Fallout: Stardust

Act 1 Issue 1

Space Chase!

The Archangel was gaining on its prey. Its sharp nosed prow cut through the darkness of space as the bright flares of its engines shrieked silently and clawed at the empty vacuum. The raptor-like frigate drove on through the empty space between stars, driven by the will of its captain. It was the very latest and greatest of the pre-war Hierarchy arsenal. Or at least the Captain liked to think. He was sure the dreadnought jockeys of the Fleet would love to disagree, but then again, the War wasn't won by dreadnoughts. And besides, they weren't here right now. The Archangel's captain allowed himself a predatory grin, his mandibles rattling.

"Helmsman, what's our time to intercept?" He asked. He strode forward from his raised command platform, heading towards the isolated pilot's station. Crewmen worked diligently at their consoles, heads bent over tracking data, targeting suites, and communications gear. The captain nodded to each in turn as he walked the narrow walkway. He came to a stop behind the pilot.

"Still two hours out, Spectre Vakarian," the boy snapped out, almost squeaking from the thick layer of academy polish that hadn't quite been knocked off yet. The captain nodded.

"Good, we're making excellent time. Engage stealth systems, keep us in his blind spot and push us in slow. I don't want them getting spooked and running to FTL."

"Yes, sir!" the helmsman acknowledged with just a little too much gusto. His excitement was shared by much of the crew, especially amongst the fresher faces. Many of them, like the young turian in the pilot's chair, were fresh graduates of the academy. A few too many, if he were honest. Not that they weren't as capable as any of the well salted officers and ratings that still manned the Archangel, though their enthusiasm and wide eyed hero worship he could do without, it was the familiar faces that should have been sitting at those consoles that really got to him.

"Good, good. Sensors, do we have a visual yet?" He stalked back along the bridge neck, eyes fixed on the holographic display projected into the center of the room. For the last week and a half it had displayed nothing but two points of light in space, his ship, and that of his quarry. He had gazed at that bright crimson point for hours, trying to imagine what the monsters who piloted it might look like. His question was answered as his sensor officer silently pushed her display to the holotank. The bright points expanded out before resolving themselves into an image. The captain felt his crest rise in curiosity. "What am I looking at, T'Soni?"

"I'm.. not sure, Garrus," the asari on the other side of the projector said, her face screwed up in a frown of concentration. "It looks… not unlike a ship of some kind. Definitely not any that the Council races have run into before, officially or unofficially. Looks sort of like a torpedo, writ large, doesn't it?"

The ship in the holotank did look at least somewhat like one of the standard issue disruptor torpedoes that warships carried as a matter of course, if perhaps an overly ornate one. It was long, cylindrical, with a bulbous bullet nose and raised fins that ran down its length and tapered to points around a brightly glowing engine cone at the rear of the ship, making it look like something out of Palaven's early rocket age. Other devices of less obvious purpose studded the ship's otherwise sleek hull and crude glyphs were daubed along one side in gaudy paint.

"Any luck on the translation yet?" He asked, cocking his head to peer at the scrawled golden writing.

"None so far," T'Soni admitted with a slight darkening of her cerulean features, "What little samples of the language we've gathered so far are few and incredibly fragmentary. Not to mention that the native survivors were less than helpful." The asari's head rills shivered slightly at the memory.

"Well, they probably thought we were more of the invaders," another voice joined them through the ship's intercom. Garrus smiled at the sound of his ship engineer's voice." After what they've just been through, who could blame them for having a hostile reaction? Besides, they only had chemical slug throwers, nothing our big, strong Spectre Captain couldn't handle."

Garrus cleared his throat. "Yes, thank you, Tali. Now, if we could get this conversation back on track. T'Soni, if you'd care to lay out what we do know about our quarry." The turian Spectre stepped back to allow the former information broker to move to the fore. She addressed the room at large, throwing images from her glowing Omni-tool into the tank in the center of the room. The interloper's ship minimized to the edge of the globe as new images took its place; a galaxy map marked in dotted red lines, the ruined third planet in an undeveloped system, and the disturbingly asari-like natives of said planet.

