“Good.” Ship Master Donaldson said. He watched the holo, as the image of the system slowly appeared. The system star was old, and its center was a brown dwarf. As it was a low mass star, they were able to exit hyperspace much deeper into the system. Brown dwarf’s aren’t really stars, rather they are stars that don’t have sufficient mass to ignite a nuclear fusion in their cores. This system had only one planet that orbited the brown dwarf in a wide orbit. Voyager came out of hyperspace very close to the planet, only a few light minutes, 120 million km away.
The holo now showed a very empty system. Only one planet, that had one moon, orbiting the systems brown dwarf.
“Navigation, take us to the planet. Let’s see if there is anything valuable down there.” Ship Master said.
The mission of Explorer ships was to map out their neighborhood. To find other habitable planets, and stellar bodies that could possibly be used for mining. They would need to send a shuttle down to the planet in order to scan more accurately. It took them about two hours to get to the planet, they placed the ship in high orbit between the planet and its moon. They sent the shuttle down to the surface to run scans.
“Ship Master, the sensors detected a light source.” Sensor Handler said.
“Where is it?”
“It was there only for a moment. It was gone too fast to determine exact position, but it was coming from the direction of the moon.” Sensor Handler said.
“Any idea what it was?” High Prime asked.
“No sir. It didn’t match anything in our databases.”
“Keep an eye on the moon then. Perhaps it was nothing.” High Prime said.
“When is the team scheduled to return?” Ship Master asked.
“In ten minutes Ship Master.” High Prime said.
Ship Master nodded, and went back to studying the holo. Soon after the shuttle team reported that there was nothing of interest on the planet, and that they were on their way back. A few minutes later they were back on board. Eric was just about to order them to the moon, when his Sensor Handler yelled out.
“Incoming weapons fire, one minute to impact!”
“Combat stations! Evasive maneuvers!” Ship Master yelled out. His High Prime immediately sounded the alarm throughout the ship. Eric looked at the holo, dozens of tracks appeared and were on an intercept course with his ship. Immediately Eric realized what had happened. The previous flash of light was the launch of missiles. He knew that they were missiles as they were accelerating. The missiles cruised unpowered until they closed the range, then their drives kicked in to take them the remaining distance. The scanners couldn’t identify the missile type. Which was no surprise, they haven’t encountered anyone in this part of space yet.
“Weapons, bring the railguns online, arm the missiles. Opal take control of defensive fire.” Ship Master said to Opal, the ship’s Ai. “High Prime I want the tracks on those missiles immediately. Find out where they came from. Sensors, active scans on our surroundings, we are obviously not alone.”
After giving the orders Eric looked at the holo. Above, the time to impact was constantly dropping. Now showing thirty seconds. He hoped that the Ai would be able to take down the missiles. He wondered how they didn’t notice them before the missiles engaged their drives, their sensors should have detected them. There were 68 of them. The missiles tracks were shown from the moment their drives kicked in, the distance they had already passed was shown in a full red line, while the projected path in a dashed red line. Voyager’s drives were slowly kicking in, but Eric knew that they wouldn’t be fast enough. It took time for them to start.
At twenty seconds to impact Voyagers four top railguns opened fire. The rate of fire was amazing. But the missiles were too close, not even Opal, an Ai, could have destroyed them all in time. Out of 68 missiles, Voyager’s railguns took down 65. Three missiles continued on their projected path.
Eric keyed his ship wide comms. “Brace for impact!” He said.
Three explosions rocked Voyager in quick succession. Internal dampeners took care of the brunt of the hit, but they could still feel the ship rock.
“Damage report!”
“Railguns 1 and 4 are no longer operational. Deck 6 is open to space. Five missing, seven injured.” High Prime said.
“Navigation get us out of here, shortest route to the hyperspace barrier. Comms inform the Fleet of what has happened.” Eric said.
“New contact! Correction two! No! Three contacts on an intercept course!” Sensor Handler said.
New contacts immediately appeared on the holo.
“What are they? More missiles?”
“No Ship Master, they are ships. They are coming in fast. Intercept in twenty minutes.”
“Get us out of here, top speed.” Eric said to his Navigation Handler. And then turned back to his Sensor Handler. “How did they get so close without us seeing them?” He demanded.
“I don’t know Ship Master.”
Voyager started accelerating out of the planets orbit, and towards the hyperspace barrier. At their top speed they would be able to get there in an hour. Eric just hoped that they survive that long.
“Ship Master, the three ships are accelerating faster than us. We won’t make it.” High Prime said.
“Try to contact them, start sending greeting messages.” Eric said.
“They had already attacked us, I don’t think that they are peaceful.” High Prime said.
“No, but the messages might confuse them. Give us time to escape.” Eric said
His High prime nodded, and started working on his holoscreen. Five minutes later, the hostile ships were still coming fast.
“Anything?” Eric asked.
“Nothing.” High Prime said.
“Target the closest ship with missiles and fire as soon as you have a lock.” Eric said.
Ten seconds later, Voyagers launch tubes opened and fifty missiles left the ship. Voyagers missiles were faster and bigger than those that their warships used back in Sol. The missiles accelerated rapidly and closed the distance quickly. The lead ship tried to evade, but human missiles were all following adjusting their course. The timer was now on three minutes to impact. They were close enough to be able to track the missiles in near real time.
“We got the images of the ships, Ship Master.” Sensor Handler said. Eric looked up to see a part of the wall turn into a screen and he saw an image of the ship. The image showed a brownish colored hull, the ship was oddly shaped. The front was pointed, rocket like, with its middle being bulky and wider than Voyager by half. The end of the ship was spread out in 7 arcs bent backwards. The ship’s weapons could be seen mounted on its hull. The computer calculated the ship’s size and displayed it above the image. It was 130 meters from tip to end of the bent arcs. Not much bigger than Voyager.
When the timer dropped to two minutes, Voyager’s missiles started exploding.
“What is happening?” Ship Master asked.
“They have engaged point defense Ship Master. It looks like lasers.” Weapons Handler said. Missile computers recognized the danger and engaged evading protocols. But by then ten missiles were already shot down. In the next two minutes, thirty eight more were taken out. Only two missiles passed through their defenses. The enemy ship had turned its side when it tried to evade the missiles. The first missile hit the front of the ship, while the second hit towards the end. Two missiles exploded. A few seconds later they got the images of the ship. The front part of the ship showed little damage, save for a large scorch mark. The end on the other hand showed a hole some two meters in radius, the ship was leaking atmosphere.
There were cheers from those present on the bridge.
Eric quickly silenced them.