The Flight Quicksilver
It was a grim day for the Quick Empire, our last stronghold found, enemy ships approaching. Their Jump gate wasn’t anywhere near the power it needed to be to make the jump to the next galaxy in a plausible amount of time, but it would have to do.
Admiral Sliver, emperor of the Quick Empire stood on the observation deck of his Titan, one of the most powerful ships in the fleet, with a scowl on his face as he read the long range sensors. His First mate confirmed the readings for him.
“They’ll be here in two days sir, the whole fleet that is, you know what that means.”
Yes he did, he’d seen it at least four times, their leviathans would show up first, blast what they could and retreat, then the endless waves of fighters, they were small and weak, but it didn’t matter when there were millions of them swarming around your slower heavier ships. Planetary Rings and Shields, the best defenses we have, were nothing compared to the thousands and thousands of frigates and cruisers carrying millions of fighters in their holds. We would have to leave this galaxy, or be destroyed. We wouldn’t leave without a bang though, the researchers took care of that. As soon as the last ships that were leaving entered the jump gate and were on their way, it would self destruct, causing a massive implosion and then explosion of materials, which would destroy half of the solar system, their ships with it.
It had been a long and hard war, we definitely would have had won eventually, but we ran out of time. The other empires in our alliance made plans to leave as soon as they showed their full strength, but we stayed and tried to hold out. With the help of the others we would have prevailed, no doubt. The first battle had shown that the leviathans could be destroyed, the P-rings and Dreadnoughts took one of them out, but the other four annihilated them. Then the bombardment began, a scout that they had missed on one of the moons taped it all. Millions of people were killed as the disruptor turrets fired from the capital ships, along with the ion cannons and photon turrets, the massive wave of energy burned the world to a crisp. That happened to all the other worlds as well, until this was only this one left.
“Right, send out the order, colony ships first with the escorts, give them the coordinates to the colony that Kar gave us. We will go last, leave the Titans here, their too slow, I want all the crew here and on the other one on another ship by tomorrow.”
He would be riding on his prized possession, the Magelleon, a Battleship that could take out a dreadnought in one on one combat with him at the helm. He would miss his Titan, The Giantess, but it would have to be done, otherwise he’d never get there.
A soldier ran on to the command deck and started yelling, “Sir! Enemy contacts! They’re EVERYWHERE, the ENTIRE PLANETS SURROUNDED!” The cadet that came on to the bridge was hyperventilating, he had several bruises that were noticeable below his torn uniform and he had a large gash on his head.
“What the hell is he talking about?” The admiral said, and then he saw them through the windows of the observation deck and his jaw went slightly agape as millions of ships appeared out of nowhere.
“How the hell did we miss them damn it,” he turned on his comm. and broadcasted to all ships, “Attention all ships, head towards the jump gate, we have to get out of here NOW!”
All was chaos, Civilian ships and their escorts were just about to leave when the enemies made their attack, half of the civilians were wiped out in a single blast, the rest escaped into the gate. The fleet that hadn’t gotten to the gate stared in dismay at the now destroyed jump gate portal, even the admiral was shocked. The computerized Planetary Rings retaliated first and the Shields started to come online, but it was too late, the majority of the fleet was now stranded with a billion ships between them and getting the hell out of there.
The Admiral took a while to regain himself, a few ships were faster to react and fired their weapons, he felt a rumble as his ships shields took massive amounts of damage and were finally broken. He ordered everyone but the people on the bridge to get to evac pods and fighters to see if they could get to another ship. The ones who stayed tapped frantically on their stations keypads trying to maneuver the ship out of there, or at least into a firing position. There was a loud explosion and the whole ship went dark for a few seconds until the red emergency lights came on. He was about to order the bridge crew to leave but they were already running out of there. There was a cruiser parked in the ships forward bay hold, they would head there, and so did he.
He was running down a hall when there was bang and a sealed door burst open. Troops of shadows poured in from it, *Shit, boarding parties.* he thought as he pulled out his sidearm and began to fire. He was almost overrun when the elevator door he was up against slid open and he fell in. The door closed behind him and he looked up to see his first mate, a young lieutenant named Andrew, armed with an assault rifle pushing the Cargo 4 button.
“Thanks son, you saved my life back their.”
“You’re lucky I got there in time, our AI told me where you were.”
“Tell him thanks.”
“He’s gone, if we die, you can tell him in hell.”
The admiral scowled again. They made it to the cargo bay, there was a Corvette waiting there for them. Another explosion rocked the ships eroding hull as the headed towards it.
“I’ve never seen these kind of engines before sir.” The lieutenant said.
The Admiral laughed, he was really lucky, he got the prototype “hyperspace” ship, he wondered what it was doing on the titan when one of his friends, Hyu Quan a researcher, tapped his left shoulder. “You know we never tested this version before, and the others all failed…”
He remembered the last one they tested, it exploded with enough force to blow out one of their sensors, parked on the moon...
The admiral walked toward the ship and got in to take a look. The controls were no different than any other corvette except there were extra buttons to activate the new engines. The lieutenant sat down in the pilots seat and took a look as well.
“You have another idea for getting out of here?” The admiral queried.
“No.” Hyu replied.
Sliver turned to the lieutenant, “Then punch it.”
The Corvette lurched forward into open space, and the Admiral cried. The P-Rings were gone, the shields were gone, the fleet was in pieces, and the largest chunk left was his titan, which was about half its original size as the entire back of it was gone. There was no sign of the other titan or anything really, the planet looked scarred, fire racing across it. Then a flash of light and they were gone, lost in the folds of hyperspace, heading to unknown.