"Less than I'd like to have going into any kind of confrontation. What I and Glyph have been able to put together is mostly conjecture I'm afraid. We do know that they've never made contact with any council race, and that they originate from beyond the 314 Relay. It's likely that their home planet is within the dense star cluster they've been making a beeline to since we picked up their trail. Glyph calculates a thirty percent chance at least one habitable planet orbits one of the five stars in question. We know they are warlike, we all saw their handiwork, and that they are both willing and able to use a nuclear weapon on an inhabited garden world. This alone is enough to condemn them by Citadel law, alongside the additional charges of activating uncharted mass relays."

"Not that we're entirely innocent of that charge ourselves," their Commander of Marines added ruefully. "It's essentially been our continuing mission since the end of the war to go poking around the unclaimed regions."

"Be that as it may…"

"Spectre Vakarian!" the pilot called. "The enemy vessel has changed course!"

Garrus' crest rose in alarm. "Could they have spotted us at this range?" he croaked out. "Our approach should have been masked by their engine output. No, this has to be something else. A scheduled course correction perhaps. Navigator, place their new course versus their last course on the galaxy map."

The images in the holotank shifted again, resolving into the familiar shape of the galaxy. The image flickered, zooming in to the eastern spiral arm, and once again to the unexplored region of space they were barreling through. Red lines traced their way through the local cluster, the first one thin and dotted. Their original course, Garrus surmised, as it augured in almost a straight line from the sight of the nuclear attack directly towards the dense cluster of stars ahead. There had been almost no deviation, not even a stop to discharge their drive core. That one had posed a puzzle that even Tali couldn't answer. The second line was thicker, angrier. It diverted at almost a right angle from the interloper's previous course, down and away from their apparent target. A third, green line tracked the Archangel's entry into the cluster and its subsequent chase.

"If it is a scheduled course change, it is a strangely timed one," Liara commented. "We're in deep space, and this new course will drive them straight off the elliptical."

"My thoughts exactly," Garrus replied, scratching his chin with a taloned hand in thought. "But still, they shouldn't be able to detect us at this range. Even Reaper sensors weren't that good. Is it possible that they've seen something ahead of us that we can't see? STARC?"

-It is possible- rattled the grating, mechanical voice of the Strategic Targeting Assistant and Restricted Countermeasures, -The light delay at this distance is non-negligible. However, use of active sensors would negate our stealth advantage.-

"So we have a conundrum on our hands," Liara said. "Do we maintain the chase with stealth systems engaged and risk running into a third party out there but retain the element of surprise, or do we go active and close the distance as quickly as possible. Personally with the other ship being such an unknown quantity, I'd elect to continue tailing them. We can always break off the chase if something nastier is out there."

"I disagree," the Marine Commander retorted, "Whether they've seen us or not, it's clear that something on the field has changed. I say we run them down and board them before they manage to slip away."

"Sergeant Victus, I know you were more affected by evidence of nuclear weapons than the…"

Garrus withdrew as his subordinates debated around him. His steely gaze was fixed on the two lines, green and red, as they drifted further and further away from each other. What he wouldn't give for just a glimmer of insight into the being captaining the other ship. He scratched at his mandibles, tracing the paths with his eyes, visualizing the space around them. Though deep in the space between stars, no patch of the galaxy was truly empty. His eyes fell on the rapidly scrolling list of extrasolar bodies that were being automatically detected, tagged, and catalogued. A small blip of identical contacts flashed across the list. Garrus' eyes widened.

"T'Soni, Victus, enough." The two arguing crew members went silent immediately. Liara's jaw snapped shut with a click. Victus' jaw remained open in a much less dignified manner. "I think I know where our friend is going. Here's what we're going to do."

