Disclaimer: Fire Emblem and all its assets belong to Nintendo and intelligent systems.
Second disclaimer : I have no idea what I'm doing
Spacedock, Earth
On board the ISS San Pellegrino, an old but rugged ship painted in grey and orange, reminiscent of its original role as an asteroid miner before it was converted into a FTL-capable armed freighter.
Inside the bridge is situated a most of the crew. A large monitor sat to the front of the captain's station, a white canadian man with blonde hair and blue eyes. The man sat on a very comfortable chair.
With his glasses and his black buttoned shirt, he looked at the rest of the crew who are varied in origin and personality. They had quite a history together, becoming friends from their days in school and deciding to stick together afterwards. And now they were here.
"You know? Why are we here?" Asked a man from beside him. The person had messy brown hair and a short stature. Dominic, he was called.
Hugo, the captain of the ship, turned around on his adjustable chair. "Just to suffer." The captain answered.
A person clad in an olive green shirt and forest camouflage pants floated into the bridge as the two men chatted. The newcomer had an assured expression as he handed over a tablet to the captain.
"Hugo, the ship is loaded with supplies and equipment! We're ready to leave port at your command." the man announced, saluting with one hand and gripping the edge of the console to prevent himself from floating away in zero-g.
"Thank you Qihao. We're gonna leave in a few minutes"
"Understood. I'll be in engineering if you need me." The camo-man headed off to a hatch leading to his station in the engineering bay.
"Alright, check if everything's working on the ship." commanded Hugo, sipping from a cup of coffee. A special cap was in place to prevent the liquid from freely floating around in the absence of gravity.
"We're good." Julien, the tactical officer of the ship sounded. He scratched his brown combed hair a bit and readjusted his thick rimmed glasses.
Another voice came from the captain's right, a korean man dressed in Collège Sainte-Anne clothing. That post was occupied by their Jump Core specialist, the operator of the systems responsible for the Faster-Than-Light capabilities of the spaceship. Chan Sung turned and faced Hugo, staring into his soul. "Can we go now?"
"Alright then Channy."
He looks at the long list of people on board and double-checked presence via the use of the radio and simply shouting at the other crewmen in the bridge. This annoying safeguard was in place to prevent a repeat of an incident involving multiple people being forgotten on the station.
Once he made sure everyone was on board, Hugo tapped on a console. "Alright Tristan we're good to go!"
The spaceship backed away slowly before turning around and unleashing its rearward thrusters, leaving the recently renovated spaceport behind.
"All systems online and fully operational, qi out" Informed the ship's engineer, Qihao on the radio.
"The jump drive is ready, I put in the coordinates. Uh once we clear port we can uh jump" Chan Sung said.
Hugo tapped on his console "Tristan, prepare our ship for jumping"
"Alright" answered the man.
After they were clear of the rapidly growing spaceport of their native planet, the ship stopped and re-oriented itself towards its destination.
Chan Sung looked at the captain. "Ey b0ss, we can jump now"
Hugo nodded.
The korean man then immediately put on the song Shooting Stars.
"Seriously Channy?" Hugo asked in disbelief.
Chan Sung chuckled and turned the music off. Then, he initiated the faster-than-light jump systems.
White rings formed around the ship, as the ship is encased in a warp bubble for faster-than-light travel. Suddenly, a stray object hits the port side of the ship, only throwing it slightly off course.
Moments later...
The ship exited its bubble and the scenery is quite different from what everybody on board the ISS San Pellegrino had expected. The ship had arrived in a section of space that harbored a bright A class sun and an asteroid field.
The crew looked somewhat confused when they stared out of the bridge.
"Engineering here, we've jumped but I don't think we're at the right destination." Qihao reported.
Hugo turned on his microphone and answered him sarcastically.
"Fantastic news." He paused for effect then retook his seriousness. "How far did we go?"
"No idea, probably got pulled in by an anomaly. Jump core what do you think?"
The korean responsible for the ship's ability to go faster-than-light thought for a moment. "Uh... I think we got knocked off course by an object."
"Fucking great, can we get out of here?" complained the Captain, shaking his head in irritation.
The Jump Core wearing the Collège Sainte-Anne uniform began investigating the state of the drives to prepare to return to their original course.
A dozen minutes later, the communications specialist, Dominic, received a hail from an unknown source. He quickly brought the news to the captain.
"Hey Hugo, someone's trying to hail us, should we answer the call?"
"Yea sure go ahead." Hugo took a sip from his coffee.
On the view-screen a battle-scarred young caucasian man stared back at the captain of the ISS San Pellegrino. "This is sector A-1R3V, home to the 'lads, what can I do for you?" The man asked.
