A/N

Please go easy on the Grammar error notes. I rushed the edit so I could begin working on chapter 4 since this one was bugging me hardcore. Expect chapter 3 to be up in, fingers crossed, less than a week, and please bear with me. I am trying to figure out what writing style works best for me so it might randomly change or shift. Thank you for your patience.

Wolfe looks towards the docking bay and growls "Here they come"

Ghosts voice comes over the ships comm. Circuit “Docking bay opening, Activating oxygen protective force field membrane, Watch yourself down there boys”

“Thanks for the heads up Ghost”

Another voice comes over the comm. “Yo, Frank, I am activating the artificial gravity and aligning the laser lock, they about to come aboard”

“Thank you Bryan, after you finish that, go ahead and come on down”

“Aye Aye Skipper”

Henry POV

The first thing I noticed as we approached the Faunastar was it’s size, they definitely lied to us about its class, no way this huge thing was an explorer, not to mention I have never seen an explorer with cannons mounted on it’s hull. The second thing I noticed was the princess sneaking on to the bridge, and as soon as she saw the size of their ship, she stopped in horror. I asked her; “What is wrong princess?”

“That is to big to be a Zeus class Heavy Battle Cruiser, and it is differently shaped from an Athena”

“Princess, do you mean to tell me that we were communicating with a ghost ship?”

“No Cap’n, not at all that ship is perfectly real, what I meant to say is that we have quite merely steeped into the realm beyond fantasy, we have tread into the realm of myths and Legends”

“Ma’ Lady, do you mean to tell me, that this is a Pre-collapse battle ship?”

“I hope to the founders so, but at the same time I worry that this is what we fear, any ship that managed to survive the collapse is not normal Cap’n, if anything we most worry about what is onboard more than the ship itself, Imagine the sheer number of Artifacts that must be onboard”

“I am trying Ma’ lady but the very thought of that many artifacts scares me to no end”

Whatever powers that be, I beg of you to if not my own life, to spare that of the princess, for she is young and has many moons ahead of her. Then we saw the cargo bay open in front of us, and I stifled a gasp that was about to leave my lips. Not only did this ship have Cannons, but it also had entire squads of bombers, Fighters, and even interceptors all lined up in rows fully armed ready to launch. This ship has enough squadrons in its bay to wipe out a small fleet on its lonesome, without the assistance of those cannons.

Hopefully the people on board are nice enough not to kill any of us , then the ship passed through an oxygen retentive force field, which is rare on Artemis class carriers, let alone any other type of ship. We pass through the barrier and the bay doors close underneath us that I utter the phrase;

“Now we truly are in the belly of the beast, Death on the outside, and doom to us if we cross these men”

”True that may be Cap’n, But in these people we would be truly blessed if they are to be allies, not even my father the king would cross them casually”

“Lets hope that there can be allies found here, or if not else, a ride to safety”

“Open the doors; Let us greet the men who would assist us”

As the doors and we disembark, I, the princess, her two handmaidens, and the other four bodyguards all start walking towards four men, and then we all stop, all of the men are over 7 feet tall. With 2 of them cloaked in ancient defensive artifacts wielding massive weapons, the shorter one who looked to be a wolf demi-human was wielding a 6 foot long Great sword, The taller one who looked to be almost 9 feet tall and was a Bear Demi-Human was wielding a 10 foot tall Halberd. I who stood tall amongst the warriors of the Theriocephian Kingdom at 6’6” was struck with awe at the sight of the massive men, and I realized that any force that could mobilize these men would be a fearsome force to be reckoned with.

I also realize that the princess who stood at the height of 5’8” must be terrified along with the rest of us, which is why she stopped walking. I look back to her and see her face has formed into the expressionless mask that she takes once she realizes she made a mistake. Form across the bay I hear them talking.

Back to 3rd person POV

Bryan comments; “Yo Frank, they aren’t moving any further in to the ship, what did we do?”

Scarr adds in; “Maybe it is the fact that we didn’t bring out more dudes to welcome them properly?”

“I agree with that statement, it was a massive oversight on our part trying to welcome a princess with only 4 of us,” Wolfe agrees

“Oh well so much for our first impression, Do you guys think we could salvage this situation any?” Frank asks the others.

“You could reassure them that we just made a slight oversight and then apologize for it,” Bryan suggests.

