Dakion
patreon
The Princess and the Human, Book 2 Prologue
🕑 Added 2023-10-07 10:53:23 +0000 UTCThe light coming off of the nearby twin star formation dimly illuminated the left half of Krndl’s face, as she leisurely sat in her chair in captain’s quarter. One of the few places on the Hunter where she wasn’t one step away from an anxiety attack. The Hunter was a light cruiser, currently leading a destroyer flotilla on route patrol around the Bridgeway. This piece of space was called such because nothing was here. It simply was the shortest path between two disconnected hyperlanes and was an inevitable route if the Krsnelv wanted to traverse from their planet to Hohmiy and vice versa. Apparently, a new trade deal made the route even more important than before. How had Krndl ended up leading an entire flotilla securing one of the appropriately named secure routes? Fuck if she knew.
The Krsnelv, being the only carnivorous species within the alliance, had a name for being ferocious and tenacious fighters. Krndl had no idea how that was supposed to follow, their ancestors had been scavengers rather than predators after all. A detail nobody seemed to care about. Sure, they had one of the strongest fleets together with the Vanaery - and maybe the Tystrie, but thanks to their seclusion no one knew for certain. Krndl also thought she could recall hearing something about her kind having a decisive role in the alliance war, but she didn't know that one for sure. She was no historian, after all. Not that it mattered. The point was, her species as a whole hardly lived up to its name. Some individuals might, but she definitely wasn’t among them. She hadn’t even wanted to become a soldier in the first place. At a time when she couldn't decide what to do with her life, a mixture of peer pressure and bad timing had brought her to the barracks. She had then planned to lay low and later apply for some backline position, maybe the signal corps or something like that. Nothing with risk to her life and nothing with too much responsibility, that was the goal. The others in her group had all been quite eager and ambitious, so she thought it wouldn’t be too hard to not stand out.
But somehow, not standing out had been what made her stand out. ‘Ambitious people always want to prove themselves, and that will always cause more problems than it solves. I don’t need an ambitious commander, I need one who simply does their job.’ Jerk. Who promoted someone on that basis?
Her attempts of dodging the way up by displaying herself as risk-averse had achieved the exact opposite, because ‘someone that resourceful is wasted on a small ship’. Her fear of making the wrong decisions then prompted her to never make any herself, instead she always let someone who seemed to know their stuff make the call. But apparently ‘the ability to correctly delegate is a sign of a capable leader’. And now she was here. Tasked with arguably one of the most important duties during peacetime, despite never having seen any form of battle.
At first, her job had been an absolute nightmare. Day in and day out she had dreaded anything happening, not just an attack that would risk her life, but any situation that would require her to make an important decision. By now, it had gotten better. She now was in her position for about a cycle and a half, and she had learned that the chances of an attack were actually quite slim. Not because the Kiroscha weren’t out for blood, they still absolutely were. They simply showed no interest in fighting the patrol fleets. They preferred quick strikes against single targets, and if they should find a gap in the patrol, it wouldn’t be Krndl’s fault. She would simply stick to the plan, if the plan had such a gap it wasn’t her fault. Would someone else in her position regularly audit the plan? Maybe, but as stated, she was wholly unqualified for her position. Unfortunately, it was too late to go for a different career path. All she could do was hold out until she could afford an early retirement.
The console on the other side of the room beeped. She hated that noise. It meant someone wanted to contact her. And it wasn’t one of the regular reports that she would always pretend to evaluate – or understand, for that matter. No, if this console beeped, something came up that the regular procedure didn’t account for. Which meant she had to make a decision, which meant another chance for her to mess up big time.
“Yes?” she asked, opening the channel.
“Ma’am, we are receiving a strange signal. It doesn’t fit any code, but the way it repeats makes it look like a distress signal.”
Shit.
“I’m coming. Call Rndz to the bridge as well.”
“Yes, Ma’am!”
