As requested by @Crayfish here’s a separate thread for the story submissions of the current art challenge to keep the main thread readable.
Check the OP for the challenge here:
https://forums.inovaestudios.com/t/art-challenges-for-infinity-fan-art-challenge-4-an-infinity-short-story/546/497u
And check the original lore and timeline for inspiration:
Gentle reminder: original link to the Art Challenge.
Any general rules apart from those specified in your first message of the “Art Challenge” post?
EDIT: for anyone wondering about the rules as I was, the post can be found here.
No new rules. And thanks for the link.
Edited the original link.
And also:
Out of curiosity, how are submissions handled on this challenge? I mean, we are, after all, writing quite a wall of text, do we just copy/paste it in this thread as a post, or do we link to a site/file?
I think both methods are ok.
Infinity: The Ryann Blockade
ARCHIVE RECORD ID #199374
790 SO: Increasing public anger in Centauran space about SFC destruction of gaian worlds led to a surprise attack by the Centaurus on the Star Fold Confederacy. Centauran special forces took control of the Star Fold end of the HIP tunnel connecting their homeworlds. A massive fleet of centauran warships then travelled through the HIP and blockaded the capital planet of the Star Fold Confederacy. The Centaurans ransomed the Star Fold government in exchange for a treaty ensuring certain standards for the mineral exploitation of worlds with indigenous life forms.
The Ryann Blockade
The city of Perion sprawls across a high plateau on the continent of Heronia. It is the largest city on its continent and the second largest city on the planet Ryann after the capital, Erionis. Perion’s claim to fame is that it is the home of the council of citizens, the center of power of the Star Fold confederacy.
It is day 27 of standard orbital 790, measured from the Geodesan exodus. The city is half hidden by a dark storm cloud. A line of flying shuttles breaks out from below the cloud in a descending approach lane. The city below is a jumble of protruding smoke stacks and storage tanks that stretch away towards a distant lake. Edian Stannings sits in an anonymous black shuttle, it smells of stale tobacco and cleaning fluid. He is alone in the passenger compartment, his inforeader laying next to a steel briefcase on the table in front of him. Exploration reports stay unread and he stares past the storm clouds towards the curving blue horizon of the planet.
The shuttle approaches the center of the city. Here the fab plants and tech centers give way to buildings of ancillary government departments that cling around the council like parasitical organisms. Regimented accommodation blocks fight each other for a glimpse of the gray sky.
The shuttle flies directly to the largest structure in the city, a looming, stratified steel skyscraper with gaping portals that spew and consume more anonymous black craft. His shuttle is swallowed by one of the portals and is then swiftly transported through a labyrinth of access tunnels to a small passenger dock. He steps down to the metal grilled floor and across to an elevator whose doors silently open as he approaches. During the whole journey from the orbital station there have been no visible security checks, but he knows there have been hundreds of invisible ones.
He steps out from the elevator to a large windowed board room that looks out over the rain soaked city. Suited individuals sit around a large polished wooden table, he nods to some, ignores others and takes a place at the table. A brass plaque on a wooden wedge reads “Edian Stanning - President - Terratech Corp”. He places the steel briefcase next to his seat, sits down and drinks some water from a glass that sits on the table. A circle of water is left on the polished mahogany where the glass had been placed.
The discussions go on for about an hour before reaching the point.
“The issue here is providing maximum return to our shareholders, these regulations are preventing us from doing that.”
Edian takes a breath and responds.
“The appraisal conducted by our agents show that the benefit of pushing beyond the parameters of the treaty far outweighs the risks.”
“Based on our current… intelligence?”
Edian notes the inflection on the last word but chooses to ignore it.
“Correct… The ability of opposing parties to prosecute any resulting claims would be minimal.”
“So the Centaurus can’t do anything about it?”
“They can put in petitions to the DIA reconciliation committee who will sit on it for a year before finally instructing us to cease operations. Of course we’ll appeal against that and by then the playing field will have changed substantially in our favour.”
“And Centaurus military options?”
Edian looks towards Saranita Kenning who is the head of the Coalition of Armed Forces. Saranita flinches, realising the question is directed to her.
“They do not have the logistics to launch any meaningful campaign against us from their arm of the galaxy and we control all traffic through the HIP gate. There are no military options open to them.”
Edian narrows his eyes at the CAF chief and adds.
“We also know that it is in the Centauran nature is to always look for diplomatic solutions in circumstances such as these.”
“Let’s put this to the vote then. Gentlemen, please register your votes now.”
