Cornerian Strike Cruiser Starfire, Outer Fortunian Sector.
"It's the weirdest thing..." A white hound with brown spots murmured, his face lit by the computer screen before him.
"What is the weirdest thing, Chief?" The Captain inquired, upon hearing his crewman's mutterings.
"I could have sworn I'd picked up an energy disturbance just a few seconds ago...now it's gone.."
"Where?"
"Somewhere 'round high orbit over Fortuna."
The captain, a rather short doberman with a cybernetic left eye, stroked his chin.
"Might as well check it out."
"But, sir...Our orders were specific. We are t-"
"To hell with our orders, Chief. Ooh, there are gravitic distortions in Meteo. Yeah, big surprise there, you dolts, that field has rocks larger than Corneria's moon. Break course and head for Fortuna. We'll check it out and then continue on to Meteo. Even the dimwits in Cornerian Command would agree that I'm making the right decision."
The warship's tail end expelled plasma particles with violent force, scattering the space behind it with purple sparkles that floated a short distance and winked into infinity.
The trip to Fortuna was long and boring, short enough that Warp Gates weren't needed, but long enough that the time was still measurable.
Nothing happened for a good fifteen minutes, until the Cruiser slid into direct Fortunian space.
"Right, let's see what the flakes are up to...get me a channel to the surface."
"..Can't do that, Captain. Something's blocking communi-"
"Shit, there's a Gate opening!" An officer called from across the bridge.
The captain growled, looking up from the comm station.
"On screen."
The viewscreen blinked on, featuring a portion of Fortuna's high orbital vicinity, with just enough space to capture video of the planet's north pole.
Geographical locations, however, were not of interest here.
A shimmering rift in space was forming above Fortuna.
It wasn't so much a circular gate as it was a huge rip in realspace, like a gash that split the star filled void and introduced it to blackness devoid of any features, surrounded by a bright, flucuating blue halo.
"What the hell is that? Are the flakes testing a new weapon?" The captain asked no one in particular, squinting his real eye.
Before anyone could answer, the gate widened considerably, enough to swallow an entire fleet of warships, and from within it's black depths, an enormous silver shape emerged.
The entire command crew gasped, and for good reason.
As the Captain stepped closer to the viewscreen, it became clear to him that this shape was some sort of starship.
It was slightly flattened and cylindrical, rather like a slightly crushed toilet paper tube in truth, and a massive tower shot up from the hull close to the tail end, with what were clearly windows, showing just the slightest glimpse of a brightly lit chamber.
As for weapons, it didn't look like it had many, save for some rather large and notable ball turrets that stuck out of the hull just past the midpoint.
"Scan that ship, I want to kn-"
"Captain Eberstark...something's...blocking our sensors." The chief said, looking up with a puzzled expression on his face.
"..What?"
"Something's blocking our sensors, we can't pick it up. It's like it's not there."
"Bullshit, these are the best sensors technology can give us, try again."
Again, before anyone could reply, the comm station beeped.
"Receiving a hail from the alien ship. It's on our frequency..."
Eberstark exhaled, eyeing the viewscreen warily.
"Put it through."
The viewscreen switched from a view of Fortuna's high orbit, to a scroll of text.
The text wasn't native to Lylat, or at least, Eberstark was pretty sure it wasn't; he spoke Standard, Fortunian, and two Titanian dialects, and no ships in Lylat used their own language as standard text code.
A voice issued forth from the speakers; it sounded akin to a Cylon, metallic, buzzing and monotone.
"Identify yourself."
Eberstark raised an eyebrow; an alien ship appeared out of nowhere, no announcement, no word from Corneria about it's origin as was standard with scheduled visits, and it was demanding identification?
"Until you show your face, I don't think I'm inclined, nor required, to give you any identification."
A snort was his reply.
The viewscreen stopped scrolling text, and switched to the view of a dark room.
The consoles lining the walls, manned by shadowy figures, were brightly lit, as was the face of the hailing figure.
His face was humanoid, but he couldn't possibly be human; the most obvious physical indication of alien origin being the creature's deep red eyes.