The Eagle was losing ground. Its bullet nose plowed through the Great Beyond with all the speed its impulse drive could squeeze from the cylinders, and it was not enough. The conical space rocket had already been cruising flat out when chance had revealed its stalker; now the engineering spaces creaked and groaned with the effort the chief engineer was coaxing out of them with all the fiery profanity and percussive maintenance their ilk was known for. His extortions echoed through the steel grille of the main deck and played across the eerily silent bridge. Too quiet for the ship's intrepid commander's tastes.

"Mr. Navigator, how soon until they intercept us?" the high, bright voice of the Commander rang out. The officer hunched over the ship's mechanical plotter rifled through tabulation printouts until he found what he was looking for. He unbent to his rather impressive height and swept the olive coloured high-peaked cap from his head to daub at his sweat-shined forehead.

"Not more than two hours, Colonel," he said in a papery voice just above a whisper. He jammed the cap back over his thinning hair. "Unless they pile on more speed. Which, if I might add, is unlikely. They have maintained a constant speed since we detected them."

The Colonel nodded and rose gracefully from her command chair, pulling her over-sized olive tunic taut and adjusting her weapons belt. "As you say. Black Cats, but they're fast. Any idea what their engines are made of?"

"None so far, Colonel," Professor Carmike grunted after listlessly flicking some of the switches on his console back and forth a few times. The Colonel groaned inwardly when no further report seemed forthcoming. Just her luck to be saddled with the only Follower in the galaxy who hated science. Well, as the adage said, if you wanted something done…

"Thank you, Carmike," The Colonel doffed her own peaked cap and flung it into the seat of her chair. She headed fore, passing the loudly clacking navigator's plotter and moving onwards to the ship's piloting station. The wide, paneled glass of the cockpit offered an open and captivating view of the Great Beyond. The Colonel had caught herself staring out in wonder more times than she could count. But not today. Today was a day for serious business. She stopped just behind the pilot's station, where the rocket jockey on duty lay face forward to the front scopes. "Alright, Cadet Sprye?" She called.

"Oof." The cadet attempted to rise to salute, unfortunately forgetting once again the cowling that wrapped around his head and shoulders. She shuffled backwards on the pilot's lounge and rose shakily, blushing furiously to the roots of his bright orange hair. "So- sorry, Colonel Shepard-Dare, Ma'am." The boy saluted like a springboard, almost vibrating with energy. "Eyes on the scopes, you know how it is, ma'am. Focus like a laser beam I have, all the proctors at the Academy said so. Eyes on the scopes is all."

Colonel Shepard-Dare laughed lightly and returned the cadet's salute in jaunty Space Force fashion, which elicited a beaming smile that could have lit up the inky blackness as well as the flare of an impulse engine.

"As you were, Cadet. I'm just here to take a peek outside."

The cadet nodded, finally dropping his rigid salute. "I'll just get back to flying the ship, ma'am," he said sheepishly before diving head first back under the pilot's cowling. The metal rang loudly as he bumped his head on the inside. Colonel Shepard-Dare smiled and moved over to the viewing podium. "Up stellarscope!" she called as she stepped lightly up onto the raised dais and reached up to where the cylindrical stellarscope housing hung from the ceiling. She hauled down on the side handles and pressed her eyes to the eyepiece. Space unfolded before her in all its glorious array as powerful lenses swept it for their pursuers. The Colonel turned in place, dragging her narrow view across the stars. "Where are you? Where are you? Aha, here we are!" She centered her view on a bright pinprick in the black and cranked the magnification. Space rippled and suddenly she had a close view of the trailing ship. It was sharp, angular, like a hawk with wings outstretched and sharpened talons outstretched. A sour expression flittered across the Colonel's face. It was a sharp, ugly kind of thing. And it was pointed right at her ship.

"Tea, mum," rasped a voice right at her elbow. It was Shepard-Dare's turn to knock her head about as she jumped at the startling noise.

