Kulturos System 1744 hours, April 23rd 074 SDE:

Sirens blared in the background. Several fires had broken out in the room, and to the left a bulkhead had collapsed burying a bank of control consoles. A dead body could be seen half buried under the rubble. The visible legs twisted in impossible angles, and shattered bone sticking out from torn flesh. “All hands abandon ship, repeat all hands abandon ship,” came over the speakers.

On the other side of the room the burned corpses of several crewman could be seen next to a collapsed wall. They had been incinerated when the wall exploded. The admiral took one last look at his destroyed bridge, and turned back to the exit. It hurt him greatly to be leaving the ship behind. This ship had been his flagship for nearly fifteen years. As he was leaving, he saw the alien dreadnought attacking the transports fleeing the battlezone.

He decided right then, that he wasn’t going to abandon his ship, and ran to the weapons console. The maser cannons were offline, and the deflectors were gone, but several of the missile launchers were still functional. Well barely functional but they would do. The biggest problem was that the targeting sensors had been destroyed, along with most of the sensor array. The only sensors still functioning were the visual sensors. He checked the internal sensors and saw most of the escape pods had already launched. He ignored the warnings about the reactor being close to going critical, and the warning about the coolant systems having been fried.

A quick series of commands and he had the missiles manually looked on the massive ship. Hitting the fire button and the first volley was away. Green bolts streaked away from the ship and into space towards their target. The missiles slammed into a powerful energy barrier seconds later with little effect, as the admiral fired the second volley.

Again the missiles slammed into the ships shield for no effect, but this volley got the ship’s attention and she changed course. Green beams lanced from the alien ship tearing any ship unfortunate to be in its path to pieces. The shift in direction, gave the transports a chance, and he saw the light of several of them make a hyperlight jump. Mere moments before the ship entered beam range of his crippled cruiser. Several beams lanced across space to strike his ship. As he hit a button. From a port under the ship, a single object was launched into space. Then the ship shuddered and his world went black.

One hour earlier:

The admiral sat back in his seat, as the ship slipped into normal space. They had been in hyperspace for weeks now. As always he found the odd realm unsettling, and reaching their destination was a welcome relief. His fleet had been escorting a large group of transports, carrying relief troops and supplies for one of the border outposts in the area. The Kulturos system was home to the largest military starbase in the sector. The base was nearly fifty kilometers across, and regularly hosted nearly two million souls. It was home to the primary strategic sensor array in the sector, and was responsible for maintaining and repairing ships assigned to defend the border. A defense fleet of three thousand ships was always on station to defend the base.

He was always impressed by the scale of the base every time they came out here. This was going to be the last time however. He was old, and it was beginning to show. At forty nine years of age he had lived longer than most Mydorians got to. His mind hadn’t yet been affected by his advanced age. Still, he planned to retire before that happened. He wasn’t going to stay in the field and risk lives because his mind started to go. He already had his retirement plan worked out. As soon as the supplies were delivered, he was going to transfer command of the fleet to his second in command, who will take the fleet to the neighboring Rydolis system. Their mission was to investigate the system. Unusual activity had been registering in the system, which is why his small fleet was here. While the fleet was investigating he was going to board a transport, and return home. He hadn’t told his family so his arrival will come as a surprise.

He was brought out of his thoughts by a report from a crewman, “Sir, the fleet is secure from hyperspace, but something is wrong.”

“Wrong!? Explain!” barked the admiral.

“Sir, the outpost was supposed to update our flightplan on exit. We have received nothing from the outpost, nor are picking up much of anything from the outpost,” said the crewman.

“Put the outpost onscreen,” ordered the admiral. The crewman instantly ran to his console and imput a few commands. The viewscreen instantly refocused onto the outpost. What he saw was a shock. The outpost was still there, but it was clearly dead. Entire sections of the massive outpost had been blown apart. Huge rents were open in the hull. Leaving what was left open to space. The shattered hulks of thousands of ships could be seen forming a ring around the ruin starbase. Some of the ships he recognized, including several larger carriers. Their husks split in two. They also had huge rents in their hulls, and shattered metal floated in the void between husks. Every single wreck was dark, with no evidence of power. He doubted there would be survivors, but he ordered a scan anyway.

The scan only confirmed his fears, the base had been destroyed with all hands. Not only that, but every single ship stationed here was accounted for. However a large number of escape pods had been revealed to have launched after the attack. Escape pods were short range craft, not capable of interstellar travel. So it didn’t take long to locate them. They had crashed on the only planet in the system capable of supporting life, if barely. The planet was just a tad too close to the system primary. As a result much of her surface was covered in desert, and she had little in the way of surface water. Beneath the surface on the other hand, the planet had countless underground lakes, and rivers. Thanks to the fact, that most of the desert was covered in porous rock. Rocky deserts like this one were not unheard of. Its poor habitability was the main reason it had never been colonized.

The presence of the pods, and the life signs meant their were some survivors on the planet. He hoped the survivors would be able to shed light on what happened here. “Put the entire fleet on high alert. Whoever did this may still be in the area. Start recharging the drives, and set a course for Kulturos II. Have teams and shuttles readied to rescue survivors,” ordered the admiral. His crew quickly set about to carry out his orders. The fleet soon set course for the planet.

1722 Hours:

The fleet sailed smoothly into orbit. So far they had seen no sign of the alien attacker, but their continuous scans had revealed who the attackers were. They had picked up energy signatures left behind that indicated that the Cylovans had attacked the outpost and destroyed it. It wasn’t the first time they had lost a major outpost to a Cylovan attack, but usually the outpost got out a message before it went down. Something that his fleet would have received even in hyperspace.