His short dark hair was combed tightly to the back of his head, and Eberstark was certain he could see the collar of a red and black jacket, no doubt part of the alien's uniform.
When he spoke next, his voice wasn't metallic any longer, and anyone who knew Terrans would describe it as vaguely British.
"Well, now you've seen my face, Xeno. Identify yourself, now."
"I'm Captain Eberstark, and this is my ship, the Cornerian Cruiser Starfire."
The alien narrowed his eyes and smiled thinly.
"Captain, I'm only going to tell you once: You are to stand down immediately and prepare to be boarded; your ship is now property of His Imperial Majesty's navy."
Imperial?
Eberstark bared his teeth; he didn't know who the hell this hairless monkey was, but he didn't take kindly to threats.
"Helm, power up the laser cannons and torpedo launchers."
"I would advise you to simply stand down, Eberstark. As it is, my ship is six times your length and infinitely better armed. Do not make me take it by force."
So, eight kilometers, then... Eberstark thought to himself.
Larger than anything Lylat had ever created, that's for sure.
Still, size didn't matter.
His cruiser had the advantage of maneuverability, which would give him the ability to dodge fire from those ball turrets.
"Go to hell. I don't know what you are or what your long term intentions are, but I do not like being threatened. Open fire."
The alien's eyes rolled up as though he were looking at something on the ceiling, and the video connection cut.
Starfire's side mounted guns erupted in bright blue streams of laser fire.
The weapons streaked across the cold void in the blink of an eye and slammed into the enemy warship.
Several score metres before the beams would have reached the hull, a section of space in front of the ship flashed red; a shield.
"Nothing, sir."
"Damnit, open fire with everything we've got!"
The missle pods expelled a gigantic flurry of projectiles, not unlike a swarm of angry hornets.
They fell in line around the beams, trailing red exhaust that stretched on rather like the plasmatic exhaust of the Cruiser's engines.
The fusillade slammed violently and near ceaselessly into the warship's deflectors, so much and so fast that the entire forward section of the ship was covered by blinding red flashes.
When the pounding had finally ended, Eberstark's jaw dropped; the ship was still perfectly intact, and in truth, the weapons hadn't even penetrated the shields.
"Receiving another hail."
Eberstark nodded his approval, clearly still in shock.
"So...this is the mighty Cornerian Navy that we've heard so much about? I really was hoping you could do better than that."
Eberstark's tactical officer stared at his screen with awe and fear as little lights danced across his face.
Even as the alien's face disappeared, shoving the screen back to the view of outer space, an alarm sounded.
"Three incoming torpedoes!"
"Evasive action!"
Starfire snapped around one hundred eighty degrees, engaging it's engines and blasting away at high speed.
Still, the coruscating white tubes followed them with the zeal only a guided weapon possessed.
"Break left!"
The Starfire turned quickly, heading for the Solar end of the asteroid field, hoping they could shake the weapons in hot pursuit.
Even as they did so, the torpedoes followed, closing the black distance in only a few microts.
The first torpedo actually overshot the Starfire, coming within fifty meters of the warship's dorsal hull.
The second slammed into the cruiser's starboard weapons pod, bursting in a ball of violent blue.
Eberstark was thrown from his position, landing about twenty feet away, close to the bridge door.
As he rose, his right hand clamped against a bleeding gash, he blinked his eyes and bellowed.
"Damage report!"
"Starboard weapons are out, so are a few other systems. Some sort of concentrated ion b- OH SHIT! BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
The ship tried to turn and evade the third torpedo, but it was too close and too fast.
It hit directly between the Starfire's two impulse engines, detonating before reaching the hull due to plasma backwash.
For just a microt, the flash of the detonating projectile smothered the purple ejecta from the engines, which rapidly died down to nothing.
The Starfire drifted away, dead in the water, heading for the asteroid field.
And aboard the alien warship, the captain smiled and shook his head, signalling to a crewmember that was monitoring a glowing, semi transparent Tac Screen.
"Deploy gunboats and drag that ship back, preferrably before it makes good friends with a rock. Comms, send a transmission to Admiral Tilkosh. Tell him, Preliminary operations are complete, it's safe to continue."