The Space Engineers 1: The Incident
SECTOR 008 – YEAR: 9769
LOCATION: The Great Hippo Nebulae
CCS Borealis B
This story begins in the powerful Cargo Cruise Ship Borealis B part of the Transgalactic Merchants Coalition (TMC) with four space engineers who are going to live wild adventures through this series of stories that will take them from system to system, from sector to sector and from galaxy to galaxy to find strange artifacts, weapons, ores and more. They will fight all sorts of enemies to defend their own faction.
The CCS Borealis B was delivering a very important cargo to Planet Delta Neutrona, part of the Neutrona system. Four thousand tons of uranium, four thousand tons of silicon, three hundred security drones, and five hundred ammunition boxes, two hundred and fifty High Tech Weapon Crates, forty tons of medical supplies and a hundred tons of food and other goodies integrated the cargo.
The four space engineers are Gim, commonly known as GP, Gary or GhostSniper, Rashad or Bull and Mathew or Snaky. These four gifted boys picked for service when they were only thirteen years old are in charge of maintaining the ship’s systems, currently they have two years of service meaning that they are actually fifteen years old.
On its way to Delta Neutrona, while hovering through the Great Hippo Nebulae, powerful CCS Borealis B is attacked by the Pirate Heavy SpaceShip Vessel Strars Khariton of the Strars E08 planet system conformed by the planet Strars E08 and its huge moon Khariton. The pirates took all the cargo and destroyed the ship; those who didn’t die were taken as prisoners; between these prisoners, we find our four space engineers.
The pirate ship was huge, maybe even bigger than the CCS Borealis B (May she rest in peace). The pirate vessel had a huge prison with three hundred-prisoner capacity; it also had a fifty-thousand-ton capacity cargo bay, a colossal hangar, and of course lots and lots of weaponry. Getting of that ship was going to be a hard task for Gp and his friends.
On its way, back to its home system the PHSSV Strars Khariton had to pass through an asteroid field, which at a decent distance looked small, but it was way bigger than it looked. Some of the asteroids were bigger than the ship itself. Two enormous gravity fields surrounded the asteroid field. These fields could grab any object and use their powerful gravitational force to either capture them or eject them thousands of light years away (or less).
When the ship entered the asteroid field, everything looked normal the powerful vessel was adapted with super tuff outer shell to protect it from the hit and strong impacts, besides it had a shield system that used electromagnets to repel incoming object like asteroids.
The real issue was after the ship had exited the asteroid field and enter one of the gravity fields. If the ship had stayed caught in the field, the pirates would have just called for backup, but unfortunately, this gravity field ejected the ship and since the sector the craft was passing trough was on the edge of the galaxy, the field send the vessel away to the nearest galaxy: Sepheron.
The pirates lost control of the ship for nearly two hours. While the ship was drifting, it was caught by an old wormhole that send the ship to a strange sector on the edge of Sepheron. When the ship reappeared, there was nothing on the view everything was black and everyone was waiting for something to happen. At last, the ship’s controls came back to normal and the pirates took control again.
The radar showed a small planet system located at five sectors from our location. The journey was going to be long and not very easy; according to veteran survivors these places are dangerous and hostile. Many important and brave adventurers and captains have either disappeared or lost their live; entire fleets have vanished and there is a high chance you will never make it back home.
The ships engines rebooted and the ship started its journey trying to reach the planet system. The pirates increased their guard on the prisoners; they had to assure their selves that the prisoners would not rebel and take over, sadly the events that are going to take place are going to kill pirates and prisoners alike.
Passing through the first sector looked easy. The ship recovered power and damaged structure, everything looked nice and dandy, the pirates even threw a party at the launch bay while the prisoners had to clean the ship, Gp and his friends could here they screamed and cheered and dance and drink. Sadly, all that joy was not for long.
“They seem to be having fun huh,” said Bull. “They won’t stop drinking until something bad happens.”