The fact that they hadn’t received anything was concerning. It meant that the attack was swift, and implied that they were jamming transmissions. So far they hadn’t seen any Cylovan ships, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any in the area. Given how fast their ships were, one could show up at anytime, and without the strategic array, they would never see it coming. His flagship just didn’t have the sensors for tracking ships in interstellar space. Sure her sensors could see a couple parsecs out easily enough, but in interstellar terms that was nothing.

“We are in a stable orbit, sir,” reported a crewman. He was about to give the order to send shuttles to the surface, when a Cylovan ship suddenly filled his view in a flash of light. It was absolutely massive. Bigger than any ship he had ever seen before. Easily twice the size of a battleship. He didn’t even have time to give a simple order before the ship opened fire. A green beam lanced out from the alien sphere, and bisected an unfortunate destroyer. At the same moment a frigate that was too close to change course slammed into an energy barrier and exploded.

“All hands battlestations! Shields up, evasive manuevers” yelled out the captain responsible for his ship and his second in command. He gave some quick orders to the fleet. “All ships, hold off that dreadnought so that the transports can escape. All ships be ready for an emergency jump out on my order,” ordered the admiral. He was under no illusions that his fleet could take out this dreadnought. It was bigger and better equipped than the battleship, and even on its own a battleship would have likely annihilated his small fleet. He suspected this larger cousin was responsible for the wreck that the outpost now was. Which made it even more imposing a foe given how complete the devastation was.

The ships rapidly formed up into a battle formation. His flagship positioned itself in the middle line, and all the ships opened up with volley after volley of maser and missile fire. None of which was proving effective against its energy shield. Not that he needed it too. He just needed to distract the ship long enough for the transports to escape into hyperspace.

The alien ship responded with more energy beams, that sliced across space with deadly intent. He was surprised to see the ship wasn’t launching fighters. He had never seen a Cylovan ship not fight seriously, and he doubted this ship didn’t have fighters. One thing he knew from fighting them for so many years was that all their ships were carriers. Each beam that sliced across space struck a ship with unerring accuracy. Some of the smaller ships were destroyed outright by the beams, while larger ships thanks to their more powerful deflectors could absorb a hit or two.

“We can’t take too many hits like those,” commented a crewman just before the admiral gave an order to try and blind it's sensors. He didn’t think that would work for long, but it would buy them a few minutes at best. Which is all he really needed to ensure their escape.

Several of the ships following his orders let out an energy pulse that blinded sensors, and sure enough the Cylovan guns were affected. Several beams lanced out into space, a few missing their targets by the slimmest margins. He gave a few new orders, and the formation changed into one he hoped would help buy them more time.

Suddenly a beam struck his flagship, and the entire ship shuddered under the force of impact. A wall exploded in a shower of flame, the crewman manning the nearby consoles were showered in metal debris and flame. They were dead, their bodies burning before they even hit the floor. On the opposite side of the bridge, a bulkhead collapsed crushing the unfortunate crewman under it. The screens went dark, and he could hear a terrible screeching sound coming from somewhere. The lights flickered, and then an eerie silence followed as the screeching stopped. It took him a moment to realize the familiar hum of the engines was gone.

“Status report!” barked the captain.

“Hull breaches all decks, main engines offline. Deflectors are gone. Maser banks are down, and crap! The main reactor is going critical,” said the crewman by the engineering station.

“Shut it down,” ordered the captain. The crewman input a few commands, and then an error popped up on his screen.

“The reactor control system has been damaged. It isn’t recognizing my commands,” reported the engineer.

“How long do we have?” asked the captain.

“Twenty five minutes, sir,” said the engineer. The admiral figured they could probably fix it, but the ship had taken too much damage. The captain looked up to him, and he knew she had reached the same conclusion.

“Abandon ship,” ordered the captain. The next few minutes were a blur. As the others were running for the escape pods he stayed behind on the bridge. Using the comms to try and desperately keep his fleet alive long enough to get out of the gravity well and make the jump to hyperspace. Most of the fleet went down however, despite his best efforts. Finally as the fleet was mere seconds from breaking free of the gravity well, he turned to leave. Stopping briefly to survey his bridge.

It was time to leave. He had precious few minutes before the reactor overheated, and claimed the ship. Then he noticed, as if to spite his efforts, the Cylovan dreadnought started firing on the transports he had been desperately protecting the entire time. At that moment he decided he wasn’t going to leave. He did the only thing he could think of to save the transports. He ran to the weapons console. The masers had been disabled, by the earlier attack, but the missiles were still functional.

He was a little irritated to find that he was forced to manually target the missiles, but he did so anyway. As soon as he had his lock he fired his first volley. Green streaks sailed across space to strike the alien shields for little effect. Then a second, before he got the ship’s attention.

The ship changed course for his floating wreck. Which to his great relief gave the transports the opportunity they need. Several transports made the jump to hyperspace mere seconds before the alien dreadnought entered beam range of his crippled ship, and opened fire. Several beams lanced across space, and with a shudder his world turned dark. A beacon that he launched seconds before the impact recorded the final moments of his ship, and its sensors picked up a number of other transports, along with a few damaged combat ships make the jump to hyperspace. Most of the fleet remained, as an expanding ring of debris and broken ship hulks.