Disclaimer: Fire Emblem and all its assets belong to Nintendo and intelligent systems.
Second disclaimer : Minor gore and some swearing.
Earth, Space Station 5W
The hull of an armed freighter, a few hundred meters in length, was docked on one of the many ports of the space station as it waited for its cargo to be loaded. The ship only had orange markings and the name ISS San Pellegrino painted on the port side to distinguish it from the black void behind it, the paint originating from the ship's original purpose as an asteroid miner.
In the bridge of the ship, a blond man sat in the captain's chair. He readjusted his glasses as he examined the cargo manifest, waiting for the ship to be ready. As one of the biggest FTL-capable freighters and one renown for their work, they had the advantage of obtaining the most lucrative contracts as many companies and governments bidded for their services.
The communications specialist hung beside the captain, looking bored out of his mind. The man had a short stature and messy brown hair. Dominic, he was called.
"Why are we still here?" The comms specialist asked, ignoring the chatter on the radio.
"Just to suffer." The captain replied, expressing the same boredom as they waited.
A person entered the bridge before silence could set in. Most notable of the newcomer was his asian features and his urban-style camouflage cargo pants.
"Hugo, the ship is loaded with supplies and equipment. We're ready to leave port." the man announced, saluting with one hand and gripping the edge of the console with the other. Zero-G was sometimes an annoying aspect of being a spacer, where no gravity meant no clear "down" direction. One could easily injure themselves by accident due to floating off.
The captain nodded. "Thank you Qihao. We're gonna leave in a few minutes"
"Understood. I'll be in engineering if you need me." Qihao replied, exiting the room through a hatch.
"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.
"We're good." Julien, the gunner 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. 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 casually replied, used to that expression.
He looked at the long list of people on board and double-checked presence via the use of the radio and simple shouting for 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.
"Alright Tristan we're good to go!" He said to the helmsman in front of him once everyone sounded off.
The helmsman nodded. The man originated from sweden was being more or less a caricature of the features of a scandanavian viking. Messy blond hair, blue eyes and considerable height.
The spaceship backed away slowly before turning around and unleashing its main thrusters, leaving the recently renovated spaceport behind.
"All systems online and fully operational, qi out" Informed the ship's engineer over the radio.
"The jump drive is ready, I put in the coordinates. Uh, once we clear the port we can jump" Chan Sung added.
A few minutes of travel later, 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, sending the final command to the faster-than-light jump systems.
White rings formed around the ship, as the ship was encased in a 'bubble' for faster-than-light travel. However, a stray object hit the port side of the ship, throwing it slightly off course. The small rock came out of nowhere, somehow evading all of the ship's sensors.
The ship exited its 'bubble', arriving in a section of space that harbored a bright A class sun and an asteroid belt. It was clearly not the destination they were expecting, judging from the surprise of the crew on board.
"Uh… we've jumped but we're off course." Chan Sung reported.
Hugo turned on his microphone and answered him sarcastically. "Fantastic news." He paused for effect. "How far did we go?"
"I don't know. It looks like we got hit when jumping."
The captain sighed. "Prep for another jump when we find out where we ended up."
As the rest of the crew in the bridge used their consoles to try to triangulate their position, the communications specialist found a signal originating from the asteroid belt.
"Hey Hugo, there's a distress signal."
"From where?" The sudden information peaked his interest.
"In front of us." He answered, pointing forwards in the direction of the asteroid belt.
"Tristan! Move us to that distress signal." He ordered, thinking there was not much else to do as their jump drive cooled down
As they approached the distress signal, the ship's sensors managed to pick up the source. A small shuttle sat in the middle of the belt without any life signs on board.
"I think we're too late." Tristan replied when the information was presented on his navigation screen.
"Hey guys, three ships are approaching from starboard and two from port side. We're surrounded." Julien notified.