“Oh yeah, lets go with that I like that idea” Scarr agrees

Wolfe pipes in; “You better yell to make sure that they hear you”

Frank hollers across the bay to the frozen retinue;

“Greetings, Princess and entourage We greet you with open arms and we would like to apologize for our misconduct, with us only coming to greet you with 4 men, If we had known of your arrival, in advance then we would have rolled out the red carpet and ensured that you would have received a proper welcome”

Henry grumbles and mutters under his breath “Do they honestly expect us to believe that load of malarkey, who would believe that this isn’t a welcome fit for royalty, 2 artifact Knights, the First mate, and the communications man. Wait, if this is their idea of a poor welcome… Then what the heck must they have for the royal welcome, fuck me running that is truly horrifying…”

The princess having re-gathered her wits walks towards the crew while saying;

“We thank you for your grandiose Welcome, Acting Cap’n, and we have no idea what you mean by misconduct, for I plainly see 2 Artifact knights.”

“Artifact knights, whatever do you mean by that princess, all I have here are my Intel officer Bryan, Defense officer Wolfe, and Bartender/ assault officer Scarr, who are wearing light combat armor”

The princess, Henry, and her retinue are all struck silent by those words. Henry mutters to the princess

“Light combat armor… what the heck do they consider standard combat armor. Oh founders, what do they consider Heavy combat armor." Henry once again grumbles to the princess.

“Did we say something wrong your Highness?”

“Nothing wrong, just, I plainly see Your Assault officer and your Defense officer are both artifact knights,” the princess says while attempting an awkward smile.

“What is an artifact knight?”

Once again, the princess Henry and her retinue sat there in stunned silence until the princess pipes up;

“An artifact knight is someone who utilizes remnants of technology from before the great collapse; in most cases they are militaristic in nature such as your men’s armor. as a matter of fact the only times I have ever seen armor like that was in the employ of the Dradarian Emperor’s personal Guards, and those who personally guard my father the King of Theroceph”

“Ok lady, you have got me confused, who is Dradar, and what is the Collapse you speak of?” Questions Frank.

Bryan adds “Yeah, you have us confused lady”

“Come with us to the bridge, we can figure it all out there first things First though, I am Frank and what can I call the princess?

“I am Princess Samantha, the third princess of the kingdom of Theroceph, and this is my head body guard Captain Henry Morgan”

“A pleasure” Henry says bowing to the assembled crewmembers.

“Now then, Second things second, too the cafeteria for coffee”

“Coffee, Coffee, Coffee” Bryan, Wolfe, and Scarr all start chanting.

Henry leans over to the princess and asks her

“Should be worried about this behavior princess?”

“Who knows Henry, these people are not by any means normal, maybe it is for them, however our best choice at the moment is to follow them to wherever they lead us. So onward my retinue and follow the Chanting giants.”

5 minutes and three pots of coffee later

“That was truly a marvelous drink, Acting Captain Frank”

“Call me what I am princess, Frank or first mate Frank, not acting captain. So do you mind telling us why that ship was chasing you in the first place?”

“Yeah, we are curious about why someone would risk openly breaking the Spiral arm Treaty.” Bryan asks.

The princess and Henry look at each other then Henry answers a question with another question;

“First, what is this spiral arm treaty you men keep speaking of?”

Bryan, Frank, and Scarr fall silent in confusion, while at the same time a confused Wolfe asks;

“Princess, what year is it?”

“Why, Sir Wolfe, the year is Post Interstellar Collapse Year 7457”

The crew members fall silent once again in confusion with Scarr being the first to recover this time. He manages to ask the question that the rest of the command crew was thinking;

“Princess, what is This Interstellar collapse of which you speak”

“Do you all not know, It is said that many Millennia ago there was a great war between an alliance of Humanoids and Therioceph against an empire composing of Cosmic Drakon’s and almost Immortal Alfar, after 1000 years of fighting the war finally ended and the empire collapsed. However before they were defeated they had managed to cause massive destruction on a never seen before scale throughout all the races in the galaxy. Eventually, once the dust settled it was discovered that many technologies were lost in the fighting and those that were lost are now called Artifacts, they function almost perfectly, however we have been unable to recreate them whatsoever.”

Henry adds to the princess miniature monologue;

“However most of that is just a story told to little kids to get them to go to sleep at night, or else the Drakons will eat them.”

“So who are these Dradar Fellows, and where do they fit in?” Bryan inquiries.

“The Dradarian empire is the result of the mating of Alfarians And Drakons creating half Alfar half Drakons, who believed themselves to be a superior race, and using this idea have spread amongst the stars in the vacuum of the collapsed empire,”

“Thank you for the Intel princess, Ghost did you get all of that?”

“Yes Skipper, based on their Biometrics what they are telling us is the truth as far as they know”

“Well that’s reassuring”

Princess Samantha and Henry fall into silence trying to find the origin of the new voice that seemed to come out of the ship itself.

“What is that?”

“What is what princess? Oh, you mean him, that is Ghost, one of the ships AI. Say was up ghost”

“Why Bryan? Whatever, yo sup?”

