2254, Twenty-third day of the fifth month of the Red Star, Third Age:

It’s been a long journey, the nights are endless up here among the stars. I’m told our destination is nearly in sight. Eshra Seven is a class A world on the fringes of explored space. What I saw on the surveys showed a lovely picturesque landscape. Lush forests, wide gentle rivers, calm oceans, and vast fields of untamed grasses. The current status is uncolonized, but the survey crew did build a few outposts. It will be a welcome world for a fresh start, especially in light of what happened with Mizu’s father. The cursed bastard took the whole planet in the fucking divorce may his rotting soul burn in the thrice-cursed Abyss where it belongs.

Issues aside, at least I still have young Mizu with me. I fear what her rotten father would have done if he had managed to keep custody of her. Especially given what happened before this whole rotten affair. I could really use that fresh start. Maybe a nice little house on a hill, perhaps with a little forest and a nice little river in the backyard. I can have a nice vegetable garden and Miku can have a treehouse like she always wanted. I know a couple of nice people on the ship that could build her a nice one, they used to be carpenters back on the homeworld. 

She paused in her writing when a voice said, “Mommy?”

The woman looked over and smiled at the figure of her daughter standing in the doorway, wearing that nice little nightgown she got on her birthday last year. It looked very cute on Mizu. Mizu had just recently passed 90 cm tall, she had long light blue hair with shimmering gold highlights flowing down her back. Poking out of her hairline were a pair of cute pointed ears. The girl had lovely emerald eyes, her skin was a pale cream with silvery flecks in it. Behind her swung two super-fluffy tails the same pattern as her hair. Like most of their kind, her daughter Mizu only had hair on her head and her two tails.

“Hey, sweetie? Couldn’t sleep?”

Miku nodded but said nothing.

The woman smiled and gestured for her to come closer. Soon she pulled her daughter into a hug and began to rub her back. “It’s okay. Was it another bad dream?”

Mizu nodded into the woman’s breasts. It felt a little weird as it always did, but she ignored it. Mizu needed her. Ever since the incident with her father, she’d been having nightmares. Something the woman hoped would pass. With a new start just around the corner, it seemed like soon her daughter would have something else to occupy her thoughts. With that in mind she tapped the monitor, saving and setting aside her journal entry. In moments images of their new home to be were on the monitor. The woman began to tell her daughter everything she had learned about it. Together they cuddled, talking about a new future as the wee hours of the endless night passed.

---

Niase Sector, system unknown:

“Status report!” barked the young captain, not entirely pleased with his crew. This ship was brand new and cost him his life savings. If they had broken it he would have them all skinned and hung by their ankles.

“Main systems coming back online now, nav system appears to be malfunctioning. It seems to think we are in the Niase Sector.”

Someone else commented, “Impossible, that’s over a hundred lightyears away.”

“Not unless that turbulence was us slamming into a wormhole.”

The captain glared, “How does the ship look?”

“Everything else reads green, aside from a minor coolant leak on deck six and a blown power relay on deck nine. Damage control teams are already working to fix the damage.”

That didn’t sound too bad. So he felt himself relax a bit, “Confirm our position.”

The crew worked before saying, “nav computer is refusing to spit out exact coordinates but it does seem to still think we are in the Niase Sector. I’m picking up a star .8 lightyears distant. Thirteen planets, over four hundred moons. Bioscanners confirm a double planet in the third orbit, both habitable.”

The captain blinked, twin habitable planets in the same orbit was not common, but it wasn’t so rare to be unheard of. Usually it was a case of a planet and a large moon sharing life-supporting characteristics, but a double planet meant that they were two equally large bodies orbiting a common point in the middle. If this one wasn’t on the charts, it could be worth a fortune. Maybe his luck was going up?

“Any sign of a claim? Survey beacons, or infrastructure?”

“No, sir.”

He smiled, “Set course for that double planet!”

His crew nodded and complied. Some of them seemed as excited as he was about the prospect. A planet like this was the opportunity of a lifetime, he could get back more than triple what he spent on his ship just for a survey. More if it was uncharted, and that was just for starters.

He spent the entire flight daydreaming about what it could mean as they drew near to the planet. As they came into orbit someone looked up, “New contact sir. Energy vortex, distance 230,000 Kilometers. Looks like a conduit of some kind,” they frowned, “Something is coming through it.”

“On screen! Magnify.”

A moment later a swirling purple energy vortex appeared on the screen as the metal point of a ship emerged. It was long, slender and elegant in its simplicity. The main mass appeared to be a spear in the center of two triangular wings mounted on the same axis but offset by 90 degrees. He hadn’t seen a ship like this one.

“Identify!”

“Hull configuration unknown, I’ve never seen anything like it. The computer isn’t recognizing the ship. I’m not seeing any markings on the hull either. Nothing to tell us who made it or who it belongs to.”

Before they could do more, several alerts rang. “Energy build-up, they have just raised shields and seem to be charging weapons,” reported one of his officers.”