The 36 heads of state that constitute the Confederate Council of Citizens each open identical steel cases to electronically register their votes. After a minute a large holographic screen registers vote result. It reads “Proposition 8.32 - Pursuance of more aggressive terraforming programme across the confederated states. In favour: 31 Against: 3 Abstained: 2.”
Defenders of Harmony special operations commander Yolande Entrevin sits with four others, hidden in a rocky outcrop on a remote moon on the edge of Star Fold space. She brings her rangefinder up to her eyes.
A large industrial ship approaches the moon below the majestic arc of a ringed gas giant. On the surface a terraforming facility spouts gasses into the alien atmosphere. The industrial ship lands on a pad near the terraformer almost lost to view behind mushroom like alien vegetation. A small craft appears from the industrial ship and starts spraying liquid on to surface. The ship flies towards Yolande’s observation position and passes overhead, sprayed liquid falls all around. As the liquid spray clears, the surrounding alien vegetation dissolves into slime.
A few days later and a thousand light years away on the planet Atma, the Circle of the Empyreal sits in a session devoted to discussions of Star Fold treaty violations.
The circle meet in a large amphitheater made of veined marble, unnaturally massive trees tower over the walls around. The amphitheater consists of concentric rings of seats and benches. In the centre is a circle of seven seats surrounding an altar like table, three of these seats are occupied by robed Ministers, behind each seat is a row of three benches with various gowned individuals. On a raised circle around this there are seven larger seats each filled with the figure of an Atriarch. Smaller seats are discretely placed to either side for aides. There is then a gap before more circles of benches normally reserved for spectators. Today the circle is meeting in confidence and the surrounding seats hold just a dozen or so high ranking officials.
The prime Atriarch speaks.
“Minister Tanis, you are confident of your information in this matter?”
“I am your grace, our contacts have irrefutable evidence that full terraforming operations have commenced upon the worlds identified by Minister Deore.”
“And by full terraforming you mean?…”
“The complete annihilation of all native life forms and the introduction of a terrestrial ecosystem.”
“A diplomatic solution?…”
“Is impossible within the time scale. The petition to the DIA is being held up by the recent attacks on Delta. We cannot expect any executive action from that angle until the next standard orbital.”
The prime Atriarch seems to sigh.
“Minister Deore, what will be the situation on these worlds by the next standard orbital?”
“The terraforming process will have passed the tipping point. All native life on the worlds will be on a terminal path to extinction.”
“And the laws of harmony say?…”
“By allowing this to happen we will share the responsibility for the disruption to the natural harmony of the galaxy.”
Another Atriarch speaks.
“We must do everything that is in our power to defend the harmonic balance of these worlds, diplomatic means have been exhausted.”
The prime Atriarch looks to his left.
“Minister Treyval, is there a defence solution?”
“Yes, your grace. We have modelled a number of scenarios and have developed a solution that we feel has the minimum harmonic disruption and maximises potential for further diplomatic leverage.”
“which is?..”
Hyperspace Interstellar Portals are one of the great man made wonders of the galaxy. One entire end of the vast station is a kilometer wide circular opening surrounded by antennae and towers for defence and traffic control. To look into the portal is to see space warped into a slow moving whirlpool of smeared darkness.
The Centauran hackers had done their job. Yolande walks down a corridor towards the hub control room, none of the security sensors notice the concealed weapons that her team carry. As they walk into the gallery at the top of one of the control towers only a couple of people look up and regard them, even then there is no sign of suspicion. People are busy at various consoles around the room, at the primary gate control station one is speaking into a microphone.
“Liner Elyssium, this is Ryann Hypergate control. Over.”
“Elyssium here. Send over.”
“You are cleared for Transit to Atma. Tunnel is stable and ready for your passage. Over.”
“Copy clearance for passage to Atma. We are commencing our de-orbital manoeuvre. Elyssium out.”
Yolande and her team take guns out of their carryalls. She points hers at the operator.
“Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands in the air where we can see them. Be calm and do exactly as we say and nobody will be hurt.”
She takes the microphone from the transit controller.
“Liner Elyssium, this is Ryann actual. Abort, abort, abort. The tunnel is closed. Over.”
“Err… copy that abort directive Ryann. Aborting and returning to holding orbit. What’s happening down there? Over.”
“Gate is closed to civilian traffic until further notice. Clear.”
She presses some buttons on the console.
“Redemption, this is Black Swan. We have full control of primary and auxiliary gate control systems. The tunnel is clear. Over…”
Two hours later, two thirds of the Centaurus fleet have passed through the HIP gate and are taking up positions to form a blockade of the planet. There is some initial resistance from CAF patrol vessels but as soon as it becomes clear that the odds are overwhelming all hostilities are called off.
