At the edge of the solar system, just outside the Kuiper belt, what looks like a multicoloured hurricane spins into view. Nine talons protrude from the storm as plasma arcs across its surface, angrily snapping apart at various points. The lights in the ships windows are flashing red periodically. Somethings gone wrong.
"Captain we've just exited warp. We're now in... our sister galaxy, Ma'am."
Captain Steegle's face contorts, knowing all too clearly where her commandeered Dreadnought and its genetic payload were being sent. "If we've been sent where I'm thinking, we can all say goodbye to any life we might have had after this mission." She looks around at the bridge crew, whom are furiously trying to regain control of their ship's systems. Each tapping at their consoles with their eyes whipping between multiple holographic screens. A cable slides out of the Captain's chair, connects itself into her neck and she closes her eyes. Captain Steegle pauses, waiting for the connection to happen but it doesn't. She slams a fist onto her console and runs through some scenarios again as the cable snakes back into the chair. They can't allow their illegal weapon to be used on anyone except the Halgred. Ethical and moral concerns aside, no one ran the numbers on what the genetic rewrite would do to a race it wasn't designed for; it would have raised one too many flags on the network. A holographic face, with minimal features, appears in front of Lancieta, speaking with a concerned look.
"Captain, the odds of creating a Surmajuhtumid are very low."
"No one asked about a death-planet, Tould."
"I calculated that it was an outcome you would be considering."
"I'm assuming you've made progress then, Computer."
"Yes I have Captain Steegle. Would you like me to play you the decrypted file?"
"Make it ship-wide. I want everyone on the Shinimorte to hear it, and beam a copy back home."
"Presently, Captain."
Tould's face vanished from in front of Captain Steegle and a larger, reptilian face appeared on the bridge's main screen. His eyes were neon yellow with slits for pupils and his scales, a velvety-crimson red. Massive wings sat motionless folded around him, shrouding the rest of the Dragonoid from view.
"Draconisis." The Captain growled through gritted teeth.
"Hello Andromedian automatons, and hello Captain Lancieta Steegle." As he says her name he sounds specifically irritated. "Predictions being correct, you all should be on the outskirts of your sister galaxy, with that illegal payload of yours." He lets his words sit for a moment, relishing in what was sure to be agonizing for his enemies. "When I found out that the shining Captain would stoop so low as to go on an unsanctioned mission I was surprised; daresay I admired you for a second. A weapon designed to sterilize the strongest of us here, on our home planet... a very bold plan concocted by your masters, no doubt, but just as weak as all the others; hence your current, helpless situation. I wish I would have had the chance to tear your android body apart on the battle field but it seems that wasn't meant to be, Captain. You have no chance of regaining control and I'm sure you've already found the present I left for your crew in sim-space."
Captain Steegle made a motion with her hand, seemingly to no one at the mention of it while Draconisis continued.
"Thanks to the various traitors in your government, like your father, we saw this attack of yours coming. Not to mention that we have always wanted to give something to the humans of Earth. They've taught us so much in the terms of weapons and war philosophy, with help of your peoples illegal study of them of course. When your masters denied us the knowledge we sought, we made due with what we found on the information back channels. Who would have thought you, of all automatons, would help us thank the Earthlings." He continues to speak with a devious grin. "We will send your bio-weapon to their planet and finally, their big question will be answered, and YOU..." Draconisis practically jumps out of his chair, motioning at the camera, giving a hint of his massive body behind his wings. "...Captain Lancieta Steegle, will bring it to them!"
The Captain's mind was spinning from the mention of her father. Was Draconisis just pushing her buttons? He had to be, what purpose would her father have to betray her, their friends and family? It didn't make sense, so it had to be a lie... right? It didn't make sense.
"I will leave you with this, as a parting gift. I've had a program installed to sever your communications. By now it should've executed without you knowing. Even if you did forward this message as soon as you found it's decrypted form, this message has been coded to only play this part on your ship and self-delete on any other system, even after a neural link. So now you can't tell on your Gorlow of a father. Goodbye Steegle."
The bridge was quiet with the faint tapping of the crew working their way back into control. Captain Steegle's mind raced with options but they all hinged on regaining...
"Captain, we've restored some of the simlulation sub-systems."
"Everyone aboard the Shinimorte log in, we're taking back our ship."
The characteristically unshakable Captain's lip quivers as her mind drifts back to her father for a split second. The cable that failed to connect before, clicks into her neck again as well as ten more into her fingertips. A visor of light stretches in front of everyone's faces prompting them for their credentials.
"This is Captain Lancieta Steegle."
"Biorhythm verified."
"I'm authorizing a ship-wide sim log-in."
"Ship-wide confirmed."
Captain Steegle closes her eyes and her vision goes from black to a white, unconstructed space. A simulated version of the bridge forms in front of her and slowly her crew starts to load in as well, though it's hard to tell everyone apart since they had to rebuild the system from scratch. Her second walks up to her and salutes.