The captain explained the situation to the man communicating with the ship, but was interrupted by an alarmed Julien.
"Hey we have 5 ships moving towards us quickly, a transport and two corvettes on the port side, a frigate and another corvette on the starboard side."
Hugo waved off the warning by stating they might just be passing by. So, he kept talking with the person hailing them, trying to find out where they are. Moments later, a quite chubby white Latino man, the cartographer of the vessel, alerted the crew of new information.
"Uh guys? I think we're in pirate territory." Tristan said with a tone of concern in his voice, having taken a look at their approximate location on the star charts and the information he got from the conversation.
That piece of information finally changed the mind of the captain. "FUCK! IT'S A TRAP! ALL HANDS TO BATTLESTATIONS! SHIELDS UP AND OPEN FIRE!" he ordered over the intercom, prompting the crew to get ready for combat.
The ship's shield systems crackled to life as the asian engineer turned it on, siphoning energy from the reactor to feed the hungry combat system. "UP!" he informed through the communication systems.
"Well no shit it's a trap!" Julien grumbled, flipping the safety switch off on the weapon systems.
The battle started with a few kinetic rounds striking the port side of their ship in the ambush. The armed freighter was knocked back by the force of the rounds, the movement disorienting the crew momentarily.
ISS San Pellegrino retaliated by launching a salvo of high-explosive guided ordinance at a corvette.
Tristan flew the ship behind an asteroid as the missiles finished launching, trying to duck into cover as more fire poured down from their opponents. The ship's maneuvering and main thrusters all flared to life as the spacecraft flew around the rock.
As the helmsman scrambled to keep the ship steady during the turn, multiple pieces of debris flew out from the other side of the asteroid, confirming the kill of the targeted corvette.
"I got him" cheered Julien. He slung the ship's turreted mid-caliber auto-cannons around to fire at the ships coming from the other side while keeping an eye on the loading progress of more missiles
A salvo of lasers and railgun shells was blocked by their cover, taking some of the impending problems off of them momentarily. Meanwhile, the ships coming from the exposed flank closed in while firing their weapons , looking to disable the large freighter and board it to retrieve it's precious cargo. The ISS San Pellegrino is hit multiple times by light railgun shells but only receives light damage, courtesy of the ship's modified shield system.
One of the mechanics, Gilles, noticed the damage received as he used the ship's systems to seal off penetrated sections to prevent dangerous leaks. "The new shields are really good, not a lot was damaged" the man noted.
"That's why you mod the damn thing" replied Qihao, monitoring the ship's shield system in case a component goes haywire.
G-forces slammed into the crewmen as the main thrusters went on full power, evading further shots from connecting with the hull. The opposing space pirate weapons were silent in the void of space, no air available to propagate sound. The only hearing protection the crew needed was against their own guns. The fight continued on until the pirate frigate was shaken off by heading into a thicker part of the asteroid field, too hazardous to travel unless you were either very brave, very stupid or very competent at dodging rocks that flew around as fast as missiles, and could hit just as hard
Manoeuvres from the freighter barely evaded the constant barrage of firepower shot from the corvettes that followed the ship into the danger zone. Although the ship was significantly larger than any of the pursers, it was older and wasn't purpose-created for battle. The only advantage the crew of the ISS San Pellegrino had was in their experienced crewmen.
A remark from Julien broke the constant orders from the captain as the fighting continued. "Tactical here, the marked asteroid is particularly volatile, we can blow it up behind us to disrupt them."
"Alright, blow it up with a missile at it once we're close to exiting the blast radius." Hugo ordered, keeping an eye on the ship as it continued the fighting retreat.
Once the ship made it past the expected radius, the large and rocky asteroid reacted violently with the guided explosives. The bright yellow explosion knocked around a lot of surrounding asteroids, causing them to crash into each other and fragment. The space debris endangered any nearby vessels daring enough to chase. This man-made trash barrier's effectiveness was immediately realized as it tore a corvette stupid enough to try to barge through it into multiple pieces. The rest retreated to safety after witnessing their comrades shredded into fine metallic and flesh cheese.
However as they fell back, one ship managed to land a stray railgun shell on the ISS San Pellegrino and rock it badly.
"Tristan, are the engines still working?" Asked the captain, an irritated tone in his voice as his senses recovered.
The swede quickly fired each thruster momentarily to check for damage."Yeah." he answered, satisfied that the ISS San Pellegrino could still had most of its power intact.
"Turn the ship around so we can jump back to where we're supposed to go, NOW!" He ordered, looking outside the bridge in concern.
