A spaceship in the dark

[Dashiell]

[] entry 39 []

day 372

log ID: Jake Rolefs

opening log:

Where to begin....

So much has happened. I'll just carry on where Damoclass left off. He says he can't remember anything for a while after pulling the trigger.

He never did.

In fact, he lowered the gun and just stood there, staring off in the distance. As if he was having playing a game with the big Mama: first one to laugh gets to do the dishes.

Deciding that our spaced out captain was no good, I took command. Soon, I also heard the voices. But in the distance. As if the were shouting at me from behind a thick glass window.

I could keep my thoughts together enough to order rational commands: 'get us the F outta here NOW!'

The Eden's cruise engines charged. But Big Mama wasn't about to let us leave. Deciding that its new mind controlled toy was about to run out on it, it initiated plan b: kill the wanker. The front of that massive thing opened up and we could see what was going on inside. A mixture of whirling colours, amassing into something solid. It didn't take a genius to figure out what it was doing. A shame really that the cruise engines took longer to charge than it took the Mama to prepare its torpdeo like thing.

They say as you are about to die, you see your life flashing in front of you. What crap. All I thought was: 'damn, I should have become a pastery baker instead'. Then The Mama fired its projectile.

As it was about to exit the front of the nomad vessel it suddenly stopped, as if it was stuck on a long wire that had streched out fully. It became obvious why: the Hellcat had caught up with us. And was headed straight for the Mama's opening.

The comms sprung to life: 'tell me the tractor beam on that thing is still operational. Otherwise I'm about to get really thin'. Having said that, Maritz ejected from his bottlenose as it charged at the Mama. I ordered the pod to be tractored in asap. I had no idea what would happen if the gunship collided with that torpedo thing still stuck in the Uber Marduk. The Mama didn't want to find out as well I guess: its front closed before the Hellcat smashed into the blue material and was instantly vaporised.

Then the most beatiful sound ever was heard: 'cruise engines engaged'. The Eden charged past the Mama before it could resume its fiiring prcedure. But I wouldn't dance for joy just yet: the 2 cruisers that found us in the void were closing on our six: Maritz had delayed them with his CDs, but now they were back. And the fact remained that the Mama could still pop up wherever it wanted. realising this, I hoped it had a poor sense of prioraties.

Raya and Mike were about to find out. They launched and each headed for a different direction than the Eden. This seemed to work: the Mama didn't teleport imidiatly. The 2 cruisers on our six decided that they liked Mike best. And they had brought friends. Assassins.

Then Mama made up its mind: The Eden would be the best target. I hate aliens that can prioritise. Damn that Raya: the most nimble ship and he got nothing to evade. Then again: maybe that was why the nomads made their choice like this.

The Mama teleported again, this time on our six. This didn't sit well with me. Judging from the first shot it had fired at us, the projectile would be able to catch up to us, even in cruise. I looked at Damoclass. He was still standig there, as a statue. Figuring CMs worked on smaller ships I ordered Raya to get close to the Eden, and spam CDs like mad, same as the Eden. Mike was a little to busy to help: the Assassins had caught up to him and had disrupted his cruise engines. The cruisers were clsoing on him fast as well.

With a shower of CMs behind us, The Eden and Raya ran like hell. There was no warning alarm: but the Mama had fired its payload. It was coming after us. I could hear Raya yell over the comms. He was able to see the thing closing on us by looking over his shoulder.

'bank left! No, right! ****, it's closing fast!'

I was out of ideas. That thing would catch up to us within 13 seconds and that would be it. I ordered Raya to get away from the Eden.

'oh crap, it's going to hit! Bank ha- what? leave? Now what good is that gonna do?!'

Obviously, Raya didn't feel like dying alone out there. Can't blame him. If you gotta go, you gotta go.

Then Damoclass came back to his senses. I didn't even realise it untill I heard his voice: 'my my, They won't let up, do they?'

With 7 seconds to impact our 2 fleeing ships entered some sort of weird nebula-like cloud. Then we heard a system announcement: 'gravitational hazard, detected'

Even with our messed up scanners, we were able to detect a jumphole like thing 2.7k below us. 2.7k in 4 seconds? No way. Well, at least we would go out in style: we'd enter the hole as a ship breaking apart and come out the other end as scrap metal and bodayparts. Raya shot upward still spamming CMs like mad.

