The Seraph of the Cosmos sliced through the interstellar canvas like a comet streaking across the night sky. Inside the command bay, Draco Liu stood at the helm, his hands gently guiding the ship's controls as if conducting a cosmic symphony. The dim, glowing lights accentuated the focused determination etched across his face—A captain in his element, navigating the vast ocean of stars.
As the ship sailed through the cosmic currents, a delicate hum of anticipation filled the air. Beside Draco, the ethereal glow of Arthur's holographic form materialized, his presence an ever-constant companion and a source of celestial wisdom.
"We are now officially outside of the known bounds of the universe. We have crossed 47.5 billion light-years from Earth. Cheers, captain," Arthur's voice chimed with a hint of celebration.
Draco smiled and said, "Cheers, Arthur. Analyze the nebulae and stars as we course through."
"Beginning Analysis..."
Draco leisurely checked the ship's schematics while they ventured deeper into the uncharted territories of space.
After a few hours of familiarizing himself with the ship's capabilities, Draco reclined in his seat. "Truly a marvel. They spared no expense in building this ship. The administration must be feeling the pinch."
"Well, we deserve it. It's our reward for conquering Sector 12. After all, this was your only request for all the years you've toiled for the Central. Even though it's a big pinch in the pockets for the new Sector 12 Administration, I'm sure they've grubbed more than enough to compensate from the Central during our journey," Arthur replied.
Draco nodded. "Still, it's a miracle they handed me sole custody of the ship."
Arthur grunted, "What do you know? It took a lot of coaxing on my part. I fought pretty hard for you, with the help of Ol' Jack and Central. I was able to get a signed release from Sector 12 Administration declaring that the ship belongs solely to you. Of course, the normal restrictions still apply."
"Didn't they try anything sneaky? I have dealt with the new Sector 12 Director, Riya, in the past. She's a sneaky bitch."
"She is... They planted their own schema in the latent control modules within the other Human forms you saw in the Med Bay, but I got rid of them immediately. Nevertheless, she was removed as director and sent back to Sector 5, awaiting trial. I had evidence of the whole ordeal and complained to Central and Ol' Jack, using the foulest language. Needless to say, that worked well," Arthur chuckled.
Draco laughed, saying, "She's too overzealous for her own good."
Leaving the command bay, Draco headed towards the wellness center, embarking on a long string of exercises and measurements, aiming to get acclimated to his new body.
Two weeks later, Draco had honed his body to its peak potential when the gargantuan spaceship came to an abrupt halt. Draco returned to the command bay without needing a prompt from Arthur.
Taking a seat in the captain's chair, he asked solemnly, "Brief me."
"Look at the map." Arthur's holographic projection produced a shimmering map before Draco's eyes.
Draco nodded, his eyes fixed on the holographic map. A large swath of engineered structures and ships were visible.
"Are they from nearby civilizations or the known ones back from our Virgo Supercluster? If so, they've really beaten us to the punch," Draco mused.
"I can't determine the details as we are too far away." If not for our state-of-the-art quantum radar, we wouldn't have caught it in time, especially since they look like they're armed and there are a lot of ships," Arthur replied.
"We'll take it slow. Let's inch closer as we prepare," Draco replied, his voice calm yet brimming with determination. "Scan for any known signatures and prepare for combat. How long will the preparation take?"
"A month or two roughly," Arthur replied solemnly.
"Hmm, then proceed at the necessary speed. I'll check the armaments and other available systems. I'll mark the ones I deem necessary; proceed with the rest as per your discretion."
Draco and Arthur began to busy themselves, preparing for the upcoming encounter.
After marking a few systems for activation and browsing through the armaments, Draco couldn't help but be stifled.
"Pulsing Canon, Radiant Flare Shield, Quantum Tunnelling Displacer... What the hell! These look like straight rip-offs of the Synthars, Xylok, and Pug civilization systems," Draco exclaimed.
Arthur chortled, "Well, you know what they say..."
"What?"
"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery... And as you can see, the people back at the Central Research Lab were extremely good at flattery."
Draco broke into laughter. "Surely they've taken the saying 'learn from your enemies' a bit too far... Nevertheless, these are fantastic to have. I'm surprised they were able to make them, as they require some pretty rare materials."
"Well, you didn't pay attention to these things, but before the news of your victory even reached the Administration, the Resources and Mining Department started digging up everything in sight. The entire department was granted a huge bonus. They even sent us a bottle of vintage 'Étoile Millénaire.' I had it smashed for the christening of our ship."
Draco nodded. "This ship is truly deserving of such a grand christening; the bottle didn't go to waste."
"Indeed!" Arthur concurred.
The process of moving the systems and armaments from long-term storage to active bays was a lengthy and laborious task, given the leviathan size of the ship. Thankfully, it was automated and finished faster than expected.
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"25 days... That's impressive. Any read on those signatures?" Draco inquired.