"Captain, most of the crew seems to be able to log in, save for about 40 or so."
"Thank you Praiyem. They can keep working from outside."
Her second in command, Praiyem, motions to someone to her left and they relay the message to those outside. Captain Steegle looks around for an engineer and spots one.
"Engineer Centaul, was Jinrai able to make it in?"
His eyes flash for a second and he shakes his head no. "The master engineer has decided to take on the duty of regaining control of kinetic munition systems."
"Very well. Ensign Altruis, do we access to navigation in here yet?"
The Android speaks without looking away from her simulated control console. "Not yet Captain. I'm trying to locate a safe vector for entry."
"Ok when..."
The Captain pauses, remembering what Draconisis said about leaving them a 'surprise' in sim-space. Praiyem notices the pause and speaks on her worry. "You don't think he's left something in the Navigation module do you?" She doesn't respond to Praiyem and puts a hand to her ear. "Recon Leader Jaykon, how's the simulation armory?" Praiyem's eyes go wide at the question as the recon leader responds. "Their framework has been altered but not destroyed. Heavy weapons are non-functional. As for everything else, I believe they will perform."
"Of course they took out the heavy weapons... Jaykon, see what you can do about those I think... I think the Halgred left Hydra for us in Navigation." The crew closest to Captain Steegle immediately freeze at the sound of the word and Praiyem shakes her head in disbelief.
"I'll put all of our effort into rebuilding what we can."
"New builds might be better. We don't know how they've tampered with heavy weapons yet." "As you wish Captain."
Praiyem waves the startled crew back to work as she whispers to her Captain. "You seriously think we have Hydra to contend with in there?"
"He said they left us a surprise, and the one weapon that would make sense to use against Androids is one that can erase our very existence."
"Not to sound treasonous but, you're the only one whose fought a Hydra and lived. How can you expect us to...?"
The Captain does her best to keep from yelling. "Praiyem, either we regain control of this ship or we let it crash into the one planet in this system that supports life! There are no lifeboats on this Dreadnought, no second chances for this mission. We either regain control with one of us left or we become responsible for potentially wiping out an entire innocent species!"
Praiyem swallows hard knowing the right thing to do. Anything was better than genocide; however unintended it may be.
"Captain." Altruis utters the honorary as if she cut herself off.
"Go ahead Altruis."
"I've nailed a vector and am ready to issue coordinates to the crew."
"Thank you Ensign." Captain Steegle is stoic as she brings up a view from the ships forward cameras. She studies a few data points, runs a calculation and a countdown appears on her screen. She types a few more commands on her interface and a complete model of the solar system shows up a few seconds later. In it is a complete mapping of all satellites, natural and man-made in the system.
"Tould, ship-wide communication."
"... Ready when you are Captain."
"Attention, thousands strong crew of the Dreadnought Shinimorte, this is our current situation. We are on the outskirts of a solar system which contains one planet with sentient life on it. This planet is called Earth by its inhabitants and they haven't even left their own solar system yet. Our only task right now is keeping our ship and its payload from even touching their atmosphere. Judging from the satellites they have, they will know of our presence within 8 hours. I've set up a conversion for this system's timescale." She lets her words sit for a few seconds before continuing. "We all know the importance of our mission but we also have a duty to protect all life while out here, which supersedes any other directive. If my assumption is correct, a Hydra was installed in the Navigation module."
You could feel everyone's heart skip a few beats at the mention of the creature.
"We can either choose to let the Halgred commandeer our ship and attack the Humans of Earth, or we can take back our ship and make sure our package is delivered. We all know the right thing to do, and for us it's the only thing to do. For us there is no choice. Our mission is to make it to the Halgred home world and deliver this payload. We must regain control and complete this mission at any cost. Any engineers with framework knowledge contact recon team and offer any help you can. Systems engineers I assume you are already working on the items of utmost importance. Everyone on this ship will either be working or staying out of the way for the next 7 hours."
By now the Dreadnought's crew had already been awake for an entire day following their run-in with the meteor storm. It was that storm which ultimately lead them here. The next 7 hours proved to be trying and as the minutes flew by, the momentary glances the crew shared amongst themselves served as silent goodbyes. Faults started appearing in previously unaffected systems throughout the Shinimorte and as the 7th hour closed in on them everyone knew they'd never make it to Halgred. Their only mission and possibly the last for many of them was to at most, keep their Dreadnought from crashing into this "Earth" and at least, minimize how many of those humans would die. It was quickly becoming a nightmare scenario... but this was war, there was no other way. They weren't the first Dreadnought to be lost to this centuries-old war and they wouldn't be the last.
Captain Steegle had looked over each heavy weapon prototype that was scraped together over the last few hours and provided more parameters that weren't available in the archives. After having to build 20 from scratch they finally got a production pipeline working. Now they had a few hundred heavy weapons and were training the combat regiments on how to use them.
"Jaykon, your team is completely outfitted, correct?"
