Starborn: Origin of the Stars

“Burn in plasma… burn, burn, burn!” Robin cursed between ragged breaths while he jumped around on one leg to quickly put on his armored suit. Different from his first encounter he didn’t feel elated to meet space pirates at all.

Last time he kind of zoned out and turned off his brain, but after processing everything that had happened that day, he realized how much could have gone wrong. So many lucky coincidences had come together, protecting them from the worst case and Landom still nearly got killed. So now that he was the one in charge and responsible for the lives of his crew, Robin really was on the edge.

*Ding* - Ship’s comm opened

“Attention!

This is an emergency warning. Seems like someone tries to force us out of superluminal travel. Immediately put on your suits and gear up. Landom, come to the bridge. Everyone else meets in the common room. For now, Sevastian is in charge until Landom takes over.”

*Ding* - Ship’s comm closed

“Happy, how long until we have returned to normal speeds and learn what we are dealing with?” He asked on direct comm while he hurried through the hallway to the bridge.

“Less than 90 seconds!” She said, excitement seeping into her voice.

When Robin rushed into the room half a minute later, Alena was already manning the weapon station, her face a mask of stone as always. Niu was sitting on her usual seat, waiting for the ship to slow down enough to take control. Her whole body exuded an aura of excitement mixed together with anticipation. She slightly leaned forward, the yoke in a tight grip of her hands and her feet tapping nervously.

“What do we know?” Robin asked just as Landom stormed in.

“Something cut off our QVT. There are not many things that are able to achieve that, so if we aren’t about to rush into a supernova or a black hole, it’s most likely an anti-matter field. Communications also didn’t come back online while dropping out of superluminal travel, so probably we’re getting jammed.” Happy explained professionally but her eyes gleamed with excitement.

“Ugh, fuck.” Robin groaned, what got him a chuckle from Landom.

“That is so awesome! Holy shit, we’re getting raided by space pirates!” The man imitated Robin’s outbreak on their way to Gaunus.

“Yeah you got me, thanks for the reminder!” Robin snarled in exasperation, “Happy, what are our options?”

“Running!” She stated in a matter of fact, “The Hubble is well shielded but not made for fighting. We should try to outrun whoever pops up in a second.”

“Are we fast enough for that?” He asked in confusion. If it was that easy…

“Wow!” Niu and Alena both yelped in surprise when the Hubble finally slowed down enough to regain vision. They raced straight towards a cluster of small asteroids, a little distance away. Many small- and medium-sized rocks drifted through space and blocked their way forward. Further in the back, Robin could spot a huge asteroid that towered over all the others. Distances are hard to estimate in the endless void, but he still got the feeling of a small moon resting there in the void.

A jolt went through the Hubble when it finally returned to normal travel speeds and Niu immediately yanked at the yoke while pressing dozens of different buttons at the same time to gain control of the ship that lurched about.

“Scans?” Niu shouted through gritted teeth. Gravity hit the ship when the internal damping reached its limits and Landom quickly grabbed the backrest of Robin’s seat to secure his footing.

“Blocked, they want us blind! Automatic targeting also failed.” Alena responded and half a breath later she added, “Still got some reads!”

Robin’s and Happy’s stations both switched view and showed a radar image that slowly gained more details.

“Attacker’s Speed, 1.6k m/s, Attacker’s Distance 159 km.”

Robin checked their own speed and read it to be around 1.9k m/s, slowly dropping.

“So, we can outrun them?” Landom said from behind.

“Only if you want us to go through that field there. Else, we have to make a turn - which would seal the deal.” Happy said.

“Identity?” Robin asked.

“Still unknown. But the ship is at least thrice the size of the Hubble.”

“That is a big ship!” Robin gasped, “They must have miscalculated where we’ll drop out or else they would have been closer. How much distance do we need to keep to be safe?”

“At these speeds? Around 25 to 40 km, depending on their targeting system. But our shields can eat quite a few energy projectiles.” Alena explained while Niu forced the Hubble closer and closer to the asteroid field.

As if to mock her, a loud alarm began to blare and warnings were shouted.

“INCOMING MISSILE! The ship is under attack. INCOMING MISSILE! The ship …”

“Fuck! I think this time it’s not a drone you’ve sent, right?” Happy shouted, finally losing all of her excitement for the incoming meeting, “ALENA!”.

“On it!” The woman at the weapon station calmly responded. On his radar Robin could see a small dot rapidly closing in on them from behind only to vanish seconds before the impact.

“That was a torpedo. Faster than missiles but less agile.” Alena said.

“As fast as we are going, they don’t need to be agile.” Robin said, “How confident are you in taking them down if more are coming?”

“Not at all, if there are more than one at a time.”

“There are!” Happy shouted when she noticed three new dots racing towards them.

“Fuck…”

Alena went stiff for a second and blinked a few times, then she concentrated back on her station and the streamed video feed she was getting from the Hubble’s turrets. Quickly one of the dots vanished - one torpedo down. The second was destroyed when it was only 12 km away from them and Robin’s innards began to convulse when he saw the last rocket enter their security bubble of 5 km.

An instant later the Hubble was shaken once again. Landom fell to the floor and Happy nearly lost grip of the yoke.

“No hit, shields down to 97%” She yelled.

“Good shot Alena!” Robin praised.

“4 minutes of good shots left!” She answered.

“Fuck. Okay, keep your mutation active for now. Happy, can you get us through the asteroid field?” Robin asked since he was completely out of ideas and tried to get in control of the situation.