"Not yet. It'll be a few more days before we are close enough," Arthur replied.
As Draco busied himself with the systems and readiness check, Arthur finally managed to decipher some clues.
In the simulation room, Draco walked amidst the projections of gigantic ships, stopping at the center of the room where a large structure was projected.
"This looks like a space station, perhaps a research center. These ship designs give me a sense of familiarity..."
"Indeed, they do have some signature quirks of the Drak ships, they may be the latest versions or maybe experimental ones."
"The ships are too numerous to be anything experimental. They're definitely from a production run," Draco deduced.
Arthur's holographic projection appeared in front of Draco, looking dapper in a classy suit with slick black hair and a sophisticated look.
"Do I look dapper?" Arthur asked with a grin.
Draco eyed Arthur for a moment. "You do. Let's get back to business."
"I was about to... You see here," Arthur pointed to the center of the large structure in the middle of the room.
"I sense detectable distortion in the subspace fabric from here..."
"...I might be wrong, but it could possibly be the remnants of an evaporating black hole on its last legs..."
"...If it is, then it's really a miracle for anyone to come across one! They maybe planning to do something with it."
"How about the onboard life signatures?" Draco asked, intrigued.
"The occupants are undoubtedly the Drak," Arthur replied.
"What are the chances for us to come out on top if we engage?" Draco inquired, considering the possible consequences.
"Before that, let me tell you, they don't seem to have their long-range radars on at the moment. Otherwise, we would have been discovered, given the state of the rest of their systems. We could leave a beacon here and take a detour. What do you say?" Arthur suggested.
"Hmm, you didn't answer my question," Draco responded with a playful smile.
"Well, I'm not sure, to be honest. They are too numerous, and as you can see they look NextGen, their armaments maybe superior than what we have encountered before..."
"...But with our new Hyperjump drive, we have a chance of getting away even mid-engagement," Arthur admitted.
Draco pondered for a moment before replying, "We've come to seek the unknown, after all. Let's activate the Quantum Tunnelling Displacer, I'll board the central space station."
Arthur walked around Draco, standing behind him. "Alright, but I'm going to take over your comms control. At the slightest disturbance, I will port you back to the ship and get the hell out of here."
Draco nodded in agreement. "Understood."
"I'll send a drone first to scope out the area. Once I have a hold of the layout, I'll port you to a suitable location," Arthur stated, disappearing momentarily to deploy the drone.
Draco sat down on the floor amidst the projections, pondering the mysteries the station ahead held. He was excited for what was awaiting him.
2 Hours later. In the Command bay.
Alright, we've gone through the plan multiple times, you have the tools required to extract data from their terminal and the weapons to keep yourself safe. As we've discussed, don't deviate from the plan, I sense something amiss here." Arthur was worried for Draco.
Draco smiled before closing his eyes. "I'll be back."
A stream of particles and faint flashes of light surrounded him before he disappeared into thin air.
When Draco opened his eyes again, he found himself inside the mysterious space station. Its interiors differed from any Drak ship he had seen before during their past skirmishes. The materials and general design bore a vague resemblance, but they deviated in distinct ways.
He cautiously scoped out his surroundings, ensuring he remained undetected. When he reached the central command area, the sound of footsteps alerted Draco. He hid behind a large pallet of crates, in front of the Command area.
A group of Humanoid aliens donning safety outfits exited the lab opposite the command area. They are, of course, the Drak; they are humanoids, like the majority of spacefaring civilizations.
But different from other civilizations; they were tall and lanky, with long arms, and on the sides of their heads were disproportionately large ears, but they had no eyes, only a nose, and a small mouth.
They had a pair of optical tentacles on top of their heads; their vision was half as good as that of humans', so they reinforced their optical vision with echo-vision.
As the lanky figures disappeared beyond the hallway, Draco sneaked into the command area, where a lone Drak captain was asleep in the central chair.
Draco quietly manoeuvred towards the control panel on the opposite side of the Drak, staying out of his potential line of sight.
Fumbling with the tools on his waist, he opened the control panel and connected a special cable from the control panel to the comms device on his wrist, attempting to extract data from the station.
Meanwhile, on 'Seraph of the Cosmos', Arthur began to work his magic, and before he could announce his success to Draco, something happened.
On the live video feed from Draco, he could see the Drak captain glaring at Draco with his tentacle eyes, throwing hand gestures, and yelling Drak profanities like an angry Italian from the Century Era.
Arthur felt a proverbial pit in his stomach. Before he could instruct Draco, he saw the Drak captain getting tased and immobilized. Before he could react, the alarm sounded.
"I'm getting you out of there... I have received the data."
"Wait, not yet! ... Let me check something." Draco interjected.
He left the command area and hurried towards the lab opposite the Command area. He had no time to fumble the lock as he could hear the encroaching footsteps of the Drak guards. A powerful kick knocked the door off the hinges.
