The central display on the main control bridge was showing the slight blurry image of the target asteroid. There were four technicians manning sensory stations, each of them trying to descramble the readings they were receiving from the object. All while they were monitoring the progress of squad that approached the target.

Behind them were science officers, tactical officers and the second in command. The mission wasn’t considered to be of high importance, it had merely coincided with their shift patterns. That and the fact it had been sometime since anything of interest had appeared.

They would soon find out what was the secret behind the object’s interference and return to their daily routine. As they all watched the progress on the central monitor, the bridge’s doors opened behind them. A tall woman entered silently.

The commander turned to the sound of the door closing. Realising who it was he stood to attention. “Captain on the bridge.”

She nodded in acknowledgement as she crossed the room. “At ease. Status?”

“The team are completing the final velocity adjustments. They should begin the operation shortly.”

“Good.” The captain turned her attention to the central display. The status of the Wraiths and their crew were listed at the edges of the screen. They began to flicker. “What’s the meaning of that?”

The closest science officer tilted his head as he thought to answer. “The interference from the object. It seems to affect everything, except visual contact.”

“Is there a chance we lose contact with the team?”

“It’s a possibility, at the moment it only seems to be intermittently affecting the long range comms.”

As the science officer spoke, one of the technicians spun his chair. “The team have reached the target.”

The central display magnified the image of the object. The three wraiths were now visible on screen. One of them could be seen heading down towards the object. Just as it was completing the approach the wraith’s status went red. A message flashed across space that had displayed its detail, it read “signal lost.”

A flicker of concern crossed the captain’s face. “What happened?”

The technician tapped away on his display double checking his readings before answering. “It appears to be interference as it reached the surface. As far as I can tell, the craft is still intact.”

Almost as soon as they had finished explaining, a warning message flashed up for a moment at the centre of the display.

[TRANFIGURATION PARTICLES DETECTED]

Then it disappeared.

“Confirmation?” The captain shouted.

The technician was frantically checking the sensory array. “I can’t confirm. The alert was issued by the emergency system. There’s no record in the sensory log, just a zero point six second alert. The readings never appeared in the main system. It’s probably just an artifact.”

“Patch us through to the lieutenant.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Static sound, interspersed with garbled sentences played over the bridge’s loudspeaker.

“We’ve lost contact ma’am.”

[TRANSFIGURATION PARTICLES DETECTED]

The technician looked up from his display in a panic. “Readings confirmed!”

Everyone on the bridge knew exactly what the readings meant.

The captain had a look of utter seriousness. “Launch relay drones!”

“Yes ma’am. There’s no guarantee they will cut through the interference.”

“I know.”

“Drones launched. Two minutes until link established.”

The drones unhindered by fleshy components were able to accelerate at much higher Gs than the wraiths with their human pilots.

The entire senior team on the bridge were checking displays, double checking readings and coming up with countermeasures to offer the captain as they waited for the link to be established.

A green light lit up in front of the technician. “Link established.”

 

 

 

The two wraiths that had been in stationary orbit above the rouge asteroid pulled away. Both were able to avoid the debris hurled out into space from the explosion down below.

As soon as Dwight had conducted his emergency manoeuvre, he yelled over the comm. “Get the hell out there Aron!”

“I’m…” Static “…fired but...” Static “…unresponsive…” Then the channel went dead.

Dwight magnified the visual on Aron’s wraith. It was still intact, but the legs of the craft were held to the surface by a growth that was expanding from the asteroid. The ship’s thrusters were firing but it wasn’t budging an inch.

Vicky had been watching too, she had only seen it in training files, but she recognised what was happening instantly. “That’s the blight. The wraith is being absorbed!”

Dwight knew only too well.

“I know what it is!”

Without giving it a second thought, he targeted his wraith’s particle cannon on the legs of Aron’s wraith. He fired. The craft’s refraction field sent the beam in all directions, then it failed. The legs were severed just above the blight and the craft pulled up from the surface.

