Chapter 72: Searching for Spectres.
"Anything?" Captin Temak Shadowtusk asked as he turned to his Xeno intelligence officer who was massing the deep space sensor arrays.
"Nothing so far captain but something seems to be interfering with our long-range sensors in this system, I'm getting distortion across all the bands on everything except short-range and laser," Luitenant Ferra Lighttail replied turning her large head and causing her predlocks to clink as her charms clicked together, she was one of only a few Yautja/Xeno hybrids that chose to serve in the CMN as the majority of them always seemed to wind up in the Hunters but Captin Shadowtusk was proud to have her on board as she was the best intel specialist he had ever met.
In fact, it was a standing joke that she was so good at her job that she could find a Xeno in a pitch-black room while blindfolded, though her response to having heard that playful rumour was absolutely brilliant, she said simply say "Hey ooman put your damn clothes back on! And the crack of their neck spinning around so fast will give them away."
"Natural or artificial?" Captin Shadowtusk asked.
"Unknown sir but my instincts are telling me that it's artificial, it's like is coming from multiple different directions which to me makes me think of interference probes because usually, natural interference comes either from unstable elements within the system's sun or one of the planets having high concentrations of minerals that scatter sensors, but given that this seems to be all around us my bet is it's artificial and someone doesn't want us to see what's going on out there," she said and Captin Shadowtusk nodded his head.
Stepping back to his chair he pressed the comms button on the arms rest, "Seeker Rainbowscale to the bridge," he said before a high-pitched but soft voice responded.
"Roger that captain on my way," the little Raptorian Seeker responded and only moments later Seeker First Class Remal Rainbowscale walked onto the bridge dressed in his telltale blue armour.
"You wanted to see me Captin?" Remal who was in charge of the Queen's Heart's Seeker team asked looking up at him.
Now Captin Shadowtusk had heard of the exploits of this little male Raptorian Seeker during the events of the Dark Star that had resulted in the rescue of not only their beloved sister Xipa from evil oomans but in the freeing of an entire captive hive, not to mention his peaceful capture of over fifty prisoners of war, if there was one thing you did not want to do it was underestimate this little scaly male, as it would most likely be the last thing you ever did.
"Yes, I believe that foul play is underway in this system Seeker, these are the last know co-ordinates of our missing scout ship the Spectre, but we are experiencing high degrees of interference in the system and I believe that something nefarious is underway, so I'm going to send out fighters to sweep the system to see if they can locate the sources of this interference, so I want your team and the Hunter teams on board to be ready to go at a moments notice, so consider yourselves on stand by and if you could lend a hand in any way that would help us find our missing brothers and sisters it would be much appreciated," the Captin said.
Remal nodded thoughtfully, "Roger that sir, do you wish me to deploy the Seekers to assist in the hunt?" he asked and the Captin shook his head.
"No I'd rather have you guys ready so we can get you on station as quick as possible if need be, just get everyone ready to go at a moment's notice I've got a bad feeling here," he said and Remal nodded his little feathered head.
"Roger that sir me and my team will be ready just say the word and we'll drop a world of pain on anyone who has dared to harm our beloved ones," he said and with that the captain dismissed him and as he watched the little Raptorian male heading for the lift he couldn't help but smile, it was definitely true what they said about Raptorians, small bodies but very big hearts.
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"Alright, people you heard the Captin tails and scales in your seats!" Major Allisa Goodwin yelled to her pilots and after a crisp salute, they scattered and headed to their fighters to get ready.
Now the Queen's Heart was not a Hive class carrier or a Dreadnaught so it did not have squadrons of fighters at its beck and call as it did not have a massive hanger bay, but other than the smallest of Clan Mason ships all of the ships had hanger bays in order to protect them from fighters or as they were now running scouting missions to be the cruiser's eyes.
After all of her pilots were strapped in and ready she climbed herself into the cockpit of her fighter and strapped herself in while checking her pressure suit and her personal oxygen supply.
