Following the success of another SOASE story, I've written my own - "Prey". Here's the first chapter, more background to come in the next chapter, but I've got some action here to get you hooked...hopefully. If you like it I'll write some more,if you don't I'll dissapear quietly! Enjoy!
Chapter One – A Rude Awakening
The first hit woke him. The second and he was striding across his cabin. The third and he was in the passage. By the end of the barrage he was already in the Hub.
Marching down the walkway, Commander Benjamin Karacaw rasps a single word: “Report!” Cadet Lieutenant (CLT) Samantha Jones freezes as she lifts her head to answer her Commanding Officer (CO). She frowns as she regards his unshaven form; still in nightdress. Shaking the trance she replies,
“Eight Destructors have just jumped in, sir.” Then with a sense of relief, “They are escorted by just two Enforcers, but the fleet is already turning.” But Benjamin knows better,
“Shit!” he answers, as the Tactical Alarm silences any explanation – not that any was offered.
“I have the hub.”
“Aye, sir, CO has the hub.” This is echoed numerous times across the brand new Predator Super-Capital Ship, as five formations of craft leave her ventral strike bay.
“Power up the LBCs and get planetary defence on the horn,” whispers Karacaw before the same words are repeated, infinitely louder, by a new voice. The owner is Sub-Commander Bol Samterson, the Executive Officer, or X.O., but anything else he may have said is drowned out by the whine of the eight Linked Beam Cannons, the primary weapons of the TEC-SC-01 Predator.
Bol is almost eight feet high, brutal, intelligent and destined for the top. Ben and Bol are best of friends, both just twenty-eight years old, and have made every promotion together – Ben just beating Bol to the command of the Predator.
“I’ll handle planetary defence, you blow them to hell,” Bol reassures, in his Venatia drawl – as Bol isn’t a Terran, he is a proud Venatian; one of only twenty-eight in the entire TEC fleet.
“Target the first Enforcer, fire when ready!” agrees Ben, “and Pilot…”
“Evasive manoeuvres, aye, capt’n,” enthuses Cadet Autm Swifti, the charismatic, eccentric helmsman of the Predator. Swifti is situated high above Karacaw, Samterson, and the rest of the hub on an open platform, manoeuvring the Predator through her own balletic motion.
“Enforcer one’s shields are down, sir,”
“Hits on our outer shield…regenerated,”
“Auto-Cannons in range, open fire, sir?”
“She’s history, sir, no lifeboats launched,”
“Concentrate fire on the second…” starts Karacaw, before interrupted by an anxious CLT Jones,
“Multiple phase jump signatures inbound from Kiongs! We have no fleet stationed there, sir…my god…I’ve got 6 Caps inbound!”
“Fifty Credits on the Advent, sir?” jokes Bol in the face of near oblivion. The Predator is on course to meet up with TEC Offensive Fleet Three, in the Venatia system. Unfortunately, Venatia is still light years from the Predator’s current position – along with any support.
“Comms, get Planetary Defence to mop up the Destructors,” orders Ben, “and get our strike craft on them too,”
“PSIDAR, are those inbounds Advent or Vasari?” finishes Bol. A team of technicians on the outer rim of the hub frantically work their consoles, but to no avail.
“Not an idea in hell, sir. Our PSIDAR just can’t get a fix,” reported CLT Jones, with just a hint of fear in her eyes. After only six weeks as a Cadet on the Kol, she was promoted to the operations crew on the Predator. Tonight, expecting a quiet cruise, she was planning to take some of her Trainees through complex LIDAR probe scans, not tracing the signatures of an unknown fleet which more than three times outguns the Predator.
Then, in a flash of sudden light, six craft, bristling with beam cannons, plasma guns and laser batteries shoot into the gravity well. They were Advent alright; Radiance Battleships, but much more formidable than any others seen before. The ships seemed almost intertwined with radiant green streaks, pulsating as their weapons charged and shields migrated.
“What the hell are they?” demands Karacaw, transfixed by their natural elegance.
“I’ve got sixty fish in the water!” screams a technician from somewhere behind. Ben reacts automatically:
“Evasive manoeuvres, full power to fore shields, get our strike craft back on deck, charge the jump drive.”
“Wait!” counters Jones, as her deep eyes flick from hologram to hologram, “they’ve targeted the Destructors!”
“Confirm that,” requests Karacaw, as the Vasari fleet explods into a bright flash as strong as a supernova. By the time the light had subsides and the sensors return, any trace of a conflict had faded – including the Advent.
“PSIDAR, where the hell are they?” demands Karacaw – but Jones has collapsed onto the deck.
“Nothing on sensors, Commander,” reports another technician, as Samterson reaches for the radio. Karacaw marches stiffly back to his cabin. The adrenaline now subsiding, he eagerly awaits collapsing into his sheets. As he opens the door, a klaxon sounds. Silently turning on his heels, he returns to the Hub, still in nightdress. The klaxon marks a change of shift – and Commander Benjamin Karacaw was on.