Heroes of One Thousand Worlds

"Wonderment! I will be doing that!" Fawful quickly sprints to the bridge and shouts out. "We need to leaving! With quickness!" Hopefully nobody was on the bridge with Fawful, as he didn't check for anyone.

"Ah, but who cares about your planet? Ultimately, your whole universe is doomed. Which means YOU are doomed. You may be selfish, evil, sociopathic, maybe even a bit not right in the head..."

"... but you have self-preservation, right? You wanna live to covet your riches, correct? To live in luxury, you need the "live" part."

"... and, even if, somehow you survive this, you realize that these idiots are just pawns to a stupid computer."

"It's me you should be worried about"

"... do you really, really think this is the best course of action. You should know who we are. Who you are dealing with."

The ship's computer woke up.It was static-y, and her voice cut out intermittently. "*kzzt* Will obey-*kzzt*" The ship lifted off, and, hovering unstably, began floating away into the void. "Maria, let's go. C'mon, they're leaving and we don't want to stick around with these guys." The pirates were firing, as Thomas sped away.

Fawful calls up Thomas and Maria. "It is in moving! Do hurries!"

Kojirou starts trying to run away.

The lasers hit the missile. The missile exploded, and the Aurora was disabled. No immediate explosion, but given how the ship was now beginning to drift, something big must have been taken out; it was definitely gone. As Maria began to accelerate again another warning light flicked on in her cabin; somehow, they were generating a gravity well where she was. The tactic itself wasn't unheard of. The right gravwell in the right place could drag a ship out of hyperspace and turn it into a sitting duck.

In response, Maria punched the throttle as far ahead as it would go. Lesson One of gravity well warfare was that if you caught capital ships and frigates - vehicles with a lot of mass that couldn't accelerate well - you had them trapped. They wouldn't be able to leave or maneuver in the gravity well.

Lesson Two: gravity wells did not work as well on strikecraft. Their engines were far more efficient, and their mass far smaller, that they'd be relatively unimpeded. You'd need an unimaginably powerful gravity well to anchor strikecraft into place.

Dagaz VII creaked a bit as one of the basest forces in the universe tore at it. It took a moment longer than usual to accelerate as the gravity wells forced it to slow, but then it broke free, accelerating rapidly in the vacuum of space. Out the corner of her eye she could see the Vigilant puttering off - and the antimatter blasts flying after her. The remainder of these ships needed to be dealt with.

edited 11th Mar '16 9:23:09 AM by SpartyMcFly

Thomas noticed Maria was in trouble. So he spun, fired his missiles twice, and flicked his radio. It was standard military code, and would signal Maria to follow, leaving the pirates behind.

As Maria looped around, still flying at high velocity to avoid being trapped in a gravity well, the Vigilant fired two missiles, and a flick came in over their shared radio channel. Then another. Follow.

She didn't need to be told twice. Continuing her very large increase of thrust she began banking away from the other ships, her fighter slowly curving towards the Vigilant's flight path while blasting out countermeasures - flares and chaff to obscure her position.

"All right. Here's what's up. The computer is fried, can't jump realities, just barely navigating. There's a button her marked "RECALL." I'm not sure what it does, but from what I've gleaned it'll let us jump out of this reality, back to somewhere safe. Might be where the ship was made, actually. So should we try to find supplies around here, or jump to an unknown planet?"

"It is not being a wise to stay here!"

"Yeah, those guys are still alive and probably still chasing us. We need to lose 'em any way we can!"

Dagaz VII had reached the apex of its curve and was flying towards the Vigilant now, still quite a while out but closing the distance incredibly quick.

Thomas nodded. As soon as Maria was on board, he would press the button, and they would enter The Bleed.

Dagaz VII screeched into the hangar bay, barely achieving safe velocities as the Vigilant jumped into the Bleed. A few seconds later she brought the ship down and took a moment to simply relax.

What the fuck were those guns?

"Ok, everybody here? This is what I've managed to figure out. We're not on our own power right now, we're being pulled by a sorta pan-dimensional tractor beam to the ship's point of origin. Whoever made this, whoever sent it, we're about to meet them. Any questions?"

"So yet again our fate's in the hands of people we don't even know," stated Maria. She didn't bother shutting down the Hurricane, instead running a basic diagnostic. The gravity wells from before had damaged the hull slightly; it would function for now, but would need repairs whenever they stumbled across something capable of fixing it.

"I'm staying in the hangar and leaving once we exit the Bleed."

"Sounds good." The ship shook for a second, and leapt out of the void into the atmosphere of a planet appearing on the screens as "Kronus." Which was a little on the nose. "Well, let's go see what's up." Thomas made to exit the craft.

There was a thump as the Vigilant - still damaged - exited the Bleed, in-atmo. The hangar bay opened and Maria lifted Dagaz VII out of the docking berth and flew her into the skies as the vehicle descended down to land. "I'll be your eye in the sky. Good luck down there, folks."

"Glad to have you up there." Thomas exited, and found a blinking blue-grey orb watching the ship. "Identity confirmed: crewmember of Vigilant, class U-4 Exploratory vessel. Mission: Classified, Order 77. Please, come with me." It floated off, and Thomas followed.

Dagaz VII was quick. The vehicle had to be, after all. If it went too slow it would stall; it would no longer be travelling quickly enough in-atmosphere for its wings to keep lifting it up, and the maneuvering thrusters - while still a loved boon in the sky - were meant more for space combat than flying a ship in the confines of a sheet of gas. Of course, what it could also do was circle, which is what Maria did - keeping an eye on Thomas as best she could, she circled about a thousand feet in the sky, occasionally peering over to radar for more contacts.

"Thomas, where are you the go?"

"I'm, uh, going with a guy who knows who we are and why we're here. Hopefully, he'll take us to someone who sent the ship to get us. Coming along?"

"With pleasing!" Fawful tags along.

They arrived at a large marble building, with clearly alien geometry. It was confusing to look at, like staring at advanced calculus after waking up with a hangover. Thomas rubbed his eyes and entered after the 'bot. It led them to a chamber of the same marble, with what appeared to be psychically projected cubes flowing through each other. Thomas' cowl's camera was transmitting to Maria so she could see for herself what happened. Ten robed figures of varied sizes and shapes stood on raised platforms. None seemed to speak, a voice instead emanating from the walls themselves. "Greetings, heroes. We would assume you are curious to why you were assembled for this task. The matter is simple. You are the ones to lead the charge, to take the brunt of the fire. The anomaly will focus o you, and your search, while we try to find an alternative. As for the search itself, you will be seeking several artifacts. The full list and map will be transmitted to the Vigilant's databanks. You are dismissed." They vanished.

"So it is the seem that we are just being bait? Wonderment!" Fawful gets more and more excited the more he talks. "I am going to be killing them all!" His grin widens once more. "It will be total fun! Do you not agreeing, Bat?"

Accepting the video feed from Thomas, Maria kept an eye on the building she was looking over as everyone else entered. It seemed thoroughly alien in its construction; almost like it was built in extra spacial dimensions. She decided not to think too much about that last bit. 4D confused her.

As it turned out - whatever was eating universes was going to be baited out, by them. They were going to be doing an active search, while various robed figures (for a moment she thought of calling them Robes, but there was bound to be a better name) stated they woudl search for another alternative - though for what purpose they were seeking artifacts was unknown.

"Joy, we get to play shock trooper. I never envied those guys," she blithely commented.