Once she was satisfied she flipped her ready-up switch which would light her fighter green on the panel of the air traffic control so they could sort out the launch order and move the fighters into the launch area, right now there would be two groups of four out there with Luitenant Silverblood in charge of one and her in charge of the other.
"This is Green leader I'm ready to launch, teams, sound off," she said after thumbing her comms button.
"Green two ready," her wingman Luitenant Alex Richards said.
"Green Three ready," Luitenant Villma Hellclaws said.
"Green Four ready," Luitenant Sissth Yellowscale said and Major Goodwin smiled as she imagined the Serpentinus male crammed into his cockpit, despite how much of a truly incredible pilot the first Serpentinus male pilot was he still looked kinda funny in a pressure suit let alone crammed into a cockpit.
"Ok Green wing ready to launch tower," Major Goodwin said.
"Roger that Green Leader, Yellow team sound off please," the tower replied.
"This is Yellow Leader ready to launch," Luitenant Mark Richards who was Alex's brother said.
"This is Yellow Two ready," Luitenant Miisa Longtail said.
"This is Yellow Three ready," Luitenant T'shran Gloryclaw said.
"This is Yellow Four ready," Luitenant Yelonda Rageclaws said.
"All Yellow Wing ready tower," Luitenant Richards said.
"Roger that Yellow Wing, Green Wing will launch first, we are transmitting your patrol zones to you now, you are to concentrate on looking for any sources of possible interference that could be cutting off our sensors but your secondary objective is to search for any sign of our missing Runner class scout ship the Spectre, is that received?" the tower said.
"Roger that tower orders received and understood what are our standing orders should we encounter hostiles in the dark?" Major Goodwin asked.
"As always own discretion is advised depending on what you encounter but send either laser comms if possible if not send a single fighter back to the range to call in to the Queen's Heart and relay your findings to us, do not engage unless actively engaged," the tower said.
"Roger that tower orders received and understood," Major Goodwin said.
There was a slight bump as the locking arm moved her ship into position on the turn table which aimed her ship at the hanger launch way, a series of red lights lit up on the wall next to the large rectangular exit which was governed by a series of glimmering shields made of blue light, as soon as the last red light went out a series of green lights lit and the Major hot her thrusters.
It took only a minute to get all eight of the fighters out of the two hangar doors and into space and now the two fighter wings separated and formed up on their wing leaders as they headed out along their search paths.
Major Goodwin always adored the feeling of being out in the depths of space, the peace, the quiet and solitude of it really balmed her soul and really gave her time to think and to just enjoy the feeling of being one with her machine-like a form of Machina symmetry that just wasn't available anywhere else but the pure vacuum of the ocean of black.
Fortunately, the short-range comms were working so she could hear her comrades talking about what was happening, "Do you think it's the pirates again?" Mark asked.
"Doubt it, after the last time they decided to try hitting a Serpentinus convoy and turned all of their ships into dust they know better than to hit a Clan Mason ship, they have to know that even and that's a pretty big fucking even if they beat it what's going to happen when we find out what they did is going to be much much worse, do you remember what Matriarch Sela eleth did after that pirate cruiser destroyed one of our gunships that were protecting that Raptorian transport ship?" Major Goodwin said.
"Oh yeah I saw the armour cam footage of that, damn those paukers really found out what happens when you have a very angry half-Yautja girl in a very tight space, gonna remember her grabbing that pirate captain and forcing him head first into that torpedo tube only to fire hiss as at the bridge of one of his own ships for the rest of my life," Alex said chuckling and a few of the others joined in.
"Yeah but it pales in comparison to what Patriarch Ryan did when he found out they'd been holding all those captured ship crews to be sold as slaves, never seen him so angry in my life, I know Seekers can be a force of nature but by the pauking Eternal Huntress herself did he tear them a new arse hole, he is definitely his matriarch's son, the way he used those two Spidren pirates as pauking clubs to beat their entire group to death was seriously scary," Sissth said which caused more laughter.
"They were just lucky it was those two that hit their base rather than our Grand Matriarch and Patriarch, can you imagine our Grand Matriarch going berserk in there?" Alex said getting more laughs.
