Chapter 2 - A new threat II

Vernond touched at a few specific buttons on his right screen, before he was allowed to join a specially secured channel to which most of the captains already connected.

As they all silently waited a few more seconds before everyone was assembled, nervous and worried faces could be seen on each one of the captains.

The moment everyone was gathered the captain from the Surgan, the battleship, began speaking.

"You have all received the latest report of our losses, as well as all the ships that are damaged. The ships too heavily damaged to continue will receive help from the remaining ships at our base, while all others are to search for whoever caused the destruction of our ships and allies."

He added after a short pause. „I advise each captain to be as careful as possible, after all it took whatever caused the destruction of our fleet only a few minutes to wipe them out completely. Another thing you should know is that we will soon be reinforced by our remaining fleet as well as a part of the second fleet."

"Alright that's it for now, assume your posts and good luck."

With that said Vernond cut the connection and began to give orders to his subordinates, coordinating his moves with two other cruisers and about ten more frigates. As he was the highest ranked captain in this group he assumed command and together they moved towards the center in order to investigate a strange phenomen where no debris at all could be seen, as if it was evading that spot at all cost.

As they were getting closer towards that clear spot and were just about 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) away, the frigate who was currently in front and scouting ahead suddenly stopped moving in its tracks, without any obvious reason.

Seeing as the ship of about a hundred meters (109 yards) suddenly stopped, Vernon ordered the other ships to stop too and tried contacting the frigate.

*Buzzzzz*

*Buzzzzzzzzzz*

After trying a few times to contact them and receiving no response, he once more ordered the group of ships to move forward with full attention and their weapons loaded and ready.

As they flew closer they slowly started to see that something was wrong with the ship, however as they had no means to scout ahead other than their own ships, Vernon decided it would be better if the ships stuck together to support each other.

As he once more focused his gaze onto the frigate, he thought to see that the hull was ripped open by something, however that should be impossible as there wasn't even a speck of dust floating in front of their ships.

He turned to his left and said. „The scans were negative, right? Nothing is in front of us?"

"Yes sir, nothing ahead for the next hundred kilometers (62 miles)." Answered the officer in charge of recconaissance and scouting briefly.

"Alright then, continue scouting ahead." Said Vernon who was getting the feeling that something was incredibly wrong.

Therefore he added after thinking shortly. "Prepare the FTL drive on all ships, just in case we need to escape!"

After having made sure they would be able to escape, he calmed his emotions down a bit before focusing on what was happening in front of them once more.

…

A few minutes later they arrived near the destroyed frigate, because they had moved incredible slow in order to make sure nothing would escape their eyes as well as to secure the safety of everyone on the ships.

And they were finally able to observe the frigate thoroughly, Vernond discover that the damaged hull looked like someone or something increadibly heavy crashed into the frigate.

The hull was bent in in many places and an extremely deep cut penetrated through the whole upper side of the ship, destroying the atmosphere within the ship and killing everyone who wasn't inside a secured airtight room or wearing their space suits.

While frowning at the strange sight, he began tipping on his screen and was about to command an emergency rescue team to save everyone still alive and bring back the bodies of the deceased.

However, just at this second a red light began blinking in the command room while an alarm went off at the same time, indicating an extremely big amount of energy gathering in front of them.

The problem was just that right at this moment, nothing was showing on the other sensores of the ship, while at the same time the cameras just projected an empty space, the only thing indicating something is wrong were the alarm and the destroyed frigate.

Therefore as he didn't know what was happening, he immediately ordered the ships to retreat to a safe distance.

The humming of the FTL drives could be heard on each of the ships present and they immediately started accelerating at extreme speeds.

Just as he thought they made it, the sensors once again went crazy and one after another showed the presence of another ship right behind them, where they had been just a second ago.

The eyes of Vernond and the crew which could see what was happening went wide, as they saw the ship which appeared.

It was a ship which was many, many times bigger than even their battleship, measuring around incredible 80 kilometers (50 miles) in length and about 30 kilometers (19 miles) in width, while also being around 10 kilometers (6 miles) high.

It was mostly a mixture between black and brown, with some other colors mixed here and there, like blue, yellow or red.

Having tentacles of some sort stretching out in front, and being mostly irregular in form, it seemed like it was alive, making it even scarier than it already was.

Vernond immideately ordered. „Record everything you see and everything on our scanners, we have to show this thing to our admiral! However don't slow down at all otherwise it might be able to hit us before we reach FTL speed."

Just as he finished saying his part, the middle of that strange ship started glowing in a purple light, before whatever that was, was fired towards them at great speed.