Starborn: Origin of the Stars

When ROMAS was done copying the data a few minutes later, Robin hurried to the lab to meet with Timothy.

“Now it’s your time to shine!” He greeted his friend, “The data from the monolith, nice and fresh. You are probably the first person who can lay eyes on it in centuries, not to mention the first one ever that isn’t a Keeper!”

“You didn’t check it before coming here?” Timothy asked, clearly not believing him, and took the memory stick.

“Actually, no… not really. What do I know about the Keeper language?” Robin shrugged.

“Well, probably as much as I do: nothing. So, I hope you didn’t come here with great expectations.”

“I know it’s a long shot, but please give it a try.” Robin said while he followed the researcher to a workstation.

“As if I’d miss a chance like this…” Timothy scoffed and opened the files.

Robin waited patiently off to the side and simply watched as his friend skimmed through seemingly endless documents in an unknown language.

Only five minutes later couldn’t he hold it anymore, “So? What are we seeing there?”

“...”

“*Cough* Buddy?”

“Hmhm?”

“Tell me!”

“Oh, yeah.” Timothy said, his eyes still glued to the screen in front of him, “I do recognize the characters.”

“You do?” Robin asked in surprise. He definitely didn’t expec-

“Yes, I’m fairly certain that this is the same language as the one we saw on the monolith’s screen. This should really be the Keeper’s native language!”

“What?” Robin exclaimed exasperatedly and nearly tore his hair, “That’s it? Damn, we already knew that!”

“No, we assumed that to be the case. Now I can confirm that theory.” Timothy said and finally looked at Robin. When he saw his disappointed face he couldn’t stop a chuckle, “Rob, I told you to temper your expectations. This is already a great find as it is. You want me to read this? Fat chance! I need loads of text with known context before I can begin to decipher anything.”

“Argh… I understand but still…” Robin muttered.

“We have time. I’ll see what I can do with this as it is, okay?”

Before Robin could answer, they both felt the ship’s sudden acceleration. Its speed increased so much that the artificial gravity began to fail and Robin and Timothy had to hold on to their surroundings to avoid falling.

“Burn in plasma! What now again?” Robin cursed and tried to get to the door.

“If Happy didn’t even have the time to shout a warning, this has to be quite the emergency…” Timothy shouted with a shaky voice while clinging to his desk.

Slowly, way too slowly, Robin crawled through the door into the hallway. Just when he finally reached the elevator the acceleration stopped and gravity normalized. With shaky feet, Robin stood up and called the lift.

“Damn, how long did she kick the thrusters? We must be going insanely fast…”

Robin hit the call-button again and again to make the elevator understand that he really was in a hurry right now and jumped in as soon as it arrived. When he stopped in the middle deck moments later, close to the bridge’s entry, his passive energy sense suddenly woke up.

Terulos’ atmosphere had a quite high energy level but he had enough time to get used to it earlier, when they had stayed on the planet. Now however, his whole body began to itch again like in his first days after getting the skill.

*Ding* - Ship’s comm opened

“We have an emergency. Rob, come to the bridge immediately!”

“You don’t say…” Robin grumbled while trying to figure out what was going on, but soon the ambient energy level overwhelmed everything else; the only things he still could make out were the ship’s thrusters and its shields.

Moments later however, the latter also vanished from his senses.

“Shield’s offline! Prepare for a rough flight…”

Happy couldn’t even finish her warning before a huge explosion rocked the entire ship. Robin was thrown to the ground and slid along the hallway when the Hubble began to tilt in an unnatural angle.

“...I correct: Prepare for a rough landing!

40 seconds until impact!”

*Ding* - Ship’s comm closed

Afraid of a sensory overload in this electrically charged atmosphere, Robin didn’t dare to use an Echo Pulse to check the ship’s situation. However, even with his passive sense alone he could tell that they lost one of the front VTOL thrusters just now.

“What the fuck are they doing there?” He cursed again and finally reached the Hubble’s bridge.

