.

There was no response from the man when asked if he was there, only dead silence which was now followed by Toh's running through the ship. As he ran through the ship in search of the bridge, a faint yet audible chittering noise echoed through the halls followed by the scraping of something sharp against one of the ship's metallic walls deep within the ship.

It didn't take long for the chittering and the scraping to stop however, returning the ship to its eerie silence...

Toh stopped once he heard the chittering noise in the ship. He placed his hand on his sword and focused around his surroundings, whatever it was it was gone. Whatever was on the ship, it was probably hostile judging by the signs of battle. He soon began to walk the rest of the way to the bridge keeping his ears out for anything.

Skitters of things that lurk in the dark make Sukarma leap stark white toward a wall nearly putting a new hole in the floor from her hand cannon. Still mounted to her ship interior it was good there wasn't air there for her speakers to scream into. Thankfully the digital trigger made it harder to pull accidentally when she nearly jumped out of her coating. The veins turned black as she regained her composure and remembered to person her exchangers and thereby avatar's voice. Her breathing broke the silence with a gag at a proper lung-full of the stench of death suffusing the place.

She wanted this over quickly the fear partly driving her quick pace over the metal grating. She extended her density scanner to full range down the tunnel. It was dark here and low light eyeballs were too fragile and sensitive to put in a rugged EI frame. The density scanner read densities in a thin volume spanning the corridor five meters out. Unfortunately she'd forgotten to turn the power down and contact with flesh would feel like being momentarily microwaved if however light it may be.

The bare human-shaped feet made a distinctive loud noise on the metal but she couldn't help it -- her crew were the soldiers not her! She looked down side corridors while she went hoping not to see anything.

With the final steps taken by the samurai Toh, the creature finally revealed itself by ripping a hole through the ceiling of the ship, crashing down between him and the door that lead into the bridge. The creature was humanoid save for the mandibles which came from each cheek, a single eye bulging and having bug-like qualities as opposed to the typical human qualities possessed by the other eye. It let out a loud screech as it saw the samurai and raised its arms, scythe-like protrusions coming from its elbows and readying them like a mantis would ready its arms against the prey.

Just as the creature began lurching back and was ready to strike, the doors to the bridge opened and was followed by a shot from his laser pistol sidearm, the laser pistol ripping a hole into the infected creature's chest. This caused a sickly yellow and chunky blood to rush from its chest as it fell down, the limbs twitching as it tried to regain its composure to fight yet it was unable...

"S-shit...eugh..." The man, dressed in a vacsuit had his face and attire obscured. His voice however came through clear, and surprisingly it wasn't muffled like a suit would normally do. "I didn't want to kill it...dammit!" He looked up to the samurai, eyes narrowed for a moment wearily, he knew there was another a little further out, though he was curious as to where they were. "I'm assuming you're one of the two who came in to help me...thanks. But...you need to bring me to somewhere where I can broadcast a warning to all. The TITANs on-board this ship...they've escaped. The..." Right, the TITANs. They had been private until now, and just saying their name wouldn't make a lick of sense to someone. "One of those, but more advanced." He'd say, pointing his pistol to the still twitching creature on the ground. "You have to understand...this is incredibly important. I shouldn't have let them escape. Especially not out here. We need the other nations to know, lest these creatures evolve enough to become unstoppable."

As the creature dropped from the ceiling, Toh prepared to slice up the creature until the door behind it opened up and someone from inside shot the creature.

With the threat gone, Toh stepped over the creature and entered the room and listened to the man talk about whatever a TITAN was. Of course, he was going to help the man to wherever he can broadcast a warning to all other nations. [b]"As you wish, we would need to go to a communications room on this ship to do so. I can escort you to the best of my abilities." Toh spoke, understanding the danger.

There was enough light from the cockpit that Sukarma disabled the blue haze of her scanner before it made contact with Toh. Head tentacles sprouted several miniature flashlights whom focused on the general area around them. Behind the lights a moving band on Surkarma's flesh turns black to yellow at the sight of other people to break the extended loneliness.

Her cheerful voice sprouted a bit of dust as yellow took over black, "People! I've been so alone!"

One look at the creature shot black back up to her head the white forked pattern instead flashed yellow. A solid translucent blue plate projected in front of her to hide behind.

Eyes wide she shouts with hand cannon held crosswise on her chest, "Aaa! Is that one of the things I hear in the dark?"