Worldbuilding Prompt #503 - A Close Call at Nexus 503E-32

Worldbuilding Prompt #503 - A Close Call at Nexus 503E-32 | Ecency

After a break for a much-needed holiday, it's the next episode ! The saga of ex-tax collector Fedric, although just like the last one, he's not in this instalment at all.....

This series has turned into an ongoing space opera inspired by the writing prompts in the Worldbuilding community. The prompt I'm using today is Worldbuilding Prompt #503 - Close Calls

Image created by AI in Wombo.art

Shuttles and Imperial Marine Technicians in armoured pods crawled over the pulverised remains of the two Einheriar light cruisers. Hanging in space nearby were the 10 battleships of Commodore Deroma's squadron. The brief battle had left them totally unscathed.

On the command deck, Commodore Alexandra Deroma was relaxing in her battle-chair, her helmet detached and resting on the arm-table to her left, the chair's airtight armoured hood open now the immediate danger was over. But the holotac display was still active, and Alex's X.O., Lieutenant Yalandri paced circles around it. The blue-skinned Mufl officer was anxious, and it showed very clearly.

Alex waved her over. "Come here, sit next to me and give me an update on the salvage teams. Having you stalking in ever-decreasing circles around the command deck gives off the wrong vibe. It unsettles the crew. Oh, and get the galley to send up a tot of something celebratory for everyone. But only a small tot, after all it was only a minor victory."

She knew that maintaining the right image was important, but recognised they were deep in contested space. She was every bit as worried as Yalandri, but had learned not to let it show.

Even more disturbing were the reports she was starting to get through from 5022-C Battle Corps about events happening in the vicinity of the Tharwell system. It sounded like a major incursion, and a battle with high casualties on both sides. She wasn't sure whether she was glad to have missed the risk of being incinerated, or sad to have missed the chance to get noticed and gain promotion. She wasn't letting anyone else see the private communications yet; they were exposed enough out here and she didn't want to make her people even more nervous than they already were.

Five minutes later, Yalandri was fidgeting in the chair next to Alex, but was starting to get information back from the salvage teams.

"Commodore, salvage group seven has found something. An unusual device of some kind aboard the wreckage of the second cruiser. It's badly damaged but might still give us useful info."

Nodding, Alex asked, "Are they able to retrieve it ? If so, how long before it's back on board ?"

"Probably about thirty minutes. Wait, what's that ?"

The officer indicated a pink expanding circle pinging in the holotac display.

Alex frowned. "Oh dear, it's a nexus gate opening. Pink is hostile, blue is friendly. Get the salvage crews in. If we can't close that gate down, we've got ten minutes before it's spewing out warships, and they're all going to want to do very bad things to us if we're still here."

Yalandri raised an eyebrow at her commander's apparent calmness and the understatement of the last words out of her mouth. "What about the device ?"

"We haven't got thirty minutes. I know it's not really doctrine, but I like my salvage teams to be alive, not taking a risk they can't win. Get them back here, fast. Then tell weapons to lob some full-size TC bombs into the mouth of the gate, see if we can disrupt it enough to strand it's cargo in null-space."

"We're out of TC bombs. I'm really sorry, we used them all up at Dalashra and depot were out when we re-armed."

For the first time, Alex dropped a profanity, and a pretty colourful one at that.

"We need to pull back. Way back. Observe what comes out, and high-tail it out of here so we can report back to headquarters. We have to assume the enemy will jam any signals once they see us. Now get those dratted salvage teams in. NOW !"

As Yalandri got busy on the battlenet, the icon for the nexus gate in the holotac display started to pulse faster. This was going to be close.

Ten minutes later, the last of the salvage teams reported that they were in the landing bay. They had been forced to leave the mystery device behind, and the frustration and disappointment were clear.

As they called in, Alex could see in the display that the nexus gate was starting to spit out ships. The squadron started to pull back, keeping out of weapons range as sensors tried to discern exactly what was coming through. What they saw was horrifying.

Trying to maintain her calm attitude, Alex spoke to Lieutenant Yalandri. "Set up a comm with HQ to be sent as soon as we're out of jammer range. Tell them we've got a major force of mixed Einheriar and Slaver capital ships coming through here. Several hundred so far, and more every second. They're using pickets to mark out formation positions for the newcomers. If what they are doing is real and not just a feint, we've got a massive incursion coming our way. Tens of thousands of ships at least."

Taking a sip of her coffee, Alex sat deep in thought for a few moments. "This looks like the big one, a major offensive. We've had a close call today, lucky to get away from them. But I'd love to know what that device was; I feel like we've missed out on something important."

Image created by AI in Wombo.art

On the bridge of the huge Slaver command ship Backlash, Admiral Vakmar grinned at the subordinate officers clustered around him in admiring postures. His multi-coloured crest stood proudly on his head, quivering to indicate triumph. He twitched a claw at one of the officers.

"Well done Master Frakzarn. You have retrieved the Nova-Wavefront Accelerator. Our robotic friends have indicated that they expect the Imperial enemies to intercept and attempt to block us halfway to the target sector they call Tharwell. You have until then to return the accelerator to operational status. Then we use it to destroy the enemy"

To be continued.......