A/N: After a long period of inactivity, I'm back! My old terraria fanfiction is gone, and in its place is an FTL… well, I don't know what to call this. But I hope you like! This is mostly just exposition.
Chapter 1: The Briefing
The digital map in the middle of the room flickered, whole star systems becoming redder and redder as they were swallowed up by the encroaching Rebel fleet. As the three crew members watched on in horror, the paths between stars suddenly dimmed, before recovering.
"Unless we stop them, the FTL links between all the stars in our systems could fail!" Lukas, the scientist on board, adjusted his glasses and checked the figures on his clipboard. "The Rebel weapons work on the same frequency as the dark matter turbines that support the whole FTL system. If you tap on a wine glass hard enough it shatters, and if enough weapons are fired we're isolated. We have a deadline of approximately 10 days to take down their Flagship! Why aren't we going?"
"Because it's so pretty." Alex, his aviator goggles perched on his head, sighed and shook his head. "Just look. If we don't succeed, all of this could be gone. We should appreciate it while it lasts."
Max punched his shoulder. "Earth to Alex! That's why we need to go- it's our job to prevent it from falling! Do you remember the briefing?"
"No, quite honestly. It was all white noise." replied Alex.
The other two nodded. "All I heard was 'shoot things'" he continued. "But surely that would make us as bad as the rebels?"
"Morality? Seriously, dude?"
"No! I mean, the energy. Won't it deteriorate the… what was it… FTL system as well?"
Lukas coughed and adjusted his glasses "Actually… our laser weapons operate on a different frequency. That's how we can shoot each other's shields. If we operated on the same frequency, it would be like shooting a wet paper plate.
"Awesome! So we're gonna use lasers? Or missiles? Drones? How will we kill the rebels?"
"We can't rely on missiles too much. They're powerful- able to punch through the electromagnetic sheaths that repel the lasers- but they're notoriously unreliable and some drones can destroy them. When this happens during an asteroid storm, it can deflect asteroids into you!
"Drones are also mostly impractical, as our ship can only handle two drones. Also, we have a finite amount of drone parts. Actually, that finite amount is none. At the moment, we'll have to use our Artemis to take down their shields, and then let all hell break loose with our frickin' lasers."
Having delivered this monologue, Lukas swivelled smartly on his heel and started to walk towards to open door of the spaceship. Having been christened the Kestrel, the team had decided that they didn't like it, and so Lukas had spent three hours trawling every single document about their ship and changed the name to something not quite completely different.
"You coming?" he shouted over his shoulder. Alex and Max looked at each other, shrugged, and turned to face the mighty ship.
"You know what?" said Alex. "If we get through to the Flagship with this, I'd be happy if we can just get one damage on that behemoth before we're smeared across space and time."
"Are you depressed or something?" replied Max. "It's all or nothing."
And it was these words, "All or nothing", that were rattling around in Alex's head when he took his place at the cockpit. Having already completed the pre-flight checks, his eyes were fixed on the tiny holographic map beside his left hand as he automatically adjusted the microphone on his headset. "So, uh… you all ready to go?"
"Shields functioning at 100% capacity, cap'n!" shouted Lukas, causing Alex to wince. "There's no need to shout. Your headset has a microphone built in."
"Oh!" Lukas said, embarrassed. Being the scientist, he'd be expected to know these things. Most humiliating.
"Max? Engines?" Alex said
"Comin' in just fine. Oxygen levels?"
"100%. I'm telling the boys back home that we're good to go."
And with a sigh, the airlock opened, throwing the Avian out into the bleak depths of space.