"Yeah but those were our people, they were Saviours so it was only right that Matriarch Sela eleth Mason got justice and vengeance for them but I am glad that she was both smart enough and humble enough to ask her brother for help because to me that show exactly what Clan Mason is all about, not only will we avenge any who fall but we will do it together, the pair of them are the epitome of strength through unity," Major Goodwin said and there were affirmations from the others.
Suddenly her console lit up and her HUD lit up with a reticle that began to pulse showing a potential target about a hundred kilometres off to the right side of her ship.
"Got something here team spread out and tie in your targeting systems to mine," Major Goodwin said causing her team to immediately fan out as she turned her ship directly towards the ping as well as arming both her advanced sensors and weapons systems simultaneously.
"What is that? It's too small to be a ship," Alex said as her sensors tried to get a proper reading on what the target was.
"Could be a rogue satalite?" Sissth said.
"Have we picked up any readings of sentient species in this system?" Alex asked.
"No, but then we haven't picked up a whole lot of anything thanks to the interference and I'm beginning to think I know why," Major Goodwin said as the results of her sensors came in.
"Is that a fucking probe?" Alex exclaimed and as Major Goodwin pulled the trigger on her auto-targeting railgun nicked named the Xeno tail by many pilots due to the multi-jointed segmented gimble that allowed the gun to fire in a 180 degrees bubble arc around the top of the ship while a second one underneath the ship did the same thing effectively giving the fighter 360 degrees protection.
These new light fighters that the Clan was using were called the Ocelot which was apparently a small Earth feline that despite its size packed a hell of a lot of punch and attitude which in her opinion was the perfect description of them.
While they did lack the firepower of their heavier brethren they more than made up for it in their manoeuvrability and speed which is exactly what they were made for, they were designed to not only be high-speed spotters but to harass other fighters using their advanced weapons and manoeuvrability to dance around even other fighters though only Xenos could really push them to their limits and survive it thanks to the incredibly excessive G forces.
The probe that was generating massive amounts of electrostatic interference exploded as the tungsten slug smashed right through it turning both the sensitive electronics and power cells located within its long torpedo-shaped shell to shrapnel.
No sooner had the probe exploded than the team instantly noticed a decrease in the interference affecting both their sensors and radios, "I do believe we've found what's causing this and this proves that this is intentional though what the reasoning behind it is still a mystery but at least we now know what's doing it, we'd better get this info back to the Queen's heart asap," she said.
"Think that might have to wait boss take a look there," Alex said and suddenly a ping appeared on her HUD which was Alex's camera read coming through upon opening it her heart skipped a beat, it was a ship, specifically a cruiser hiding close to a moon and using the rings to scatter their signals but there was no mistaking the shape.
"How the hell did you notice that!?" she exclaimed.
"I picked up a directional burst transmission as the probe exploded and I back-traced it, lo and behold that's what I saw," he said.
"Nice work Green Two, Green four high tail it back to transmission range and inform the Queen's Heart what he has here, we're going to take a closer look everyone go to stealth mode," Major Goodwin said and with that Green four peeled off while they activated their cloaking systems and closed in on the ship.
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As Adem was standing giving orders to his team he felt his communicator vibrate indicating there was an incoming message from his ship, though by the vibration he realised it was in text form, not voice which was odd and also a little disturbing.
He pulled his personal comms unit up and read the display which was fortunately in Velon so nobody other than him would be able to read it, 'Clan Mason closing in, multiple interference probes discovered and destroyed, cannot risk voice communications due to commination tracking chance, we are out of time we must leave or we are going to be discovered, sensors reveal we are no match for the Clan Mason cruiser currently in the system, message ends,' it read.
"Fuck it! By the holy blood of Velona," Adem exclaimed angrily and he saw his team all look at him curiously.
"Is something wrong master?" Wesirai asked and such was his anger that he very nearly lashed out and struck the young Beledon for nothing more than a simple and well-justified question as he noted his change in demeanour was rather drastic, to say the least.
