Ancient Objects: Chapter Three
Ah. Wrote this days ago. Forgot to upload.
Announcement: You will be unsurprised to find I have rewritten chapter two due to its vagueness. Anyway, chapter three.
"Sir, I would estimate that unless we take evasive action then at its present rate of acceleration the sphere will hit us in approximately forty seconds. It also seems to, judging from its acceleration, have engines far superior to our own," came Lazzo's voice, breaking into my dream.
"Inquisitor, permission to scan the object?" said the Tech-Priest, before I could reply to Lazzo.
"Permission to scan the object granted," I told the Tech-Priest. "Solaris, evade it, but don't stop the Tech-Priest from scanning," I ordered Solaris.
"Right then," he said, taking the ship to a different vector.
"Sir, the sphere's vector is changing. It's moving towards up, sir," said Lazzo.
"It's on a collision course," Solaris pointed out.
"Tech-Priest, see if you can find out what's propelling that thing," I snapped. "Solaris, take us into the asteroid belt, let's see if we can evade it," I continued, hoping Solaris would fly as well as he did last year in a dogfight with orkish fighta-bommas.
Solaris quickly took us into the nearby belt, and the sphere, even more quickly followed. While in the belt, Solaris attempted to do a large number of manoeuvres, including the launching of decoys, switching off engines and hiding behind asteroids. Unfortunately, whenever we tried to do anything the sphere continued tracking us. And then the worst news came.
"Demons – in the sphere, sir!" exclaimed Lazzo suddenly.
"Possessing the humans?" I checked.
"No sir. However, they appear to be moving in from the warp, sir," he told me, regaining his composure.
"Very well. Solaris, charge the forward lance."
"But Inquisitor, I have been unable to even determine the method of its acceleration. There is so much more to learn from this," pleaded the Tech-Priest.
"What is there to learn? The sphere is being used by demons to enter real-space. That, I cannot allow. And even if we were to enter it, what would demons leave worth salvaging save dead bodies?" I questioned. "No," I said, "I must but an end it this. Fire!"
Solaris swung us around an asteroid and fired at the sphere. A glowing beam from our nose cone hit it. I could see parts of the sphere glowing red from heat, but nothing peeling away as it would if the surface had melted. Then the beam shut off.
The sphere was undamaged!