>>MANTID FREE WORLDS

Oh no, they're gonna get slaughtered.

The Earthlings don't know they're one of us!

Oooooh, I can't watch.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

>>PUBIVIAN DOMINION

Talk about the wrong place at the wrong time.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

>>LANAKTALLAN FREE HERD

I fear for the Telkan ship's safety. I fear they will be fired upon without warning.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

>>RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

Hit play, CONFEDMIL, I want to see what happens next.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

Choi looked at the fleet and felt her stomach clench.

If there was one thing the Earthlings defended with overwhelming and extreme prejudice, it was the Deathblossom.

The Telkan ship was only a few hundred thousand kilometers from the Deathblossom, slowly tumbling on all three axis, energy spiralling out behind it and spreading out from the jumpdrives that were held away from the hull by thick pylons. Its running lights flickered and she knew the ship was trying to reset its systems.

"The ascension of the stellar mass must have caused jumpspace pressure and dumped them out," Commander Tilkak'Nok said.

"They're being locked up by targeting systems," Hooker said. He winced slightly. "They've got them. Tractor-pressor beams."

Choi could see the ship slow its tumbling, first on one axis, then the other, then the last one, then slowing until it was at rest relative to the Earthling armada and the Deathblossom.

The tension was thick enough on the bridge to cut it with a knife.

Long minutes passed.

"They're locked up with tractor beams," Hooker said. "Crap. They're being cradled."

Choi watched as the Telkan trading vessel, nearly as massive as the medium sized Earthling warships, was pulled close to the Quack. As she watched, the Quack and the Telkan vessel were suddenly surrounded by a field that made everything kaleidoscope and appear like the ships were being reflected by broken shards of mirror.

"Orders, Captain?" Commander Tilkak'Nok asked.

"None. We can't help them," Choi said.

They watched as the Quack entered the Deathblossom and vanished. One after another, in reverse order, the ships entered the Deathblossom.

When the Ship of Theseus went through the Deathblossom only lasted a few more seconds before it collapsed on itself into a point of light that suddenly blinked out.

"Bring us out of stealth. Warm up the hyperdrives, we need to get this data to Confed," Choi said.

"What about the Telkan ship?" Commander Tilkak'Nok asked.

Choi just shook her head. "There's nothing we can do. They're gone."

Everything dissolved into black.

>>MANTID FREE WORLDS

What happened to them?

Are they gone forever?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

>>CONFEDMIL

Just wait. We need to watch Part 2: Telkan Boogaloo.

It's about to get VERY scary.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

>>TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Man, I love actual footage even more than movies.

This is so creepy and so exciting!

>crams more popcorn into his mouth

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

Breket had come far in life. From a Telkan worker overseeing robots caring for the Overseers bushes and plants on their estate gardens to a Home Guard soldier during the latter half of the First Telkan War and all of the Second Telkan War, to a successful interstellar trader.

He'd taken advantage of loan offers and bought himself a Terran troopship that had taken some heavy hits and was slated to be scrapped and the mass reclaimed, hired a crew to teach him and his friends how to operate a starship, even hired a Digital Sentience to run the ship after he replaced the Ship DS Core.

Five years later, he was a registered ship captain who had passed all the tests, over 90% of his 22 man crew were Telkans, and he even had a Lanaktallan negotiator slash procurement officer. He was not risk adverse and often saw profit where nobody else did.

Which is why he was relaxing in the Captain Chair, playing VR checkers with the Assistant Chief Engineer as the What, Me Worry? coasted through jumpspace at nearly ten thousand times the speed of light. It was faster than any Unified Council Ship prior to what everyone was calling "The Big C3", carried more cargo, and was more comfortable.

He reached forward to make a jump that would force Kretiker to 'king him' when everything cut loose.

The alarm claxon cut on, the lights went instantly to crimson. The autobelts on his seat snaked into position so quickly that it tore his left sleeve and his tunic right above his belt, tightening painfully even as the strap went around his forehead and yanked his head into the back rest and the sides swung out to hold his head immobile.