He took a deep breath and composed himself, he would not let a simple setback throw him off, the drilling teams had already reported that the charges were in place, all that was left was to trigger them and so would begin a nightmare that not even the mighty Clan Mason would be able to stop.
"Some old enemies are trying to interfere with our plans but it is no matter, the Dark One has foreseen this eventuality and we are prepared for it but this is where we take our leave, I promised you all when I first met you that in exchange for following me I would make you more powerful than your wildest dreams, that the Darkness would empower you to stand up to your enemies, I have trained you and moulded you to become Nightmare Assassins in your own right and now my loyal followers it is time I made good on that promise, you have served me faithfully and loyally, now it is time for you to take your true places at my side and let me show you the true power of strength!" he said as his team knelt before him and then cheered.
Adem quickly sent an acknowledgement to the message and requested a pick-up shuttle to collect him and his team, as well as the drilling teams planting the charges his people had been rapidly rounding up all the Dream Warriors that they could get their hands on in the friendly territories, he'd convinced the morons in charge of it that they were taking them for special training so that they could be returned to them more powerful and loyal than they ever were, that they would be turned into living weapons that they could wield in their thirst for territory and plunder and some of it had been true.
They would indeed be turned into living weapons only those primitive savages would not be the ones wielding them, it would be he who would have them at his disposal and they would not be returning here, not now or ever again.
'Requesting pick up, its time we left this fucking backwater planet to its fate, get everyone back to the ship, let's see Clan fucking Mason stop this, it's time we went home we have another Clan to extinguish,' Adem sent to his first officer Arex.
'Music to my ears boss the shuttle is already on the way as I was hoping you'd say that, it's time to make Clan Lunara pay for all of their sins against the rightful rulers of Velona, Light the fire of the Blood brother!' was the message he got back.
Adem nodded approvingly it was time that they took the fight home, soon he would be standing on his home soil and not only that he would be overseeing Clan Lunara taking their rightful place, on their knees in chains.
Just as that warm thought washed through his mind he heard the roar of something breaking the atmosphere above them and he looked up in time to see a shuttle descending through the clouds high above them, "It's time my loyal servants, be not afraid, now I'm going to show you what true strength looks like," he said and no sooner had the large shuttle craft landed nearby he got all the incredibly curious and awestruck Beledon loaded, he made sure to keep Wesirai close to him, he had planned to celebrate leaving this shit hole of a world later and they most definitely involved her, or rather her rather excellent tail end.
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"Ummmm what is it?" Ova exclaimed as they all stood looking at the large metal cylinder that was dug into the stone of the road of the Old Gods.
The cylinder was about ten feet tall and made of what appeared to be titanium by the sheen to the casing, it was definitely not Beledon in nature as they hadn't even discovered titanium yet let alone discovered how to shape it, no this was alien technology and given how clean it was and by the freshly dug hole high above them in the cave ceiling that was now casting down a shaft of light upon them and it, it was new.
"Not sure but it's definitely alien," Jay said looking the device over, it was a perfect cylinder that kinda reminded him of an oversized barrel or depth charge which he'd learned about in history class as the way that human sailors used to deal with submarines which used to stalk the oceans of Earth many years ago, the Grand Patriarch used to make sure that history and military history were taught in every school in the Clan so the Humans always knew where they came from and how different Clan Mason was to its parent species, the histories of the other Clan races were taught alongside it too.
"But who put it here? And why?" Ketra asked in confusion looking around them for a sign of any intruders, but there was no one.
Jay glanced up at her and for a moment he felt his breath catch in his chest, she looked truly radiant in the glow given off by the lava below them, it kinda surrounded the bridge as a river of it flowed beneath them but fortunately the obsidian that the supports were made from resisted it perfectly but it also reflected the light onto the walls which were also laden with it and gave everything a yellow fiery glow, which made Ketra's already red fur look like a mane of flame coating her exquisite body.
Jay wasn't the only one pawing over the strange device as their resident engineer Xao was currently popping panels off the thing using his dagger as a make-shit screwdriver to get inside it that's when he gave a cry of alarm that made them all jump.