The Centaurans spend the next six months undertaking a police action within the system until all terraforming equipment is removed from a list of specified planets. Edian Stanning and Saranita Kenning both resign from their positions as heads of state and are replaced on the council of citizens.
When the Centaurus fleet finally departs it leaves scientific research teams to monitor the planets damaged by the Star Fold terraforming attempts. Dr Yolande Entrevin reads the day’s monitoring logs and sips her coffee.
Fantastic opening for the competition! 
Really enjoyed reading this. It reminded me of several themes from the old lore I had already forgotten. (Seriously… doesn’t anyone have a copy of it anywhere?)
It is surprising how much you can fit into 2000 words.
The timeline? I downloaded it for reference I-don’t-even-remember-when. Here:
Great! Thanks. I will add the link in the OP of the challenge.
Oh and by the way. Lets keep submissiond in one post only. If you need to make edits then make them in the same old post before the deadline. I will collect the links to each post before we start voting.
I wrote this for the contest, but the story grew to over 3600 words, so it’s far too long. However, I’m not going to cut it down to 2500 words, so enjoy it as it is. Or not. I wish I could get the two short stories I wrote for the old forums…
Duty Unto the End
Jace struggled to regain the sense of awareness that the hammerblow of the enemy round had robbed from him. He lay sprawled in a hallway, though his senses reached no farther than the excruciating pain in his side. He touched the injury, which instantly rewarded him with agony; a jagged shard had pierced his body and remained protruding, a grinding torment that consumed his still-muddled senses.
Get it out.
He gripped the shard, slippery to the touch, and pulled sharply. He screamed at the pain, his eyes flying open and the world suddenly snapping into crystalline focus. The pain began to slowly dull to mere misery as his body adjusted.
Stop the pain.
He gingerly rolled over enough to reach his belt medical kit and tried to think about treatment. Red for bleeding. He heard the hiss of activation. Blue for pain. Another hiss, and he began to recognize his environment – and his condition.
What happened?
Grimacing, he got an elbow under him and looked around. He was briefly distracted as he saw his wound and the volume of blood that had splattered his crew suit. Reflexively, he lay a hand across the wound, then held his palm up to see his blood. Jace’s confusion start to give way to anger as he remembered his situation.
The Monkaten Protectorate had hit their outpost, and Jace’s captain had dutifully risen to engage them with their lone corvette, the Triggerhappy. But the Monkeys had them at a three to one disadvantage, so the captain had tried to draw them away from the outpost while signaling for help. The captain’s ploy had worked until their enemy had battered the Trigger to the point where a single enemy corvette had the clear upper hand. That was the last of the encounter that Jace could recall. He wasn’t sure why he was away from his gunnery station, but he needed to get back to it.
Then he realized that there was no shooting. He froze, listening, sensing. No, the drive was still running. He had gravity. He could feel the thrum of the engines. But all else was quiet.
Jace struggled to his feet, taking measure of his body’s ability to answer his commands. He was sore and stiff and the meds he’d taken didn’t leave him particularly spry, but he could get around. And he could damn well still pull a trigger.
He realized that he was in A Corridor, the central hallway connecting the forward ship compartments. Looking in each direction along the passageway, he saw that he had left a trail of blood and that it led from the bridge.
Right. Intercoms were down. Reported to the captain. Explosion. Crap, gotta get back to gunnery.
Then he held his hand to his side and again looked at the blood on his palm. Very little was flowing now.
The bridge was hit. Captain!
He hammered his palm at a wall intercom panel, hoping to raise the bridge, then realized that internal ship communication was still down. Bracing himself against the wall, he staggered towards the bridge, struggling to push through furniture and other detritus scattered across his path, but stopped short. The emergency curtain that deployed to create an airtight seam blocked access to the bridge, and that was a very bad sign. There was no air on the far side; the bridge was open to space.
Oh Lord. The Captain. Mister Leveque.
He continued, but as he closed the distance, he could see through the glassy drape the wreckage that lay beyond. Worn by his exertions, he rested against the tough fabric and looked at the remains of what had been the ship’s command center. For remains there were, and only that. The room was hardly recognizable, and stars were visible through broad tears in the hull. He focused his attention on the openings, looking for signs of enemies.
Wait. Think. Nobody is shooting. Did we escape?
A ship on warp gives no sense of motion, so Jace had no idea if the ship was parked near a moon or racing across the system at multiples of the speed of light. Even the view into the blackness of space could provide him with no clues.
Frustrated, Jace took a last look at the shattered bridge and began his trip back through A Corridor to get to the gunnery and engineering sections. They had a drive, so he hoped that at least Ashanta would be alive.