“I mean look at all those colors,” said GhostSniper surprised as he looked through the launch bay window.
“So, what do we do besides cleaning the decks?” asked Snaky.
“We could try to escape in a pod or through the vents,” suggested Bull.
“Bad idea Bull,” replied Gp. “The ship counts with security drones everywhere and we don’t even have tools to try escaping through the vents.”
“Then that’s it... we are hopeless in a huge space ship with cruel pirates in dangerous zones,” said Snaky whimpering.
“Our only hope is for something to happen that will give us a chance to get away,” said Gp. “We’ll just have to wait.”
While they waited for something to happen, the pirates kept having fun, all of them but six. These six pirates (who happen to be bounty hunters pretending to be pirates) were pending on the prisoners and did not drink or eat anything but the regular space food that military are supposed to consume. They were ready for anything and they were very nice with the prisoners, especially Gp and his friends.
The ship was still hovering, slowly though, through that sector. Everything was quiet, nothing on the view. The PHSSV Strars Khariton counted with a high technology radar system with powerful scanners. These could detect a cloaked vessel capturing the electromagnetic pulses that the vessel produced. In the case of large warships with higher technology, the radar would show them as bleeps. The radar and communications room were on the third level of the ship along with the bridge, the armory, the computer systems and others, while the launch bay was on the first level.
Time passed and everything seem normal until the radar showed a couple of bleeps, but since the pirates were busy in their party on the launch bay, they didn’t notice the radar’s warning. One of the six responsible pirates named Cled decided to take a look at the third level to make sure everything was all right; when he entered the radar and communications room, what at a beginning looked like a single bleep, now was hundreds of them.
Immediately Cled sounded the alarms; the other pirates started rushing to get the weapons. When they looked out the window a whole fleet of alien corvettes was outside preparing to strike the pirate vessel. There was nothing to be done. The pirates managed to defend the ship using the powerful railguns on board and antimatter missiles to attack the aliens. A total of 68 alien crafts surrounded the ship. The pirates did their best to protect the ship, fortunately for everyone the PHSSV Strars Khariton was powerful enough to defeat the invaders, sadly there were losses, 20 pirates and 10 prisoners died. Now the ship had 32 pirates on board and 15 prisoners, and soon it was going to be even less.
The ship suffered lots of structural and electrical damage. Some of the damage couldn’t be repaired due to the lack of pirate engineers and materials.
Now that’s just the first sector, there are still four more to go.
The second sector the ship passed through was full of toxic gas clouds. The ship was moving very slow and the oxygen levels were not very high so the prisoners used spacesuits to avoid being intoxicated while their pirate masters were breathing normally in the bridge. Only our six responsible pirates took the precaution to wear their suits and stay with the prisoners.
“Hey Clyde, I don’t get how even in the vacuum of space there can still be toxic clouds,” said Cled with amaze.
“Neither do I,” answered Clyde. “They seem harmless to me.”
“Well, you can try taking off your helmet if you want and then see what happens to you,” answered Clawrence in a challenging way.
“¿Do you thing that we could possibly pass through this sector in one piece?” asked Cled with concern.
“! Impossible¡,” Clawrence answered. “The ship is already to damage to go any further and there is a high probability of a hull breach in an area full of debris like this.” And he went on “the chances to survive are also very low because the escape pods are inactive and there is no other ship around that we can board to survive and continue the journey”
“!!!¿A hull breach? ¡¡¡,” shouted Cled with fear.
“Forget about the hull breach Cled, we are on our suits after all,” said Clyde with incredible calm. “Besides, the captains and the rest are completely secure in that bridge. Those powerful airlocks, thick hull, and armor will keep them safe…”
(Alarm sounds) “Hull breach on bridge, hull breach on bridge…” said the ships computer core as the alarm sounded.
“Or maybe not…” finished Clyde.