"What is it? What have you found?" Jay demanded appearing at his kin's man's side.
"Err I think I know what this is Jay and I really wish I didn't," he said causing Jay to look at him in confusion.
"It's a high-yield anti-matter bomb!" Xan exclaimed and Jay's mouth fell open as his heart sank to his toes.
"A-A-Are you sure!?" he exclaimed and Xan nodded.
"Y-Y-Yeah, before I joined Seegson to work on a colony building terraformers etcetera I studied the application of anti-matter as a power source, Seegson wanted to potentially use it as a power source to power their deep space colony ships as well as other ships but it was deemed just too unstable to be manageable in engines like that, though not before it wiped out a number of laboratory worlds that they were using to test the stuff, so then they decided to try using it as a weapon and while they did make headway with it the stuff was just too unpredictable it had a real nasty habit of causing a matter cascade which is, in essence, a fission explosion on top of all of the energy released by the initial anti matter explosions, in the end, Seegson decided that the stuff was only good for planet cracking," he said.
"Planet cracking?" Ova asked and Xao nodded.
"It's the process of finding an uninhabited planet full of minerals and rather than drilling and extracting those minerals they would simply blow up the planet by placing charges in the right places which would cause the planet's core to become incredibly unstable and basically shake itself apart, the yield would be precisely calculated so that the chunks wouldn't simply go flying off into space in a massive explosion but rather the planet would essentially shake itself apart and break into a million pieces, imagine spinning an orb made of glass the faster it spins the more pressure is excreted upon it by centrifugal force as well as things like gravity, now if you introduce weakness into it deep enough then those forces simply shake the whole thing apart and it just explodes but doesn't go flying off in every direction as the force is not great enough for that, it allows mining teams to come in and extract deep minerals from the now exposed mantel and core that they'd have never been able to reach before," Xao said sounding forlorn.
"Your kind can destroy entire worlds!?" Ova exclaimed and Xao nodded and the bid Beledon girl looked both amazed and sceptical.
"He's telling the truth Ova my kind also has technology capable of doing it, hell Clan Mason has guns on our Dreadnaught ships capable of blowing a planet clean in half, it's an incredibly large version of what I'm carrying right here," Jay said in a very sombre voice as he tapped his rifle.
"I have seen these memories, they tell the truth," Ketra said placing a reassuring hand on her beloved male's shoulder.
"But why is it here and who put it here? Surely any survey team that had entered orbit would have been able to tell that this planet is populated?" Xao said.
Suddenly out of nowhere a series of whispering voices sprung up and the entire team spun around weapons drawn looking for the sources, "Who's there!? Come out!" Ava yelled into the shadows surrounding the road.
Suddenly large clouds of blue and grey-coloured smoke rolled onto the bridge and began to moved towards them or more specifically Ava and Ketra.
Jay tried to put himself between the smoke and his beloved woman but it was pointless as it just flowed around him chilling him with its touch like touching near-freezing water vapour, then as one both Ketra and Ava froze with their ears locked up and their tails out ramrod straight.
"Ketra!" Jay exclaimed grabbing hold of her but it was like she was frozen solid or in a trance, the only thing moving here was her eyes, they seemed to be dilating and contracting multiple times a minute.
That's when the smoke poured out of both their nostrils and ears and the pair seemed to snap out of their trance but the fear in their eyes was something that Jay hoped to the Eternal Huntress and the Great Tree that he never saw again, "The Dark One is going to kill our home," they both said in unison.
Jay's heart froze, "W-What did you say?" he exclaimed.
Ketra turned and grabbed Jay and lifted him up so he was looking right into her terrified eyes, "The old ones showed it to me, Jay, the Darkness is going to destroy my people!" she exclaimed.
"H-How!? W-Why?" he exclaimed as she hugged him tightly to her chest and he felt the fear and despair rolling off her in waves.
