AN - awwwwww yiss. Gots me a buffer now don't I? Here's something else while I writewritewritewritewrite...
Everyone always thinks of space as this vast stretching infinity of blackness, reaching out into the endless dark with millions of light years between the nearest galactic neighbours. Scientifically speaking, it's an accurate concept. But in reality, space is actually small.
Technological advances and the Jump Gate construction across the galaxy connect it in ways never before thought possible. Trade routes opened, new civilisations explored and of course, wars fought for newly acquired territories, resources and overall human unkindness.
Centuries had passed since the original space farers left the home planet and ventured forth, the home system simply referred to as Cocoon. As they were in a shell before the stars were opened up to them.
Lightning sighed and punched in coordinates into her console and made some adjustments to the internal gyroscope to alter the flight path. She hated being on the frontier. It made her all… Existential and philosophical. She shook the errant thoughts from her mind and focused on the immediate surrounds. It had only been half a year since Lightning graduated from the Guardian Corps and became a full-fledged lieutenant, which meant leaving her home on the tropical paradise of Bodhum and venturing forth into the endless depths of space…
"There I go again, waxing poetic when I should be on the lookout for these smugglers." She growled at herself, gripping at the controls of her console. Lightning was used to piloting craft like this, but on a more local scale. This was a little more bulky, a little more cumbersome with all the additional armour plating to survive both interstellar travel and the battles she has come to learn is all part of the job.
Lightning coasted past the enormous planet Shiva, its ice rings matching the white and blue gases shifting on the surface. Inhabited only by gas miners who stationed themselves on the many irregular shaped moons that orbited the gas giant. Thankfully the worst that often came out of this sector was territorial disputes between rival companies that more often than not needed a lawyer, not a GC officer to facilitate.
Six months and counting on tour in the Sunleth Nebula and thus far only a few mild skirmishes. Her viper class corvette was a solo manned ship, small and agile and barely enough room for her to move around in. Other than the cockpit there was a small kitchenette behind her where she kept her MRE's, and a small alcove where she could sleep if she needed to, but Lightning always preferred to just sleep in her pilot seat. Not the most comfortable but at least she could be awake and firing at a moment's notice rather than being caught by surprise.
Patrols up here meant something entirely different than when she was on the training base back home. A shift only lasted for eight hours at most. Out here in the traverse, a patrol could take weeks. Lightning swung past the Jump Gate that leads to the Taejin cluster in Pulsian space and sighed. Half the known galaxy was split in a far-reaching territorial dispute between the Sanctum Council and those that wanted to be free of the bureaucracy. They called themselves Gran Pulse, but for the most part always got shortened to Pulse, or Pulsian space. They claimed that Sanctum was a dictatorship, anyone living too far to be useful was discarded. Gran Pulse formed their own government, claiming a democracy and began to cut off access to their Jump Gates.
The War of Transgressions happened well before she was born, but they all still felt the repercussions growing up. Years after the war ended and the original, closed-minded council members died off on both sides, they were able to form a fragile truce of trade and joint exploration that meant they could at least access all of the galaxy again. For anyone in the know, however, Pulsian space didn't have an official government, not anymore. It was ultimately lawless, and considered "hell" for anyone looking to travel there to make their mark. Citizens were outwardly discouraged from going there, with all kinds of propaganda about Pulsian space being filled with demon pirates, murderous slave traders and all out violence.
At the end of her week-long patrol, Lightning finally found herself back in the safety of her base sector, and it was time to head back to the headquarters at the GC station. She dipped her wing in greeting to a passing trader vessel, who flickered the lights across their ship in response. It brought an amused smile to her face as she pulled into the docking range and let the tractors do their work.
Breathing a slow sigh of relief for another run without incident, she leant back in her chair and dialled home while she waited for the ship to be taken to its allocated bay.
"Hey sis!" Serah cheered on the video-call, waving madly at the camera as she answered. Lightning shook her head at her sibling's antics, bowing her head in greeting.
"It's good to see you Serah. How are things back home?" She replied, slowly removing the gloves from her hand and throwing them over her shoulder. Her sister gave a shrug and moved her hand about in the air.
"Oh, you know. Same old same old. The kids at the school are a handful but I'm keeping them in line."
