Starfleet Battles.

"Captain Alarma. We demand you surrender yourself and your ship."

A streak of light almost grazes the ship. The Morningstar zig zags through space, and deploys various visual-confusion countermeasures such as holographic rays, to confuse visual tracking weapon systems.

The captain laughs. "Men, are we prepared to be outlaws?"

"Aye!" A loud roar from the crew. They all met up after their encounter, and this had been the outcome.

More lasers. Ten large Sormundran cruiserships fired their lasers.

The Morningstar's rear laser guns swivelled into action, fired their own lasers, intentionally crossed paths with the lasers, and redirected them slightly. A feat only possible with highly predictable laser beams.

"Escaping the gravity well soon..." The navigator calls. The Morningstar lunges 'down', to dodge a laser beam.

Warp tunnels 'channelling' time is usually inversely proportional to gravity, so being further out is better.

"Preparing anti-tractor beams..." Minka calls out.

The carrierships are still firing laser beams, and the Morningstar dodges it easily. The streaks of yellow and green lasers lighting up the dark space didn't do to deter or stop the Morningstar from flying further away.

"We're in the long tail now. Warp channel time, 15 seconds."

"Navigator. Punch it and buy us some space."

The navigator nods, and the Morningstars eight ion thrusters instantly reach their full power, pushing them rapidly, and created a large distance between themselves and the large carrierships.

The Morningstar flew and hid behind an outer dwarf planet, and then started the warp channel.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

One of the carrierships almost catches up, but the 15 seconds is done.

And -warp-

"This is the Cattlian News, bringing you updates on Chancellor Worfskins's clandestine attempts to meet with Keefren Senators in a peripheral star system. He surrendered yesterday at Magistrate's Nexus, and with it fascinating footage of a large unidentified spaceship. The Magistrate is still reviewing the footage despite the Chancellor's demand to release the footage publicly."

"A spaceship. They are seriously calling it a spaceship." Minka smacks his forehead, and scratches the back of his ears. "I cannot fucking believe this."

Alarma walks over and pat him on the back. "At least we get ourselves out of there."

"Where to, Captain?" One of the crew turn to face Alarma.

"Amaxis's Rest. The chancellor's arranged for some of the smugglers to take us in."

Minka sighs. "The Somundrans will give chase, won't they? They should be in warp now too."

"Well, given how long it takes for them to warp, we have a good lead on them."

"Not if they intercept us with their other forces."

"Where are we coming out, pilot?"

The Navigator turns, "Sector WWRMMX."

"Ah great. Looks like the warp winds are favorable. There's no Somundran military installations anywhere near there, and the Cattlan forces will take at least a few days before they even deploy."

Minka nods, "Well, I'm more concerned with the... private actors."

Alarma takes a sip from a greenish juice like drink. "If they do appear, I'll turn them into fertiliser."

The crew and Minka laugh.

"That thing... do you think it has warp abilities?"

"Well... a crew member turns up the readings. Based on the sensors, it currently has insufficient warpstone, but if it does... It should be able to enter warp."

Alarma, he's now next to the crewmember with the screen. “Who the hell made such a thing...”

A robotic AI voice responds. “Analysis of the structural form is inconclusive. Weapons and external armaments suggest mostly Cattlan and Somundran manufacturing methods. Main structure inconclusive, and metal patterns are foreign and not in our records.”

“Ah well, the origins be damned, the important question is, how do we destroy it?”

“...Sensors suggest the metal armor on the object is at least 100km thick. Likelihood of destruction via conventional weapons is remote. Recommend deployment of multiple Amaxar class capital weapons.”

The crew, Alarma all stare at each other. There’s only one Amaxar class capital weapon at the moment. The moon battery. Alarma shakes his head, “That’s a stupid suggestion, who in the Cattlan shithole worlds programmed this AI? Rejected.”

“Recommend using gravitational technology to facilitate collision with multiple uninhabited moon-sized objects.”

“Also rejected.” Alarma shakes his head. Throwing rocks?

“Luring to a supernova event.”

“AI, shut down.”

“Acknowledged.” The AI voice shuts down, the crew turn to face the captain.

“That bleak, eh?”

“If we can't take it out, we need to know which Empire controls that interstellar superweapon."

"Origins unknown, though. And if somebody had a power like that, they would have used it earlier. There's no identification on the object either, or any transmission."

"Where do we start?"

"The first thing we do is, we spread information about that massive object, everywhere. Everyone, needs to know about it. Hopefully, some of the leaders will come to their senses when they see what it actually is."

"Ayeaye, captain."