Krndl took a deep breath to ease her nerves, before donning her insignia and making her way to the bridge. It wasn’t far from her quarters so the walk was short. Way too short for her taste. But wishing for the walk not to end just meant it would feel even shorter. Alas, before she could do much to calm herself, she was already there. Surprisingly, Rndz was already waiting for her.
“Status,” she called one of the standard lines she had often heard other captains use. The operator quickly briefed Rndz about what he had just told her.
Rndz was the Hunter’s lead engineer. Or was it lead mechanic? The guy responsible for anything tech-related. Once the operator was done, Krndl said what to be her most used sentence ever since she had been given the slightest bit of responsibility.
“So, what’s your opinion?”
Rndz gave the data a quick glance before answering.
“There is either something interfering with the signal or the source is about to run out of power. But even if we ignore that, it’s far off from anything used within the alliance. And the direction it comes from is also far away from the secure routes, for that matter. But to my knowledge, there are no records of the Kiroscha using it either. It’s definitely a distress signal though, the sequence is too short and too repetitive to be anything else. Has our telescope found the source already?”
“Operator?” Krndl passed on the question.
“Not yet. The signal is weak, so it’s hard to pin.”
Krndl did her best to appear calm. This was exactly the situation she wanted to avoid. Was there really someone in peril? Was this a trap? What should she do?
“Is someone traversing the Bridgeway?” she finally asked the operator. If yes, that would make the decision for her.
“No, we can take a look captain. Which ships should I give the order to move?” the operator asked, clearly misunderstanding her intent.
“Um… tell the flotilla to follow us.”
“All, Ma’am?”
“Yyyyes. Yes, we, uh, can’t risk this being a trap.”
The order got relayed, and the formation changed course. They were quite a bit away from the secure route – a fact Krndl felt really nervous about – when they finally managed to catch it with their telescope. ‘It’ being about the last thing Krndl wanted to see right now.
“Th-that’s a Kiroscha raider!”
She was about to scream to her gunners to blast the damn thing into oblivion, but the moment of shock delayed her reaction which gave Rndz enough time to point out a crucial detail.
“Seems to be out of power though. Do we get an energy reading?”
“None. But it’s definitely the source of the signal,” the operator clarified, allowing Krndl to not go into full panic mode.
“Ma’am, we should try to salvage it,” Rndz requested. “It could give us invaluable insight into their tech!”
Should she listen to him? Listening to what better-qualified people said had more or less been what stopped her from making bad decisions so far. But she couldn’t help but be afraid of the little ship, despite the absolutely massive difference in firepower. With a shaking finger, she opened the channel that connected all ships.
“Surround the raider, but keep your guns pointed at it at all times! Pursuer, prepare a boarding crew.”
Affirmations from the captains of the various ships came back before each of them went into position. Slowly, the destroyer Pursuer closed in on its target.
“Keep the com channel open at all times!” she ordered as she could see the boarding tunnel steadily extend to the raider. “If at any point it looks like the Kiroscha are still alive, seal off the tunnel!”
The affirmation didn’t sound very enthusiastic. Not that she couldn’t understand them considering the order. Shortly before the tunnel reached its destination, it stopped.
“The airlock seems destroyed, Ma’am! Sending image.”
A photograph of the raider’s airlock appeared on her console. To call it broken was an understatement, it looked as if something had been connected to it and then had gotten torn off. The door behind it seemed still intact, though if it had an emergency mechanism it was probably sealed shut.
“Requesting permission to cut a new hole.”
“Permission granted.” As long as the boarding crew seemed to know what they were doing, she would simply play it safe. The Pursuer changed position and connected the tunnel to a flat surface on the side of the ship. It took a while until they managed to cut through the wall.
“Artificial gravity on board seems no longer active due to a lack of power. Requesting permission to extend the Pursuer’s gravity field.”
“Permission granted.”
As the squad boarded the small ship, Krndl realized she hadn’t confirmed whether all of them were wearing space suits. They probably were, right? Anything else made no sense.
“Oxygen levels are low, but breathable. Temperature is still above the freezing point.”