The communications specialist grimaced suddenly. "I've just received a message. They want us to surrender our ship and cargo." The man turned towards their captain. "That sounds like pirates."
"Goddamnit it's a trap." Hugo muttered irritatedly. "Everyone get ready to fight!" He said over the intercom, having no intention to back down.
"Weapons Online, Engines Online, Defense Matrix Online. All systems are good to go." Qihao informed over the radio.
"Well no shit it's a trap!" Julien grumbled, flipping the safety switch off on the weapon systems.
"Shoot closest, Julien. Tristan, shake them off of us!" Hugo ordered.
A cannon round struck them as the ship struggled out of its torpor. The armed freighter was knocked back by the force of the rounds, the movement disorienting the crew momentarily. The ISS San Pellegrino retaliated by launching a salvo of high-explosive guided ordinance at one of the unknown attackers.
Taking full advantage of the manoeuvering thrusters usually reserved for docking, Tristan slid the ship behind an asteroid as the missiles finished launching, ducking into cover as more fire poured down from their opponents. The ship's thrusters all flared to life as the spacecraft drifted 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. It was confirmation of the destruction of the targeted corvette.
"I got him" cheered Julien. He slung the ship's turreted mid-caliber cannons around to fire at the ships coming from the other side as the autoloader readied more missiles.
A salvo of lasers and 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 ship began leaking precious oxygen into the void as a cannon slug punched a hole in its side. The breach was then quickly sealed by closing off the oxygenation systems from that bulkhead by an AI.
The assistant engineer looked at the damage dealt and noticed that the shot should have been much more problematic. "Hey Qihao that shield was a good idea!"
"Structural integrity fields!" The asian grumbled.
"Same thing!"
G-forces suddenly slammed into the crew 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. However, only being able to hear the ISS San Pellegrino made combat eerie.
The fight continued on with the pirate frigate shaken off as they headed into a thicker part of the asteroid field. It too hazardous to travel for most ships 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 weapons fire of the smaller ships that followed the ISS San Pellegrino 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 they had was experience.
"Are there any particularly volatile asteroids?" The captain asked, keeping an eye on the fight. Meanwhile, the defense matrix neutralized three missiles that tried to pursue them.
"Yes!" A crewman answered.
"Put it on Julien's HUD! When we pass it, I want it blown up in the direction of the pirates!"
Once the ship made it past the expected explosion 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 ship stupid enough to try to barge through it into multiple pieces. The rest took a wide berth to safety after witnessing their comrades shredded into fine metallic and flesh cheese.
"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.
"Emergency jump! We need to get out of here." He barked to his jump.
Chan Sung immediately went to work entering information for an emergency jump out of the system.
The ship quickly maneuvered around, turning towards their next destination.
As rings formed around the ship to envelop it in a 'bubble' for their jump, Tristan felt the need to comment.
"Guys I have a bad feeling about this"
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.
"Never seen a fucking planet before?" Someone quipped sarcastically.
"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. Not a singular spaceborne signature.
"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 a loss of thrust forbid the ship from escaping the graps of the cosmic entity.
"Shit we're gonna crash!" Gilles yelled over the intercom, realizing the engines had flamed out.
The helmsman frantically tried to find a way to escape the planet, but to no avail. The ship kept drifting, powerless.
"Engineering to 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, it was too late to escape the pull of gravity.
"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 practically destroyed." The Qihao replied.
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! Forgot we actually did that at some point." 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. "Directing reactor output from weapons and Point-Defense to thrust. The engines are going to be burned out after this."
"Not that it's going to matter." Hugo replied.
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.
Tristan kept the crew informed of their descent, ignoring a bead of sweat going down his forehead. "10 kilometers, 8 kilometers, 7 kilometers, 6 kilometers, 5500 meters, 5000 meters, .."
"Thrusters are failing! Moving all power to structural integrity systems!" The engineer replied.
Hugo gripped his seat tightly "Son of a bitch."
END OF SHIP LOGS...