The ships air vents failed and the toxic gas came in through them and went right through the pipes until it reached the bridge and the pirates that didn’t took the precaution to wear their space suit now regret it; 26 pirates along with 8 prisoners that didn’t took precaution died intoxicated leaving 6 pirates and 7 prisoners.
The ship was awfully damaged, and now filled of toxic gas. The oxygen levels of the suits were half and the ships systems were already useless. Gp and his friends managed to get some tools and other stuff that could help them survive and maybe even escape.
The ship wasn’t done existing the toxic zone. It looked like the end of the journey until; out of nowhere…, salvation appeared.
It was an old abandoned battle cruiser. Its hangars were opened and there were crates floating inside. The ship was in perfect conditions so whatever happened to its initial crew, it’s still a mystery. The pirates loaded the cargo from the Strars Khariton into the Battle Cruiser. The new ship’s name was Caelestis by the way.
By this point the powerful PHSSV Strars Khariton is left behind and the thirteen survivors were already aboard the BC Caelestis, so we continue the journey still in the toxic zone.
The pirates rebooted the ship’s engines, turned on the computers and all the ships systems. The ship’s oxygen level was high (not to mention that the BC Caelestis had a water generator, which it used not only to produce water but oxygen also). All the systems were running perfectly and the pirates took the wheel and tried to get out of the sector as fast as possible.
These pirates (the responsible pirates) were very kind with the prisoners so they allowed them to walk around the ship and perform maintenance operations and others; they also allowed them to sleep in normal quarters, which made the remaining prisoners very happy. While walking around the engine rooms of the ship Snaky found something hidden between the huge engines and covered by a huge piece of bulletproof cloth. It was a hyperspace engine. It wasn’t connected to the rest of ships systems, it looked like the previous owner of the ship were keeping it for a special moment.
Snaky ran excited till he reached the hall where everyone was having dinner.
“Guys, you won’t believe what I have just found in the engine room”, said Snaky filled with joy.
“What is it Snaky, you seem pretty happy about it”, replied Bull. “It must be something exiting”.
“Guys, I found a fully functional hyperspace engine in there”, said Snaky still amazed with his discovery. “It could be our change to get out of here”
Everyone stayed looking at Snaky amazed with his discovery. So, everyone stopped eating and followed Snaky to the engine room to see with their own eyes what everyone thought to be their salvation. It was huge everyone was cheering and planning how they would activate it.
After a few days they finally turn on the hyperspace engine, everyone was happy and waiting to see what would happen when the pirates turned on that thing. Sadly, things didn’t work out like they were expecting.
The jump only helped them to escape two sectors, and sadly the ship ended up crashing with an asteroid ending with the lives of 3 prisoners and 3 pirates. Clyde, Cled and Clawence found a EEV (Emergency Escape Vehicle) and used it to evacuate the ship, leaving Gp and his other three friends on board. The ship was spinning madly, but it abruptly stopped after a few more crashes.
The ship was greatly damaged, but fortunately for Gp and his friends, everything was fixable. The ship had a large stash of high technology tools and weapons which helped the new captains of the ship (Gp and his friends) do all the repairs necessary and get the ship back on course. They build five EEV’s, more turrets to protect their new ship, an AI system, security drones, they fixed the hangar and crafted small fighters, miners and cargo vessels to help them in their journey. They were all also working on an emergency cargo vessel project where they would be able to automatically load all their possessions if something happened to the BC Caelestis.
And here is where the adventure really begins with only one sector separating the space engineers from a planet system that could be their only hope.
Gp and his friends were happy on their new ship. The last sector looked so far as a peaceful sector, because after the crash nothing else had happened, so Gp and his friends kept on with the journey to the planet system, but as they came closer and closer to the edge of the sector, they found out why the trip was so deadly.
On the very edge of the sector there was a huge wormhole, the readings showed it was extremely unstable, but Gp and his friends decided that they were going to go through, so they raised thereselves and burst right in, waiting for the worst to happen.
TO BE CONTINUED…