Aboard the Space Pirate capital ship, the Lament, its captain finished reading the latest scout report. A strange world, the scout ship had found. Purple atmosphere and the surface of the planet not visible from orbit. The strangest thing was it did not belong to any solar system. It was just drifting through space. That didn't really interest the captain though. What interested him were the reports of the entire planet being saturated with a possible new and powerful energy source. If the reports were true, and his engineers and technicians could find a way to harness such powerful and plentiful energy, the Space Pirates could more than rebound from the attacks of Samus Aran. In addition…the captain wondered if it would be possible to experiment on the Metroids with the energy. The captain grinned savagely. When he informed Mother Brain of this discovery, he would surely be greatly rewarded. Dreams of being promoted to the rank of Warmaster filled his head. He needed more information though. Is the planet inhabited? If so, would the Lament alone be enough to sanitize the planet? He would need to organize an expeditionary force to find the answers to those questions. With a plan of action in mind, the captain strode out of his chambers and headed to the bridge.
Every Pirate in the room saluted as the captain stepped into the bridge of his ship. He quickly returned the gesture and barked a command.
"Navigation Officer, check the files uploaded from the scout ship and copy the coordinates of the discovered planet into the navigation computer. Then plot us a course to that magnificent planet."
The captain could barely contain the anticipation he felt. Promotion and glory was only a planet away.
-oo-
Alone in his private chambers and sitting at a desk, Yuan picked up the small holoprojector and gazed upon the hologram of the beautiful face of his late fiancé'. Even after countless centuries, his heart still caught in his throat as he remembered her gentle touch, her sweet smell, and her caring personality. Things that had him fall in love with her, the woman many had regarded as a goddess. She certainly had been a goddess to him. Sighing, he the holoprojector back down and just sat there, staring out the window at the ever purple sky of Derris-Kharlan from the angel city of Welgaia.Ten years have already passed since they left the world Martel so loved. Kratos needed him though, needed him to help guide the remnants of Cruxis. With the death of Mithos the Renegades were no longer needed in Symphonia. A small sigh escaped him. Now he would drift forever in space, mourning for his lost love…
A holoprojection of Kratos suddenly appeared across his desk.
"Yuan, I need you in my office."
"I'm busy Kratos."
Kratos merely stared at him.
Growling, Yuan gave in. "Fine. I'm coming."
Standing up from the chair and giving a last glace to Martel, Yuan strode towards Kratos' office with a flourish of his cape.
-oo-
Yuan entered Kratos's office without knocking, not being in the mood to be polite. Kratos was standing with his back to him, arms crossed and staring at a large computer monitor mounted on a wall. He was also dressed in his old knight uniform (his Judgement costume), as he always did these days. Stopping behind Kratos, Yuan crossed his own arms.
"What's happened?"
Kratos glanced at him over his shoulder but did not say anything. Instead, he uncrossed his arms and typed a command into the keyboard of his main computer.
"I believe we have a situation on our hands. Vessels of alien origin have appeared in orbit around Derris-Kharlan."
A small screen appeared on the monitor and displayed images of ships in orbit around Derris-Kharlan. Yuan sighed.
"Well, we both knew this would happen eventually, Kratos." He examined the other readouts displayed on the monitor. "Have they shown hostile behavior?"
"None so far. They are in all likely-hood on an information gathering mission. Which could mean they are either scientists or the reconnaissance elements of a potential invasion force. I believe it prudent to alert our angel warriors and to ready the Mana Cannon, but I want your opinion first."
Yuan raised an eyebrow at that. "The Mana Cannon is unusable right now. My technicians are doing routine repairs on it. It might be for the best; the technology in those ships might be able to detect the energy charge-up of the Mana Cannon and immediately attack."
"You think something like that possible?"
"In theory it's possible for me to build something that can detect it. So for an advanced alien species…"
"Then we will have to settle with alerting our warriors to be ready for combat, and hope these are peaceful aliens. All my previous attempts at communication with them have failed. We'll wait for them to make the first move."
"I didn't tell you this before, but I have also been working on a shield generator similar to the one Mithos had emplaced on the Tower of Salvation. If I can get it to work, perhaps it could be useful if we have to fight."
Kratos stroked the handle of his sword. "Alright. Let us get our plans adequately prepared. And then…we wait."
-oo-
"The reconnaissance ships have confirmed that the planet is inhabited, sir."
The captain grunted at the communication officer's words and asked, "Technology level of the inhabitants?"
There was a pause.
"The technology is nothing like we've seen before and the scouts cannot give a good estimate of their technological capabilities. However, no ships have come from the surface to try and confront them. They have also informed me that they recieved a kind of radiation wave from the planet a few hours ago. They hypothesize that the inhabitants were trying to communicate with them but they were unable to."
"Cities?"
"The scouts detect only one city. It is fairly large by our standards."
The captain considered the new information. Eventually he came to a decision.
"Order the scout ships to attack the city. If they meet serious resistance order them to immediately retreat. If resistance is weak, we will hyper-jump through space and help them, and once all resistance is crushed commence our ground invasion."
"Yes sir."
-oo-
Kratos sat in a chair, closely watching the monitor of the magi-technology computer. The angel warriors had been alerted and readied for combat. If Welgaia was to be attacked, they would be ready for it. Stroking the handle of his sword, a fiery sword similar to the Flamberge that he had crafted in Derris-Kharlan, he waited for any action from the ships orbiting the planet.
At that very moment, the vessels finally did do something. They started to spread out, and black tubes started appearing from holes that had opened up on the ships.
'Indeed…hostile' Kratos thought
Then, some kind of light started shooting from the tubes! Reddish and concentrated, they shot from the ships in beams and struck Welgaia.
"What!" Kratos exclaimed. He had not expected this…aerial bombardment. He was a powerful warrior and strategist but never could have anticipated something like this. He could hear explosions outside and his office rocked with the force. Cursing, he frantically punched in a command on his computer for the angels to evacuate into deeper parts of Welgaia to try and escape the reddish light rays. Pieces of the ceiling started collapsing, raining dust and bits of rubble on Kratos. Luckily, his computer still worked. He watched the monitor helplessly as it showed barrage after barrage of the light rays strike Welgaia. Unexpectedly, a shimmering blue dome appeared around Welgaia and absorbed the light rays of the alien vessels. Unable to penetrate the shield, the ships stopped firing upon Welgaia.
The shield generator Yuan was talking about. I forgot that Yuan is a genius. he thought.
Just as unexpectedly, the blue dome flickered, let out a weird squeal, then died pathetically. The bombardment resumed.
He's an IDIOT! he snarled. Besides his own irritation that the shield had apparently had a malfunction and failed, the hostile aliens now knew that they had the technology to and were capable of building a shield of some sort. They had lost that particular advantage in surprise for a measly minute of paused bombardment.
He noticed, however, that the aliens had suddenly stopped firing on Welgaia. He once again examined the computer monitor. A small chill ran down his spine. A much, much larger ship had arrived above Derris-Kharlan. It dwarfed the ships that had first arrived and attacked Welgaia, and this caused Kratos to worry about how much more powerful it would be if it fired those same reddish light rays as the smaller ships. Then he noticed something else that caused him to smile grimly. Vessels were descending down to Derris-Kharlan. If the aliens were expecting an easy victory, they would find the fight on the ground much harder than anticipated.