This is going to be a short story for Scifi and Fantasy writing class.
Two seconds and the ship would be in the targeting arrays of all the pirate vessels. Two seconds and the only person who could do anything was Est. He watched as his display illuminated with the targeting information. Two seconds would decide whether he would cost everyone their lives or if everyone would survive this jump into hostile space.
Two seconds passed and his targeting array was dark. No hostiles.
Est tapped on the screen and widened the display field. Nothing. He couldn't believe it. They had jumped into the heart of the pirate systems. They should have been surrounded on all sides, hostile weapons charged and ready to fire.
“Sir, there are no hostiles,” he said.
“Check comms,” the Commander ordered.
Another crewman pulled up the communication arrays.
“The entire system is completely quiet, sir.”
“What the hell,” the Commander pulled up the imagery. "Did we come out of jump where we were suppose to?" The Commander looked back at Est.
"Yes sir, this is where we needed to be."
"Is the courier on his way?"
Est looked down at his display. He smiled.
"I'll take that as a yes," the Commander said.
Everyone turned their attention to the main visual display that took up one whole wall of the command deck. It looked like a giant window with data streaming across it explaining what they were looking at.
Ships lay in ruin around the only m-class planet in the system. Tendrils of fires burned as the oxygen from the ship’s leaked out into space. Debris streaked across the planet’s upper atmosphere like scars.
“What the hell happen,” the Commander asked.
“Sir, we are reading Anuras weapon signatures,” Est said.
“Anuras?”
“Yes, sir. Degradation indicates less than an hour old. You need to see this, sir.” Est transferred the display to the main view screen.
“What are you showing me, Est?” the Commander asked.
“Anuras vessel on the far side of the system, sir,” Est said. “It was in the upper atmosphere of the gas giant. That’s why we didn’t detect it upon reentry.”
“Lower defenses, power down weapons. Get me communications with that ship.” The Commander manipulated the image on the main display to enhance the Anuras ship.
The Anuras ship resembled bundle of copper wire so tangled up that no one or thing could undo it.
“Sir, I have the Anuras on comms. He is requesting we leave the system,” the communication crewman reported.
“On main.”
The mvd that filled the entire front of the ship shifted and the Anuras captain was on the display.
He resembled a very large humanoid frog. His wide mouth and thick lips dominated much of his face. His eyes were set on the top of his head and were bulbous. Where humans have only one iris, Anuras eyes have three or more, depending on age. This was an older Anuras captain with 7 irises in his golden eyes. His eyes sank into his head briefly to be moistened as his eye lids snapped over them and then the slid back up into place. The Anuras were named so because of their resemblance to earth frogs.
“Translator functioning, sir.”
“Anuras vessel, this is Commander Wise with the Empirical Frontier of Man. Please state why you have destroyed these human vessels and your business in this system.” Commander Wise and all on the command deck knew the Anuras had no real reason to answer such questions. Everyone on the command deck knew that one Anuras ship was the one who destroyed the pirate fleet. A fleet of 230 Stellar, Frigate and Destroyer class vessels wiped out by a single Anuras command ship. It would have taken more than this lowly Scout vessel and the battle fleet that is waiting for our signal.
“Commander Wise. Return to the frontier and inform your commanders that the Pirate fleet in this system has been destroyed, your appreciation for such a task is unnecessary,”
“Sir, we have it,” Est said.
The Commander knodded to Est.
“Anuras vessel, we will respect your request. Commander Wise, Out.”
The Commander rushed off the command deck.
He ran through the corridors of his ship, dodging past the lower enlisted who stopped and saluted, slid down multiple deck ladders as he made his way deeper into the ship and emerged on the loading bay of engineering out of breath.
“Ensign Est said we had it?”
A man in an external vehicle excursion suit was standing next to a large satellite.
The man removed his helmet and smiled.
“Yep, it’s intact.”