"Oof. Black Cats, Digby, don't sneak up on me like that!" She pushed the stellarscope tower back into its resting position and turned towards her faithful batman. The somewhat short and portly ghoul stood at affable rest, tray of the Eagle's fine china held in rad rotted hands. His old uniform, though patched over and over again, was neatly pressed and cleaned as always, which served in contrast to his unruly yet singular shock of snow white hair. Colonel Shepard-Dare relished the smell of the fine tea but held her hand up none the less. "Not now, if you hadn't noticed we're in a spot of bother at the moment."

"I'm afraid I hadn't, mum," the ghoul admitted. "At least take a biscuit. I always find a biscuit helps with a sticky situation. Except maybe a treacle biscuit, that would of course make thing a deal worse, haha." He chuckled roughly.

"Oh, maybe just one then," the Colonel said, reaching for one of her favourites.

"Awfully nasty looking brute, isn't it, mum," Digby stepped up to the stellarscope and peered through. "I imagine if your grandfather were here he'd give them a bloody good seeing to, wouldn't you say mum?"

The Colonel's lips pressed into a hard line as she shot a look to her batman. "Yes, well Grandfather isn't here, so I suppose I'll just have to be the one to give them a 'bloody good seeing to." She looked back to the scope. "Does look rather nasty though, doesn't it? I wonder why they're after us." She traced the outline of the underslung talon-like protrusions. Weapons of some kind? She'd never seen a laser cannon that size, and they didn't look anything like plasma weapons. She shivered as she peered out at the ship, feeling in her bones that as she watched, so she was being watched.

"I can't imagine they're up to any good. Any decent sort would've contacted us by now." Digby snuck one of the biscuits from the tray with his usual lack of subtly and stuffed it into the breast pocket of his uniform.

"No," the Colonel agreed, "I expect we'll have to make a break for it. A ship that fast is likely to outgun us as well. If only there were some way to…" The sharp light of inspiration flashed in her eyes, brightening her drawn features. "Hang on, Digby, I think I have an idea." The Eagle's captain turned on her heel and strode purposefully back to the Navigator's station. The clattering of china told her Digby was in close pursuit. "Oh Mr. Navigator."

"Yes, Captain?" the officer replied in a dry tone reminiscent of the whispery paper continuously running through his plotter. "The other ship is still gaining, if that is what you were wondering. Keeping to our rear quarter, just below the horizon of our drive cone as before." The Navigator sniffed officiously.

"Yes, I'm aware of what is behind us," Shepard-Dare answered impatiently. "I was hoping for more information of what's ahead of us."

"Ahead?" he asked, removing his cap and dabbing prodigiously. His overgrown calculator clattered to a stop behind him. "I shall fetch the reams." He stuffed his cap back on and scurried off somewhere toward the back of the bridge.

Digby stepped up beside her, startling her again. She hadn't noticed him leave. He held her cap out to her, proud atom with flanking rockets gleaming in the electric lights of the bridge. "You have a cunning plan then, eh, mum?"

"Yes, Digby. How well do you know your history?"

"Know it? Well, I lived it, mum." The ancient ghoul puffed up his sunken chest with pride, a motion that set his gut and hair wobbling in tandem.

"Oh, good. Then you'll know all about Project 19-99?" The Colonel said airily as she did some mental math and tried to recall her own history lessons.

"Er…" Digby rasped self-consciously. "Not as such, mum, no. Some prewar science boffin's pet project, was it?" He scratched at his flaky scalp.

"No, Digby," Shepard-Dare said, "definitely post-war. Post Exodus, actually. Vault-Tec's Arc was cutting edge, but it was still atomic. And what is always the biggest limit on the use of atomic power? Barring fuel, of course." She added.

"Why, what to do you all the waste, mum," Digby enthused, clearly quite chuffed with himself.

