EVE

[skyline339]

The mura, what a wonderful piece of technology. It flowed though space riding the ripples as a surfer road a wave. It shot through, a beauty to behold one of the brand new Valkyrie class ships, small but highly dangerous. This was one of the first runs, nothing to extreme as it was a field test, make sure the diplomat reaches his destination without a hitch. The pride of United Corthena Fleet lay within it's large cruisers or Titans and the Frigates. As the Mura entered the warp, no one feared that this could be the last run, who would actually attack a diplomat.

It took maybe two or three hours but finally the Mura broke warp, just as a couple other larger ships broke out as well. The escort was assembling, totaling six ships, even at this low number, the power these ships held was still much greater than anything else in the known galaxy, maybe even the universe. After a couple of moments as each ship stabilized, a voice shot through from the, everyone knew this voice, The Admiral. "Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Each of you know your assignments and as always I expect nothing less than perfection. In a few moments we will rendezvous with the Nagioh diplomat. Each of you know the mission as you have all been brieffed, but good luck to all, you are the best. Come link out!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wiping her brow and replacing her rectangular glasses back onto her nose, Natty looked back towards the monitors in front of her. Quickly she pulled out the key board and furious began inputting different commands. Window after window opened with numbers flashing in all directions, graphs showing lines information scrolling in all directions. Anyone who even dared to look at what she was doing might as well stare at a rock, unless they had some form of previous knowledge. It was quite a feat watching her eyes reading line after line of code, completely customized even down to the font. "Lester, why is sector 6442589 showing in the yellow?" She asked, her small voice spoke directly through the headset asking the A.I. directly. "Activate protocol 6243, that should fix it." A small smirk appeared on her face as she leaned back letting the system run its course.

Taking off her glasses once again, she undid her long blond hair letting it fall past her shoulders and rest at it's full length. Placing her glasses on the desk in front of her she sighed loudly and rubbed the sleep from her eyes checking her watch, it showed 26 hours since her last sleep. Grabbing her glasses she slowly made her way to the door stretching out her arms and yawning huge. The Admiral's small speech echoed throughout the ship, but most of the words seemed to just enter one ear and out the other, it was sleepy time in her books. Pressing the large orange button by the door, it opened with a small hiss letting her out into the hall. Peaking out, the soldiers really gave her the chills, she looked back and forth and began to make her way towards the crew sleeping quarters. At least she had a semi private room, she had a couple emergency terminals near by blocking off most of the public view of her sleeping space just the way she liked. Squeezing her hand, it felt as though it had cramped up a bit, as the walk continued a crossroads came into view on one side the bunks, the other the medical bay. The sleep was really apparent on her face, but the cramps hurt maybe there was something they could do to ease the pain, opting away from her bed for just a little longer, Natty walked into the bay just as a nurse was walking buy. "Ex.. Excuse me, uh, my hand it's feeling like it's cramping up do you have anything for that?" The nurse pointed towards the waiting room and with another sigh, walked inside and sat down it looked like bed time will be a little later than she expected.

[Kittybites]

Coria walked back to the main office. After searching the cabinets for a little while, she found a small heating pack in the very corner. Opening the door to the waiting room, she handed the pack to the blonde. "Here. The heat will relax the muscles..." She said quietly.

[Heroic Hope]

The loud announcement from the Admiral had rung out against the walls, but had not reached Ryan. He was to enraptured in the sound and activity of his work to notice above the hum of all he was doing. He let a small smirk play across his face for a moment before sending out a ship-wide page: "LIGHTS OUT." The mechanic's eyes triple checked to make sure his grip was firm and safe as he waited the 30-45 seconds he would give everybody to be warned.

After the short wait, with sweat dripping from his hair and temples, he pulled a cord from it's plug and he was in darkness in the heart of the ship. His hands move quickly to find his head light and begin swiftly connecting severed wires that were behind the plug, tying and sealing them within a few minutes. Though it was only the lighting system that was out, he knew it would cause problems and discord in other areas where people weren't so excluded. That, and many idiots wouldn't have their paging systems on as they were supposed to. Ryan let out a sigh and finished fixing the wires, putting the plug back in place.

He grumbled to himself, gathering his equipment and turning off his head light. Surely there was no way anybody else would have realized that was even a problem until the pressure inside the ship started going down. "They should feel lucky they have me here, or this place would be in pieces." The hum of the engine was just background noise now as Ryan walked about his sanctum.

