《Small Galaxy》Small Galaxy: Chapter 7 The Grand Fleet
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After the Atteni had familiarized themselves with their respective rooms they headed back out into the hallway to return by Catherine's side. She looked at all of them with a beaming smile and said, "Hey hey! Do you little guys wanna see how we run the ship? We still have a delivery to make, though it's just a small, unimportant delivery. Since it's not that important we can take our time and show you the ropes!" Valthan was immediately on board with the prospect of learning how to pilot the behemoth cargo craft and his excitement showed as he practically trembled with it. The other two were curious but their reactions were lacking for Catherine in comparison to the ecstatic Valthan. She reached down and patted Valthan on his head chuckling to herself before leading the group towards the bridge. A couple of minutes later the group was led through a doorway revealing a spacious room lined with monitors depicting an array of information. What looked to be a gigantic glass window was quickly revealed to be nothing more than a screen showing the exterior around the ship as the video feed they were watching abruptly changed from an inky black void of space to a feed centered on the system's star. As the Atteni marveled at the different facets of the Terran cargo freighter Catherine spoke up, addressing her crew. "Hiya guys! It's bring your mousey to work day today! I'm having these little ones learn the ropes so let's take it slow! Alan, lock our destination on the warp drive. Ashley, get into contact with the Trellar system station and make sure we have enough clearance to warp onto the specified coordinates. Finally, Nadiya, ping the system one more time to make sure there aren't any other little ones stranded out in space." She looked off to a corner of the bridge at a man dressed in a military uniform. He looked about as average as a person possibly could but something about him unnerved the Atteni beside Catherine. She gave him a small wave, "As for you Jeff, Come give these little guys a tour while we work." Just as the four started their jobs red lights sprung up lighting the entire bridge in an eerie red glow as Terminatus appeared on the main viewscreen. "Warning! Warp signature of a Planetary class vessel confirmed! Twenty Capital class warp signatures confirmed! Two hundred Battlecruiser class warp signatures detected! One thousand Hunter-Killer squadrons warp confirmed! Confirmation of IFF, Terran Imperium, 101ST Fleet, and the -Emperors Glory-!" The crew of the Amaryllis were terrified as they heard the massive number of ships listed, but their faces paled as they heard the name of the last ship. Alan was trembling and turned to Ashley with an expression between excitement and pants-shitting terror. "T-t-that's the s-ship that E-emperor Basi- Basillius i-is on? I-isn't it?" Ashley simply nodded her head slowly, somewhat shellshocked as the viewscreen showed over a thousand warp signatures across the inky void of space. "What... What could they be bringing an Entire fleet for...? Are we about to be caught in between the largest battle we've seen in three hundred years?" She brought her shaky hands up to her head and rubbed her temples as she ran over all the possible scenarios. Catherine broke out into a cold sweat as she looked between the screen and the three horrified Atteni. "Ohhhh... I'm in trouble, aren't I?" Just before any of the Atteni could ask what was going on, the screen showing the outside lit up with a blinding white as lightning shot in every direction and a hole opened up in space that looked big enough to fit a small planet. Soon a massive silvery-black sphere poked through the hole and began making its way over to their side. Lightning licked at the side of the planet-sized craft leaving orange streaks across the gargantuan ship making it look as if hell itself had just spawned the vessel. Shortly after the planetary craft started making its way through the rift in space, a sound not unlike the screams of a dying god rang out through the Amaryllis and the ship itself rattled as if it was in the middle of an earthquake. The Atteni lost their footing and crumpled to the floor as they covered their ears. As soon as the -Emperors Glory- finished its warp another thousand much smaller rifts opened up. Even the largest of the Capital class vessels wasn't even a 100th of the size that the -Emperors Glory- boasted, so their visual and auditory impacts were much more forgiving to the crew onboard the Amaryllis giving them a chance to breathe and take stock of the situation. So'Ran and Valenthi struggled to their feet and tried to get Catherine's attention. After a few moments, she realized that the little Atteni were tugging on her pant leg and yelling at her. She looked down at them and smiled, "Sorry, I was a little distracted... Uncle Bassi is probably coming here because of you little guys... Oh! Don't worry, he's not mean! He probably just heard about the uhhh... First contact..." Valenthi looked towards the thousand or so ships crawling through holes in reality that seemed to be utterly filled with massive lightning storms. "They are sending that to us because of a first contact?! That fleet could reduce the entirety of the Galactic Compact, Razerian Alliance, and the Fellid Empire to dust and ash! What in this entire universe could possibly need a planet with guns to fight it?!" Valenthi's rant was met with a placating smile from Catherine, "The Azarians. Some of them get to be around the size of a moon ya know." This was met with a look between shock and confusion from both Valenthi and So'Ran. Catherine shrugged and looked over to Valthan who was on both knees still, staring at the viewscreen that was centered on the -Emperors Glory-. "Are you ok, Valthan?" Her question was met with silence so she walked around to get a better look at his face. She could see that the fur beneath his eyes was matted and wet as he stared agape at the massive ship. "Valthan? Hellooo?" she shook his shoulder lightly knocking him out of his reverie. He stared up at Catherine for a moment before he slowly raised his hand and pointed towards the planetary ship hanging in space just before them. "T-that... There... There is no way... You people. You, you Terrans. You are gods. At the very least you are to me. I could never even hope to build something on that scale. It was deemed to be impossible. There were too many constraints whether they be monetary or simply that creating a functioning ship of that size defies several physical laws... How do you even deal with the fact that this ship has enough mass to change the orbital paths of everything it passes? How does it even move?!" Catherine shrugged and sighed, "Gods? No, we are only Human hun. I think Uncle Bassi is coming to meet you though, so you might get to meet a real god, haha." she chuckled nervously This brought confused stares from all three Atteni, but before any of them could comment on it the viewscreen changed to an image of a massive man in what looked like a suit of abyss black armor resting comfortably on a blackened throne. "Hello, Cath. It's been a while. Heard you met some adorable new friends... you didn't... scare them away, did you?"
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