The ship quickly maneuvered around, turning towards their next destination.
Chan Sung turned around with a poker face. "Ey b0ss? Uh-the jump drive broke." he awkwardly reported.
"Calisse de tabarnak! Get it to work again." Hugo shook his head in frustration.
Minutes later of tense waiting as the crew scanned around for pursuers, the radio crackled to life with the sound of the asian engineer finally bringing them both the good news and bad news.
"Alright, the drive is up and running again, but it isn't safe because it suffered damaged." he reported.
In spite of his concerns, Hugo St-Pierre ordered the ship to commence pre-jump. They could not risk sticking around for too long as the pirates could regroup with reinforcements and move around the volatile asteroid barrier. He wasn't about to take chances as the threat could return at any moment.
As rings formed around the ship to envelop it in a warp bubble to jump to a set destination, Tristan felt the need to comment.
"Guys I have a bad feeling about this" he said.
Dominic looked away from his station's monitor and right into the eye of his comrade in the bridge.
"Never say that. Ever."
Some time later…
The ship exited it's warp bubble for the second time within hours and entered another solar system. Looking out the bridge, the crew realized there was an exo-planet right in front of them. They arrived within the gravity well of it, thus the ship was being pulled towards the gigantic object.
"Wow that's a sight" remarked the group's leader, taking in the view of the blue cosmic entity.
Someone else quickly quipped something sarcastic. "Never seen a fucking planet before?"
"No shit Jul-"
"Guys I don't think this is Earth, or a colonised planet" interrupted Dominic, confused.
Indeed, as the planet seemed to be a habitable planet complete with multiple continents and oceans, it did not feature any sign that an advanced civilization may have been there as there were no spaceports or any spaceborn objects nearby to be seen.
"The ship's getting pulled by the gravity of the exo-planet." The blond helmsman remarked.
"WELL DON'T JUST FUCKING STAND THERE!" screamed Julien from his seat.
Tristan tried to steer the ship away from the planet, but the velocity of the craft and a loss of thrust forbid the ship from steering away from the cosmic entity.
"Shit we're gonna crash!" Gilles yelled over the intercom.
The helmsman frantically tried to find a way to escape the planet, but to no avail. The ship kept drifting.
"Engineering to the captain, fire's put out and thrusters are back up and running." reported Qihao.
"QUARNO COULDN'T YOU DO IT EARLIER?!" remarked a very irritated Julien
"There was a fire." Qihao deadpanned.
Hugo immediately decided to stop their pointless arguing before it could begin. "Alright you two stop talking, Tristan, turn the ship around and try to get us away from the planet." he ordered.
"Aye sir" The swede answered.
The ISS San Pellegrino turned its entire body around with its maneuvering thrusters and attempted to escape the grasp of the exo-planet. However, the pull was becoming too strong for their main thrusters too, so they began slowly acceleration towards the blue rock.
"Hugo, I think we're gonna crash anyways." Dominic glumly noted.
"Ah, crap. Any ideas?" Hugo grimaced.
"We could uh-jump." Chan Sung suggested.
"Negative, Jump Core, the jump drives are absolutely FUCKED." The asian engineer reminded.
Dominic raised his hand. "Crashland safely by doing the re-entry protocol we practiced before? You know, the thing we did years when we began shipping things just IN CASE things went horribly wrong like RIGHT NOW?"
"Oh right! I forgot about that." The captain quickly gave the order to everyone to brace for landing.
An hour passed as they drifted closer to the planet. The atmosphere was incredibly tense inside the bridge.
"Qihao, you sure the thrusters are at max power?"
A few seconds of silence passed, then everyone aboard could hear a massive noise coming from the aft section of the ship. The helmsman suddenly reported that the ship is slowing down from increased power.
The radio crackled to life with Qihao's voice. "The ship's thrusters are on overdrive, advising repairs after the ship reaches a friendly dockyard… If we get there."
As the ship was nearing the surface of the planet, it started slowing down due to increasing drag and additional power being pumped out by the hard-working engines. The ship slowly breached the atmosphere of the planet, reaching such temperatures outside the craft that some parts of the hull began glowing. The inside temperatures were also skyrocketing, as every crew member sweated in an attempt to regulate their body temperature and some even passing out. The ISS San Pellegrino truly looked like a gigantic orange shooting through the skies.
Tristan kept the crew informed of their descent, a bead of sweat going down his forehead. "5000 meters, 4000 meters, 3000 meters, 2000 meters, 1000 meters, 500
meters..."
Hugo gripped his seat tightly "Son of a bitch."
END OF SHIP'S LOGS