“The ship can talk…..” Henry and Samantha both say at the same time with voices full of wonder

“Yeah it’s getting him to shut up that’s the trick”

“Shut up Bryan, So what’s the plan First mate frank?”

“Lets get out of here, Ghost. If we really have been asleep that long it is best not to show our power first thing, head towards the old on base on Naraku 4”

“I have no idea where we are remember”

“Shit, that’s right. Princess do you by any chance have our current galaxial coordinates?”

“No but Henry should have them on the ship”

“Right away princess let me have my men bring the NAV data right up”

A few minutes later

“I have good news and bad news, Naraku 4 seems to to be not that far away, bad news is that my scan on dark matter drive was off, we have a malfunction. Due to its lack of use most of the dark matter has decayed to the point that we don’t have enough to properly maneuver the ship into our old base.”

“Ghost, how much has decayed?”

“Hrmm, well Frank, right at about 97%.”

“So in other words we need more Dark matter to power the drive, until we get it repaired back at our base, Correct?”

“Yep.”

“Scan for a source.”

“I already did, and I found a sufficient source not that far away from here, and what do you think it is in?”

“I don’t know? Hit me.”

“It is in a neat little pre-packaged metal box, known as an Ares class destroyer”

“I like the way you think Ghost, all hands prep for combat, tell the technicians to brief the assault squad with a refresher on how to handle the material, and tell the defense squad to prepare to repel boarders.”

The princess decides to interrupt Ghost and Frank’s conversation with a statement

“Acting Captain Sir, I believe you have lied to my crew and I”

“How so missy”

“This ships class, is obviously not an exploration vessel, and I doubt you told me the truth about its name either”

“Aye you got us, permission to tell First mate?”

“Go ahead, Ghost.”

“This is the Thanatos class Dreadnought, Knightstalker, ready to kick some ass”

“Thanatos class?” Samantha questions.

“Aye, missy Commissioned by Captain Bonaventure during the 3000th year of the age of expansion to his personal specifications”

“What do you mean by that Mr. Ship?”

“The name is Ghost, Lil’ princess, and what that means is that the captain designed this ship and ended up constructing most of it himself as a means of alleviating his boredom”

“So this captain of yours built this ship.” The princess asks.

“Yep, He created the designs for it hundreds of millennia ago in order for it to be nigh indestructible and small enough for atmospheric entry on even the densest planets”

“And who are you good sir?” Samantha

“Names Seph leather Ma‘am I am the head of tech maintenance and R&D on board. Anyways, Wolfe and Scarr come to the tech office so I can tell you all the necessary info about abducting the dark matter drive off of the Ares class cruiser.”

“Aye, Aye” Wolfe & Scarr respond, with mischievous grins on their faces.

“First mate Frank, was I mistaken when I believe that I heard Mr. Seph say Hundreds of millennia ago?”

“Nah, you heard right Princess, however he was sugar coating it, and it was actually around 2000 millennia ago”

“And who are you good sir?” Henry interjects.

“I am Azieruth Metreon, in charge of engineering and repairs on this ancient bucket of bolts when the captain doesn’t wanna or is unavailable, such as right now. Also, Frank, you might want to thaw out another AI to go with them in order to assist in stealing the data on their ships logs in order to help us figure out what the flying monkey fuck is going on”

“Alright Azieruth, who would you advise?”

“Well for data control, manipulation, and thievery I would have to advise you take Scarlet”

“Aright, Bryan suit up, as the assault squad is stealing the dark matter drive, you will infiltrate their bridge with the AI scarlet, use her to copy over all data from their banks. After you are done wipe their systems and return”

“Is that a yes on thawing out Scarlet?” Ghost questions.

“Yes, go ahead and wake her up, then insert her into Bryan’s Nanosuit”

“Aye skipper, Should I keep an eye out for an HVT, and also why not the neural implant?” Bryan asks.

“Yes, if you are able to find the captain knock him out, and then bring him in for questioning and Intel gathering. No neural right now, we have no Idea how much data they have on board. Also, go see Dende down in medical after you suit up for some high powered Tranquilizers that should work on anything smaller than a Celestial Drakon, in order to assist you in your mission.”

“Aye aye Cap‘n crunch”

Henry and Samantha watch in silent confusion at this last statement was uttered.

“Friggin really”

“Really Frank, I have been wanting to say that for a long ass time”

“Feel better fuck-nugget?”

“Yep, totally, Ima gonna go suit up.”

“You go do that.”

Azieruth turns to the princess after having listened to the argument and while trying not to laugh says;

“Anyhow princess and retinue please come with me; I will give you a tour of the ship and show you to your quarters.”

“Excuse me, But I would rather stay here on the bridge with one of my retainers and watch those who would do battle for us.”