"Exactly right. Unfortunately, the engineers responsible for the Arc didn't think of that when they were dreaming her up. And so, the Five Captains had to come up with a solution in flight, thus bringing us to Project 19-99." The Colonel peered back into the dimly lit recesses of the engineering spaces, her eyes searching for the delinquent Navigator. "There was, as there always was back in those days, a lot of quibbling back and forth on the matter, but basically they elected to dump the radioactive waste on any and every solid body they came across And if my guess is correct, we should be coming up on Dump Site Alpha just about now. Ah, and here is Mr. Carter."

The ship's Navigator hustled towards them with rolls of spooled plotting tape gathered under his arms. "All the stored plotting data for the area of space ahead of us. You'll notice I only have two sets of charts, this space hasn't been extensively mapped like the Promised Land systems"

"And we don't need it to be," Shepard said. "We just need one of these." She grabbed one of the plasticized reels and held it up to the bridge's lights. The words, 'A Arc, Navigation Records, 58-119' gleamed in narrow gold lettering along the rim. Colonel Shepard slipped the reel onto the projector spindle mounted above the plotting station and threaded the magnetic tape carefully into place. The projector's bulb flickered on, throwing the arcane sigils of the navigator's profession across the currently tabulating printout. She traced the line of her forebears' travel across the cosmos, stopping at a symbol that needed no translation, the three lobed flower of Danger! Radiation! Scrawled beside it, Alpha. "Good, it's right where it was in the book. And we are… here, yes. That puts us right on top of it."

"That is correct, Captain," Navigator Carter answered, a look of surprise slipping across his face, quickly chased off by his usual tired blandness. "In fact, I believe we'll be within visual range presently. And you're absolutely certain that this will help with our current situation?"

"Absolutely. Gunnery Chief, prep a mini-nuke from the magazine and begin calculations on a low speed, close range launch, coordinates zed zed nine, plural zed alpha. Cadet Sprye, alter course. Put us in a dive, full power, and the reserves too. Same coordinates." She turned from the plotter and strode back to her command chair with purpose in the steps and fire behind her eyes. She did a sharp turn and swept the high peaked cap from her chair, pressing it down lightly over her dark curls. "Alright gang, let's shake our tail and get ourselves home."

"They're still diving sharply," the Helmsman reported smartly. "Holding course and on track to intercept with the spacial objects in grid seven two zero. Acceleration holding constant. Time to intercept with the Archangel, ten minutes."

"Any clues as to what it is they're aiming for?" Sergeant Victus mused out loud as he bent over the holotank. "Whatever it is, it's certainly ugly."

Garrus couldn't help but agree. The squat little facility jutted from where it had been sloppily constructed on the larger of the paired deep space asteroids. The heavy construction was studded with thick bodied cylinders set in disorganized rows, each covered by sturdy rectangular struts. Radiation rippled across the augmented image in the command center holotank. "Tali'zorah believes it's some kind of fuel dump and I'm inclined to believe her. Although given those emission levels, they're running some awfully dirty form of power production. Fits with their dirty tactics." Garrus turned away from the display and motioned for the sergeant to follow. "I want radiation dampening inserts in all the marines' harnesses when we board them, who knows what the inside of their ship is like."

"Already have a squad working on the refit in the armory," Victus replied. "I have the medics prepping a regimen of radiation countermeasures. It won't stop everything, but it'll give us about ten minutes exposure time, assuming radiation levels on that scow is similar to the fuel dump."

Garrus nodded approvingly. Victus really did make a better sergeant than he ever would an officer. "Ten minutes, that's not a lot of time. Then again, I've been on hostile ships with stricter time limits." He scratched absentmindedly at the chunk missing from his left mandible. "Have them ready, Victus. It'll be just like the Zelbinian."

"Hopefully not entirely. I don't want to have to drag you off this ship like I did that accursed wreck." Victus said, his face suddenly becoming solemn.

"Yes," Garrus replied, equally as grave. "Although I think you're remembering that skirmish incorrectly, my friend. I remember having to pick you up and carry you off the deck after than seam blew out in the hangar."

Victus broke out in a croaking fit of laughter. "In the hanger, yes. How could I forget? Which fight was I thinking of?"