Before Draco's eyes lay a giant black sphere, spanning multiple stories below the deck. As the alarm blared, the Drak scientists within the lab evacuated faster than a disappearing magician.
"Port me back in 5 seconds. I want the entire lab transported back to the ship along with me," Draco ordered, keeping his composure.
Before Arthur could respond, he saw Draco jumping down five stories, running towards the center of the lab. Reacting quickly, Arthur adjusted the parameters of the Quantum Displacer and activated it.
As streams of particles and flashing lights engulfed the giant lab, the emergency exit doors were blasted open, and the Drak guards, seeing a Human amidst their secretive lab, shouted Drak profanities and fired their blasters, intending to kill.
Before the beams of energized matter could reach Draco, potentially turning him into a sieve, he and the entire lab disappeared into thin air. The sudden disappearance of such a large volume created a vacuum that knocked the Drak guards off their feet.
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Storage Bay, 'Seraph of the Cosmos'.
Draco and the Lab have been ported back to the ship. Before he could relax, Draco was immediately ported back to the command area. The rapid porting in succession made his head spin for a brief moment.
Without needing his instructions, Arthur readied the ship's engines, which were roaring to life as they were readying to fire at full power.
The alarm, along with the signature from the now active engines, have put the Drak fleet on high alert as they focused on Draco's ship.
Before they could lock onto the enemy ship, the Drak fleet commander saw a gargantuan ship proverbially hauling ass.
With a slew of profanities, he ordered the full fleet to chase and capture the enemy at all costs.
Draco, guessing the importance of the stolen object in the lab, ordered Arthur to run the ship at full throttle, while at the same time wanting Arthur to decrypt the data he retrieved from the Drak ship.
Unexpectedly, as it wasn't a head-on fight, the FTL chase was boring beyond belief, save for a few particle cannons firing between them. The advanced Drak ships' armaments have given them an edge, landing several shots in succession on Draco's ship and destroying the Radiant Flare Shield.
Meanwhile, Draco was now pretty relaxed as he looked through the decrypted data from the Drak ship.
"I thought you said we could get away. It's been five days, and they're still chasing us, inching closer."
"You were the one who wanted the whole lab to be ported over... Did you even look over the details of the system? It requires exponentially more power as the size of the target increases. And as you saw, that lab was huge. We exhausted our boost pack, and it'll take a few more days to fully charge. We can't use the Hyperjump drive until then," Arthur clarified.
Draco nodded as he continued to study the schematics of the mysterious Drak engine now in the ship's storage bay.
He pointed to a specific section of the schematics. "Look here, that looks like a standard Drak systems integration port, right?"
Arthur checked the video feed from the storage bay, confirming Draco's observation.
"We must have an adapting port for Drak systems somewhere nearby, right?" Draco inquired.
"We do; it's in the neighboring storage bay. Are you thinking of..." Arthur was interrupted by Draco's reply.
"Yes, connect it immediately. From the metadata index, prioritize decrypting the file containing engine activation."
Arthur paused for a moment before responding, "It's being done."
As the chase continued for three more days, the Drak ships were nearly upon the "Seraph of the Cosmos." The final barrier of the energy shield looked ready to be destroyed at any second.
"It's done; the boost pack has been charged, though we don't have sufficient data. It's barely enough to activate the engine. We can't guide it, and I'm completely unaware of its guidance system. It may be a point-to-point engine, and we might be transported to the middle of a Drak base. Are you sure you want to do this?" Arthur cautioned, his concern evident.
"I want to see what all this is about... Activate it now," Draco said resolutely.
As the boost banks ramped up in preparation for engine activation, the energy signatures on the fleet commander's screen grew increasingly brighter by the second. Fearing the enemy's escape, the fleet commander gritted his teeth, ordered a full fleet bombardment of the enemy, and prepared for the final confrontation.
Arthur sighed, "Fuck! We might be done this time. It's a full fleet attack!"
Draco remained undeterred. "Activate the Backup Boost packs and divert the full system output to the engine. On my count."
"Damn, so this is how we go..." Arthur sighed heavily, preparing for the worst.
Draco counted down, "5... 4... 3... 2...1"
As the particle beams fired by nearly fifty Drak ships were about to hit them, Draco called out, "Do it!"
The very space within a quarter of a light-year trembled, and the Drak ships chasing Draco's ship began squeaking from the trembling of their superstructures. A power surge took out all the Drak ships.
As the backup power kicked in, the bright spot on the Drak fleet commander's screen vanished into thin air—or space, as it were.
The Drak fleet commander roared in anger, breaking the control panel in front of him with his fist. "This setback is going to cost us," he muttered darkly.
The 'Seraph of the Cosmos' had evaded destruction. The mystery of the advanced Drak engine, along with the fate of Draco and his ship, were yet to unravel.
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