"Scary Miss Farron, huh?" Lightning chuckled. She enjoyed the scowl she received a little too much. "I just wanted to check in, let you know I'm ok. I'll be home for the fireworks festival in a few months, Amodar approved my leave yesterday."
Serah clapped her hands in excitement and gave a little squeal of excitement. Lightning was about to poke fun at her but then suddenly lurched forward as the vessel docked. "That's my queue to leave. I'll check in over the next couple of days." They gave their farewells and then she switched off her console.
Lightning exited the craft and made her way to the Militia's main office, giving casual salutes as she passed other officers in the corridor. She took her time heading to her superior's office, not really wanting to be given whatever mission briefing he was waiting for. She buzzed his intercom and the door immediately slid open, the large man beckoning her inside.
"Farron, I was hoping you'd be back before I finished for the day. Take a seat." He offered her a coffee, black and without sugar, much to her happiness. Though she wouldn't show it. He'd once said that she took her coffee like she took everything, no bullshit and straight to the point. It's what he'd liked about her from the moment she stepped foot onto the station.
"You wanted to see me, Amodar?"
He nodded, moving his holoscreen around until it faced her. "We've had some very suspicious activity around the nearby Jump Gate to the Palumpolum Nebula. People are disappearing and we need someone to investigate. And I mean investigate. Not engage. We merely need to confirm the reports, and then devise a course of action. If they're accurate, then we've got an infestation of Cei'th in our midst."
Lightning's stomach lurched at the words. Nobody had yet been able to confirm if the elusive Cei'th were a pirate gang, an alien race or just scary stories told in a station bar to try to get free drinks and a warm bed for the evening. Either way, the stories were horrifying in and of themselves. She simply nodded, taking the data file for her personal computer.
"This is reconnaissance only, Lieutenant Farron. Do not play hero."
With a hard swallow, Lightning stood and saluted crisply. She exited the office and made a hasty retreat to her quarters to rest. It was only a sparse, confined space, enough for a bed, small desk and a compact shower and toilet. Other amenities were hidden behind white panelling along the wall, and she took her uniform off and tucked it away in a laundry bin before heading to the shower. Lightning never liked the synthetic water on the station, she much preferred the fresher variety back home for obvious reasons.
Science and technology certainly had its benefits, but when it was moments like this that came down to cost-cutting exercises it was when it annoyed her. Costly to export water to the stations, so they synthesise it in a lab. It always feels different and she can't place why. It was in this cramped space that Lightning felt homesick, and questioned her sanity to give up a place like Bodhum for the endless emptiness of space.
A solitary existence by far, she volunteered for most of the patrols which could take her away from base for weeks on end. Lightning didn't socialise much with the others on base, feeling content to just head back to her quarter and read until she fell asleep if she wasn't tired enough. The way she saw it, the sooner the days ticked by, the sooner her tour was up and she could go home and get a job on base.
There was something about space that had Lightning's awareness just slightly edged with anxiety, there was so much that could go wrong at any given moment, even a barely visible loose screw could cause the collapse of the entire station. She was grateful for the extreme diligence of the maintenance crew, all at least sharing similar levels of anxiety to not risk any shortcuts.
She finished her shower diligently and then got into the small bed, allowing herself to adjust to the artificial gravity before letting the hum of the station gently lull her to sleep. Tomorrow she would deal with the Cei'th. But for now, rest.
"Hey, Farron!" A familiar voice called out, rousing Lightning from her thoughts the following morning. "Woman on a mission, as always, eh?" The figure caught up to her in the hallways and she sighed.
"That's because I'm always being sent on one, Rygdea," she chided, only receiving a slap on her back and a hearty laugh from the other officer.
"Aw, and here I was about to ask you down to Sarracenia. Me and the boys were planning on heading down to the planet for a skirmish and a drink after. You know, morale building."
Lightning hummed in response, not amused in the slightest by his idea of morale building. She shook her head and shrugged his hand off her shoulder. "I'll take a rain check, Rygdea. I've got somewhere I need to be. It's important."
The officer grimaced and eyed the lieutenant warily. "Damn, Farron. You look like you could actually use a drink. Bad briefing?"
"I'm headed off out near the edges of the system, near Palumpolum's gate to investigate a possible Cei'th sighting."
Rygdea sucked air through his teeth with a groan. "Ouch. Never mind the drinks then, do you want backup?" Lightning declined with a dismissive wave.