Niu and Alena both sat behind their usual stations and Landom clung to the captain’s seat. When he threw a glance out of the window, Robin saw nothing. There was just a dense gray wall. Since everything was always gray for him, it confused him only more.

“Landom, status!” He shouted.

“We are under attack. Shields are offline, scanners are offline, visibility zero.” Landom began and in the background Alena shouted at Niu.

“8.000… 7.000…”

“We took a direct hit.” The security officer continued, “Damage unknown. At least one VTOL offline. Pressure normal, oxygen normal, power…”

“5.000… 4.000…”

“Remaining power… unknown, hull-status… unknown.”

“2.000… 1.000…”

“The enemy? Are they following us?”

“750…”

“PREPARE FOR IMPACT!” Happy yelled and the ship shook once more when she flipped the whole vessel to get more use out of the main thrusters to reduce their speed.

Robin’s skin tingled even stronger when she diverted all excess power to the two rear thrusters. Instantly he was catapulted backwards through the open door and into the hallway by the abrupt deceleration. He still could hear Alena shouting their altitude, though.

“250… 100…”

Multiple smaller hits rocked the Hubble in rapid succession, before it finally hit the ground and came to a stop after quite a spin.

While Robin crawled back to his feed, he felt the thrusters shutting down.

“Rough landing… Damn, I really hope the ship isn’t completely fucked!”

When he returned to the bridge, he could see Niu slumped down in her seat. Alena and Landom both lay on the floor, seemingly knocked out.

Then, the power completely ran out and everything turned dark.

***

“Ahhh…” Niu sighed and snuggled deeper in the pilot’s seat while she patted the pair of joysticks, “This is where I belong!”

“The expedition into the jungle wasn’t to your liking? I never would’ve noticed…” Alena said with a deadpan face.

“Argh, come on! I was useless like a rock. I was just trying to survive from one moment to the next, hoping I would be able to feel the freedom of flying one last time.”

“I always thought you wanted an assignment on an exciting ship. Now you play coy like a princess.”

“Well, I have to say that being the Hubble’s pilot is much more entertaining and challenging than I ever thought.” Niu said thoughtfully while she slowly steered the ship out of Terulos’ atmosphere.

“Let me guess: You suddenly enjoying this trip has absolutely nothing to do with our captain in the making…” Alena teased.

“Of course it does! He is the one who throws us from one crazy situation into another.” Happy laughed and a little bit shy she added, “Additionally, you have to agree that Scrappy is really-”

“I don’t wanna know!” Landom interrupted when he entered the bridge, “Well, I would love to know, but I think it’s better if I don’t.”

The man quickly sat in the captain’s chair and looked from one woman to the other before his gaze settled on Alena.

“I didn’t know you were into girl talk…” He said and shook his head. Not waiting for her to respond, he changed the topic, “Niu, give me a quick report please.”

“Are you the new Captain, Mr. Security?” Happy asked while she pulled up a map of Terulos and some additional data.

“Nope, but for now I’m in charge of our course of action if things go south.” Landom answered and motioned for her to begin.

“There isn’t much that can escalate our situation right now. We are heading into a stable orbit around Terulos and Alena is keeping an eye on our scanners and sensors. We know there is another ship somewhere on or around the planet and are prepared to run as soon as they come closer.” Happy explained, “The Hubble’s shields are top notch and we aren’t some slowpoke; Should be able to outrun most other ships. However, even if we are out of the crazy atmosphere, the dying star still makes scanning a challenge. So I don’t see anyone finding us here just like that.”

“But you are sure that our sensors will find them first, if push comes to shove?”

“The Hubble is a vessel optimized for research and exploration… what do you think?”

After Niu got them into orbit, she talked about different routes and locations they could head for if necessary.

“I think the best would be to turn everything off and just drift around the planet until Scrappy and Timothy come up with results… or ideas… or a goal. Whatever.” She finished the lengthy report and leaned back in her seat.