Gunnery was first, and Jace was unsurprised to find that it too had lost air. As with the bridge, the emergency systems had deployed in time to keep Corridor A airtight. He immediately spotted Bream’s mangled body lying in gun mount C. Jace hung his head and swore softly to himself, not sure he could keep standing. Forcing himself to look into gunnery again, he could see no sign of Jigger or Sergeant Korpor. Or the ceiling. The entire roof of the section was gone.
Jace looked across the room at the end of B Corridor, leading to engineering. Madly, the emergency seals had fired, closing off the corridor, but the damage to the top of the gunnery section extended into the corridor and the systems stopped the loss of air into the adjacent compartment only to see it lost directly into space through the ceiling. Jace glanced up at the ceiling above him and saw that the damage to the gunnery compartment had reached within a few centimeters of the seal on his corridor. He quietly exhaled a whistle.
Jace’s gun mount, D Mount, was thoroughly wrecked, as was A Mount, next to it. On the opposite side, B Mount looked okay. C Mount had taken a couple of direct hits, and the barrel pointed out at a crazy angle. In any case, Jace had no intention of going near Bream’s body, which was trapped in the remnants of the gunnery cupola, largely sheared away from the carriage by the violence of the enemy rounds.
Poor Bream. He couldn’t hit the floor if he fell out of a chair, but that boy was as loyal and hard-working as they come. And there he was, still at his station when everyone else was gone.
He tried to think beyond the loss of the bridge and gunnery sections.
Well, the at least the head is intact.
Engineering was his next destination, but that involved getting through the tough emergency seals. Once broken, the air in his section of the ship would evacuate, so he needed to locate and install an emergency airlock. They were a variation of the emergency seals that contained a small circular doorway. It took two trips to the media room to retrieve them, but he fired first one, then the other, perhaps a meter apart, creating a pair of curtained walls in the corridor.
Jace struggled through the first airlock doorway, then closed it. Then he made it through the second doorway and closed that. He was then in the small space between the second doorway and the emergency seal that closed off the gunnery section. Hard vacuum was on the other side of that seal.
Jace sat on the floor and paused, breathing the air that was remaining in his small space, and getting a little strength back. He didn’t know how difficult his time in engineering would be and he wanted to build what reserves of strength he could. He closed his eyes and set his head against the wall, making best use of air that was soon to be lost.
Then he opened his eyes, and swore at what he saw. That one enemy corvette was still out there, clear as day, slowly approaching.
At that moment, Jace discovered a real sense of urgency. The Monkey corvette was badly mangled. It wasn’t firing as it approached and it sure wasn’t leaving. The Monkeys obviously wanted salvage, and they weren’t going to tolerate any survivors when getting it. Jace had to find anyone who was still alive and get the ship out of there. Ashanta would be able to get the job done. She was probably back there right now, three steps ahead of him, throwing together some kind of weird control system for the warp drive.
He deployed his suit’s bubble helmet and then, using a cutter from the door kits, he quickly sliced open the emergency seal. At the first break, there was a pop as the air in his compartment burst free, but then Jace was free to step into Gunnery. He looked up at the distant ship, doubting that he could be seen just yet, then started across the wide compartment. He glanced over at his ravaged gun mount, then quickly continued on, carefully avoiding looking at Bream’s remains. Reaching the other end of the compartment, Jace sliced through the useless seal across the opening of B Corridor and continued down to Engineering. His movements remained stiff, though his med kit was dealing well with the pain of his injury.
Stepping into Engineering was like walking into another world. Everything was polished and orderly, as if nothing had happened to the rest of the ship. He felt as though he could just settle in and enjoy another bull session with Ashanta.
The only problem was that Ashanta was not elbows-deep in the drive, nor tinkering with delicate electronics on her workbench. She was nowhere to be found. The section was devoid of any humanity other than that which Jace himself had brought. He had worked from the bridge all the way through the ship to reach engineering. What lay beyond Engineering? Engines. Beyond that? Space. Beyond that? Home.
Not home. An enemy corvette. And it’s just me now.
Jace turned and looked back up B Corridor. He swiftly imagined the blue-clad Monkeys rappelling down into the wide-open gunnery section, its weapons useless in efforts to halt the invaders. He could also picture the brief and pointless firefight that would result as he tried to hold engineering. The chokepoint of the access corridor would favor him, but the enclosed space of engineering would not. Maybe they wouldn’t want to damage the engineering spaces with grenades. Maybe they’d just cut a hole in the top of Engineering. It wasn’t going to end well in any case.