"Yes Captain. We have gone through a few scenarios and are working towards a strategy with maximum effectiveness."
"Zero hour is coming whether we're ready or not."
"We have been keeping that in mind Captain."
"Good."
By now most of the crew had settled into more a more informal atmosphere. Working under stress was hard enough without getting mad at someone for not addressing you with the correct honorific. That and the unspoken awareness of their dire situation. Even in sim-space things like letting your hair down provided some kind of physical comfort. The various crew members had their jackets, and caps removed along with the aforementioned hair modifications. Most of them now looked like that stereotypical autoshop worker with their coveralls hanging from their waist and covered in grease, save the grease.
The ensign Altruis, in charge of navigation notices something very wrong with the Navigation module after sending in a drone to check the extent of the damage. For the first few hours she couldn't believe what she was seeing and had a few others help her canvas the radical changes performed on the module. Now after triple checking their feeds weren't being messed with, she'd gathered enough information to relay to her Captain and Recon leader.
"Go ahead Atruis we're both listening."
"Captain, Jaykon, it's been completely redesigned. I..."
"What do you mean completely redesigned? I built that entire module from it's circuits to the software."
"Believe me, I know all the work you put into it Lancieta but it's unrecognizable now. What I've been looking at looks more like an ancient battle arena rather than part of a Dreadnought. I can't wrap my head around it beause, in order for something this extensive to have been just dropped off in a few minute incursion means..."
Jaykon finished her sentence. "They had access to the hardware specifications as soon as the Captain finalized them..."
The Captain's eyes went wide with shock. The only person who knew about her designs was her father which meant the one thing she couldn't bring herself to believe. "Draconisis was right, my father betrayed all of us."
"Captain."
Jaykon's voice snapped her out of the vortex of confusion she was falling into.
"So, beyond the appearance, have you found any sub-systems or daemons that would prove dangerous when we enter?"
"That's the next confusing thing. When I looked into a pool of water with my drone it looked like some kind of animal."
This alarmed the Recon Leader. "Captain if they have an instant over-write running in the background it could take us even longer to figure out where it is and how to disable it."
"We'll have to run a quick check before going in but we have minutes left before we show up on the Earth's satellites. From there the Halgred could increase our speed and reduce the time from contact with Earth's atmosphere to minutes. They could even jump us into the Earth's atmosphere and completely destroy this Dreadnought from the instant gravitational stresses. Tould."
"Yes Captain."
"I want you to devote as much of your core as you can to help regain some kind of control over the sub-space engine and shut it down. If this ship jumps into Earth's atmosphere a detonation in that engine would destroy their entire planet."
"Captain, considering what's at stake, wouldn't it be better for Tould to try and detonate it before we..."
A stern look from Captain Steegle sent a shiver down his spine and he knew what it carried.
"I've been trying to do that very thing this entire time. If it's one thing the Halgred are good at, it's making their systems redundant to the point of insanity. I've tried multiple ways to send fault signals into the engine to cause a runaway reaction but they all self-healed. I even logged out of here for a moment and had an engineer go with me on the outside to try and cause a physical fault but we built it to withstand a lot. Now that all my code has been rendered moot, the only mind that can run through a scenario to cause a shutdown is an A.I."
"Your faith in my abilities is assuring Captain."
"Get it done Tould. And until I say otherwise, stay connected to all Sections up to one minute before division, then download to Section 6. Lastly I want you to have a backup teleportation plan for anyone not in or near a security room for planet fall."
"Right away, all contingencies will be set shortly. Crew of the Dreadnought Shinimorte, please direct all requests to the backup systems until my next update."
At that moment the lights in the ship stopped blinking red and just stayed red.
"Captain, do you think Tould will survive such a task?"
"Any A.I. that could - their core would meltdown. Have you finalized a strategy yet, Jaykon?"
"I can give you the best one Captain."
"Ok."
A terminal window opened up next to the Captain and soon her voice was heard throughout the Dreadnought.
"Attention crew. Jaykon will be sharing our plan of attack into the Navigation Module and against the Hydra program. Even if you are not apart of a battle regiment you will need to listen. Hydra are every bit as terrifying as you've heard and you will be a part of a wave we send against it."
She motioned to Jaykon and he let everyone else in on the plan of attack.
"Make sure to pay attention and as soon as I'm done here I want all regiments and emergency platoons to rendezvous with your assigned platoon leader. I will go in with the first team to scout and try to bring Hydra out of hiding. We will send back pulses every minute via the secure comms to let you know we are still alive. After the 20th pulse if I have not yet called for the next 3 teams I want you to enter the Module and take the path your platoon leader will go over with you. There is high system activity by the giant throne at the front of the arena, we assume that is where Hydra is being stored. If we're lucky we can reach it's location and deactivate it before it notices us but I was never one to rely on luck."
As Jaykon spoke a 3d map of the arena had shown up for each crew member in sim-space and highlighted the points Jaykon was referring to. It really did look like some kind of primitive battle arena.