"I don't think that fight will ever come," Garrus replied mirthfully, slapping the soldier on the pauldron. "You just keep hoping, th…" his sentence was cut off mid word by the grating voice of STARC.

-Hostile vessel has deployed a device to the fuel dump's surface. Purpose unknown.-

"Any readings?" Garrus dismissed Sergeant Victus with a flick of the head. "Pilot Subpono, warm up the Thanix and secondary batteries, I'm getting a bad feeling about this one."

-Acquiring… Mass, thirty-five kilograms, Dimensions, seventy-eight centimeters by twenty-eight centimeters. Velocity steady at forty-one meters per second. Radiation emissions measuring at forty rad/s. Impact with the surface in ten seconds.-

"No acceleration? No power readings of any kind?"

-Negative.-

"So it's unlikely to be a weapon," Liara said, stepping up next to the Spectre. "Just what is it they are up to?"

"And… impact!" Cadet Sprye called out. Silence fell about the flight deck as the expected conflagration failed to occur. "I… uh, said Impact!"

"Gunnery Chief, report!" Colonel Shepard-Dare ordered. Her glare was steely-eyed as she rounded on the aged Mr. Gutsy. The three armed robot flexed its manipulator arms in the closest equivalent to a shrug.

-Well, we definitely hit it, Cap'n!- The whirring ordinance officer interjected. –By my calculations, there must have been a failure in the contact fuse. I suspect commie sabotage, ma'am!-

"I'll take it under advisory," the Colonel replied. "Can we detonate remotely?"

-Not on a second generation mini-nuke, ma'am- the Gunnery Chief grated. –If the impact detonator failed, our only option is to manually trigger the warhead or breach the casing.-

"Well, I don't imagine we'll find many volunteers to go down and set it off," Colonel Shepard-Dare said ruefully. "Could we set it off with our tail gun? Surely hot plasma would be sufficient to breach the casing on the mini-nuke."

-Our tail guns would be more than sufficient. However, at this distance our defensive installations lack the point accuracy to hit the warhead. That and we'd lose the element of surprise!-

Shepard-Dare rubbed her chin thoughtfully as the bridge clicked and whirred about her. Everyone looked to her as she struggled for a solution. On the stellarscope, the undetonated mini-nuke lay gently atop the main storage compartment of Dump Site Alpha, almost mockingly.

"I have an idea, mum," Digby said from his position at her shoulder. "But I don't think you're going to like it."

"At this juncture, Digby, I'm all ears." She replied with a pregnant sigh.

"Well, you recall my adventure with your grandfather over Mekonta?" Digby said, with a surprisingly cunning look in his eye. The Colonel's features went blank as she tossed about in her memory. "Over the flame-belt, mum." He added helpfully. Shepard-Dare's face turned feral.

"Yes. Yes I think that might just work. You'll have to move quickly." She turned to the Gunnery Chief. "Chief, I'll need a space suit and one of the long-lasers brought up, on the double!" The Mr. Gutsy threw a smart salute and rocketed away on his jet propulser. "Best get back to the tail gun, Digby. We'll only have one shot at this."

"One shot is all I'll need, mum," The ghoul responded. His salute was much less professional, yet made up for it in enthusiasm. He scampered off with uncharacteristic spryness.

The two ships streaked across the inky backdrop of space, their captains standing proud on their respective bridges. Between them lay the silently orbiting rocks of the long abandoned nuclear waste dump, its deadly potential unknown to the pursuer. As the distance closed, both captains became surer in the success of their plans. Though they did not know it, both minds ran on identical tracks as the seconds to intercept ticked down to zero.

"Pilot Subpono, move us in…"

"Cadet Spry, hold us steady…"

"Marines, prepare to board…"

"Ready on that laser, Digby…"

"Here we go…"

"Here we go…"

"Alright, I…"

"Have…"

"You…"

"Now…"

"Taking the shot, mum!"