[zacha1211]

Leroy lay on the bunk, waiting until the others fell asleep. He had a routine. Wait about an hour and a half, so the others have time to sleep, and then leave the bunks. He walked down the tunnels of the ship. He loved walking around the ship at night, although it looked the same as the day, it just... felt different. With everyone sleeping and only himself looking up through the see through panel that was the roof of the tunnel. No lights were on in the tunnel except the glowing arrows pointing in different directions for emergency's sake. He let himself enjoy the peacefulness on the craft. Sitting on the tunnel floor he let his eyes slowly close. He was startled by the sound of a door opening, letting light stream out. He heard a woman's voice thank a person that seemed to be inside the room, the door closed and the darkness returned. But not the silence. Footsteps echoed through the tunnel growing louder until the thanker was right in front of him. He couldn't see her face, it was to dark. With curiosity Leroy hit her with a question, "What are you doing out here? Aren't you supposed to be asleep?"

[Enigma]

"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen," rumbled the voice of the Admiral over the loudspeakers. "Each of you know your assignments..."
"Where are my sector reports?" Lt. Danika Bakhvalova demanded, glaring around the CIC. "Move it people!"

"...And as always I expect nothing less than perfection. In a few moments we will rendezvous with the Nagioh diplomat..."
"LIGHTS OUT," interrupted a new voice over the paging circuit.
"What?!?" Danika demanded, glancing at the clock on the wall. "Ryan, we just got here!"
"...Each of you know the mission as you have all been brieffed, but good luck to all, you are the best. Com link out!"

The overhead red lights died, leaving the transition watch bathed in the dim lights of their consoles. A moment later, the battle lanterns around the room flickered to life.

"Did the man have to pick now to do this?" Danika seethed, then glared around the dimly lit compartment."People! I have reports to make to the Captain! Where are my damned reports?"

[LittleLionFire]

Leonorah had been standing in her office, a small room off the main room that held everything she needed for any incident. She was looking at a picture of the ship, pondering, when the announcement came up. She nodded, listening, then shook her head. Her long wavy black hair was in a pony tail, and her stormy grey eyes were calm and full of knowledge.

Leo stepped out of her office, and encountered her helper, Coria, helping the tech, Natasha, with a cramp in her hand. She nodded, not smiling, but her eyes encouraged both younger woman. She then stepped past, and headed out to find the mechanic, Ryan. She headed towards where she likely would find him, where she also enjoyed it. In the heart of the ship, fixing the problem she had noticed, but ignored, sure he would be there.

She found him walking about the room, after finding her way in the dark. She was accustomed to it, so it did not bother her. Anyways, she knew the ship like her name, having studied it before she went on board. She sighed, she missed her home. She then spoke, quietly, standing still, examining Ryan's work.

"Nice job. I bet you were grumbling again about those 'idiots' who did not notice the problem. I hope you did not include me in that comparison?" She chuckled. Ryan was like the only actual friend she had, even if he did not feel the same way. They understood the same things, and liked the quiet, and the work. She was doctor on the ship, only because her parents made her. She was helper mechanic, and liked the job best. Not that she was not good at medicine, and the sick and all, but she preferred the engines, and mechanical fixings, as her father called them. She sighed, and turned her attention back to the many cords and wires in front of her.

[Kittybites]

Coria slowly retreated back into her little office. The gesture from Leonorah was welcome for the young girl hadn't exactly been having a good day. She had just found out that her father had left the house, and came back drunk and beaten up. It somewhat upset her to know her dad had gotten in a fight. Oh well. She had heard the message of lights out, but the doctors room worked somewhat differantly.
"I'm almost a full adult. I need to learn not to worry to much!" She mumbled to herself. She sighed in exasperation as she stepped out again. After a moment's hesitation she turned to Natty. "You can head to your quarters now. Just return the pack tomorrow." She smiled as she walked out of the nurse bay. She decided to explore a bit.

[skyline339]

Natty took the heat pack from the medical personnel, and thanked her quietly before grabbing her things and leaving the medical bay. It took almost fifteen minutes to get into bed, especially because someone decided to cut the lights. All in all she finally settled down and went to sleep.

The fleet waited in space, in the next few hours the diplomat will show up. Finally after what seemed like an eternity the warp space in front of them opened up, ships began to exit warp space. The radio flared up, new voices came through. "United Corthena Fleet, this is the Nagioh Empire! Prepare for operation, Blue Wolf. The Diplomat is on his way." At those words a shuttle exited one of the Titan class ships that entered the local sector. The shuttle shot towards the largest of the United Corthena Fleet, the titan known as the Avenger. "The shuttle will dock in 45 minutes."