“Then the Life support can’t be off for long, though it depends on how good the insulation is. Ma’am, you may want to call Doctor Mnakr as well.”
Krndl nodded and called the ship’s physician to the bridge. Shortly after, the next report came in.
“Area clear. Sending image.”
“That looks an awful lot like Vanaery tech,” Rndz commented as he saw the room through which the crew had entered.
“Interesting,” Krndl answered, unsure what else to say. The doctor joined them, and after he was quickly briefed as well, the next report came in.
“We found two dead Kiroscha. Sending image.”
The photograph showed the mangled corpses of the two insectoids, one having its entire side cave in while the other was almost bisected. While it was good that those monsters were dead, the question of what brought them to this state was one Krndl dreaded to hear the answer to. Dried purple blood was smeared not exactly where the two lay, but that was likely due to the de- and reactivation of gravity.
“Doctor?”
“Well, I guess the cause of death is quite obvious. Time of death is difficult to estimate from the picture, but they didn’t die yesterday. Assuming Rndz is right and the power hasn't been out for long yet, I’d say something between thirty to forty days ago.”
The news that they had been dead for so long was somewhat comforting. But one raider was commonly manned by five Kiroscha, and since the inside of the ship was still in somewhat livable condition, the other three could still be alive.
The boarding crew split into two teams and combed through the ship. It didn’t take long until they found two more dead Kiroscha, both having died in similar gruesome ways as the first two.
“We found the door to the bridge”, one team announced. “It’s locked, but we can cut it open.”
“Wait until the fifth Kiroscha is confirmed dead.”
The other team reported shortly after.
“We found the fifth one, also dead. And there is something else. Sending image.”
“Looks like an escape pod, considering the size,” Rndz analyzed the picture. “But it isn’t any tech I’m familiar with. That could be the source of the signal.”
Did that mean whoever had been in the escape pod killed the Kiroscha? Could they be an ally then? But what kind of weaponry did they possess to produce such results?
"Team 1 requesting permission to cut open the door to the bridge," a voice from the console pulled Krndl out of her thoughts.
"Uh, yes, permission granted."
"Wait!" the other Team called out. "We found another one! Sending image!"
Krndl took a sharp breath as the next picture appeared. Why was there a sixth Kiroscha? There should've only been five!
"This one died far more recently," the doctor next to her pointed out. "Maybe fifteen to twenty days ago."
"That explains the broken airlock," Rndz commented. "Another ship docked to see what happened, and the new crew got killed as well. Then the ships drifted apart, causing the connection point to break off."
Oh, right, that made sense. In that case...
"Look for four more corpses before we open the door."
Slowly but surely, the remaining dead Kiroscha were found, all having died roughly at the same time as the sixth. But no sign of the culprit so far. Team 1 then proceeded to cut through the locking mechanism of the door to the bridge. Thanks to some hints from Rndz - who, based on the ship's similarity to Vanaery tech, correctly assumed the weak spots - it didn't take too long.
Wait, wouldn't it have been safer to first cut out only a peephole?
"We are throu-" The voice stopped. It didn't sound like the connection had broken off, he had simply stopped talking.
"Team 1?"
No answer. Krndl started to panic.
"TEAM 1!" she called out again.
"S-sorry, Ma'am. Sending image."
"What in the world is that?"
Krndl didn't know what to say to the doctor's question as she looked at the new photograph. It showed a creature she had never seen before. It appeared to be wearing clothes - drenched in the same dark purple as the dried Kiroscha blood they had seen all over the ship - which was a hint to it being sentient, but if the doctor didn't know it, it couldn't be one of the alliance races. She herself had also never seen anything similar. The alien had light-brown skin with a blueish hue, seemingly no carapace or scales, and no fur except for a rather large, rust-colored patch on top of its head.
It also looked like it was bipedal, but Krndl wasn't completely sure about that. After all, the alien wasn't standing. It was... well, hanging, suspended from the ceiling by a cable tied around its neck.
