Sorry for the long delay, I got distracted by school as well as trying to learn some new stuff like 3d modeling.
I am posting this even though I feel I need to rewrite it. Things may change some in the next chapter.
10:00 pm Friday
"Captain, Captain Omarr, are you alright!?!" the ship's AI shouted as she silently cursed the inventors who could not come up with sensors that worked while the transporter was in operation.
Just then the ship's android avatar of the light attack ship PaxMagellanic, came running across the bridge and opened the transport room door.
There standing on the other side was Jim Michel, as he stepped forward he asked, "What happened? I feel like I was hit by a semi-truck."
"The ground transporter was destroyed as you beamed up, Captain." The ship's holographic avatar stated as it appeared next to him and the android.
"Pull up an image of the building." Jim ordered. A second later the main view screen was filled with the buildings around his apartment. He could see that his apartment was on fire, and that there was four people looking at the top of the building across the street. As the scene zoomed in, Jim could see someone on top of the building holding a rocket launcher. As the guy on top approached the edge of the building, three of the people on the ground started running towards the building, one running down the alley for the fire escape the other two running inside.
Meanwhile the man on the roof ran to a camera and pulled out the memory card and took off for the fire escape. Reaching it, he turned around when he saw the guy climbing up. Running now for the roof access the guy ducked behind some boxes as one of the other two men came through that.
Watching as the guy picked up a board that was lying next to him, Jim knew something bad was going to happen. As the guy brought the board down across the back of the other man, Jim was shocked that instead of falling to the ground the man turned around and chased his assailant inside followed closely by the guy from the fire escape.
And that's when it hit Jim who the four people must be. Looking at their truck he confirmed it, they were the ones he'd followed from O'Malley's.
Watching the building Jim waited for someone to come out, a moment later someone did. As the guy came out sword first, everything came back to Jim, the warning from Pete, meeting Muddrok, and the search that came up with the assassin Murdoc. It all clicked in Jim's mind as he saw Murdoc falling.
He was about to order the screen shut off, when he saw Murdoc's head move, and then a hand reached up and pulled the sword out of his back. Jim was amazed as he saw the bleeding stop, and the wound start to heal. Running to a parked car, Muddrok threw his sword in and then climbed in himself. As he slammed the door two people came running out of the building.
As the car took off down the alley the two people ran after it. As the car reached the street, it pulled out in front of a SUV that crashed into a streetlight.
Knowing he had a log to update, Jim ordered the AI to track the car and pickup, and then he went to his private office.
Opening his Captain's log, Jim scrolled to the bottom and began filling it out.
At the top of the log was the Captain's personal file it reads as follows.
Captain Harrison S. Omarr
AKA Jim Michel
Rank: Captain in the United Zethus Fleet
Height: six foot fourWeight: 190
Hair Color: blondEye Color: Blue
Standing Orders: To investigate possible allies by living among them for an amount of time (to be determined by the investigating agent) and report back to the Counsel. The investigating agent will at all times follow the Prime Directive, and will in no way interfere with governmental proceedings, be they large or small. For this mission the agent will receive command of one of the new Peace Master class light attack ships. Thus it is recommended that the chosen agent be a captain with a clear record and mechanical experience as there will be no crew and the captain will make all needed repairs.
Last Received Message: Captain Omarr, remain at your present location until further notice. Something has gone terribly wrong with project 827593…
And that was where the message stopped, like that was the end, or someone had turned the power on the transmitter off.
But Omarr didn't understand was what was wrong with project 827593, it had been his project. He was the designer; he'd helped build the first armband. He'd been so mad when he had been ordered off world just when they had started experimenting with them, but Pax had pointed out that he was the only captain that had experience in engineering, and special-ops as well as experience as diplomat.
Looking up he realized that it was really late and he should get some sleep. As he got out of his chair the collision alarm sounded.
Running on to the bridge he demanded to know what was going on.
The holographic AI appeared. "Meteoroids, a large group of them…" she was cut off as the whole ship shuddered. As the bridge faded to emergency lighting, Omarr ran to the pilot's chair and strapped in.
On the view screen he could see earth growing larger. Hitting a command he brought up the ship's diagnostics screen. Immediately he knew they were in trouble, the ship had lost main engines and the thrusters were only at fifty percent on reserve power.
The android AI came onto the bridge as Captain Omarr said, "Hang on, we're going in."
With that the spaceship PaxMagellanic plummeted towards earth.
************
7:21 am Saturday
It was a beautiful day in the small town in Kansas, the sun was shining the birds were singing, and everyone felt good. That was soon to change.
Suddenly a car burst into flames as a small meteoroid crashed into it, igniting the fuel tank.
