"Woah!" Nadine exclaimed as she saw the mountain of metal through the bridge's window. Her voice, while still soft, was the loudest Silgvani had heard of her yet. On top of that, there seemed to be a slight sparkle in her eyes. The princess had no idea what that was about, but judging by the small alien's behavior, she assumed it was something positive.

"Impressive, right?" Silgvani asked, which was answered with frantic nodding.

"How many guns are on that thing? Besides the two obvious ones," Nadine said pointing at the two gigantic twin turrets mounted on top of the ship.

"Well, there are another two on the bottom. Besides those, I have no idea. Have the humans something like that?"

The alien girl shook her head.

"Only on paper, we never built them. We never encountered alien life forms and none of our internal wars since we reached the space-faring age were big enough to make it into space. There simply was no point in us building huge warfare-capable spacecraft like this one. We have some pretty impressive transport ships, but they don't come close to this! But I gotta ask: why are the sides so jagged? Almost looks like a saw blade."

"Those are angled hangars. The Unifier is a carrier."

As the Unifier slowly rotated into position, the shutters on the sides of the hangars became visible.

"Seven hangars on each side, so fourteen in total. Each can hold up to twelve frigates. Or First Ones know how many fighters, whatever could be needed. Or in our case, a hundred times more than what would be needed," she added with a joking annoyance in her voice. Seriously, a light carrier would have been more than enough.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a noise, and when she looked down, she realized that Nadine was laughing. Not just a slight chuckle, but an honest, heartfelt laugh.

She is finally relaxing a bit.

"You know," Nadine started once she had calmed down, "back home, we have a saying: Shooting cannons at sparrows."

Silgvani cocked her head.

"What are sparrows?"

"Oh, small birds around this size," she said holding her hands slightly apart.

"Why would you use cannons to... oh, I get it. Yes, a fitting phrase indeed."

The Unifier finished adjusting its position to theirs. The small raider was now facing the side of the massive carrier, and the shutter of the frontmost hangar opened. Gehnnat started to rotate their ship to be level with the Hangar floor.

"See that second and third floor there? The platforms can be retracted, and if they do that, they could even fit a heavy cruiser into the hangar. This ship can literally carry an entire fleet on its own."

Nadine looked up at her.

"Is that why she is called the Unifier?"

"She?"

"Yeah, don't you consider named ships female?"

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"No, we don't. Why would... anyway, it is named after my ancestor, King Kiyron the Unifier. When we made contact with alien civilizations, he advocated that Hohmiy should not be separated into individual Kingdoms and that we would have a better position in intergalactic politics if the planet was united."

The alien girl cocked her head.

"So your countries just decided to unite and then did? I wouldn't have expected the other Kings to just give up their power."

"No, of course not," Silgvani clarified. "Kiyron didn't just want one kingdom to absorb the others. His plan was to form a council that should govern the planet instead of a single ruler. And many agreed with him, but unfortunately, not all. However, the separatists were in the minority and soon realized that their independence would mean little if over half the planet banded together. They would simply be unable to compete, be it economically or otherwise, especially if you factor in the prospect of trade with other planets. So instead, they wanted to stop the unification by force. That event is today known as the "Unification War". After the war was won, the other Kings were impressed by the flawless leadership Kiyron had shown. They decided that a council would be too slow to react in case of an emergency and surrendered their power to him. Ever since then, my family has ruled over the planet."

Nadine's eyes became narrow.

"Just because they were "impressed"? Doesn't that sound a bit too-"

Her question was interrupted when Gehnnat finished his maneuver and opened the com channel.

"Relative standstill achieved, horizontal alignment 98.3%. Landing gears are out."

"Understood. Initiating reverse landing."

"Err, what is 'reverse landing'?" Nadine asked, sounding confused. Instead of answering, Silgvani simply pointed out of the window.

Slowly, the Unifier crept closer, sometimes slightly correcting its course up or down, until their ship was completely encased in the empty hangar. The shutter closed, and then, even slower, everything around them seemed to move upwards until they were hovering almost directly above the ground. The com channel opened again.

"Reverse landing complete. Reactivating artificial gravity in three... two... one..."

A jolt went through the ship as it fell to the hangar floor. Silgvani, too far away from any chair to sit down in time, had to hold onto a console to not fall over. To her surprise though, Nadine simply stretched out her arms and moved her hips a little to compensate for the movement. Despite her weight, she had a remarkable balance.

The airlock opened and Silgvani exited the ship, followed directly by Nadine to show that she was a royal guest. The rest of the crew would wait until the greeting was over. As she reached the end of the stairs, a line of soldiers was saluting her in the traditional way: two arms crossed behind their backs, the other in front of their chest, as they all in unison bowed their heads.

"Be at ease," she told them so they knew they could break formation. "Where is Admiral Mirtan?"

The soldiers stepped aside and formed a corridor, revealing a Vanaery that was a fair bit below average in terms of height. Silgvani, who was fairly tall, was therefore forced to look down quite a bit.

"How come you knew it was me, Your Highness? Do you know the command rotation schedule? If so, I'm flattered."

"No, but you are the only one of the admirals who is enough of a showoff to send our biggest capital ship to pick up a single raider."

"Well, we would've needed to do a maintenance flight soon anyway, so nothing lost."

"Oh? So you have no qualms about endangering your princess by choosing a ship with which performing a reverse landing is twenty times as hard compared to a regular carrier?"

"Hardly a challenge for our pilots. And in my defense, said princess never specified the dimensions of her "enemy vessel"."

For a while, the two of them stared at each other in silence. Then, together, they started laughing. Silgvani did so in a more reserved, dignified manner, but Mirtan on the other hand didn't bother to hold himself back.

"It's good to see you, uncle."

"Likewise. Alright Sil, what happened?"

"Before that..."

The princess stepped aside.

"May I introduce you: Nadine of the "Humans". Nadine, this is Mirtan of Clan Tessvani, current first admiral of Hohmiy's fleet."

"Um..." Nadine started to fiddle with her "improvised poncho", apparently trying to get her arm free. She then struck a weird pose, straightening her back and putting her hand to her head.

"Sir!"

Mirtan laughed again.

"No need to be so nervous, you are a guest of Sil after all. But I must say, it is rare that I don't have to look up, bwahaha!"

He then turned back to his niece, and his tone became more serious again.

"So, an unknown sapient species, and a "captured enemy vessel"... I assume there is a story to be told here?"

"You have no idea, uncle."