We all braced for a deadly impact that never came. All we could see was the tunnel like view of a jump sequence. It seemed Raya's last dicth attempt to throw off the projectile had bought us the 1.5 seconds we needed to reach the hole.

But were was he? And Mike? Suddenly we heard a lot of swearing. Seems Raya was still alive and busy shaking off persuers.

'It missed! hahaha! stupid squid! you don't hold a candle to my Sea Serpent! try and hit me eh? bring friends! you'll need em!'

I ordered him and Mike to enter the jumphole. as well. Raya obliged and jumped through. I'm sure Mike would have loved to do so as well. If he wasn't dead.

'heh... Well, I got as far as I figured I would. [warning, hullbreach iminent] Looks like I'm not such an ace after all, eh Maritz?'

Then there was only static.

Looked like Maritz had to comission a new bomber if we would ever make it back to Delta.

As Raya came out of the Jumphole, he brought his assassin friends along. But this time we were ready. For once, we did the arse kicking. We mowed em dowm with the secondary turrets before they could even manouver.

We activated cruise again, with Raya close behind. This place looked familiar...
Damoclass spoke again. 'yeah, I've seen this. we're in Omicron 90'

Seems Damoclass' 'talk' with the Big Mama suddenly made sense. That thing had shown him the way, in order to get an infected warship back to Delta. To Dabadoru. The only reason its scheme had failed was because our mental barriers were stronger than that of Damcolass: he had suffered one too many attacks on his mind. It had left his mind weakened, and open to mental attacks. No wonder the Monster Marduk choose to attack him. But for now: we were safe.

Heh. The irnony. Discovering that you are in Omicron 90, and thinking 'phew. thank god I'm safe'.

Damoclass took command after I made sure he wasn't fully jellyfied. The Eden was walking on its last legs: 23% operational effectiveness. 5 engines broken down. A thrid of the crew dead. We had lost the Hellcat, we had lost the Inferno.and we had lost Malachite. Raya 'sSerpent was about to fall apart.

There was nothing for it. We headed for the jumphole to Omicron 99, 745k away. At least we were left alone. Behind us, the Jumphole had disappreared. Something that would have shocked me if I wasn't in a constant state of shock already. We heard an occasional buzzing on the comms. Just static. Maritz was pretty angry. He and Raya had lost their mate, Mike. Plus, Maritz had lost his bomber. Maybe that upset him more. I dunno.

Then a mesage came in, as we were just on our way to teh jumphole. A message from the Guild. Damoclass read it and snorted. Then he threw a massive fit. Apperantly the Guild wanted him back. And tried luring him in by making him a Guild Master.

'Tsch. Those old fools. They think they can sucker me again? I will no longer be their puppet in their vain crusade for power. But I will play along. Then, when the time has come, they will find out just how I feel about the Guild. And what my plans for the future are...'

As we closed on the jumphole to 99, the comms sprang to life once more '....jemand? *static* wie bin ich hier... *static*

Seems Malachite wasn't as dead as Mike. You can say a lot of things about Rheinlanders, but they are as sturdy as the ships they make.

we tried to reach him, to no avail. Hoping he knew he was in 90, we decided to sit by the jumphole as it was all clear there. Damoclass even mentioned something like 'they must've run out of nomads by now...'

Then, after waiting for 7 hours, a blip appeared on the scanners. Malachite's IFF.

'How nice of you to drop by again, you immortal SoB' Aron spat at him. Aron and Malachite were friends. At least, I think so. They played cards together a lot. So I guess Aron was glad to see he could still shake down Malachite. IF we made it back to base.

Which we did, amasingly enough. The trip to 99 and Iota was very standard by now. It could hardly bother us. Ok, so we were once again bombed to hell. We suffered a hull breach and 200 more men lost their lifes. Who cares? After the last few weeks, Iota jsut couldn't bother us anymore.

We made it through to Delta. And eventually Dabadoru. What a trip, Maritz would say.
But I gotta say: as a pastery baker, I would not have had this much excitement in me life.

I'll let Damoclass sort out the final numbers.

end of log.

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