The generation ship Oranda is a massive, inellegent hunk of metal. Lights flicker on and off along its seventeen-kilometer-long hull. The decks are full of passengers, each fourth-generation colonists, headed on their slow and langorious journey towards a beautiful planet.
They will not see their destination. Nor will their children. Nor will their children's children. No, it will take another ten generations to find their new home. That is why Oranda is called a 'generation ship.'
The first-generation colonists had been too impovershed to purchase a ship with any sort of light-speed capabilities. Almost all of the colonists came from the poverty-stricken 'Ninth Quarter' of the capital world of the Gallactic Empire, Rittaholm. With their financial standings, sleep-chambers were out of the question. Thus, a generation ship was purchased by the government, and the colonists were taxed. The colonistts also bought their tickets, and they were loaded onto the ship, each passenger alotted a certain amount of space.
At first, the conditions of life had been deplorable, and the first generation barely made it out of their solar system before a huge explosion of a virus cut the inhabitants nearly in half. The virus was not easily perpetuated, and it was soon contained and treated.
The colonists were given more space, and they began setting up their own businesses again, begining trades and similar doings that could be passed to their children and their children's children so that those who made planetfall would not be ignorant of survival.
Three generations passed peacefully. The society that grew up within the ship began to forget all knowings of the capital. The ship, since it was given a pre-programmed flight pattern, needed no crew nor mates to remember where they had been and where they were going. Life was good.
Naturally, the good life rarely lasts. Oranda had been straying for quite a long time from its original flight path. Without a crew to correct this, it had drifted to an area claimed by the scourge of the galaxy. An area unwilling to comply with the decrees of the government, the people who habitate the area range from all walks of life, from the rich and infamous to the meek and cunning.
The area is called, in Rittaholm at least, 'Sector 23.' To the pirates, smugglers, and others who live there, it is called 'Ivlik,' an old name meaning 'Spirit of Light.' The diplomats and others at Rittaholm would have laughed at such a noble name for such a decadent area. Perhaps once it was brilliant and shining. No one can remember.
Nonetheless, Oranda cruises onward, uncorrected, towards Ivlik, Quadrant 23. It is met by a squadron of 'calicos,' those ships that are composed of parts from all sorts of other ships. Usually small, calicos have different capabilities and forms, ranging from slow and stocky to quick and fragile, and sometimes slow and fragile, quick and stocky, and all sorts of other things, depending on how readily available certain parts were when the ships were built.
The calicos hail the Oranda, and no reply is sent. The calicos try again and again, but the Oranda can not reply. It has no relay-message equipment.
It was an economy ship.
Commander Nak Synn sits, strapped down, in his calico. He is tiring of the arrogance of this giant cruiser's crew. Why won't they answer them?
He lets out a light growl and keys the communications unit. "Calis four and five, begin strafing run. Let them know we mean business," he instructs in Basic. It is difficult to get the Basic words out given his Cholo heritage.
The plant-people of Choloxiarntal IV usually communicate by thoughts and telepathy, but Nak is only part Cholo. His telepathy is weak, and his verbal tendencies are weaker still. He does not talk often, thusly, and most people think he is simply shy, which is not the case at all.
He just doesn't feel like bothering to struggle.
Calis four and five waggle their bodies (only four has anything close to a wing to waggle, and that is really a fin at the top of the fighter, so it is difficult for them to waggle their wings in compliance with the order) and set out, charging their lasers, and strafing the massive ship.
Their shots melt pools of metal on the ship's hull and armor. No shields are there to go down. Nak finds that curious. They return to the rest of the squadron.
He signals for communications to resume, but still no reply comes. He growls again, deeply in his throat. Keying the comm, he announces, "Shoot it down."
The twelve calicos dive in in attack formation. Nak powers up his lasers, and he leads the dive. They hit the engines first, and they explode in gigantic, brilliant plumes of red fire. The fire traces along the rest of the ship, which cracks in half and explodes. Pods jettison from it, and Nak growls again.
"Get a crew out here to check for survivors. I've a few things to ask them."
Larrian walks the corridors calmly. She is lost; somehow she had found a service corridor far from the main parts of the Third Deck City. For some reason, she had continued to walk along it.
The cobwebs and other signs of negligence are prominent, and she keeps clear of them. Who knows what sort of horrid creatures lurk within them? She continues along the corridor, wondering just where it will lead.
She hums monotonously as she goes along. This is getting dull. Perhaps she should turn back?
She turns a corner, vaguely determined to continue onward. There is an intersection of four other corridors. "Where now?" she asks herself.
As if in answer, the floor beneath her shudders. She cries out in surprise and catches herself with her arms to keep her chin from smacking against the floor.
She drags herself to her feet, wondering what that could have been. There had never been tremors through the Oranda before. What is going on?
Silence ensues, giving her no answer whatsoever. Cautiously, she steps down one of the halls. She blinks as old signs light up at the advent of her arrival. They must be motion activated, she decides.
She reaches a fork in the hall. Above it, a sign lights up. A red arrow points one way, while a blue one points the other way. What could they mean?
She chooses the red arrow's hall. A red stripe races along the side, along with stripes of green, gold, and black. The other colors turn off at different doorways and panels, but she follows the red line to its end.
A row of identical doors, each hugged by the red line, is what she receives for following it to the end. Beside the row of doors is a computing console. It shows various views of the Oranda, and suddenly sections begin turning red.
She stares at it, not understanding. Then, a rumbling surfaces, and she turns. Her eyes snap wide, and she understands why the image had shown a sections of the ship turning red. A huge fireball is headed down the hall. A wave of shrapnel and chunks of metal preceeds it.
Larrian's breath stops in her chest, and suddenly, the doors beside the console hiss open. She wants to move, but she finds herself frozen in place. The heat of the fire wave is excruciatingly painful, and little wads of liquidified metal strikes her skin, searing it and cauderizing it. Then, a bulkhead flies free from its holding, and it zips down the corridor ahead of the wall of fire.
The flames begin to bloom, and she finds her feet. She turns and runs away from the fire, back down the hall, in hopes of finding someplace safe. The sheet from the bulkhead, however, seems to trace her down. It shoves itself in her leg, carving a nice, bloody gash in it, and she cries for the pain.
Time is running out, and the fire is almost upon her. She drags herself to her feet and launches herself towards one of the little rooms that the doors had revealed. She gives one last look at the fire, and collapses into the chamber, the door hissing shut behind her.
She lands on something, but she is not sure what it is. She feels too dizzy to think what it is. The pale, white light dims above her, and she thinks she feels the floor moving beneath her.
Lying prone on the floor as she is, she can not see anything around her. She raises her leg, knowing that that will slow the bleeding, and stares at the huge metal sheet, now twisted and warped from the head, protruding from her leg. She closes her eyes, and tears of pain wash down her face.
She wishes the image of her bloodied and battered leg from her thoughts. She feels lost, fuzzy, and confused. All she sees is darkness. All she feels is pain. All she hears... is silence.
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