Hyperspatial Travel
02-03-2009, 12:08
Stars drift lazily across the night sky, and the faint sound of laughter echoes from hill to hill.
In the clearing below, two lovers sit, watching the twinkling lights that indicate the Realm Navy's stalwart protection. One reaches out a hand, as if to grasp at the starship. He laughs.
"My love, this is far too beautiful a night to spend outdoors like this. We should be doing more.. interesting things."
She looks across at him, face veiled by a shadow.
"Perhaps. But for now, I would like to look at the stars. They make me feel safe."
Hyperion is a beautiful world, verdant and green beyond the imaginations of most of the inner-worlders, as of yet untouched by human hands. To some, it is a paradise. In the cities, mostly along the now-dark side of the world, almost all are asleep. In the vast automated farming-complexes that sit in nigh-eternal daylight, redirected by thousands of mirrors, thousands are already hard at work, producing the food the world needs.
A single star in the night sky moves perhaps a little faster than the others.
The man smiles.
"That would be the Flame of the Faith, the only dreadnought this far from the Core. Apparently, the Clans have been posturing lately. It's never anything important, but GovCentral likes to make sure that they know to keep in line."
"Politics?"
The girl giggles.
"You have me here, at this time of night, and you're talking about ship deployments?"
The man looks up again. The star is blazing brightly, eclipsing several others in the sky.
"That's odd. The only reason a ship would need to burn that much energy is if-"
A klaxon blares.
"The hell is that thing? Is it Mekantan?"
"Not on any of our databases, sir. Doesn't match slave-ships, standard ships-of-the-line, and it's.. big."
"I know that. Its goddamn sensors are pulsing our shields. How's the annihilation plant going?"
"Running at one hundred percent. We can't generate this much heat for long. We're accelerating at the maximum speed we can push this close to a planet. Don't want to vent plasma onto a city."
"How's the rest of the fleet?"
"Missiles are being manned. We're firing x-ray lasers, but they're not really having much of an appreciable effect."
The wailing ceases, and all attention is fixed on a tiny translucent screen on the wall.
"We're in relative formation, moving in half-sphere to intercept. Some ships are going in on a suicide run to try and take this thing out up-close. Acceleration is uniform across the inner fleet, the outer wings are going to try and close in on it from all sides."
The screen blinks, and a tiny green dot disappears.
"What the fuck was that?"
"That, sir, was the Jominian Wrath. We've lost comms with her. We're reading an abnormal amount of energy emitting from her position. Assuming she's downed."
"That was a goddamn destroyer! Those things are built to last!"
"Let's just hope that kill can be chalked down to non-union labour, then."
The captain looks over at the screen, watching intently.
"We're not even in range, yet. The chances are good it'll evade anything we try and hit it with."
"Yessir."
Two more green dots blink out. Then a third.
"What were they?"
"Two cruisers and a battleship, sir. It's targeting the main ships in the battlegroup. It's probably assuming that the smaller ships don't have enough firepower to hit at it once they pass it, or even while they're close."
"We're in the middle of those four ships, weren't we?"
"Yessir, but I don't see-"
The world is enveloped in white fire, and then it is dark.
On the planet below, stars wink out one by one, their brightly-burning forms extinguished by a horror as dark as night.
"Kiss me."
"What?"
"Kiss me before we die. I know you want to!"
The man looks up at the sky, shivers, and turns to his lover for a final kiss.
They are not granted even that.
In the clearing below, two lovers sit, watching the twinkling lights that indicate the Realm Navy's stalwart protection. One reaches out a hand, as if to grasp at the starship. He laughs.
"My love, this is far too beautiful a night to spend outdoors like this. We should be doing more.. interesting things."
She looks across at him, face veiled by a shadow.
"Perhaps. But for now, I would like to look at the stars. They make me feel safe."
Hyperion is a beautiful world, verdant and green beyond the imaginations of most of the inner-worlders, as of yet untouched by human hands. To some, it is a paradise. In the cities, mostly along the now-dark side of the world, almost all are asleep. In the vast automated farming-complexes that sit in nigh-eternal daylight, redirected by thousands of mirrors, thousands are already hard at work, producing the food the world needs.
A single star in the night sky moves perhaps a little faster than the others.
The man smiles.
"That would be the Flame of the Faith, the only dreadnought this far from the Core. Apparently, the Clans have been posturing lately. It's never anything important, but GovCentral likes to make sure that they know to keep in line."
"Politics?"
The girl giggles.
"You have me here, at this time of night, and you're talking about ship deployments?"
The man looks up again. The star is blazing brightly, eclipsing several others in the sky.
"That's odd. The only reason a ship would need to burn that much energy is if-"
A klaxon blares.
"The hell is that thing? Is it Mekantan?"
"Not on any of our databases, sir. Doesn't match slave-ships, standard ships-of-the-line, and it's.. big."
"I know that. Its goddamn sensors are pulsing our shields. How's the annihilation plant going?"
"Running at one hundred percent. We can't generate this much heat for long. We're accelerating at the maximum speed we can push this close to a planet. Don't want to vent plasma onto a city."
"How's the rest of the fleet?"
"Missiles are being manned. We're firing x-ray lasers, but they're not really having much of an appreciable effect."
The wailing ceases, and all attention is fixed on a tiny translucent screen on the wall.
"We're in relative formation, moving in half-sphere to intercept. Some ships are going in on a suicide run to try and take this thing out up-close. Acceleration is uniform across the inner fleet, the outer wings are going to try and close in on it from all sides."
The screen blinks, and a tiny green dot disappears.
"What the fuck was that?"
"That, sir, was the Jominian Wrath. We've lost comms with her. We're reading an abnormal amount of energy emitting from her position. Assuming she's downed."
"That was a goddamn destroyer! Those things are built to last!"
"Let's just hope that kill can be chalked down to non-union labour, then."
The captain looks over at the screen, watching intently.
"We're not even in range, yet. The chances are good it'll evade anything we try and hit it with."
"Yessir."
Two more green dots blink out. Then a third.
"What were they?"
"Two cruisers and a battleship, sir. It's targeting the main ships in the battlegroup. It's probably assuming that the smaller ships don't have enough firepower to hit at it once they pass it, or even while they're close."
"We're in the middle of those four ships, weren't we?"
"Yessir, but I don't see-"
The world is enveloped in white fire, and then it is dark.
On the planet below, stars wink out one by one, their brightly-burning forms extinguished by a horror as dark as night.
"Kiss me."
"What?"
"Kiss me before we die. I know you want to!"
The man looks up at the sky, shivers, and turns to his lover for a final kiss.
They are not granted even that.