by shadowsfm » Thu Nov 22, 2007 4:37 am
Chapter 2
Gorgo and the research teams, of both the Midnight and the Horizon, land on the metallic surface of, what Gorgo calls Cybertron. Gorgo saw scans earlier of the surface of this planet, there are planes, mountain ranges, craters, and even canyons, but still so alien. And there isn’t any sign of civilization, no buildings, no camps, and no other signs of life. There isn’t any dirt, plants, animals, or even water. “Is there any life signs?”
“We already checked in orbit, there’s nothing here, nothing,” replied the head surveys leader, Breama. Breama is a female Quintesson, that has the third highest scores in the School of Science on Quintessa, first highest of the females. This is something she’s proud of. She doesn’t like her intelligence to be taken for granted.
“Well, I was hoping for a more accurate reading while on the surface, nothings wrong with double checking.” He doesn’t like being second guessed. He knows already, that he’s not going to get along with her. Gorgo thinks she’s too smart for her own good. He will get rid of her when she out lives her usefulness.
One of the other scientists has picked something up on his tracker. “Sir, I’ve picked up the one energy readings, its over 1000 meters in this direction. I’ve never seen energy like this before.”
“Sir? The Star Fury and the Mudslide has arrived in orbit, mining will start in 63 hours,” says Elligon, Gorgo’s assistant, as she walks into his office on board the Horizon. In a few weeks, he will have more ships coming in to mine other energy sites. He has to keep the research and mining teams small. He wants to keep this operation a secret for now. He can’t have competition for the planet this early in the game.
The ship rocks, throwing Elligon onto the floor, Gorgo holds himself up against his desk.
He sees that many tablets and reports have fallen off the desk, and video disks have fallen off the shelves. The emergency lights and sirens go off, they’ve been attacked, probably by pirates.
Gorgo runs past his assistant who’s still pulling herself up off the floor, and heads for the bridge room to see what the hell is going on. “What’s going on captain?”
Captain Quilain reports the obvious, “We are being attacked by two war ships, no markings of any kind, and doesn’t respond to our hails. They are probably pirates. It looks like we are fighting for this planet. They have launched fighters. The good new is, we out number them, four to two. Bad new is, our ships aren’t built for battle, its lucky our ships even have a few standard cannons.”
Then Gorgo hears a one of the bridge crew shout, “We lost power to cannons!”
“Shields at quarter power, we don’t have seconds in this heat!” another shouts.
The captain takes action. “Ggic! Move us out of the line of fire, behind the Mudslide!”
“Sir, the Star Fury has launched her fighters; they are on intercept course for enemy targets!”
“Sir, the Midnight’s shields are gone, she isn’t going to make! She’s going to blow!”
“Get us out of her blast radius!” shouts the captain over the crew’s commotion. “And get our cannons and shields back online!” Outside, Gorgo can see enemy and allied fighters zipping by the ships view ports, attacking anything they see as a target. He sees enemy war ships trading laser blasts with his own ships. He sees the Mudslide and the Star Fury move away from the Midnight as escape pods swarm out her bell.
“Sir? It’s the Midnight! She’s heading off toward the enemy war ships! I think she’s preparing to ram their nearest ship!” Gorgo doesn’t believe his eyes, but its true, the Midnight is on a suicide run towards them. He can see that her haul is rupturing, there appears to be explosions inside. He watches in wide eyes as the Midnight smashes her nose into the side of a war ship, and explodes in a giant fire ball. The war ship, now heavily damaged, looses control and smashes into the second ship and then also explodes. Explosions are different in space then on land, Gorgo notices. The flames dance by in waves, waves like on a beach, it’s beautiful.
The remaining war ship of the two, now severally damaged and out numbered retreats back into transwarp. Gorgo hopes they won’t return, but knows they probably will. He’s never been through a fight before, especially in space. He doesn’t know what to think, what to feel, or how to react. He thinks he’s going into shock. He can’t even her people asking him if he’s ok, as he run back into his office. He thinks he’s going to be sick. He feels like throwing up. Maybe he will even cry.
T the assistant walks into Gorgo’s office with reports of the mining progress. “Both mining teams are cutting through the metal crust easer then we could have hoped. The new alloy we got recently is doing the trick. The researchers have analyzed this metal; they think it will make for good armor and weapons when refined. And they found that it’s not all the same alloy, they even found some that’s very conductive, good for wiring. They say that this planet is rich in everything you ever need for technology development and mass production.” She pauses.
When one looks at Gorgo, one can’t even tell the hell he’s been threw just a few days ago. Now he’s calm, the only thing that worries him is the escaped war ship. If they know about this planet, others do too. Ellogon continues, “Thanks too our spies on Quintessa, we now know who attacked us, it’s our rival company, Quintessence.”
So they think they can kill us an take this planet without anyone finding out, just because we are in deep and uncharted space, thinks Gorgan. When he gets back, he’ll make sure Quintessence, the whole company, won’t live to regret attacking him. He will make sure they pay. Maybe he can think up a plan how to destroy that company, but still be able to claim its assets, spoils of victory.
“The scientists have begun studying the crystals they found in the mines. Even the smallest amount gives off enough energy to light a city for weeks. And the survey team found caves with writings; they haven’t been able to read it yet. Looks like this planet once did have life on it.”