The crowd let out an involuntary gasp at the seriousness of the information.
“I knew it,” Dylan whispered to himself triumphantly.
“All the information we have is contained in this communication, sent by the Commanding Officer of the Montfort; Captain Reynolds before he died.”
The Captain motioned to another officer at the rear of the room, and a projection was played. It contained sensor data from the Montfort, as well as an onboard video of the bridge crew.
Three small almost wedge shaped black and silver coloured vessels were slowly advancing toward the huge elongated triangular shaped carrier. The first communication came from the Montfort.
“Unknown vessels, this is Captain Reynolds of the E.D.F. S Montfort; you are in violation of E.O.C. A territory. Please identify yourselves, we mean you no harm, repeat, we mean you no harm.”
Next there came a communication from the alien vessels, “on mulv varash a’lahun, al orash vak kroluth.”
Another bridge officer, this time a female said, “our translators are completely baffled sir.”
“Try your best, Lieutenant,” Captain Reynolds replied, as he quickly turned in his seat and said to another officer. “Send out the universal greeting, all frequencies.”
“Yes sir,” a young officer replied.
Then there came another communication, over the speakers, “On vak drovath lok al Krenarii aden!”
A man turned bearing a Commander’s rank insignia. “I don’t like the sound of that, Captain; recommend we go to general quarters; sir.”
“Do it, but don’t power any weapons, we don’t want to appear threatening,” Reynolds replied.
There was a small, tense pause on the bridge of the carrier, as the alien vessels continued to close with the E.D. F carrier. Reynolds focused intently upon the viewer, as though trying to fathom just what these aliens’ motives were?
“Back us off, ensign, put some distance between us and them, reverse thrust, 20 % power,” Reynolds ordered stroking his chin thoughtfully.
The twin forward thrusters blew, the super heated gases slowly began to overcome the weight of the vessel, and it gingerly began to reverse.
A third communication came over the speakers. “Al Krenarii mulv brolis, al orash vak kroluth!” The voice screamed in pure anger.
“Holy; wait a minute, Captain, I’m reading massive power spikes coming from those ships sir!” A panicked voice announced.
Reynolds turned toward the officer, “What? What kind of power spikes?”
“Unknown, Captain, but they’re off the scale,” the officer replied.
Reynolds shouted, “full alert status, get those fighters back here right now!”
The Commander announced in sheer terror. “Too late Captain, look!”
Reynolds spun back toward the viewer, just in time to see a bright green glow steadily increasing in its brightness, at the lower bow of each of the alien vessels.
“Oh my god, lord save us!” Reynolds said as he realized his fate.
The three alien vessels then unleashed the built up power into three bright green energy beams, which hurtled towards the Montfort with incredible speed.
The beams smashed into the forward section of the ship, almost tearing a hole right through the sloping forward section of the carrier, sending debris and flames blossoming out into space.
The bridge was a scene of utter desolation; bodies, horribly mutilated lay fallen, mixed with the broken remains of consoles and shattered support girders. Acrid smoke filled the air, and flames licked out of half a dozen smashed consoles.
Reynolds quickly came to, after he was almost launched from his chair. Blood trickled down the side of his face from a gash caused by a piece of flying debris. The broken body of his navigation officer lay motionless at the base of his chair.
Over the roar of the flames, and the crackling of broken power conduits Reynolds shouted. “Full reverse, get us the hell out of here!”
Another officer groggily tried to pick his way through the debris littering the bridge floor, and sat at the former navigation officer’s console.
One of the still functioning thrusters fired for all it was worth as the interim navigation officer shunted every last ounce of power remaining. The Montfort desperately tried to turn away from the small nimble alien craft that it dwarfed. However the alien ships possessed a speed and agility that the huge lumbering carrier could not hope to match.
As the E.D. F ship gradually began to turn, the ruined frontal section was clear to see. Flames continued to burst out into space, as the fires onboard fed off the oxygen venting out. And the twisted wreckage of half a dozen decks could be seen jutting out of the carriers’ external armour like shattered bones poking through flesh.
However, the carrier did manage to turn slightly, and its primary inter-system boosters began to glow as they slowly began to power up. Just as two of the alien craft swung around and together launched multiple bolts of bright white light at the carrier.
The bolts hurtled toward the carrier at a horrific speed, and smashed into the partly powered up boosters, tearing through armour and shredding the main engines entirely. The massive impacts rocked the entire E.D. F ship. All along the rear of the carrier pieces of twisted, blasted, hull plating were simply torn off the ship by the force of those energy bolts. Replaced by more fires and twisted wreckage.
The stricken carrier was still making a brave effort to escape its assailants. However, in the end, the carrier was simply too large and too slow, and eventually, like a pack of rabid wolves, the alien ships began tearing apart the E.D. F vessel.
Their powerful green energy beams sliced the carrier to pieces, until ultimately its inter-system fuel supplies detonated, and the carrier blew itself apart with an almighty explosion. And then the video went blank.
All this footage happened within the space of a few minutes. The hall was totally silent. The crew of the Ulysses were stunned by what they had just witnessed.
Michael was equally stunned, especially since his cousin had served aboard that ship. A pang of grief welled up inside him. Captain Wainright looked over the assembled crew, seeing the shocked faces, and gave them a few seconds to let what they had witnessed sink in.
Slowly, almost whispering; he spoke. “Make no mistake gentlemen; we have hereby made contact with our first alien species. E.D. F intelligence services are trying to translate the alien messages as we speak. However, judging by what we’ve all just witnessed, we can assume they are a hostile species, and represent an immediate threat to E.O.C. A citizens. I will now hand you over to Lieutenant Commander Hudson.”
The Captain stepped to one side and motioned for the Ulysses chief engineering officer to take to the stand. He was an older looking man than Wainwright, jovial, balding, but also possessing of a keen intelligence. “Although the information we have managed to gather at the present time is somewhat thin. From the sensor data, and video we have received so far, we can be certain of the following facts.”
The projection showed a rotating three dimensional representation of one of the alien ships. It had intermingled black and silver panels on its hull, just like in the video. The vessel seemed to be shaped like a triangular wedge, with a large cannon like protrusion at the lower bow of the strange ship. It had another thin; yet broad protrusion, towards the widest part of its hull at the top of this wedge.
Michael studied the image. It had very few windows or running lights, suggesting that it had a limited crew, he thought.
As the representation panned around to the rear of the alien ship, it revealed a large, thin, bright blue strip that ran almost across the entire width of the vessel.
Lieutenant Commander Hudson continued. “They must be using some sort of stealth technology, which would explain why our fighter patrols, or the Montfort, couldn’t pick them up until the alien ships were almost on top of them,” Hudson paused to allow the assembled masses time to let this sink in.