Location; Borealis class carrier:

Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk. The sound of heavy boots slapping the floor permeates throughout the area of the ship that was currently being investigated, a recon vessel from U.N.E, the Chimera, lay just outside of the heavy metal door that was blown out with a large quantity of explosives. To the right of the group moving forward is a U.N.E. poster with the inscription, “JOIN U.N.E. TODAY, PROTECT YOUR PLANET FROM THE KNEALL THREAT.” This ship seemed to have been commissioned by the U.N.E. for a short time. The group continued past the poster towards the next room, it seemed to be a loft of some sort. It had chairs and couches along with a large T.V. with an error message reading, “LOST CONNECTION, ATTEMPTING TO RECONNECT.” A body floated past the T.V. it was still fresh, it hadn’t been long since this carrier was ravaged by enemy turrets. After a while they once again, continued forward.

“Captain.” A member of the group finally spoke.

“Yes?” Was the response from someone now identified as the captain.

“The stairwell down to the fighter bay and the stairwell up to the command deck are over here.”

“I’ll be there in a second.” The captain was currently trying to identify what had happened to the ship for it to end up like this, they had only received the distress signal hours earlier, it was a carrier after all, it should’ve been able to hold up for more than a few hours, they were only sent forward since the distress signal stopped, which means it or the ship had been destroyed and U.N.E didn’t want to risk to many ships so they sent a smaller vessel out first to see what happened before sending in bigger ships. “We need to find the blackbox and find out what happened here, also Hodge and Lincoln, go check out the reactor room will ya?”

“Will do.” They both responded, they went down the stairwell towards the engine room, it was past the fighter bay into the front end of the ship which was the most heavily shielded so it could more easily block blasts coming from the front, which was more likely to happen than from the side.

“Alright, let’s head up the command deck first, try and see if there are any survivors.” The Captain shouted out. As they walked up the stairs towards the command deck they saw body after body, the amount increasing as they went up the stairs. They suspected no one had survived.

They finally entered the Command center only to find a shattered frontal window and no survivors, all the equipment had been shot to pieces and the internal hardware just lay outside of their containers. One member of the group slid his hand across the bare software and inspected it, it seemed to have been mangled up from shots outside of the ship, Kneall are the suspected perpetrators, although pirates could have ambushed them too, all members of the crew who were in that area when it was destroyed were floating around, some were stuck to the wall due to objects pinning them there, though. Another member of the group shone his flashlight into one of the dead crew's eyes trying to ascertain if the crew member was really dead, no changes to their pupil were observed, they were dead.

Around 30 minutes had passed in the command deck filled with the members of the group looking around and trying to see if they could find any clues as to what type of ship attacked the carrier, at this time though Hodge and Lincoln came back up and broke the bad news that no one wanted to hear, it was one of their only ways to know what happened, “Captain, the blackbox was blown up during the assault on the ship.”

“Damn it.” The captain was distraught, they would now have to rely on the camera footage from inside the ship which didn’t help to find who did this at all. “Carter, turn on the security footage for this room, I think we may be able to see outside of the windows and find out who did this.”

“Yes sir.” Carter responded. He proceeded to turn on the footage which showed multiple Kneall Punishers and one Kneall Decimator, so multiple Kneall battleships and one Kneall dreadnought, this could easily destroy a carrier of this size. A fleet of that size was uncommon and should be dealt with immediately. 

“This is… troubling. A fleet of this size shouldn’t be left alone. When we get back on the ship, inform High command. I hope this doesn’t turn into something bigger than it should be.”

They began walking down towards the hangar, Hodge and Lincoln barely looked around before making their way towards where the black box should’ve been so they didn’t know much about down here. A dismembered arm floated past the group, and then a body. They looked around slowly at all of the fighters that were blown up, barely any were able to leave the hangar and the ones that did had their cockpits blown to smithereens. It was a gruesome sight to see it all, all the carnage and destruction was too much for some of the newer members.

“The hangar should be heavily shielded, how did they manage to blast through it?” One member stated, with a confused tone.

“New technology.” The captain said, in a solemn manner. He continued to say, “Let’s keep going towards the front of the ship, that should have something new that was recently implemented to gather more information about the weapons used on our ships, the amount of voltage in the energy weapons and what the kinetic weapons shot out, didn’t think we’d have to use it.”

The group made their way through all the debris that lay scattered about the hallways, the front seemed to be more damaged, most likely due to the alien aggressors focusing their weaponry on the hangar first to destroy all the fighters, which there were 8 of. And since they were probably firing right off the bat they must have hit the front the most as they warped right in front of the ship from what the security footage showed them.

Everyone finally entered the room with the supposed new weapon analyzer. They found a terminal that was ingrained into the ship and then picked it up. It seemed to be the analyzer that the Captain was talking about. Someone from the group approached it and put a USB into a slot on it. The screen flashed on and data started scrolling down the screen while the group anxiously waited for it all to finish downloading, no one likes to be on a ship that could be attacked again, after all the aliens hadn’t left too long ago. Beep. It had finished downloading, the member who had plugged in the USB quickly snatched it back and they all started walking back to the Chimera.

After they had made it back they sent out a message that it was safe to come in and also sent all the information they had gathered back to U.N.E and also the warning of the fleet roaming around so a hunting party would be formed, with freelance factions or U.N.E’s own ships.

2 U.N.E Judgment class dreadnaughts warped in along with 4 U.N.E Sovereign class battleships, 1 U.N.E Stormbringer class carrier, and 8 Chimera class destroyers, no Super Capitals were available at the time. They had warped in to recover the ship and make sure that if the Kneall come back they would be obliterated.

Imahermit

Please comment on what you think of this, I would love some feedback or compliments I guess. Also check the glossary, I explain what and who the factions are as they appear in the short stories.

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