The Scout

There was a single bright flash of light as the ship dropped out of warp. As the light rapidly dissipated, the sleek lines of the Scout ship faded against the darkness of space. The pilot fired the sub-light engines on his craft and the nimble ship shot forward with near insane speed.

He knew the dangers ahead of him as he had faced their type many times before. While most intergalactic civilizations these days welcome scouts with open arms, expecting them to bring trade and wealth to their planets, the government of the system he was now visiting was currently arrayed against his own. Needless to say, the sky was not going to be very friendly today.

No doubt alarms were already ringing, warning the planetary defense forces of his presence. Ships were likely being scrambled to capture him or worse. Flying with the reckless abandon of a truly talented pilot, he dove through the outer planetary defenses. His sensors chimed a warning as a battery of Ion turrets attempted to target him and reduce him to his constituent atoms.

Diving into civilian traffic, the scout ship forced the Ion turrets to hold their fire. The scout flashed past a flight of fighters, performing what, until seconds before, could only have been a routine combat aerospace patrol over the orbital shipyards. The four fighters turned and burned after it. Argent red beams of laser fire burned into it's exhaust trail.

The scout ship's pilot worked furiously at the controls of his ship, while the hyper-complex automated sensor package took readings of the fleet in orbit, the production facilities on planet and in orbit, and the defenses and how they were currently arrayed. The system soon finished its scan and chimed loudly.

The pilot, upon hearing his cue, wrenched back hard on the controls and deftly adjusted the throttle as the scout flipped nose for tail in a reverse throttle hop that aimed the ship back into outer space. A warning klaxon began to pound through the ship as the pilot rocketed towards the nearly twelve kilometer ship looming before him.

Thousands of fighters poured from its hangers as its cannon fire poured at him. The pilot did the only thing he could, he hit the button on the tachyon communications system and launched the sensor logs into deep space to the unmanned communications satellite hidden in this sector.

Now that the report had been sent, the pilot did what he had been trained to do by the fine officers of [SST]. He lined his ship up on a collision course with the Leviathan's bridge and accelerated to warp speed. The scout plowed through the command section of the giant space ship, effectively throwing the monster into disarray.

Meanwhile, a few systems away, a battle group that had quietly gathered over the last few days received the sensor logs from the scout. The Fleet Commander looked them over, then opened a communications channel to the entire fleet. "Commence the attack!" he ordered and within seconds the battle group jumped to warp.