“Maybe?” She said hesitantly, “I did something similar in my final exam but our weapons are too small to be of help and the rocks are much closer together…”

“Even if she gets us in there, what then? Do you wanna go out on the other side in hope to have left the anti-matter field by then?” Landom asked and Robin needed a moment to think about that - his ‘plan’ lacked some core elements, he agreed on that.

“Well, I may have an idea. A bit risky, but at this point…” Niu said and managed a little shrug.

Quickly she explained what he had in mind and just as Robin and Landom both wanted to deny this stupid plan of hers, Alena interrupted them.

“More hostiles are incoming. Looks like three small fighters. Scan also finally produced some results - they are Cetro!”

“Burn in plasma, again? Just what is wrong with these fanatics?” Robin cursed and looked at Landom who nodded after a short hesitation.

“I’ll go and prepare the others.” The man said and quickly left the bridge.

“Okay Niu, time for you to do some magic!”

The Hubble shot through the void, still heading straight for the asteroid field. From behind three small ships tried to catch up and further in the back a huge, cube-like behemoth of a ship was following along, firing fast torpedoes every now and then.

Alena, with her mutation fully activated, kept them mostly at bay. She even managed to time the destruction of one torpedo so well that it knocked one of the fighters off course. However, while her enhanced senses gave her quite the jump in skill, they weren’t made for situations like this. Moments before the Hubble fully entered the field, one torpedo exploded less than a kilometer away and nearly flipped the entire ship around. Shields dropped to 67% in an instant.

After everyone crawled back on their seats, it became quiet on the bridge. Robin and Alena both kept their mouths shut to not disturb Happy, who was doing her best to maneuver the big Hubble through the asteroids. And while they may have had an advantage over the huge ship in the back, the small fighters used their higher speed and better agility to quickly catch up between the rocks.

“We are down to 711 m/s, any faster and the rocks will win.” Niu said.

“The fighters will get in range any moment now.” Alena added.

“How much time have you left, Alena?” Robin asked.

“Less than a minute.”

“How long do you need, Happy?”

“More than a minute…”

“Try to get at least one of them!” He finally said and sent a message to Landom.

The Hubble gracefully flew through the asteroids as Niu was completely in her element right now. Her Enhanced Reflexes were made for situations like this and the only limiting factor was the ship’s agility. Like a fish swimming through water, the Hubble raced through the cluster, evading asteroids left and right while at the same time rotating and re-aligning its position after each turn, resulting in one flowing movement.

The fighter’s pilots also did quite well and when they finally caught up, they even circled around the Hubble while firing their energy weapons and evaded the Hubble’s turrets. The shields melted away quickly and time was running out.

At one point Robin saw one of the little fighters rush by sideways, wildly shooting directly at the bridge’s window. Reflexively he raised his hands to shield his face from the blinding impacts that flashed on the energy grid protecting the ship. While an impressive stunt, it was also a predictable movement, which gave Alena the chance to score enough hits to take out the small ship. While the fighter blew up in flames, Alena slumped down in her seat. She had reached the limit of her mutation and was in dire need of rest.

“We’re there in a minute.” Niu said just as Sevastian and Patience came in.

Patience quickly picked up Alena and left, while Sevastian took over her job to control the weapons.

“Prepare - one minute left!” Robin shouted over the ship’s comm to warn the others.

“48% shields left.” He updated Niu.

“We need 30% left, seems like it’ll be enough…”

…

“30 seconds!”

“41%”

“10 seconds!”

“37%”

…

While Robin and Niu made their last preparations, the Hubble entered the outer rim of the asteroid cluster. The remaining fighter still in hot pursuit and the big ship long left behind. In front of them the rocks became less frequent and only the huge moon-like asteroid a little distance away remained.

“Ready?” Niu asked, her voice strained. Robin saw how exhausted she was, not just from piloting the ship but also mentally from overusing her mutation.

“Ready!” He shouted and a second later the Hubble’s shield exploded outwards. A huge wave of energy shot forwards, engulfing the remaining fighter and all the asteroids nearby in sizzling electricity. Robin’s whole body reacted to this enormous energy spike and began to twitch. Then, everything turned dark when the Hubble’s systems died. For a few moments Robin didn’t notice any changes, but just as the the fiery glow of the fighter that exploded after hitting one of the floating rocks illuminated the bridge once more, he felt the lack of gravity trying to pull him out of his seat.

Slowly his eyes got used to the darkness and with the little light from Mereus that reached here, he could make out the moon-like rock coming closer and closer. Seconds went by and became minutes. No one spoke and all three of them only observed as the Hubble slowly drifted by the huge asteroid.

“That’s it, right?” Sevastian finally broke the silence, wildly gesticulating with his arms as he always did, “We’ll use the shadow of that rock to hide until the systems have cooled down and then fuck off as fast as possible, right?”

“We need about 5 to 10 minutes. We can only hope that the mothership stops to check what happened. If we are lucky they may even believe we exploded in the cluster and turn away.” Niu explained.

“If they don’t buy this, they will look behind this ‘moon’ first. We have to be gone by then!” Robin added and took a deep breath.

“The hardest part is over. You did a great job, Niu. Awesome flying!” He said and grinned at his friend. Niu however didn’t answer or even look at him, her gaze was fixated at something outside of the window.

When Robin turned to see what she was looking at, all color drained from his face.

“Fuck…”

“I… I assumed that… that the ship attacking us was the mothership of this community…” Niu stuttered while she inspected the gigantic Cetro-ship that had hidden behind the asteroid and now hovered directly in front of them.