People ran for cover as more meteoroids came crashing down, not knowing that above them rushed a meteoroid big enough to pulverize the whole town.
As the giant meteoroid neared the town, it suddenly made a ninety-degree turn heading away from the town.
Several miles out of town, four people were just sitting down to breakfast when the eighteen-year-old boy heard something outside. Excusing himself he went out to the barn.
Finding the cow loose, he put her back in her pen.
He was about to go back to the house when he heard something coming from the direction of the town. He quickly ran up to the loft to see if he could find out what it was.
As he reached for the loft door, he could feel a slight shaking. Swinging open the door he looked out and was shocked to see a space ship rushing straight for his house where his family and new friend sat unaware.
**************
Inside the house the three people were waiting for Clark to come back so they could get started, when they heard a soft, high pitched, whine.
"Do you hear that?" the older man asked.
All three rushed outside to see what the noise was.
**************
Meanwhile on the ship, Jim was pulling back on the flight controls as hard as he could. He was trying to avoid hitting the house, but he was not sure that there was enough power to make it over the roof.
Just as the ship started over the house the thrusters died.
As the screen went blank Jim saw a barn rise up in front of the ship.
Jim hoped that whoever owned the farm did not keep animals in the loft.
A second later the ship was through the barn and headed for an open field. Jim braced for impact.
**************
The three rushed out of the house just as something big flew over so close that it knocked the chimney off. They watched as the object flew though the barn tearing the roof off and then sailed into the field behind the barn, landing about a mile away.
The older man rushed to the barn to check on the animals and to see if he could find Clark. Seeing that the animals were scared but for the most part fine, and that Clark was nowhere in site he ran back to the others.
"Do you two see Clark?" he asked.
"No, but whatever that was it looked like some kind of aircraft." the visitor said.
"What!"
"As it hit the barn I saw what looked like engines on the back."
"Come on let's check it out." the older man said running for his truck.
"Be careful." the lady said as the visitor ran after him. "I'll stay here and look for Clark."
The two men jumped in the truck and sped off in the detraction of the crashed ship.
********
"Report." The voice of it's Captain rang through the darkened ship.
"Main engines and thrusters are off line, shields are off line, the main power core is down, emergency power is..." Pax paused as the backup lighting came on "... restored."
"What about hull integrity?" Omarr asked climbing out of the pilot chair.
"Down to twenty five percent." the android paused to gather some more information. "It would appear that there is a meteoroid in the side of the ship, near the engine room."
Omarr groaned, things did not look good. Hopefully the meteoroids hid the ship from radar but there still was the possibility that someone on the ground had seen it fly past.
"Lets check it out." he commanded heading for the corridor that led along the side of the ship, followed closely by Pax.
As they approached the engine room the path was blocked by a meteoroid. The meteoroid reached from the floor to the ceiling, and blocked the whole corridor, Omarr took one look and then headed back the way they had came to take a different rout to the engine room.
As they entered it was easy to see why the ship had lost all power, a four foot section of the meteoroid extended into the engine room and had done a fair amount of damage. Almost all of the control consuls had been damaged or destroyed, even the ones ten feet away on the other side of the room.
"Well, we'll need to get that thing out of hear before we can start repairs." Omarr said terning to Pax, "I'll stay inside and push and you try pulling from the outside."
The android responded with a nod of the head and then left the room.
Omarr stared at the meteoroid, he was glad that he had left the artificial adrenalin in his system as he was going to need all the strength he could get to move the meteoroid.
Suddenly he received a short, wireless transmission from the android telling him they had company.
As Omarr ran from the engine room he connected to the ship's sensor array to see what the problem was. He quickly selected the port side.
Almost all of the port-side array was inoperable but he was sill able to find a working sensor, selecting it his vision switched from the corador to a position five feet off the the ground and just behind Pax.
It took a moment for his vision to clear and then he could see as if he was out there himself.
There was two men standing in front of Pax. The one he could not make out as Pax blocked the view, the other was a farmer who looked to be in his late forties and he was pointing a shotgun at Pax.
Now androids can stand a lot more then a normal person can but they also have a lot of parts that break fairly easily. And a shotgun is good at finding those parts.
So that left one option for Omarr. Reaching the exit Pax had used, he rushed out at the farmer wile sending Pax a signal to get back inside.
Time seemed to slow for Omarr as he moved faster then the speed of sound. Rounding Pax he finally got a look at the other person, and was surprised to see it was someone he knew! He was half way to the farmer and unsure what to do when all of a sudden something slammed into him from behind.
Or rather someone.
Note: The size of thePaxMagellanic would be about the size of a Tel'tak.
