"Giza to Alexandria and Sakkara, report in. We are ready to go." came the message over the stereo. "Alexandria is ready," Gordon said affirmatively. "Meet us at the Hyperion's left wing." - Gordon got permission from Giza, turned on the engines and docked off the Hyperion, heading for the rendezvous point. Rounding the battleship Gordon saw 2 more ships ahead, the Giza was ahead and the Sakkara to the right and slightly behind, a classic arrow formation. He stopped the Alexandria on the opposite, left side of the Sakkara and reported "Alexandria is on automatic formation on Giza" said Gordon and relaxed into the seat, the ship was on autopilot and no longer required the pilot's attention.
"Overboard radiation is normal, no highly contaminated nebulae detected along the way, apart from a debris cloud orbiting the former Freeport XV... Sensors indicate elevated iridium and titanium content in the northeastern part of the Peloponnese cloud, which is not peculiar to it. Could be Vega, plotting an approximate course..." - Giza reported. Gradually the support ships moved out of the Hyperion controlled area and passed by the Freeport XV remnants and headed towards the nebula. All seemed to be calm, but as they entered it, Nomads ships appeared out of nowhere.
"Spread out!" Gordon grabbed the helm and began to steer the ship sharply away, trying to keep the main backbone of the enemy ships at bay. Due to the suddenness of Giza's attack, as the lead ship gets a salvo from all the guns of the Nomads cruiser and she disappears in a bright burst of blast. "No!" shrieked Alice, imagining how many people were aboard her. Gordon stayed focused, trying to get deep into the nebula so that the Nomads would lose the trail and have time to regroup and wait for help from Hyperion.
"We seem to have broken away" said Gordon, hiding the ship behind a large asteroid. "Where the hell is Hyperion with support!" exclaimed Mateo in response. Gordon was distracted by the system recordings looking for the trajectory Giza was taking "No one could have guessed that Nomads forces were here. They may have been combing the sector looking for Vega, so we need to hurry." he plotted the trajectory in the on board computer and steered the ship along it "Let's hope Giza's data was correct. In any case, I think the Hyperion is already heading in our direction for backup."
Alexandria blindly followed the coordinates previously provided by Giza, the crew scrutinized the radar in various spectra. "Nothing so far" said Mateo, constantly switching radars in different modes "Not in radiation or infrared mode, everything looks like we won't ever encounter anything here." They have already traveled half way from their set route, something noticeably darkened their path, the team found no sign of the ship on the sensors - the radiation background was normal and everything was normal on the infrared sensors, relative to the other objects in the Peloponnese cloud. As Gordon approached Alexandria to the object he was stunned by what he saw, it was Vega. Outwardly without any signs of life, with numerous holes and traces of burned out armor.
