Chapter I: So close
Aram watched closely as the numbers whirred downwards towards zero on the rangefinder.
Outside the view port, the purple stillness of hyperspace stretched of for as far as the eye could see, a foggy nothingness, which was impossible to bring into focus, far, far away in the distance, lightning flashed. The size of the bolts could not be judged from this distance, but Aram shuddered at the though of what it would do to his ship none the less. His ship was a lovely little vessel; he had bought it from some wandering trader…he couldn't remember their name. Bargain price, too, all they had wanted was a thousand credits and local stellar cartography information. It was a compact ship, which, the trader had assured him, packed a large amount of firepower into a corvette-sized hull. It hadn't come with a hyperdrive though, the trader's excuse was that their hyperdrives would not be compatible with Hiigara and other built up planets quantum detector arrays. Aram had waved that away as not being a problem; he could scavenge the families old Chiriwar barges hyperdrive. No one used it anymore. He wished he had pressed for a hyperdrive for the ship…this drive was unbearably slow.
His ship, Shining Wish, spoke to him as the numbers neared the magic two thousand mark.
[Prepare for hyperspace exodus, Aram]
He pulled his seat forward, the adaptive cushioning moving to support his neck.
[Ten seconds till reversion]
Damn! He was fumbling with the restraints, trying to get them locked into place. He was so excited about being here. With a sigh of relief, he strapped himself in just as the computer announced it was shutting down the hyper jump drive.
The purpleness around him receded away to nothing, becoming insubstantial, then nothing. A silent rumble swept through the ship as the hyper drive jettisoned excess core material.
There it was. A shining blue and green jewel, more precious to his people than all the resources in the galaxy, Silently threading its path through the cosmos.
[Welcome to Hiigara…]
Thirteen separate incoming communication channels cut off the ships voice. He squinted as the cacophony assaulted his ears.
'Wish, one at a time, please!' he asked the ship.
[Filtering…]
Red warning lights lit up on the console, multiple acquisition locks painting his small ship. Panicking, he undid the seat restraints, frustratingly easy this time, and pushed his face against the view port to see what was going on.
'Oh…damn…'
[I am transferring the highest ranked speaker to the communications channel Aram]
Aram sunk down into his chair, heart beating and sweat beginning to bead upon his forehead.
'Pilot of the Shining Wish, this is Admiral Ses-Nabaal of the Hiigaran Defence Forces, aboard the Dreadnaught Twilight. You have just come from Seritum, yes?'
The mans tone did not invite questions. Neither did the weapon he was pointing at Arams tiny ship. He looked up as the cockpit was bathed in shadow. A massive ship was ever so slowly travelling above him. The Hiigaran Defence forces insignia was painted bright white upon it, the decal bigger than Arams ship.
'Y…yes, I just came from Seritum' He managed to stammer. Guns made him nervous. Battle cruiser sized guns terrified him.
'How long ago did you leave?'
A group of interceptors streaked by his ship; passing it so close he would have sworn he could hear the whine of their engines. They swept back around past his ship, obviously enjoying their freedom of movement.
'Umm…three days ago…' Aram decided to see if he could find out what as going on, something must have happened in Seritum 'Why? What's happened'
'I think…. we have to talk' The Admiral simply said.
A new voice came in over the communications channel.
'Greetings. You are cleared to approach on the marked vector. Do no deviate from your course. Do no exceed the speed we have transmitted you. Do not break formation with your interceptor escorts. Upon landing you will be scanned. Do not…'
'Resist?' Aram cut in sarcastically.
'Yes. Do not resist. Enjoy your stay on Twilight'
Sighing, Aram sat back in his chair and let them guide his ship in. Two squads of interceptors and an older model assault frigate had taken up escort position. He looked at the condition of the frigate. Seritum had two of those frigates in its planetary defence forces. This ship looked like it was the garbage scow of the fleet. Seritum's ships formed the vanguard of her fleet. However he was quite sure the plasma bomb launchers where still in optimal condition.

The Dreadnaught was the biggest thing he had ever seen. It took at least three minutes to move from the bow of the ship to the designated docking ledge. Aram had thought he could breathe a sigh of relief once he moved outside of the forward arc of the ship, that gargantuan nose cannon wouldn't be facing him anymore. But mere seconds after they had cleared its fire arc, his escorts had moved him downwards. As they descended past the Dreadnaughts keel, he looked to his right, and any chance of feeling slightly relieved vanished in a puff of ions. Aimed right at him was a weapon that dwarfed his ship, and was most likely bigger than the assault frigate trailing behind him. The docking ledge was located two thirds of the way along the Dreadnaughts length, a collection of yellow platforms on the underside of the warship. They looked terribly out of place against the white, almost bone like material that Twilight was made of, as did the collection of turrets, which had been attached to the ships hull.
[Communication incoming from the Assault Frigate Diam-sul]
'This is were we leave you, Shining Wish good luck…and for what it's worth…I'm sorry for what your about to find out'
Aram was about to ask him what he meant when the Assault Frigate veered upwards, heading towards a carrier. The communication channel shut off. The two squads of interceptors accelerated away from him, whipping under the Dreadnaught and streaking off to resume their patrols.
On one side of his view port, Hiigara twinkled enticingly. He had been so close. So close to setting foot on his people's homeworld. On the other side, Twilight was all he could see. His ship shuddered slightly as it latched down onto the docking ledge. A tube extended from the Dreadnaught to his ship, it waved about blindly for a moment, before the magnetic beacons in his ships airlock caught the tubes attention, and they latched together.