The holotank in the middle of the bridge flickered on and he could see Easy jump-3238 appear on it, the Digital Sentience looking around, frowning, confused, unsure what was going on.

He opened his mouth to ask what was gong on when everything stopped with a BANG! He saw the hull bulge inward for a second before flexing back to normal with a loud noise that knocked out one of his good chewing teeth.

The whole ship went dead. Antigrav cut out, the comps went down, there was sudden silence as even the atmo fans cut off. Jump's holotank stayed on, there were a few pinpoint telltales on, the emergency lights were on, but that was it.

Breket coughed and saw that the fine spittle droplets were floating in midair.

"Anti-grav's out," he coughed. "What happened?" He looked over at Grektik, who was sitting at the navigation station.

Grektik lifted his face up off his board, hacking up blood and spittle and spitting it onto the floor. "We hit something. We hit something in jumpspace."

Jump shook her head and wiped the glittering blood from under her nose. "Something must have made a massive hyperspace, lower jumpspace band, or realspace bulge," she opened up a dataslate and tapped it. "Systems are coming back online. Looks like we hit something in realspace."

"Any casualties? Check the crew quarters, see if the broodcarriers are all right," Breket said.

Treglet nodded, putting his hand to his ear as he started contacting the various stations on the ship.

"DCC, how bad?" Breket asked.

"Engines are down. Looks like drive-core ruptures. Our jumpcore did an emergency dump, it's pretty chaotic down there but they've got it handled," Vutplent said from the Damage Control Command station.

"We're being locked up," Helgret'tik, the sole female Telkan on deck, said quietly. "Many targeting point sources. Any worse, they'll peel the paint from the hull."

The ship jerked and shuddered.

"What was that?" Breket asked.

"Unknown, Captain," Pretkwik said, looking at the engineering panel. "Anti-grav's out. Jumpcore is shocked and looks like it did an emergency dump. Engines one through six are discharged and looks like they're still leaking jumpspace energy."

The ship shuddered again and Breket could feel, in the zero-G, something tugging at the ship.

Most of the workstations came back on and Breket breathed a sigh of relief. A dead computer system was a death sentence.

"Broodcarriers are OK. They got a little shook up, a podling sprained its knee, and Hent'tinik sprained her tail," Trelget said.

Breket breathed a sigh of relief.

"We're still locked up, mostly laser, LIDAR, RADAR, the more esoteric stuff cut out," Helgret'tik said. "I count at least eight point sources still," she leaned forward. "We're surrounded by mass. We might have dropped out with some others," she looked at Jump. "What happened?"

Jump looked at him and shook her head. "Looks like we hit a damn sun. We're at least two light years away from the nearest..."

Something jumped into the holotank with her.

Dressed all in gray. Bipedal, shaved head, dark eyes, entirely of streaming white code.

A Terran DS.

Before Jump could do anything, react in the slightest, the invader kneed her in the stomach, grabbed her hair when she folded over, and knelt, bending Jump backwards over their knee.

Breket opened his mouth to yell.

Jump screamed.

The Terran DS raised its other hand, wiggling its fingers, showing long curved blades attached to its fingers, extending out at least four inches. Jump stared with wide terrified eyes at the blades behind held up, the fingers spread, as the Terran DS held onto her hair, pulling her over its knee. Her kicking was doing nothing, just her feet scrabbling against the floor of the holotank.

It jammed the blades into Jump's chest, yanked them out, then jammed them into her face, the blades sinking to the first knuckles of the fingers.

Jump screamed, grabbing the wrist. Her eyes rolled up, full of white and blue static.

The Terran DS yanked the blades from her face and stood up, letting go of her hair, dumping her at its feet. It turned and leapt out of the holotank, vanishing.

"What was that?" Treglet yelled from the communications station.

Jump coughed and rolled over. She raised her head, glittering bloody marks on her forehead.

"Combat DS," she said. She coughed again. "He was through our firewalls, ripped through the elliptic curve encryption like it was an OK button, and was on me before I could react. He was lean and mean."

"Who? Why would a Terran DS attack us?" Breket asked.