"They showed us a fire that starts in the heart of our planet, four devices planted in the heart of our world that will turn our world inside out, will make it destroy itself, all of us will die in a fire because we would dare to stand against the Dark one in the future, we are destined to stand with Clan Mason and its allies, to stand strong and tall alongside them and now it's trying to kill us in the cradle so that we will have no chance to become who we are supposed to become," Ava said and instantly Jay saw what was going on, this was the Nightmare Assassins, they were behind this.
"Wait you said there are four of these around the world right?" he said and Ava nodded looking both distraught and vacant.
"Xao you said Seegson would do this right? They used devices like this one to crack planets, what happens if you were to remove one of the bombs from the chain?" he asked.
Xao looked thoughtful and he appeared to be doing mental maths by the way his hands were moving like he was drawing out equations, but eventually, he came to a conclusion, "The planet would still be destroyed but it would be far far slower as there would be a gap in the seismic waveforms which would cause a bleed effect, in the end, it would still be destroyed but in like ten times the time it would require, technically you only require two of these things at either of the poles to do it but it takes a rather long time to build up the pressure required to shake the planet apart, which is why four is the magic number, they create pressure wave overlap which means that energy has to go somewhere and that's what causes the problem, so if your remove one from the chain you allow a gap for some of that energy to bleed into," Xao said.
"So if we disarm this bomb then we'll buy people some time then won't we?" Jay said and Xao looked thoughtful before nodding.
"Yes you are right," he said.
"Then we'd better get to work hadn't we?" Jay said motioning for Ketra to put him down.
"But what's the point? We can't take enough bombs out for it to stop it?" Xao said forlornly.
"But we can slow it down enough that maybe just maybe my people can get here and save as many as they can, if there is a snowballs chance in a Yautja's house I'm going to take it," Jay said and he immediately began studying the circuitry and sensors that seemed to be surrounding a large cylinder that was seemingly both made of titanium and glass with what appeared to be a micro white dwarf star that was mounted in what looked to be magnetic suspension.
"B-B-But what's the point? What're the chances of it actually happening?" Xao said sounding forlorn as he clung to Ova and she to him both showing distinct signs of soul-crippling depression.
Jay turned and grabbed him by the chest plate of his armour and he glared right into his face, "Because that's what Clan Mason does! We never give up! We fight until we either stand victorious or we draw our final breath, either way, it is how we EARN our right to stand before the Eternal Huntress and declare in a proud voice that we gave it our all, we never gave up, we never faltered, we fought until we could fight no more, that is the way of the hunt, death or glory is the only way, so snap the fuck out of it we have some Beledon to save and by the Great Tree we are going to fucking save them!" he yelled so loud his voice bounced off every surface so it was like there were a hundred of him shouting at Xao.
It worked and the young Asian man seemed to shake himself out of the depression and a new look of determination appeared on his features.
"You're fucking right Jay, I have lived my life always wanting to know what the hell was out here in the depths of space and what I found was love! I found the person I was looking for my entire life and I'll be fucking damned to hell before I let anyone take her away from me!" Xao yelled so loudly that his voice joined Jay's in the echo.
The look of pure love and pride that crossed Ova's face said everything that ever needed to be said about how she felt about her man right at that very moment, not only was he willing to stand and die at her side but he was going to fight for her in the only way that he could, he was going to put his brain to good use, so with that, he set to work on the bomb.
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"Captin all probes have been destroyed and the interference is all but gone, Green wing is reporting multiple shuttles coming up from the third planet in the system and heading to that hidden cruiser, something is going on and I'm pretty sure they know that they've been spotted," Luitenant Lighttail said.
"Roger that, I think it's time to take the fight to them," Captin Shadowtusk said before reaching for the comms console in his armrest.
"This is the captain speaking, all hands to battle stations and all Hunter, Seeker, Battle Angel and Saviour ground teams to the hanger bay and pod stations," he said before turning to the helmsman a human male called Ensign Lucas Flowers.
"Ensign Flowers put us on a heading right for that ship that Green Wing reported," he said.
"Aye aye sir," he said adjusting the controls to get them underway.