As soon it moved, several tentacle like protrusions shot up from the surface. They tangled around the wraith and pulled it back down towards the asteroid. It was slammed into the surface. As it was the ground around it seemed to open, then pull the wraith within.

Mary screamed over the comm. “Aron!!”

Dwight winced as he watched on, helpless. “Keep your distance!”

The last thing he wanted was for Mary to get caught up as well.

She thought the urge to rush in and help Aron. “What the hell is that thing?”

“It’s a visitor.”

“What? Out here!”

“Yes. You saw the blighting. There’s no other explanation.”

There was a loud burst of static in both of their cockpits, and then captain spoke over the comm.

“We’re getting some worrying readings up here. What’s going on down there?” Despite the situation she spoke as calm and levelly as always.

Dwight knew he had to do the same. “Visitor confirmed. One fatality.”

“Are the rest of squad intact?”

“Yes.”

There was a two second silence while the captain considered her options. “Engage and destroy.”

“But captain…”

“That’s an order!”

“Yes ma’am.”

Mary opened a private channel to Dwight. “We can’t do this Aron is still down there.”

He felt the same sentiment, but he already knew what the truth was. “Aron is dead.” There was no hint of the emotions he felt in his response.

The sound of her hitting the wraith’s controls, could be heard over the comm before she responded. “But you don’t know that! We might still…”

“He’s dead. Our only chance is to try and destroy that thing while it’s still distracted absorbing the wraith. You heard the captain. We put distance between us, and it then we engage.”

“Yessir.”

Both wraiths did a burn and pulled away to a greater distance from the visitor. Like Dwight had hoped, it didn’t seem to follow their movements, for now.

Dwight looked over his shoulder to his co pilot. “What’s the chances of us destroying that thing with what we’re carrying Vicky?”

She was already assessing their chances from the limited data they had. “I can’t confirm its full size. There is still too much interference for an accurate reading.”

“Just give me an estimate!”

“If both wraiths launch all missiles in a single strike, I estimate the chances will be less than fifty percent.”

“Less than fifty percent… Okay…”

He knew they were down on firepower with one of their team missing, but still hoped their chances would be higher.

Dwight quicky ran through their options, then he gave the order. “Mary prepare to launch all missiles, then conduct a ten G burn towards Palehost.”

“Yessir.”

Dwight targeted the object and readied the arsenal. “On my mark.”

“Yessir.”

“Fire!”

Both wraiths launched the first round of high yield nuclear missiles. Five missiles were ejected from each side of the crafts. Their engines fired up and they hung in the space in front of the wraiths. The second round were launched, just as soon as the first had cleared the wraiths.

The first round shot towards the target at a blistering speed, passing the giant rock and then turning back on themselves as the second round reached them. Twenty missiles had now orientated themselves in every direction around the still unresponsive object. They then made the final descent to the asteroid and exploded.

Seeing the impact Dwight shouted. “Initiate burn!”

The antimatter drives fired up and the two wraiths shot away from the asteroid at high velocity. Ten G was uncomfortable for both pilots, it was approaching the limits of what their bodies could take. A minute like this felt like a long time.

After the flash from the explosion, Dwight pulled up the visual feed and tried to observe the object. The debris cloud made it almost impossible to tell if the strike had been successful. The engines ran down and the wraiths returned to a constant velocity.

Dwight took in a deep breath. “Vicky, tell me we destroyed it.”

“I can’t confirm.”

“What?”

“Whatever was causing the interference, has now been spread over a wide area.”

“Shit… We’ve failed! Initiate constant burn at four G until I give further instruction.”

The comm opened, with Mary’s laboured breathing easily audible. “But I haven’t returned to baseline since the first burn!” She complained.

“That’s an order.”

The engines on both wraiths fired up once again. Putting distance between the blast site and them at an ever increasing rate. Dwight was nervously eyeing the display, as they pulled away from the explosion site.