He thought of the possibility of hiding. The crew would salvage the ship, and might not get into every nook and cranny that a man might occupy. Then Jace knew shame, because he was no Hastis Industries man if he hid while his crew’s killers picked over the remains of their ship. Their ship. A Hastis ship. He knew that he had to do something.
Jace worked back along B Corridor until he could look out and see the approaching ship. It was coming towards him surprisingly slowly, as if they had suffered significant damage to their maneuvering systems. The ship was certainly beat up, but it lacked the gaping holes and rent hull of the Triggerhappy.
The best tactic in this case would have been to overload the drive. With the Monkeys coming in so slowly, they must have taken serious damage to important systems. They’d see the building glow from the drive envelope the Trigger, but they’d never get away in time. Jace smiled a nasty smile at the thought of going out with the massive warp flash, visible on sensors far across the galaxy, and killing his enemy with the same blow – with the Monkeys knowing it was coming. That would be the icing on the cake. Unfortunately, drive overloads are not something they teach in gunnery school, and Jace was pretty sure that there was no button anywhere in the Engineering section labeled Overload.
Gunnery school. Jace had done well there, and he knew the Mark 6 inside and out - and Marks 1 through 5 for that matter. Jace knew that the Trigger’s gun mounts were now closer to black powder muzzle loaders than anything else, but he decided to do what he could. Surely he could get a couple rounds out of B Mount before they boarded.
Jace moved to B Mount and clambed into the gunner’s station. Powered down, Jace tripped controls to bring it to deadly life, but it refused to respond. It was lifeless, inert. There was no round in the tube, no power for traversal. The mount looked ready to sling death, but it simply sat and pointed at the limping enemy ship, failing utterly in its designed purpose.
Just like me.
Jace left the cupola and inspected the rest of the mount more closely, ever watchful for movement – or attacks – from his enemy.
The reason for the weapon’s impotence was obvious once he contorted his battered body to a position that let him see the base of the mount and the utter lack of the electronics package that was once located there. Gunfire had torn it from the weapon, with nothing but a few wires and flash-frozen coolant to serve as evidence that it had ever been installed at all.
A Mount and D Mount were writeoffs. That left C Mount. And Bream. Jace and Bream were drinking buddies, competitors, friends. Jace didn’t want to see his friend’s flash frozen corpse still at his post, unable to lift a finger in defense of the ship, never to toast another victory or to grouse about another tight-fisted quartermaster. Never to step onto another new world. Never to… So many nevers.
Damn those Monkeys.
“I know how you are about C Mount, but I’ve gotta take a look, Bream.”
Jace’s voice carried no farther than his own helmet, but he kept talking to his shipmate anyway.
“You really wrecked it, didn’t you? Quartermaster’s gonna be pissed.”
Jace kept talking, making sure that he focused on the wreckage of the gun, and not Bream’s body, which was held in place high on the mount, its arms and legs sprawled.
“Well, we aren’t done yet, are we, buddy? I bet you had a round in the tube when you went down.”
He checked the gun tube and saw that there was indeed a shell loaded and seated. The grey and black banding told him that Bream had selected an armor piercing round before he died, but the gun’s breech was gaping wide.
“You didn’t close the breech, buddy. That’s against regs, you know.”
Jace slapped his hand against the heavy breech mechanism and found that it would move. Bream’s dead hand was draped across the mechanism and it too moved. Jace paused, staring at the hand, then resumed his banter, careful not to let his gaze creep any farther along Bream’s body.
“That’s okay, man. I’ve got this.”
Jace pushed to close the mechanism, but it stopped short. He had to bear down and grunt and groan to get the breech to move the final few centimeters. Unfortunately, it wasn’t locked, and the gun was so wrecked that the electromechanical locks were just not going to trigger. Jace was ready for this. He opened the breech a bit, with the block moving out easily, and grabbed one of the emergency welding patches that had been scattered across the floor of the compartment. He slapped it in place in the breech, tore off the protective strip and muscled the breech closed a second time. Jace couldn’t see or hear the reaction, but he knew that the patch had welded the breech to the gun tube, never to be opened again. He now had one shot.
Armor piercing up!
Next, he had to get a signal to the round sitting in the tube. There would be no aiming, just relying on timing to score a hit. Gunnery school told Jace that the Mark 2 tubes had relied on induction signaling, though at the time he had been more interested in lunch than ancient Mark 2 technology. Now he would put that bit of trivia to good use. He could simply attach a signal generator to the tube itself instead of relying on the modern signaling gear. Mark 2s broke their triggers all the time because of the mechanical connection, but Jace only needed it to work once.