“I’m inclined to agree, there…-” Landom nodded but was interrupted by Alena.

“I’m not! We have a hit on the long range scan.” She shouted, “One ship, medium size, approaching our location fast - really fast!”

Niu immediately sat straight and pulled up the data on a screen.

“Ohhhhh… They will be here in less than a minute. How can they be so fast already? It’s like they knew where we’d pop up long before.”

“Alena, get me more data on the ship and listen to any kind of hailing.” Landom shouted, “Niu, get us up to speed and try to keep them at distance.”

“Roger that, but no chance we outrun them. They had quite the head start somehow.” She confirmed and pushed the throttle up. Quickly, Niu made the Hubble turn away from the approaching ship and took a stable position in her seat.

“Hold on tight!” She warned the others and taped into her mutation. It was as if the world around her suddenly slowed down. Everything seemingly moved slower, giving her more time to react. Decisively she pushed the throttle even more, bringing the ship to its limits. The gravity module and the dampening field immediately began to fail and she felt her body being pressed into the seat painfully.

Her reflexes helped her to micromanage their acceleration. Reacting to system warnings and thresholds with inhuman speed, which allowed her to get the most out of the Hubble. At the end of the day however, the ship just wasn’t made for racing or high speeds and still lost ground every second.

“...so it’s better we hide then?” She heard Landom say when she managed to spare some of her attention to the situation on the bridge.

“I can’t see any scenario in which they come here with friendly intentions.” Alena agreed through gritted teeth because of the still growing centrifugal force.

“Niu, can we reach quadrant 36?” Landom asked, “If we lose them in the storm, we can lay low for some time and work on a better plan.”

“Aye aye, Captain!” Happy laughed and aligned the Hubble’s nose into a proper course to reenter the planet’s atmosphere. Internally however, she was letting go an imaginary breath of relief. Running away really wasn’t an option. The other ship had nearly caught up to them and hiding was their best chance.

“They should come into weapons-range in 10 seconds!” Alena updated and Niu quickly opened the ship’s comm after the Hubble began reentering the atmosphere and switched from the brutal acceleration to a moderate deceleration.

Using her mutation to keep track of everything, she threw a quick glance at the display with the scanning results. And indeed, Alena managed to identify the other ship as some kind of interceptor. A typical UAS design and even if they didn’t get the exact model, they had a good idea of their armament.

*Ding* - Ship’s comm opened

“We have an emergency. Rob, come to the bridge immediately!”

Niu reported and threw Landom a glance, “We will have to eat one, maybe even two hits from their laser. However, our shields should be able to tank those easily. After that the storm will hide us from…-”

Before even the system began to shout warnings, Niu noticed the shields suddenly fluctuating and getting unstable.

“Damn…”

“WARNING! Strong electromagnetic interference detected. Shield failure imminent”

Seconds later, the shields completely winked out.

“WARNING! Shields offline!”

“What?” She heard Landom gasp behind her and quickly warned the others.

“Shield’s offline! Prepare for a rough flight…”

“Incoming!” Alena yelled and a shock ran through the whole ship when they were hit somewhere at the front. Happy had only seen a red flash in the gray clouds outside before the Hubble yanked at her joysticks when it tilted to the side.

“Altitude 12.000, rapidly falling!”

“...I correct: Prepare for a rough landing!

40 seconds until impact!”

*Ding* - Ship’s comm closed

From there on, everything was a bit blurry in Niu’s memories. At some point Robin rushed into the bridge and she remembered seeing the gray fog outside suddenly retreating, giving a perfect view of the endless forest below them.

She somehow managed to slow their descent with a risky flip-and-burn maneuver that was probably breaking each and every rule the UAS ever had written down and cost them another VTOL, but at least the ship didn’t break apart when it ultimately hit the first trees, plowing a path through the forest.

The next thing she knew, she woke up in complete darkness and everything hurt while someone was carrying her around.