Tales of the Stars

Chapter 1 - Titan

Garvrie Molkov sat in the pilot's seat of the CDV Britva. Around him, various screens displayed the spaceship's system statuses and exterior camera feeds. Through the screens displaying the ship's exterior, he could see the planet Saturn and its rings behind him, as well as the Britva's six wingman drones flying close to its sides. Off in the distance to the ship's left and right, its two companion ships could be seen as pale, silver dots in the distance.

The CDV Britva was a Griffon-class combat orbiter. Ships of its class typically served most of Earth's military groups, but the CEO of Cosmos Mining and Extraction, the company Garvrie worked for, was more than wealthy enough to purchase and manufacture several of them for himself. Ahead of the small fleet loomed the moon Titan, one of the several moons of Saturn that CME had colonized.

"Still no word from the colonies, Darvik?" Garvrie spoke into his helmet's comms unit.

"Nothing, captain, all three sites are still dark," replied Darvik, the ship's communications officer. "We're less than point-one light-seconds away from the planet, so we'll find out what happened soon."

Just then, a blip appeared on Garvrie's screen, detecting some kind of ship in Titan's orbit. "Were there any ships scheduled to visit the Titan colonies?" Garvrie asked.

"No," said Darvik, "There aren't supposed to be any ships out here."

"Tell the fleet to be on yellow alert and attempt to make contact with the unknown vessel."

"Right away captain."

The Griffons' wingman drones moved to a defensive position in front of them while Garvrie's comms unit was turned to the ship ahead of them. "Unknown star ship, this is the Cosmos Defence Vellel Britva, indentify yourself or we will be forced to open fire unless you vacate this planetary system."

The ship responded, "@#$%   #$&*%$   (*   @#!   #@&*$   @#$#@   !!@   #@   $#   %$^%   @!@!   @#!   #$   %$#%$#"

The language was nothing Garvrie had ever heard before, let alone one used by a country with space ships. "Unknown vessel, please repeat that, I don't understand."

"@#!   %^$%#   #$%@#^%&^*# @#!   %&*#(   @#@!   $%# $*#   )#@$^#$@($)#   $#%   ^%%$   #$   &%^^   #$@##$#   $#&   )$   &#(^   &*$#$   ()   )#$   #$#!$%&^"

"Commander, scanners are reading an energy spike from the unknown ship, I think-" just then, Darvik was cut off as a bright beam streaked through space from the unknown ship towards the Britva, clipping its armor and blasting one of the wingman drones to pieces.

"Open fire!" shouted Garvrie, as the ship's weapons officer began firing the ship's laser turrets while he began moving the ship erratically to throw off the enemy ship's aim. More bright streaks flew past the ship as it evaded through space. The other fleet ships and their drones let loose a torrent of lasers.

"I've never seen a weapon like that before," one of the other ships' captains said over the communications systems. Garvrie decided that speculating would need to be reserved for later, first they needed to destroy this hostile ship.

"All ships fire missiles, full barrage!" he shouted. In response, all three ships let loose a barrage of missiles rocketing out towards the enemy ship. The ships were so far apart, that the enemy ship was still only a speck in the distance, but that distance was closing fast. Just then, the scanners indicated the ship was launching its own missile, just one. Something wasn't right.

The missile streaked towards the fleet until it was only a few kilometers from the several dozen missiles that Garvrie's ship had fired. Suddenly, the missile exploded in a fashion more brilliant than Garvrie had ever seen, a vast, glowing orb several kilometers in radius that engulfed the Britva's missile salvo and erased the enemy ship's signal from his scanners.

"What the hell is going on!?" one of the crew exclaimed. "Did they just shoot the sun at us!?"

The bright orb's massive heat signature not only masked any sign of the enemy ship, but also blinded their line of sight towards it. All the fleet could do was fly towards it, getting ever closer to Titan. The fleet flew in silence, trying to get their bearings, for about twenty minutes before the orb of whatever finally dissipated. The three ships' scanners instantly swept the area, trying to locate the enemy ship. Titan now loomed large in the ships' views, they were entering orbit now.

Suddenly, the scanners began beeping urgently, and the ship was revealed, it was right on top of them! It let loose a barrage of smaller missiles which streaked through space, as well as several of its beam weapons. The ship to the Britva's left was overwhelmed by the flurry of attacks, and combusted in a brilliant display of fire and metal. From where Garvrie was sitting, however, the explosion was just a small flash in the distance.

"The Ochevidets is down!" exclaimed the only other commander. Now all that was left was the Britva and its remaining ally, the Sirena.

"Unleash another barrage!" shouted Garvrie. "Fire everything!"

Everything was unleashed towards the mysterious attacker. The wingmen drones left their defensive positions to speed closer to the enemy, firing both lasers and railguns. Every missile was launched, and every turret was fired. The two remaining Griffons brought their fixed cannons to bear and added more laser fire to the barrage. The enemy ship launched missiles to counteract the attack and used its beam weapons to intercept the drones. The ship was now so close that Garvrie could make out its shape. It was definitely not from any known nation in the solar system.

 Despite its powerful firepower, the ship was overwhelmed. Its hull was battered by close range fire from the drones' railguns and its weapons were blown apart by the few missiles that managed to close the distance. The ship spontaneously blew apart in a brilliant display of flames.

"Hell yea!" the other commander shouted. "We did it!"

"Commander," said Darvik, "we have received a transmission from the surface of Titan, it appears to be from the colony of Fond." Fond was the largest colony on Titan, it was time for some answers.

"Patch it through," said Garvrie, "and let the rest of the fleet hear it as well."

The message was slightly distorted, like it was being transmitted from a makeshift antenna. Fortunately, they were close enough for it to come through relatively clearly due to them being in orbit of the planet right above the colony. "This is Albert Mandez, is anyone out there? The colony of Fond has lost contact with all other colonies, the primary communications array has been destroyed. We are currently under alien attack. I repeat, alien attack. They're everywhere, they've taken control of most of the colony and they've captured or killed almost everyone. We need to-" suddenly there was the sound of shouting in the background followed by an explosion. The man speaking the message shouted out, and the sound of gunfire and several more explosions were heard. Then the message was cut off.

"Commander," said Darvik, his tone sounding worried. "Scanners just picked up more ships approaching Titan's orbit."

"What kind of ships?" asked Garvrie, though he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.

"Warships, hundreds of them."