C Mount’s signal generator was junk. Jace already knew that B Mount’s was gone. So he labored his way over to A Mount and was relieved to find an intact generator.
Frequent glances at the approaching ship told him that his time was running out, but he was confident in having his surprise ready for them when they came close. He had the parts he needed. He could hide in the wreckage of C Mount and wait. Then, just as they thought all their problems were solved with a little salvage, well, Jace would make a hole. If he was lucky, right in the bridge. If not, well, any Monkey hole is a good hole.
As he attached the cabling, Jace could feel the presence of Bream’s body in the wreckage above him, and sense the doubt of his friend.
“Have a little faith. It’ll work, okay? All they need to do is come to gunnery. It’s the gaping hole in the ship. It’s obvious. They’ll come in this way and I’ll ruin their day.”
It’s obvious, right? They have to come here.
Very shortly, everything was ready; just slap down on the trigger, the signal goes through the tube, the round fires and those fine sons of the Monkaten Protectorate get blasted straight to hell.
Jace waited as patiently as he could, trapped between waiting for his enemy to come closer and trying to avoid looking at his dead friend.
“See? I told you; they’re coming straight to us. We’ll get a nice solid hit. It’s all in the timing.”
The enemy corvette was clearly moving towards the gunnery section, and it loomed large before Jace. The gun tube was now pointing at the ship and it was just a matter of figuring out the right time to cut loose. Jace dearly wanted to let loose his agent of death, but he couldn’t afford to waste his one shot. So he kept glancing between the firing button and the corvette, waiting for the best possible moment to fire. His mouth was dry and he licked his lips.
Show me something nice and I’ll give you a little present.
The corvette was stubbornly refusing to show its bridge, relying on cameras and other sensors for the approach. That left the heavy armor facing C Mount.
Then the corvette stopped and started to turn away.
What are you doing?
Jace again looked at the firing trigger. Shoot now, before they turn and leave? Are they just stopping before unloading salvage gear? They’re too far away for that.
What are you doing?
Then Jace realized what was wrong. He had cut both emergency curtains leading to gunnery. The Monkeys wanted something still in a pressurized section of the ship. They could see the breached curtains and had turned away from gunnery!
No! Come back here!
The corvette was turning and moving towards the hull breaches at the front of the ship, at the bridge. They were leaving his line of fire! He had to shoot, but all he would hit would be heavy armor plating.
“Dammit, Bream, I need a shot!”
Unconsciously, he turned to face his friend and demand his help, but he turned only to see Bream’s sightless eyes staring back at him, his face burned and broken by the violence of the attack that had taken his life. Jace recoiled in shock, unable to break the gaze of his friend. But his motion rocked the mangled wreckage of C Mount and twisted his beaten body, sending new lances of pain throughout. Though now distracted by the pain, he saw out of the corner of his eye that the shaking of the mount had knocked Bream’s arm free of the wreckage - and it was swinging down.
Straight onto Jace’s jury-rigged trigger.
Jace could only watch as Bream’s arm impacted the device, simultaneously activating it and knocking it free of its jury-rigged perch. In that moment, Jace turned his head to see where the tube was pointed. As the enemy corvette had turned and moved, it had exposed its far side, its damaged hull, ravaged by the fight, and the gun tube of C Mount lined up flawlessly with the enemy’s own engineering section. Yet the weapon sat inert, and his enemy continued to drift by.
Fire, damn you!
Abruptly, the tube spat out its round amid a gout of light, rocking the mount wildly, collapsing the gunnery chair superstructure across Jace’s hips and legs. Jace felt no pain as he watched the near-simultaneous flash of firing and that of impact. No sound reached him, but he was witness to the mechanical carnage wreaked by the round. Gasses vented, liquids sprayed free in a shower of ice, mechanicals were flung away, and more than a few pieces impacted the Triggerhappy, with one or two ricocheting through gunnery. Jace was unscathed, protected from the shrapnel by the sheer bulk of C Mount.
“Bream! You did it! You broke their back!”
Jace watched the crippled enemy slowly roll and tumble through space, content in knowing that the ship would not be a threat to him for a very long time.
“Hey, Bream…”
Jace looked around for his friend, but Bream’s body had been thrown clear of the ship and was drifting off into the black. Jace smiled when he spotted it. Visible in the distance far beyond his friend’s body were three pinpoints of light, gently moving in the distance. The relief force had arrived.
“Hey, Bream. Nice shot.”
Edit: Corrected Bream’s gunnery location to be C Mount throughout the story.