“Raise shields,” he responded, not too worried. He had bought a good ship. Top-of-the-line shields, military-grade weapon systems and most importantly she was advertised as being the fastest line of cruisers on the market. Able to outrun just about everything in space. If these aliens proved too troublesome, he figured they could just run.”

“We are being hailed,”

“Let’s see what they have to say.”

“As soon as the transmission started, the aliens were speaking, “Titari vessel, lower your shields and prepare to be boarded. Do not resist.”

He laughed while idly playing with one of his horns, “How fun! Pirates, Luda, blast them.”

His tactical officer smiled, and activated the cannons. Orange energy bolts flared off the hull and slammed into the alien shields. The young man expected them to crumble instantly, but instead, they held. The aliens returned fire, several energy pulses slammed into his own shields.

“Shields buckling captain!” came a shout from the tactical console.

“Evasive maneuvers! Return fire!”

The ship began to buck and weave at the discretion of the helmsman as his cannons fired into the alien shields with no apparent effect. Nothing was getting through, and the shields didn’t seem to be weakening. It was likely they were invincible.

Another blast hit the shields of his cruiser and this time they didn’t stay up, “Shields have failed!”

“Get us out of here!”

“Sorry sir, they are jamming the drive!”

Another pulse hit them, the lights flickered. “Direct hit, no apparent damage. Minor disruption to main power.

The ship shook, and the lights flickered again, “Could someone do something about those lights? Helm new course, one six mark two eight, maximum sublight.”

“Aye, sir!”

The engines hummed as the ship swung onto a new heading. Avoiding an energy pulse in the process as she sped up. Since they couldn’t jump away he was going to outrun them the old-fashioned way. Then once he got home he was going to give his father an earful about letting pirates get their hands on high-grade weapons and defense systems. That ship was ridiculous, by all rights it should be dust not still shooting at him.

His thoughts didn’t last for long before the lights flickered again. “I said to do something about those...”

He trailed off when the ship shuddered and went dark. Even the hum of the engines went out. For a moment there was silence and then he shouted, “Can someone get the lights back on and why aren’t the engines humming.”

“Sir? We’ve lost all power. The consoles are dead,” a bang and someone else shouted, “Damn it!”

A moment after that a clicking sound and then someone produced a light, shouting, “Found the emergency gear!”

The ship shuddered, with a clanking metal sound.  Then came the sound of a boarding tube cutting its way through their hull.

“Suits!  Everybody into their suits, now!” screamed the first officer, unlike the others he’d had some combat experience and knew what was coming.  He snapped his helmet into position, and closed the visor.

“What’s going on?!” demanded the captain, “Why are we getting into our suits?”

“Sir, I regret to inform you that we are currently being boarded.”  The first officer cursed that the captain had forced him to keep his rifle in his quarters.  He reached under his console and pulled the blaster free, checking it and holstering it.

A moment later someone pulled the manual alarm setting off the back up klaxons to signal general quarters and let people know to arm themselves.

Gerald looked back at his small group.  There were 4 of them in total.  They’d heard the klaxon and grabbed their weapons.  Now they were on their way to fight pirates.  Gerald was already thinking of the tales he’d be telling others in the bar later that night.  They turned the corner into the corridor where an alien boarding shuttle had cut through the hull, and huddled behind bulkheads, trying to get a glimpse of the invaders through the smoke and dim lighting.

Gerald saw something moving in the smoke and got a shot off.  He didn’t see or hear it hit anything, but a small black disc came skimming along the floor towards them.  It stopped in the middle of them and just sat there.  They looked at it curiously for a moment.  The disc exploded with deafening force.

Gerald was lying on the floor.  His body didn’t seem to want to work, and he had a nasty headache.  At least the klaxon had stopped even if the emergency lights were still on.  A hoof silently landed next to him, with a thick armored leg above it.  He looked up to see a Titari man standing above him, a weapon aimed at him. The man’s eyes seemed blank, where one would expect the fur typical of a man was instead sleek alien armor. Only his face was really visible and his thick horns. At least his skin looked like the normal green that was typical of a Titari. The man fired and Gerald was greeted with darkness.

---

The captain smiled when someone managed to get the consoles back up. Sadly most of the power was still down, but they now had some power. Allowing them to restore the internal security system and sensors.

“Captain Sir, we have intruders on deck 2 section 14, video is coming in now.”

The captain turned to one of the monitors and saw a few Titari and other species working together. All of them men in strange metal armor. Many of them seemed to have had their arms replaced with strange weapons. His security teams had largely been dealt with and now the crew was panicking. New aliens were coming behind the first to collect the still-breathing bodies of his crew. Leaving him to wonder what they were doing. Not that he had long to wait. As new reports were coming in for other breaches in other sections of the ship.

Suddenly a glow and sparks started flying from the main door into the bridge. It lasted only moments before alien troops started pouring onto the bridge. The first officer started firing as alien disks were launched into the room. The first ones in the room projecting shields that absorbed the fire from the few officers with weapons. The disks suddenly exploded in a flash of light and sound. Next thing he knew, he wasn’t on his bridge.