"I'll be fine. I've specifically been instructed not to play hero." She drawled, giving him a sarcastic salute and turning to head off towards the hangar.
"You better come back in one piece, Farron! I'll take you up on your offer and drag you down to Calautidon when you get back. Its always raining down there!" Lightning suppressed the smile at his words and kept walking, muttering under her breath. She didn't keep that smile hidden when she saw her vessel in the hangar, ready to go. Lightning tied her hair back to keep it out of the way, as the ship was too small for artificial gravity generators. Probably another reason why she spent so much time in the pilot chair. For once she was thankful for a cramped space, meaning that it wasn't too disorientating to move around. "Come on, Odin, let's see what trouble we can get ourselves into today."
A few days into her mission after a refuel at a trade hub nearby the Jump Gate, Lightning punched in the coordinates towards the last known sighting of these alleged Cei'th vessels. If they were just stories, the mercenaries did a damn good job talking them up to be the shadow monsters of nightmares. She patrolled for hours along the outskirts of the locales she was given, the sighted hotspots for all this alleged activity.
Lightning knew on runs like this, her colleagues would bring music or some kind of holovid to watch. The very idea brought a scowl to her face. Distractions in space were dangerous, especially out here away from any assistance. As much as the silence unnerved her, she couldn't afford to have anything take away from her focus.
Coming up empty, Lightning was about to leave the small asteroid field she was drifting through and head back to HQ when a blip came up on her radar. "Well that's interesting..." she muttered, scanning the vector with a keen eye. The vessel now coming up on her screen had just suddenly appeared from nowhere, like it had come from a jump gate. But there were none for miles, thousands of miles even.
Another blip on the radar appeared, closer to her ship this time. Lightning pulled up the viewer and zoomed in with a gasp. The vessel was like nothing she'd ever seen before, a jagged and aggressive design. The red and black lines along the sides looked more organic than metallic. "Almost as if they're crystal..." Lightning whispered to herself. Her dashboard lit up with warnings about unstable spatial anomalies, and felt dread seeping into her awareness.
She felt less safe the more the ships appeared from nowhere, and she pulled up her recorder to start feeding back to the base. She was hesitant to broadcast in case they had signal scanners, but this low range data transfer should hopefully not be detected. She found herself holding her breath as she stared, trying to figure out where they were appearing from. They were nowhere near a jump gate, so how were these ships just showing up? Was it an advanced cloaking device? Could they have somehow developed a way to create smaller jump gates?
Lightning's questions would be answered when her ship's warning system suddenly lit up, blaring alarms and bright red script across her displays. A Cei'th ship materialized from a miniature jump gate behind her. "Shit!" She hissed, kicking her engine into gear and gunning out of her hiding place behind an asteroid. Chaos erupted in the small space as the lieutenant suddenly had to attempt to outmanoeuvre twenty vessels all intent on leaving her as a floating corpse in the vacuum of space.
Plasma beams carved up the asteroids as she ducked and weaved through the field, trying desperately to avoid being obliterated. Lightning banked hard and let off a volley of concussive blasts at a nearby Cei'th vessel. It didn't even make an impact, their shields absorbing the damage. She observed a number of distortions in the space around her, and she deduced they were coming from these ships. How could they have such technology?
"Mayday mayday this is Lieutenant Claire Farron requesting immediate assistance in vector Alpha Niner Sigma, I am under attack by multiple entities from unknown vectors, repeat I am under attack in vector Alpha Niner Sigma!"
Nothing but static met her ears in the comms device and she cursed, narrowly avoiding another beam striking her ship. She glanced at the small holo on the dash of her and her sister back on the pristine beaches of New Bodhum and narrowed her eyes. She wasn't going out like this. Sending her Corvette into a barrel roll, she dodged and weaved through the masses of ships as they opened fire. Lightning thought she was in with a chance of freedom but a missile glanced off her wing and sent her into a spiral.
Warning lights and life support alarms went ballistic in the cockpit, and she frantically put her helmet on and prepared to jettison away. She lost her footing as the craft spun out, and Lightning only just had enough time to pull herself up to her seat to see her ship careening towards the spatial anomaly she had seen earlier.
"Serah... I'm sorry..."
She felt a terrible pressure in her skull and chest as she hit the rift. Everything went black.