SPOILER: I was bracing for a sad (but heroic) ending, but it turned out to be a happy one …or at least I assume Jace survived until the relief force reached him. /SPOILER
Great work! Too bad it went so much over the limit… 
Still enjoyed reading it.
Alternate ending for you:
Jace looked around for his friend, but Bream’s body had been thrown clear of the ship and was drifting off into the black. Jace smiled when he spotted it.
“Hey, Bream. Nice shot.”
Then Jace relaxed as best he could, pinned under wreckage as he was. He cast his eye around the floor near him, hoping to find more of the emergency welding patches. With just a few he could cut his way free of the wreckage, but none were within reach. Accepting his plight, he lay his head back against a crushed panel and wondered who would find him first; the enemy corvette or the relief force.
“Yep. That was a nice shot.”
Oh, and the title is about Bream’s sense of duty, not Jace’s.
I’m just a convoy tinkerer. Fix a few things. Fly when they let me. Generally just giving a hand. What am I doing in this barren system behind a yoke of a fighter?
I was doing my regular job, there’s always things to be fixed. When we were at the docking station I was asked to move one of the smaller ships to dock with the depot. Here at the end of the line the regular pilots have to take a lot of time off making staff short. I keep up my flight time just to be able to fill in here. For me this is the fun stuff.
After the processes minerals had been unloaded and the life, repair and replacements loaded I noticed a man in military uniform talking to our convoy leader. Not that unusual. They want respect one way or another. Some convoys call their leaders Generals. Pretentious little bugs aren’t they.
I got a call and was asked if I wanted a better paying job in the military. I’m happy here so I said no thanks. There always trying to get floaters like me.
It was bad and I had just gotten to sleep. It was like there loaders had changed shape some how and the paperwork was all wrong.
We were queuing up to go to hyperspace, another round trip. Something went wrong on the lead craft. It flew back glancing two other ships before it could be stopped. I got pulled in, as expected, The damage was bad enough the lead ship and the second were going to stay behind. I had my work cut out.
The military insisted on helping. They had to make themselves look as necessary as possible after all. Our damaged ships were set to pilots only. I went back to sleep.
I awoke and was sent to an assembly barely given time for my overalls. Me and a few lost looking folks herd lots of things we didn’t understand something about a fight and something important to fight for. And we were going to fight for that. I had herd stories of people being shanghaied to go fight. Drats.
I was given a ship and a bloody lip for saying well trying to say anything. I was assigned the last spot on the left wing. With no time a claxon sounded and I was in “my” ship. With some help I found were I was assigned. Bright lights flue away from us. Fire bloomed in front. I didn’t know what all the symbols meant on my screen. One of them was big.
Beep beep incoming. The missiles were close before the screen saw them. Anti Missiles defense got most, my fellows got the rest. Some of our group tried to flee. It was explained not to with a few blast.
When our opponents got close enough to see I was shocked. The ships were the same THE SAME!!!
It wasn’t some other faction we were fighting it was our own.
Were they pirates who had stolen the ships? If so they weredoing a good job. Is this another faction forming? Splitting up into more groups can’t be the answer. Could it be an alien race who stole our ships and boy that sounds dumb. Could I pay attrition to the war I’m in so I don’t get blown up?
It’s hard to see out of my helmet after I puked in it. Auto cleaners are working though. Too bad there isn’t such a system in my pants.
Ok now, get into position press the red button. Not the blue button as it does nothing. With a little help from me the ship can kill my opponents. I call them opponents because I don’t know who they or who “we” are for that matter.
The big dot went to the edge of the screen the little dots followed, good. BLINK that one didn’t make it.
I think I got a couple opponent’s ships, got hit by some shrapnel and broke a headlight. I’m glad I’m a mechanic. The exit door got wedged Having people on both sides of the door helped a lot. I asked if I could become a full time mechanic and was told no. I have to do it part time now.
Wow training. So that’s what the dots mean. And before I can keep all that in my head I’m off again.
Now to check and see how many wings there are and how full the wings are and FLASH and back to paying attrition to the fight I’m in. Anti missile system seems to be working. The other side is being insistent this time. How green are we? As far as I go I’m glad there concentrating on the other side.
Lots of light from that side. We just stay on our side. Move up a little and pick off any one who’s head peaks over the right wing.
Didn’t even scratch the paint that time. Back to being a mechanic. Oh my goodness there’s a body part in here. At least I know the automatic tourniquet works.
That was good training I might acutely remember some of it. And off to fight again.
There’s a HUGE space station there, it’s on the edge of my screen and still huge.
I’m not so lucky as last time. There concentrating on us. I’m not shaking as much and crap that was close. The anti missile was slow that time. I’m going to be spending time on my ship tinkering when I get back.