Ghost quickly interjects. “It is going to be boring.”

“Regardless we, no I insist that this is the least I can do to pay you our respect for saving us.”

“Princes, I don’t think you get it. All that you will see is me sitting here barking orders at a series of screens while asking the AI questions,” Frank says while sighing and rubbing his face.

“Please sir?”

“Fine your majesty, but only 1 Retainer”

“Very well, Henry with me, the rest of you Follow the engineer”

“Ghost, Ready the assault and defense squads, nanotech with hard light, no raged weaponry, strictly Melee weapons of their choice”

“Aye sir”

“Tell the crew to ready the grappling guns, Plasma cannons and the Torpedo bays. All hands this is your Acting Cap‘n speaking, Prepare for combat boys, all hands to battle stations, level 2 combat status and look lively about it would ya we have some dark matter to plunder”

“We have 10 minutes until we engage that destroyer, what are you orders Frank?”

“Hold for 5 more minutes as our men get into position, then cut the stealth field and let them know we are here.”

5 minutes later

“Cut the stealth field, let them see us and let them know fear” Frank

“Hey, Frank, mind if I try to contact them one last time so I can say something to them?”

“What the heck Bryan, how did you suit up so fast… ya know what never mind. Be my guest, if they answer that is.”

“I will raise them on the comm.’s for you”

“Thanks Ghost, also when I give you the signal shut the stealth field down”

“Sure thing Bryan, don’t say something too stupid, please…..”

“No guarantees”

“Do you think they will answer, now that their prey has vanished?”

“Who knows, but if they do…”

“This is Cap’n Yessicanda of the Ares-class Destroyer Imoogi. Who and where are you?

“Greetings, we are here to destroy you. Hope you have no regrets and have had a nice life. Ghost, cut the field.”

_*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*_

Yessicanda POV

I am Captain Yessicanda Rhiannon of the Imperial Dradar Navy, My family since its founder have been soldiers working in the employ of the royal family, and like my forefathers, I thought my calling was to serve my King. That was until I was pressed in service to the prince. I do not know when it was exactly, but soon after I met him and was bequeathed a token of his all I could think about was pleasing him. It is weird, at points it even seems like I am not in control of myself, however whenever that happens I inadvertently clutch the token pendant the prince gave me, and my fears are immediately assuaged.

My crew and I were on patrol off one of the royal’s personal star systems when we got an encrypted comm. from the King himself. Saying that the prince’s new personal plaything decided to run, and we are allowed to chase. We headed towards a projected rendezvous where we were supposed to group up with ships that had been dispatched from the core system and were currently in hot pursuit. Slowly but surely over a period of a half-dozen days we began gaining on them, slowly but surely we were catching up. What started with our ship, the Imoogi, and the Apollo-class Naga, slowly grew to a small flotilla of six destroyer class ships. All that could be spared with the empire preparing its forces for wartime were forming a pursuit force in attempt to capture the princess before she could enter her kingdoms territory.

As we were approaching the fleeing ship, our long range scanners started going off, picking up an asteroid moving at extremely high speeds. Once we picked it up on the scanner, we immediately tried to communicate with the other ships, but the asteroid was throwing off some sort of interference that made it impossible to communicate. Our ship is the only one that had the powerful enough long range scanners able to pick it up. All as part of an experimental program by the royal R&D department to increase the scanning capabilities on smaller ships to make better scouting units for the empire’s main militaries' naval forces. I felt a pang of regret for the men those ships who will never know what hit them.

Damn it, our ship was the only one that was able to dodge in time to survive. However, the debris from one of the destroyed ships smashed into our quantum comm. array and made it so that we were unable to properly utilize our comm. channels. We continued our pursuit, but the next thing I know is that the princess ship disappeared right out form under our noses. On moment it was there slowing down, the next it disappeared. When I ask my Quantum mechanic officer who was in charge of the scanners what happened, He told me that, for a fraction of a second the scanner detected a massive ship. Then the ship disappeared along with that of the princess.

While this was happening, I had gone ahead and ordered one of the quantum mechanics to begin repairs on the comm. array as we continued the search. We were unable to detect anything with any of the scanners, not even a Phantom trail from the dark matter drive, yet we continued the search. The quantum mechanic I had dispatched then shortly returned with good news, the damage to the array was superficial and an easy fix. The only part that was damaged was the signal locking connector, which would have made it impossible for anyone to contact us without getting promptly disconnected.

Soon thereafter, we got a message from an unknown source, upon answering the comm. I saw an avian Therioceph the words he uttered signaled the end of my current life, and the beginning of my new life, all that was said was;

“Greetings, we are here to destroy you. Hope you have no regrets and have had a nice life. Ghost, cut the field.”

That is when I saw death and felt true fear for the first time.