“Raj Merkhet, the explosion knocked us out of the gravity tunnel, which overloaded our graviton simulators.”
Ambassador Lakeshi assured us that based on available data that this mission was a guaranteed success. No martial experience, constantly lounging or tinkering with gadgets, and weak for a pretty face. While Lakeshi was no where near as proficient in killing as her attendants, she was a poisoner and seductress by trade, but there was no data on how alluring Humans and Pixies found other species.
Our intel was obviously flawed on this woman, the Empress of Astoria, especially if they were able to best three Herrati in tier two battle suits. Our Forum representative assured us that the Humans were sanctioned by the forum to tier 1 or below. Perhaps the race change of the Empress circumvented the restrictions?
“What is the estimated time to restart the simulators?”
“Several days, Sir on account we spent our extra energy stores creating the last tunnel”
“Yes, I see. The Ambassador’s actions prevent us from moving via the Sector Hosts I presume?”
“Unfortunately, sir. Although the Empress agreed to Herrat terms, on of the Human System Lords filed a limited scope Vendetta against our ship, showing a surprising knowledge of our laws.”
“We’re a few hundred light years away from the Astorian system, we should be fine for a few days.” Especially since there’s no way they can use their capitol ships and still maintain the year-long armistice they accepted.
“Raj! There’s an odd signature on our aether detectors.”
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I rush over to the sensor and communications display to see the display pick up aether and infrared signatures from an object the size of a few chariots strapped together. That is a small vessel to be in deep space.
“Leopard Ghenna, what kind of vessels did you see that have this signature in the Astorian system.”
“Their transfer craft, or ‘shuttles’ had similar heat signatures, but the aether readings were non-existent. The craft should also be too small unless their aether ratings are higher than listed.”
Should be. We’ve been saying that a lot about the Humans lately and it’s already crippled my ship. “Get our Warleader on the line. This all adds up to a bad situation. We need to warn the Clans.”
“Right away Raj!” the jungle cat turned back to her station pressing buttons and rearranging sliders. “Uh, sir? We’re being jammed? The signal is of Human origin and it is currently trying to infiltrate our ship.”
We have level 40 + data engineers onboard, they should not even by troubled by any jamming tech the humans have. “Raise shields to maximum in the direction of the craft and fire as soon as they are in effective range of the EM cannons.”
“Sir? It’s just a shuttle.” My aide added uselessly.
“Four objects have appeared on sensors, breaking off the craft. Accelerating faster than traditional chemical fuel and not giving off enough aether to be primarily magic in nature.”
“Open fire!” I demand.
“The objects are moving too fast across the array to accurately hit with EM cannons sir and the Laser weaponry is not effective that far away.”
“JUST DO IT!” I shout for all to hear, the bridge finally catching some of my anxiety. We’ve had too may ‘should’ moments to ignore these threats.
I can feel the discharge of the cannons as they spill ammunition at a wasteful rate, but I don’t care. One missile goes down, just outside of the official EM cannon range. The next is caught just outside of laser range, but the next one that the lasers focus on explodes in a massive thermal cloud, masking the signal of the last missile.
“Oh, shit. Sir. Our computers finally recognized the signatures: it’s Antimatter sir.”
The apes are both more advanced and more foolish that we ever guessed.
“I hope the Warleaders choke on void hairballs.”