Edwin Derilla
Battleship York, Leeds
Personal log September 8th, 832 AS

It was my 21st birthday yesterday, but I was the only one who new. With my parents and whatever family I had were dead, and I was on my own with no choice but to try and make my own way freelancing. It had always been my lifelong dream to be a freelancer, no matter what my father had always said about me joining the Gas Miners Guild. Edison Trent, the mysterious hero of the Dark Times that had taken place around thirty years ago, had started as a freelancer with nothing but an old, beaten up Starflier. As a child my dreams and ambitions were always visiting far away systems and doing a mix of trading and missions, with no boss for myself.

But no matter how they put it, freelancing wasn't great. At least, not at the start. The only way I would have gotten off Planet Leeds was by joining the Bretonia Armed Forces and hopefully gaining enough money to get a good start. The ship I had was a standard issue Cavalier, not much better than the Starflier Trent had started with. The design of ships had only changed marginally over the years, but weapon and shield technology had vastly increased. Nothing had happened politically, a few skirmishes maybe, a few encounters with pirates but no major activities. Life had gone smoothly since the strange incident with aliens that had occured thirty years ago. Until now.

I looked around at the nine other men who shared the cramped crew quarters of the Battleship York and mentally went over my briefing. We were going into Edinborough to investigate a strange disturbance detected yesterday. According to Commision, this was no ordinary Gaian movement. Something strange was up, and we were the only available patrol group to spare. Only one other person was a newbie like me. Everyone calls him Hunks, and I doubt anyone knows his really name. All the others have been in the Armed Forces for at least two years. I had worked out that I only needed to work here for a few months just to obtain the money for a ship and maybe to start trading.

There's a rap on the door... We're heading out.

Edwin Derilla
Planet Harris, Tau-31
Personal log, September 8th 832 AS

The disturbance was not merely Gaians.

Aberdeen Border Station had reported extremely strange readings in Sector 3A, right on the edge of the system. On the way there we encountered a Gaian raiding party, but after we had destroyed two of their ships they fleed. There were still no Trade Lanes in Edinborough, I suppose the government just failed to see a reason for making them. Hunks, who I had grown to like, shared a few jokes with the me and the rest of the squadron and on the long journey we became quite good friends. I just wish I could have been with them for longer.

The nearer we got to 3A the more wild our scanners became. It was an anomoly of some kind, almost like a black hole except that was impossible as there had been no star there. Finally, after an hour of cruising across Edinborough, we found out what the 'disturbance' was.

It looked a lot like the black holes I had seen back at school when I was a kid, but had a familiar feeling to a jumphole. And they came. Dozens of strange, blue ships dashing out, filling the area with weapon fire. Immedietely I started dodging, my high reflexes saving my butt more than a few times. One of my squadmate's engines fell and the ships swarmed over like bees on honey and I realised they were disabling us and taking us captive. The squadron leader, a four year veteran Felix, yelled down the radio.

'Retreat squadron! Head to the Tau-31 jumphole!'

Quickly I began charging the Cruise Engines, a procedure that only took two seconds and I was travelling at three hundred thrust. It didn't take us long to get there, but four more wingmen went down. It was a great relief when I saw the jumphole, but I realised it wasn't over yet when I came out the other side. The strange ships had followed us and two more wingmen went down. Only Felix, Hunks and I remained now. I had no idea where I was going, but I stuck in formation with Felix, as did Hunks.

We passed an Asteroid Minor and I looked behind me to see more of the ships cluster around it.

'Where are we going?' I heard Hunks ask.

'There's nowhere to go!' Felix replied. 'I don't know how long we can keep dodging there attacks.'

'What about the planet?' I suggested.

'Are you crazy?!' yelled Hunks. 'It's not habited! There's no docking ring! Its suicide!'

'Its better than getting captured by them aliens,' Felix stated reasonably. 'I'm willing to brave the atmosphere. Come on!'

We set a course for the Planet Harris. It wasn't far, and we were nearly there in a few minutes. Then I got hit, and so did Hunks.

'I'm hit!' he cried down the radio.

'The gravity will draw you in,' Felix told him.

'What about the shields?' I asked, vainly pressing the button that activated the shield batteries. All of my systems were offline.

'Ermm... Hold on tight!'

With no control or steadiness my Cavalier plunged into the atmosphere of Harris. The intense heat and radiation caused me to loose my senses and fall into unconsciousness quicker than my fast descent to the surface.

And here I am now, in my ruined ship, using whatever power remains in the powerplant to keep me warm. The aliens haven't followed me down here, so if I can hopefully find Hunks and Felix, we might be able to escape and warn the rest of Bretonia of the ships. I figure that them ships were only interceptors, and by no doubt would they attack Bretonia and maybe even the rest of Sirius. I realised they could be the legendary Nomads, but no, that was impossible, Trent had destroyed them. But how could I be sure? No one really new what happened out there. According to the histories the Colonies were on the verge of open war and disaster and confusion reined free everywhere. At any rate there were aliens in Bretonia, and they were definitely not friendly.

Whoa, this was really cool. Looking forward to the next one.

Keep'em coming, you're good.

Thanks

Class-A reading, my friend! Chilling literature.

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I just wrote loads and my com crashed

Next one may take a while......

Edited by - Stardust on 1/25/2004 2:49:40 AM

Ah, that's too bad. Hope you can rewrite it soon, it sounds really cool.

Cool writing!