Then the captain opened a channel. “What’s the status of the object?”

“I can’t confirm. We don’t have a visual, and the sensors are blind…”

The voices of the other officers on the bridge could be heard expressing their concern in the background after Dwight spoke.

The captained listened before voicing their concerns. “You’re leaving the area before confirming the kill?”

“Yes. We’ve spent our entire nuclear loadout. If the target is intact, we won’t be able to destroy it with the particle cannons alone. I deemed it unsafe for us to remain.”

There was silence on the comm channel as the captain thought. “Very well, fall back. Update me the moment there’s a change in the situation.”

“Yes ma’am.”

The channel closed.

The private channel from Mary opened again. “You can’t seriously think that it will be able to come after us, after that?”

“I do. Look, you’ve never faced them before.”

“We’ve all trained in the sims and studied the previous encounters from the war.”

“It’s not the same. If anything remained after that blast it will begin reforming itself. We need to be as far away as possible before it decides to come after us.”

“It could take hours to reform an object that size.”

“That’s if we’re lucky.”

The conversation was cut off by an alarm, accompanied by a warning message.

[HIGH DENSITY ENERGY DISCHARGE DETECTED]

Dwight already knew before he checked the screens, where the origin of the signal was. The sensors were showing an energy burst at the asteroid site. His eyes were glued to the visual feed. His worst fears became reality as an unidentified object shot through the debris cloud. Its trajectory was immediately calculated. It was on an intercept course with the two wraiths.

Mary’s panicked voice came over the comm. “How is that even possible?”

Dwight checked the readout. The object pursuing them was under half the mass of the original asteroid. “It’s only reformed a portion of itself, so it could give chase.” He had seen this tactic before.

The readout flashed up with the approximate interception time. They had two minutes before it reached them if they didn’t alter their velocity.

Mary panicked as she read the projection. “It’s going to catch us!”

Dwight made a split second decision and shouted out a series of instructions. “Conduct twelve G burn for twenty seconds. Then switch to ten G for a minute, then reduce to five constant.”

Both the wraith’s engines lit up as they accelerated. The distance between them and the pursuing object was still decreasing, even as they hit twelve G. The first burn finished, they slowed to ten Gs of acceleration. The gap between them and it begun to decrease even faster.

Dwight looked at his display, he knew things were dire. “Vicky give me a firing solution for both particle cannons and open a channel to the captain.”

Vicky responded calmly. “Calculating solution. Channel open.”

“Captain?”

“We’re aware of the situation.”

“It’s only a matter of time until it catches us. The best we can hope for it to slow it down a little. Without support, we’re dead.”

“I’m aware. Hold your course and await instruction.”

“Yes ma’am.”

 

 

The situation on the bridge was one of panic. Nothing like this had appeared in a little over three centuries. Not since the end of the war. Half the members on the bridge hadn’t lived through those events. They had trained for a scenario like this, but the real thing came with emotions that the sims didn’t reproduce.

The commander and the captain had both been on Palehost, as it left the home system. They had lived through many situations such as this one.

The captain calmly turned to the commander. “Give me our options.” If she was worried, it wasn’t present in her voice.

He glanced at the options the bridge team had prepped. “We could launch five wraith teams. The computer estimates they would have enough firepower to destroy the off shoot and the mother asteroid. However, they wouldn’t reach the surviving team members, before interception.”

“What else do we have?”

“We could launch a planet destroyer, but by the time it reached the target the team, it would be too close for the, to escape the blast zone.”

She flicked her wrist dismissively. “Next.”

“The main particle cannon. A full power, wide beam blast should be able to vaporise the target… But from estimates of that thing’s speed and manoeuvrability, there’s a high probability it would be able to dodge the beam.”

“How long until the cannon is charged?”

“One minute.”

The corner of her mouth lifted with a hint of smile. “We’ll start with that option. Open a channel to the team and have the wraith pilots prepare for launch. We’ll have them wait on standby.”

“Yes ma’am.”