[Pressure matched. You can depart when your ready]
'Thanks, Shining'
He flipped switches, locking Shining Wish against any people who would like to come aboard and prod through her systems.
[Be careful]
He stopped. He'd never heard of a ship speaking like that…Then again, he wasn't entirely sure his ship was Hiigaran in design. In fact, he was quite sure it wasn't.
'I will' He whispered, not wanting to sound like a fool if anyone was listening in and didn't hear Shinings words.

Twilight was decidedly Spartan in it's furnishings, the room…no, cell, he had been taken to be scanned was a small metal cubicle with a single eye level one way window. The scan was not intrusive like he thought it would be, they merely passed a green line over him twice, and reported all clear. He was allowed to exit the cell, and fell into line with a group of Hiigaran marines. As the marines walked him through what seemed like kilometres of corridors, none of them even gave him a sideways glance. They always looked forward, jaws steeled and bolt rifles held across their chests. They stopped outside an elaborately decorated doorway, and, even with his limited knowledge of Hiigara, he knew the image on the door was the same carving found on the Guidestone.
'The Admiral is waiting.' One of the marines said gruffly, still not looking at Aram.
'Uh…thanks' Aram said sheepishly, ruffling his hair as he stepped through the door.
The room was circular, with half the wall being a massive window. He must have been somewhere on the spine of the Dreadnaught, because the vessel seemed to stretch on forever from under the window. A man stood in front of the window, his hands clasped tightly behind his back. Aram stood silently for a moment, taking it all in, awestruck at being aboard a ship like this.
'Come in, please, sit down' the man Aram assumed was the Admiral said in a deep voice as he turned. He was middle aged, with greying hair, cut short to his scalp. He had grey eyes – something quite common for Nabaal Kiithids to have since the homecoming – which had a deep sadness about them when they first saw Aram.
'Uh…yes…sir' Aram stumbled forward to a lounge chair and sat down awkwardly, trying not to look relaxed. For the past year or so, Aram had suffered from depression, ever since his girlfriend threw him away because of his 'stupid dreams', literally and figuratively. He was always saying he would buy a ship and go to Hiigara, she would tell him that he was going to be stuck on their backwater mining world, living out the lives of every member of their families for the past century. But he was different! He wasn't a miner, he was a fighter pilot in the defence forces. Then he started having the dreams. The depression affected his confidence, and now, he was always sheepish around people, afraid of their judgements. The hyperspace jump to Hiigara was one of the most peaceful and relaxing times he could remember. There was no one but he and Shining.
The Admiral came over and sat down opposite him, in a large comfy looking chair.
'I'm sorry if you where given a hard time on your arrival, but we must be careful, you'll understand when I tell you what's happened' The Admiral looked shamed for a second, face turned to the ground. 'Aram…I'm sorry to say this…but Seritum, it's…' He paused; Aram felt his stomach bottom out like pulling a six g dive in his cloud scooter. 'I'm sorry, but the colony at Seritum…has been destroyed. You are the only person we know to have survived'
Aram looked out the window. He snorted; the advantage of depression was that, you're always at the worst you can be. The only person he cared about who was still there was his mum, but she wasn't even on the planet when he left, she was aboard the survey rig, looking for new prospecting sites. Maybe she might have survived. He could feel the sorrow building up in him…if his mum was gone…then…he didn't know what he would do.
'What…how?' He asked, his voice shaking.
'We don't know, we where hoping maybe you could give help us. If you need some time, that's fine just say.' The Admiral smiled gently. The kind of smile Aram would have liked his father to have. The only facial expression his father ever showed him was a sneer.
'No…' Aram steeled his jaw, fighting back the shakes as what happened really hit home. His life…was gone. 'Lets do this now…I…want to go back there'
The admiral looked concerned and asked if Aram would like a drink or something eat. He declined, shaking his head zealously.
'Was there anything strange happening before you left?'
Aram thought hard for a moment. He told them about the interference on communications networks, which had just been put down to solar activity, about the weird signals which would originate from seemingly random places throughout the system, again attributed to the systems star behaving oddly. Then the trader, who sold him an obviously advanced ship for next to nothing. The trader had said he'd just come from Hiigara, and said if Aram was planning travelling, he should see it in midbloom, when the crystalisis trees opened their flowers to the sun and shine in nearly every colour imaginable.
The admiral asked for a description of the trader. Aram shrugged and said he had just looked human, but he walked funny. And his ship? Aram looked thoughtful for a second, and then nodded. His ship was a black semi circle, a little bit bigger than a Yir'it ore barge.
'Yir'it ore barge…?' The admiral paused for a second, then nodded. 'Ah, the predecessors of our current Bishop class transports'
Aram shrugged. He wasn't really up to date on current Hiigaran Naval technology. Hence why this Dreadnaught was such amazement to him.
The talked for another hour, while the admiral tried to strain as much data from Aram as possible, but by the end, he was just itching to go back to Seritum, and see if he could find anyone.
'Can I go back now?' Aram asked hopefully.
The admiral stood up, and walked towards the door.
'This fleet is departing for Seritum before the day is out. You are welcome to join us'
Aram nodded. The admiral called an aide, and asked him to take Aram to temporary quarters, and to get him acquainted with the ship.