VC Chapter 9-Death Rays

Sector 1400

Planet 1424

January 18, 2052

Chase sat on his bed in his quarters frustrated by the fact that his best friend Matthew was taken away as hostage. He had been searching the nearby systems for any signs of NB ships to pillage, but was unlucky. His new pirate fleet composed of three Harrier frigates and two Genesis cruisers had managed to rob some new supplies from local miners who were defenceless amidst the galaxies.

“Chase, you need to see this.” the ship's speakers summoned the captain to the bridge.

Chase took off his jacket and slung it over his back as he casually walked towards the ship deck feeling slightly annoyed that his personal time was bothered.

“What?” Chase shouted lazily in the bridge.

“Sir, our scanners pick up a ship five kilometres out, but we have no visual of the ship.” Badyr pointed in the dark space ahead of them.

“What? Impossible! No ship has ever been able to cloak.” Chase said in disbelief as he pulled out his macrobinoculars from his pocket.

After a brief scan of the horizon, a silhouette of a medium-sized ship was slightly visible on the lenses. Chase rubbed the lenses thinking it was some residual dust and scanned again, but only this time he saw nothing.

“Send one Harrier to scout.” Chase looked amused.

Chase sat down in his command chair and watched as one frigate broke its holding formation to scout ahead into the deep dark space.

“Sir, we are approaching the ship in twenty seconds.” the pilot of the frigate broadcasted in the bridge.

Suddenly four yellowish rays appeared from a distance and beamed onto the Harrier scout's hull eating its shield and sending beams of hard light.

“What the hell? Holy-” the pilot was cut off as the ship got vaporized.

Everyone onboard the ship had gone so silent that the only sound heard was the beeping of the computers as they watched the empty space of where their frigate was five seconds ago.

“Enemy ship approaching in five seconds. This ship is fast!” Badyr read the blinking proximity lights on his computer screen.

“Battle stations, now!” Chase commanded he pulled up a speaker from his command chair and broadcasted to his other ships.

As the dark bulky ship sped towards the pirates, a loud hum was heard as the weapons mounted on it charged and unleashed another stream of hard light on the nearest frigate. In an instant, the Harrier was vaporized just like before. The Genesis cruiser that was being escorted had now begun opening fire on the mysterious ship with its mounted railguns and scatter missiles. Nothing was taking the shields away as a red glow absorbed the incoming small arms fire. Before Chase could have his ship rotated to face the enemy, the Genesis cruiser engaging it was turned into space dust in the blink of an eye.

 “Retreat! All ships cover our retreat!” Chase's eyes widened with fear as the dark cruiser turned towards them.