Next, the captain turned to the weapons officer a large Yautja female called Luitenant Ussma Lightningskin, "Shields up and power up all the weapons, I want all the cannons loaded and tubes primed," he said and she saluted before pressing her controls making the picture of the ship on his display turn blue with a dotted line circle around it to indicate the shields were now raised and the hull shielding was primed as well as the weapons were powered up.
The Queen's Heart steamed right towards the enemy cruiser that now broken cover that the last of its shuttle had docked, both Yellow and Green wings now returned to fall into formation with them and were also weapons hot ready to provide anti-fighter cover as well as anti-torpedo fire.
"Comms officer open a channel I want to speak to these fuckers," Captin Shadowtusk growled and the comms officer quickly did so before giving a silent thumbs up to indicate that the channel was open.
"This is Captin Temak Shadowtusk of the Clan Mason Navy ship Queen's Heart, power down your engines and weapons if you do not comply you will be fired upon we have strong reason to believe that you have either attacked and either detained or killed members of Clan Mason both of which are deemed acts of war against Clan Mason and will be answered for," he said.
Suddenly the screen flickered into life and Captin Shadowtusk was presented with the face of a member of a species he had never seen before, he was an odd-looking creature covered in spines that were flush to his body and he was wearing an old style of black leather armour.
"Ahh the war cry of the self-righteous Clan Mason at its finest, by what authority do you claim to impede us?" the male said in surprisingly good English she Tamek figured they were using translation software like their own.
"The authority vested in me by Clan Mason and our Grand Patriarch and Matriarch, now answer me what are you doing here and where are our people?" Tamek snarled.
A vile and creepy smile crossed the face of the man, "Oh they are closer than you would believe captain now allow me to ask you a question, do you place punishing the guilty or saving the innocent as higher on your priority list?" he asked and Temak was stupefied by this question.
"What kind of question is that? Anyone who believes in the ways of honour and the pure hunt would protect the innocent!" he said.
"I am so very glad o hear you say that captain as I'm sure your intel people are aware down on that planet right there are millions of a sentient race called the Beledon, they are very simple folk not quite yet up to the standards of enlightened superior beings like us captain," he said his voice taking on a sickly sneer.
Captin Shadowtusk glanced at his intel officer and she nodded in confirmation, "So? What's your point?" Captin Temak said.
"Well captain it's like this you have a very simple choice, you can indeed detain us and question us and maybe just maybe you'll find out what happened to your people or..." he said before reaching up and holding out a small device that the captain instantly recognised as a detonator which he instantly clicked the button of.
From the planet three massive detonations shook the whole planet so badly the shock wave crashed off their shields, "...you can try and save as many innocent lives as you can, decision decisions what ever will you choose?" the snide figure said.
The captain looked at the image of the planet in pure horror, "Captin those blasts were antimatter! The planet is going to shake itself apart everything down there will die if we don do something!" the intel officer yelled in shock.
The captain let out a bellowing roar of pure fury, "This not over villain! Clan Mason will hunt you to the edge of the universe for this crime that is a pauking promise!" he yelled and then motioned for the comms officer to cut the channel as the figure waved a very smug goodbye to them.
"Helmsman set a course to the planet, intel scan the planet for any ooman, Yautja or Xeno life signs!" the captain yelled before hitting the comms.
"All Hunters, Saviour ground teams, Battle Angels and Seeker be prepared to launch on my mark on emergency life-saving operations, this is a capture and save mission which is being relayed to your squad leaders we have innocent lives to save!" he yelled.
"Captin what are we gonna do!?" Ensign Flowers yelled in obvious horror and distress.
"There is only one thing we can do," he said and he quickly headed over to the intel station and snatched the key from Luitenant Lighttail before turning and slamming it into the panel on the bridge wall and turning it.
As soon as the panel slid up he slapped his large hand to the scanner and recited his identity, "This is Captin Temak Shadowclaw, Dark Star I say again Dark Star this is not a drill, we need the Clan!" he said his voice shaking as bad as his heart was.