Onboard the Mura, Lester the ship's A.I. was doing it's routine scan, when it noticed something. "Error, Error, Natty I require your attention immediately." Lester booted up the screen directly beside the girl's bunk and began to beep loudly. Slowly Natty stirred and groaned looking up at the screen before grabbing her glasses. Without even a word she pulled the console closer towards her and began to type in a few lines of debugging before pushing it away. "Error, Error, Natty I require your attention immediately." Lester spoke again in his dull monotonous voice. Rolling back over this time a little more awake, Natty looked at the console and retyped in the debugging codes, this time pulling up the scanner module and watching it. Seeing the same errors appearing again, this time she used a prototype scanner, that shuttle was certainly well hidden from detection but it wasn't anything she couldn't break. Within a few seconds, the security field around the shuttle scanner scramble was disabled, her eyes grew wide with fear. There was no time to react, the shuttle wasn't going to dock it was aiming to hit.

"Lester, open up a secure channel to the admiral!!" She said with a more urgency than normal. "NOW!"

The A.I. switched into a secure route directly into the Avenger. "I'm sorry ma'am, but it appears all com channels are down, rebuilding a new line. 2 minutes remain." Natty looked at her alarm clock, it's already been 38 minutes since the shuttle launched. Her hands began to shake, as she watch the shuttle moving towards the Avenger, it almost looked like it was gaining speed. Finally a line was built, the connection was bad but that's what happens in a blackout.

"Admiral, this is Natasha Linkmen, Technology specialist and A.I. designer onboard the Mura. That shuttle is a bomb! it's a 300 Megaton NUKE..." The line went dead just as the shuttle made impact. The flash was gigantic as the shockwave blasted out in all directions pushing every ship away. Finally the explosion itself occurred, the sound was deafening, as the Avenger exploded into charred radioactive pieces, anyone who was on the ship was dead, no body could have survived that bomb, not even a corpse almost everything organic was vaporized. It was then that the assault happened. The Nagioh Empire began to attack the confused Corthena Fleet easily gaining the upper hand in battle.

Almost instantly, Natty was on her feet half clothed and running to her command post, she needed full control of Lester if they were going to survive. People were running in all directions, the sounds of the gun batteries echoed thought the ship as the Mura began to return fire. Finally after getting pushed around, she made it to the dark room. "Lester full battle control active now!" She commanded closing the door behind her. The screens lit up around the room, showing everything that was going on from every angle, this was the most advanced A.I. ever created. Pulling the keyboard towards her she sat down and began to furiously begin to type giving commands to the A.I. telling it which protocols to follow and who to take direct orders from. Just then a huge explosion rocked the ship back and forth, each screen began flashing red.

"Natty, major damage to the bridge area. Ship integrity 50%. Chance of survival in direct combat is now 37.8267199561954679%." Lester began spewing out numbers, things were looking grim. She watched in a panic as ship after ship went down. A com line opened, the message was not clear, "Corth... treat... s.ve .our ves.." Lester began to rebuild the message slowly, after only 20 seconds Natty heard what was said. "Corthena Fleet, Retreat, Save your lives!"

As the message ended, Natty sat in shock, this was it the end. Another explosion rocked the ship throwing the girl from her chair, her head smacking the corner of the desk. She laid on the group for a few moments, adrenaline began to pump through her veins giving her the strength to get back up. Blood dripped onto the keyboard, Lester kept spewing out the damage reports, but one item she took note of. The warp drive was damage and would not operate, she could have cried as the panic was beginning to take over her body. It was then she realized, she had no idea who was in charge and at the moment didn't care as she began to type in the Hyper drive activation commands. It was a one in an undetermined number the chance they would have of making it home, but anywhere was better than here. Normally the use of Hyper gates are required to make a proper jump, but this being a prototype hyper drive, it should be able to jump from anywhere. Finally the last command was entered and the final button was pressed, it was now or never, if anyone was down in the engine rooms they would be seeing the lights flickering to activate the Hyper drive.

What felt like hours, Natty waited, everything was growing silent. No pain, just the thump of her heart was all she could hear. Finally the glow of the stars around them spread out and in a flash everything was gone. Natty fell from her seat with a crash, the high pitched sound of the engines echoed everywhere as her world went black.

As the ship exited Hyper space a lone error appeared on every single console inside the room, blinking red "Location Unknown."

[Enigma]

Something beeped in the darkness. By instinct, Danika groped for the comm panel, pushing the flashing white button.
"Lieutenant Bakhvalova," she rasped out, wondering if she could shoot the caller if it turned out they'd interrupted her sleep for something trivial.
"Ma-am, Captain's compliments and he requests you come to the CIC - the Nagioh have arrived."

