NationStates Jolt Archive

Prologue

An object that seemed almost stony spun through the endless void of space. It had been spinning so for over a million years. Its conch-like shape was pitted and scarred by micrometeoroids that had impacted it down the centuries. Before it, the shape of a sun, still cold and distant loomed.

Something approached it, permuting it minutely with its gravity, and it was categorised. ‘Hive Ship, status Dormant, Unknown Hive Fleet.’

A few years later, that information worked its way back to an authority and it was catalogued as a member of ‘Hive Fleet Nathicana’

It didn’t have time to awaken in the dim light of the galactic fringe before it hit something that, to its sluggish, cold-dulled senses, seemed like it came out of nowhere.

It ploughed through the misty atmosphere of the gas giant, its energy blasting most of its heavy, accrued deep-space armour away from it in a pulse of light and radiation that created a plume of ejected gas that rapidly reached a dozen light minutes, turning the point of light that was the planet into a

But the malicious alteration to its course, which had brought it into this system, flying through the void toward a destination it hadn’t intended, had been miscalculated by a tiny fraction of a degree. Rather than crashing into the gas giant, it went through it, having lost most of its speed.

Instead, it was now, almost by freak chance, awakening, slowing. Not slowing fast enough to avoid its destination, but enough to make a ‘landing’ there.

That destination; a small world called Archon IV…

Archon IV is not really important. There are some outsystem miners and some farmers, and, of course, a Sisters of Liberty Fortress-Monastery. The Federal government sends in tax collectors on a regular basis, and pretends to care when they disappear. The usual in the Outer colonies. Allaneans love it.

One of those mining ships is a Profit-class vessel, with lots of mods of course. Visualize a giant saucer with engines attached, and with dozens of various attachments for mining, drilling, towing, and so forth, some rusty, some dirty, some scratched. Her name is Samantha. Mostly because the current owner can't be made to care enough to rename it after buying.

The current owner is a Dohwar, and his girlfriend's name is Kreek-wheek-nag. It doesn't matter. His name is Leeg-neek, and that doesn't matter either – except that Leeg-neek is about to enter history.

Under Allanean law, the first man to discover a new alien civilisation gets a reward from the government, large enough to retire and never work again. And right there, hovering in space, is retirement, for the owner of the Samantha and her entire crew – three humans, an orc, and a Valaquine.

“Okay, fellees, let's makee thees one count.” - he says in his Dohwar accent, and the saucer shifts its direction of travel. He begins broadcasting the Standard Alien Contact Signals – they're prerecorded on the Samantha's onboard computer – followed by the simple English: “Hey, guys, welcome to Allanean space. We're gonna be docking you, okay?”

The ship approaches.

“You think it's dead?”

“If it is, we can still gain a reward, you know.” - the orc reasons - “And salvage rights. Think we could drill a hole and board her?”