Jump shook her head. "Wasn't Terran. Don't know what that was. Looked Terran, wasn't." She slowly got to her feet.

"Are you OK?" Breket asked.

Jump shook her head. "Not really."

"Um, Captain?" Treglet said.

"What?" Breket asked, turning away from the holotank.

"Uh, we've being lased. Commo laser. It's not using a header, but they're close," Treglet said.

Breket looked at the holotank. "Can you spare the room?"

Jump nodded, stepping from the central tank to the one next to Breket's command chair.

"Put them on," Breket said.

The holotank rezzed and there was a bipedal figure that looked similar to a Terran. No coloration, bone white 'skin' and a gray jumpsuit with a collar. No defined features.

It looked like a store mannequin.

"QUERY: SHIP DESIGNATION: TRADE, COMBAT, SURVEY?" appeared in front of the mannequin.

"Who are these guys?" Breket whispered.

"I have no idea," Jump said, her voice still shaky.

"It's asking for text reply from me, Captain," Treglet said.

"Trade," Breket said.

"QUERY: SPECIES DESIGNATION TELKAN: TERRAN CONFEDERACY OF ALIGNED SYSTEMS STATUS: BELLIGERENT, NEUTRAL, NON-AFFILIATED, AFFILIATED, MEMBER?"

"Probationary Member with full Citizenship," Breket said, sitting up straight.

"QUERY: SHIP AND CREW STATUS FOR

Mister Pebbles chose that moment to move up to Breket, seemingly unbothered by the zero-G, and rub against his leg.

"IMMEDIATE INTERROGATION QUERY!" appeared on the tank. "STATUS OF FELINE: HOLOGRAM, CYBERNETIC, OTHER?"

Breket looked down and patted his leg. Mister Pebbles climbed up his lap, kneaded his claws, and pulled himself into a laying down position.

"Uh, other. It's a real cat," Breket said.

"QUERY! INTERROGATION QUERY: ORIGIN OF FELINE!"

Breket looked at Mister Pebbles. "Uh. Vat Grown Luke, one of the Biological Apostles of the Digital Omnimessiah, you know, Legion, cured the Friend Plague."

"INTERROGATION QUERY: CARGO MANIFEST DATA: FELINES: LIVING SUBJECTS?"

It took Breket a minute to parse it. "Yes. We're taking them and selling them through the Red Nebula Sector," he said. "We've got a couple thousand in stasis pods."

"INTERROGATION QUERY: FELINES FOR TRADE?"

Breket nodded. "Sure."

"COMMAND: DO NOT CHARGE JUMPCORE. ALL HANDS SECURE FOR PASSAGE!"

Breket turned to Treglet. "Pass that on."

"Where are we going?" Breket asked.

"COMMUNICATION TERMINATED" appeared in the tank.

The mannequin didn't vanish, it just slumped slightly like a marionette with slack strings.

"Uh, I'm really nervous, Captain," Revelk said from his station at astrogation.

"Yeah, me too," Treglet said.

The ship rocked gently and there was the faint strange feeling of motion.

The mannequin jerked up.

"COMMAND: PREPARE FOR TRANSIT" appeared in front of the mannequin.

Breket managed to put on hand on Mister Pebbles's back.

Everything shattered into a thousand thousand fragments of crystal, each crystal containing a tiny moment of Breket's life. They slowly spun around him as he looked around in shock at all of the fractured points in his life, some of which didn't seem important at all.

Then everything rushed back and he was sitting on the bridge of the ship, one hand on the Official Ship's Cat.

"INFORMATIVE: YOU HAVE ARRIVED"

"Where?" Breket asked, hating how his voice quavered.

"EARTH-526"

>>RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

NO!

NO FUCKING WAY!

ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING WAY!

>Rigel glares at Telkan

You're people are the luckiest people in the whole Digital Omnimessiah cursed galaxy.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

>>TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Telkan got invited to where the Earthlings have been hiding for almost ten thousand years?

OH MY GOD, THIS IS SO EXCITING!

>crams more popcorn in his mouth.

>>MANTID FREE WORLDS

This is so scary!

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

Sis, down in front.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---