1. Where are we?

A Chapter by Sahreinah

Our friends are attacked, and the enemy has a bigger ship. A split-second decision is made.

"Where are we?"

A space adventure featuring Acclamator, StProphet, MaddenChan, Grizzli and PyRock.

A loud bang accompanied by a wave of violent shaking woke Prophet from his sleep. Confusion hit him for a second, but he quickly overcame it and got out of bed. Another bang and another wave of shaking threw him to the floor. A crude curse in Russian slipped from his lips as he struggled to his feet, grabbing his clothes in the process. He quickly put them on and rushed out the door, heading towards the Bridge. Turning a corner, he almost ran into Grizzli.

"What's happening?" Prophet asked.

"We're under attack," Grizzli answered, "the captain needs you!"

Prophet briefly watched him scurry off down the corridor before continuing to the bridge.

"Prophet, we need to return fire immediately! Take out their shields and aim for their weapons compartment." Acc was pulling Madden up from the floor while he gave the order.

"Yes, Captain." Prophet hurried to his seat and activated the weapon systems.

"Wait, Captain, that's a Ta'Shi vessel of war," PyRock stated matter-of-factly.

"And?" Acc turned to look at the scientist.

"Their ships are completely different from the junkyard creations of the Federation Rebels. Since they value combat ability above all else, their weapons compartment is located in the very center of their ships and is protected by an internal energy shield."

"Then what the f**k do you suggest we do?" Acc's voice was starting to sound desperate, and there was a slight hint of underlying panic.

"We run." In the midst of all chaos, PyRock was surprisingly calm. Acc locked eyes with him for just a moment, but that was all he needed to regain his composure and put his stubbornness aside.

"Madden, get us out of here," he commanded.

"Yes, sir!" Madden turned to her panels and entered the coordinates of the nearest safe zone.

Acc contacted Grizzli over the comms and was about to tell him to prepare for a jump into hyperspace when the ship's warning system started beeping erratically.

"Missiles incoming! Brace for impact!" Prophet barely had time to warn the others before the first missile collided with their shield and exploded with such force that the ship violently jerked to the side, causing all crew members to lose their footing and end up on the floor. The second missile hit a second later, completely obliterating what was left of their defenses.

Acc was the first one on his feet, checking the systems and assessing the situation.

"Hull breach. Shutting down sectors 6, 7 and 8. We can't take another hit."

The warning system went off again, indicating that another set of missiles were on their way.

Madden quickly stumbled to her feet and reached for the navigation panels. She noticed that something was off, but there was no time to take a second look. She slammed her hand down on the panel and activated the hyper drive. Then everything went black.

She awoke slowly to the sound of beeping. Not the loud, terrifying alarm that echoed through the ship when they were attacked, but a low, rhythmic noise. She remembered it. It was the sound of a heart monitor. She opened her eyes and stared at the familiar ceiling of the medbay.

"Oh, you're awake?" Prophet smiled as he got up from his chair.

"W-What happened?" Madden's voice was a bit shaky and her head hurt.

"You activated the hyper drive without proper preparation. The damage we suffered in battle caused it to overload and we accelerated much faster than the ship can actually withstand, so we were all knocked out.."

"I'm so sorry," Madden interrupted the explanation, "I figured it was our only chance. What about the others? Are they okay?" She sat up in the bed.

"Yes, everyone is fine. Well, Grizzli broke his arm down in the engineering bay, but don't worry, he's fine too. It doesn't even slow him down," Prophet chuckled.

"How long have I been in here?" Madden looked around in the room.

"Six days," Prophet answered, "you hit your head pretty badly." Madden looked shocked, and then sad.

"I'll get PyRock to come take a look at you," he quickly continued, "then how about we go get you something to eat?"

"I'd love that, thank you!" Madden brightened up at the thought of food.

"No problem," Prophet said and left the room. Madden gazed around, her eyes finally settling on the clock on the wall.

"Almost 7pm," she thought, "how typical of me to wake up late.."

An hour later PyRock entered the bridge, followed by Madden and Prophet.

"There she is!" Acc looked up from a panel filled with analytics.

"Are you feeling better now? I mean, not that I was worrying or anything, but, you know.."

"Yes," Madden replied with a big smile.

"Good," Acc said, "then please have a look at the map."

"The map? Why?" Madden made her way over to the navigation panels.

"Because none of us have any idea about where the hell we are," Acc said frankly.

"You can't be serious," Madden exclaimed in disbelief.

"Oh, he's dead serious," Grizzli said as he walked in, "in fact, he's looking a little pale. Has anyone checked his pulse?"

"Ha ha, Grizzli, very funny." The irritation was clear in Acc's voice.

"What? I just don't want you turning all sparkly on us, that's all," Grizzli grinned.

"Excuse me," PyRock cut in, "but could we turn our attention back to the matter at hand, please?" He turned to Madden.

"I started repairing the navigation system as soon as we dropped out of hyperspace yesterday. I got it functioning, but according to the logs the system never detected an input of coordinates before engaging the hyper drive, which means that we made a blind jump."

"And the hyper drive overloaded and sent us flying way faster than we should have," Acc continued, "but we don't know how much faster, so we have no way of calculating how far we've traveled."

"That is true," Prophet said, "and I spent the whole morning searching through the map archives, but the star system we're in right now doesn't show up anywhere."

Madden raised her head and stared into the vast darkness outside the ship.

"Then.. Where are we?"

next chapter

© 2016 Sahreinah

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Featured Review

stuff and things

Hello Sahreinah,

I saw the link to this on Yacc's pulsar stream and couldn't resist being nosy, I just love reading.

I thought the writing style was very good, it captured the characters personalities nicely. I also loved how the story gets straight to the action with no waiting about and overly descriptive lines to set the scene.

One minor thing for me was this part: "Madden looked chocked, and then sad." It should probably be shocked as in suprised, or less likely, choked as in strangled.
Another minor thing would be backstory. It's perfectly fine to be left out at the start, so you can jump in to the action, but I found myself wanting to know who they were fighting and why. I mean I know that being based on pulsar the reason for fighting could be rather arbitrary, but it intrigued me that not everyone on the ship knew who the Ta'Shi were. They sounded mysteriously sinister, but we don't know the motivations for the attack, or who's right or wrong. Maybe a small part about them, or the reason for the initial conflict would be nice, although after writing that I think it might be irrelevant because they end up so far away from the initial star system.

I hope you don't mind me randomly reviewing your story. I think its absolutely brilliant, and can't wait to read more of it if that's possible.

Much love,
Steven Carney