Danika bolted upright, throwing the blanket aside as she swung her legs out of bed and began reaching for her uniform.
"I'm on my way!"


"Report," Danika ordered as she strode into CIC minutes later. There had been a watch change and fresh faces were staring at their console screens, talking quietly into their head sets.
"Ma-am! The Nagioh have arrived in-system. They've launch a shuttle holding their ambassador, it's currently on its way to the Avenger."
"What is the status of the Nagioh?"
"Passive scans have them placed...."
"Woah - passive scans?"
"Yes ma-am! Captain's orders."
"So where are they now?"
"We show the Nagioh fleet bearing 349° to 21°, mark 1," the technician at the console said. "The Nagioh Ambassador is en-route to the Avenger in a shielded shuttle."
"I'm sorry, did you say 'fleet'?"
"Yes ma-am!"
"What's our weapon status?"
"All systems on standby. As per the briefing, visual and standard ship radar only so as to not provoke them."
"What about our system status?"
"We're still waiting for repairs to the Fleet Datalink," the eager-faced Ensign told her. "The blackout affected their comm circuits, although we are still maintaining a link via the Bridge channel."
"Good."


"Admiral!" blared a new voice from the speakers, "this is Natasha Linkmen, Technology specialist and A.I. designer onboard the Mura. That shuttle is a bomb! it's a 300 Megaton NUKE..."
"What?!?" Danika demanded. There was a brilliant flash on the situation screen - then the explosion hit, tossing the frigate violently.
"Battle stations! Battle stations! All hands man your stations, this is not a drill," screamed the bridge over the paging circuit.
The Battle Stations alarm began bonging.
"Get me a sit-rep on the Avenger! Stat!" Danika demanded.
"Ma-am, it's gone!"
"Gone?"
"The ship's a million pieces!"
"It's an ambush!"
"CIC, this is the Captain!" buzzed the paging circuit. "Return fire! All batteries!"
"Aye, aye Captain!" the XO confirmed on her paging unit as she whirled around to face the fire control stations. "Target the Nagioh! All batteries, release!"


"Incoming!"
Danika grabbed the handhold around the situation table and held on tightly as a new set of explosions rocked the ship violently. Sparks burst in the overhead and the lights died, but the ship fought on as the battle lanterns once again flickered to life.
"Lester, report!" Danika ordered, hoping the ship's AI was still online.
"Major damage to the bridge area. Ship integrity 50%. Chance of survival in direct combat is now 37.826...."
"Incoming transmission!"
"Put it on loud speakers!"
"Corth... treat... s.ve .our ves.."
"Say again! Say again! You're breaking up!" Danika demanded, then glared upwards. "Lester, can you clean this up..?"
"Corthena Fleet, Retreat, Save your lives!" Lester burbled.
"Incoming!"
"Brace yourselves!"

Another explosion rocked the ship. Danika's hands slipped and she was flung against a console, her battle-helmet smacking the edge. The force made her eyes water. Her mouth tasted like iron - she must have bit herself.
"Lester, what's the drive status?!?"
"Warp drive is disabled, estimated repair..."
"Captain!" she yelled into her paging unit. "Warp drive is out of commission and we've received an order to ret....."

The room lept, throwing Danika back into the fire control stations as the world seem to wrap itself up into a ball.
"Hy...per....spa...ce," she managed before blacking out.

[Kittybites]

Coria cries out in pain as her back hits the wall. Being thrown around the ship's corridors was NOT fun. She sees people rushing past, trying to get to their positions. Getting up from falling, she runs to the medical deck, where she hears an announcement blaring through the ship,
"Battle stations! Battle stations! All hands man your stations, this is not a drill!" After grabbing some necessary medical supplies she rushes through the halls, attempting to treat anyone who had been seriously injured in the initial impact. The lights flickered on and off, making it hard for Coria to see. Eventually, she made it to the bridge, where a broken up message was heard.
"Corth... treat... s.ve .our ves.." The young girl stumbled in, hoping she could do something, ANYTHING!
"Corthena Fleet, Retreat, Save your lives!" A large shake threw the ravenette against the wall. She heard a few more questions and panicked answers from random people as she grabbed hold of a random computer. A large piece of metal was flying towards the ship.
"Look out!!!" Coria screamed as it hit the ship, once again throwing her into the wall. A woman crumpled to the floor under her, mumbling some order. After a few seconds, the ship went into hyper space. Coria fell to the ground in exhaustion.

Once exiting hyper space, the ravenette stood up unsteadily and checked a console to find out what had just happened. Blinking red was a message that seemed like a death sentence to everyone that saw.
"Location Unknown"