WHAT another wave of them?!? Bright lights on my side and I’m the new wing leader. Thanks a lot Major or whatever.
Counting the blue and the red dots I think were lousing. Why did they retreat? Low on fuel? Amo? Lunch time?
I don’t even get my ship fixed before being called back. The left blinker is stuck on. I feel like an old man.
We have two less wings. And several wings with fewer ships then they should have. Or not. I don’t really know.
Many bright lights and I yet live. Must have been the broken flashing light. Don’t get the old geezer must be there motto.
The big ship, ours that is, looks worse for ware. We didn’t even get close to there big ship.
I’ve got to do something. My star map isn’t working. I don’t know were I am There are only us and them. No one else. Were lousing.
If I can take my radio and monkey with the settings.
Confustacation!!! Both sides want what ever were fighting for for and there the superior fighters! Our side and there side are fighting for SAME person! That is to say if we win this general gets the station and if they win the SAME general gets the bace!!! There talking about each other by first names!!! Is this nothing more then a grudge match! Browne points at best. I’m going to be sick.
I have no real enemy. There are just the people who kidnaped me. This is nothing. I just want to live through this.
And off I go to fight for Lieutenant Commander Ego to beat Lieutenant Commander Ego. May they both louse.
Now if (shoots missile) I do this right, I can, oops sorry guy next to me, well who was next to me, was distracted by deactivating my call sine and fanning dead. And drifting toward opponent’s side. I can grab call sines and pick out one that has died and is a guy then go to my home with them.
I’m just a newb. No one will know the difference. I can fane being there mechanic I brought my overalls.
He makes it back.
The moral of the story is: We need at LEAST two different factions to be fighting with.
What I typed up on word and what ended up here aren’t the same.
Took me a bit longer than I would’ve preferred to write it, I do hope that you aren’t too bored by it ^^ (also sorry for being late)
Silent space
It’s been some time since dol went into unchartered space. But he needed an empty system where he could work on the finishing touches of his new sensor array, which would turn radiation into hearable noise. He always found that space was too alive to be mute, and he felt that it was his destiny to give planets and nebulas a voice. The only thing left to do was to test the system extensively and finetune it, and he couldn’t do that when there were cities sprawling on planets and hundreds of thousands of ships messing with the planets radiation footprint. He needed raw, uncolonized material. And there he was now, orbiting a planet no one ever had walked on. Probably. Which was not a good idea in the first place, judging by the atmosphere that mainly consisted of highly aggressive acids. Whoever landed there would have had his ship corroded and dissolved in less than a day. Yeah, that was a planet he would never set a foot on, but he could at least listen to it. An eery sound, as if someone scratched along a blackboard, accompanied by something that sounded like a thousand people whispering in a long lost language. Definitely what he would expect such a planet to sound like. He was about to turn off his sensors to fly to the next planet, when he suddenly heard something out of place. A feeble and clear sound, a sound you would expect from a little bell. Then it was gone, as if it never existed. Did his system glitch? Last time he spent a week to fix a glitch that turned out to be an undocumented dumping ground for radioactive waste material, so he was willing to first make sure that it wasn’t something manmade, even though the idea of anything being there was ridiculous.
Dol spent the next 6 hours circling the position where he heared the sound, scanning extensively but only getting the composition of the atmosphere and the ground. The only thing that spoke against his system being at fault was that the sound of the bell only occured at a very specific location. He continued to narrow down the location, until all his scanners pointed at the same spot on the planet. Suddenly the bell stopped. Dol wondered what happened, and began to start checking his scanners, when the sound came back. However, it had changed. This time it sounded like a wind chime on a stormy day. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem natural. That meant something must exist there. Something exciting. He opened up a comm and set it to broadcast with a local range:
“This is captain dol remarro of the orao’s pride speaking. Can anyone hear me?”
No answer. Exactly what he was hoping for. This was a lucky find. Whatever was there seemed to be able to mask itself from normal sensors. If he could study it, and copy the effect, he would be able to make enough money to spend the rest of his life dedicated to perfecting his sensor. He laughed. Yeah right, as if he would perfect the only thing that would be able to detect his source of income. There was only one problem… How would he get to it?
He spent the next 3 months working on the problem. The best option seemed to be getting whatever was down there, and hightail it. His solution to the atmosphere was a modification of his shield system that would prevent exchange of gases between the outer and encapsulated area. There was only one thing that bugged him. It wasn’t perfect. Fluctuations in his shield could allow for small amounts of gas to bypass the shield, and to top it off, there would definitely be a bigger leak in the shield, when he would haul in whatever was there. His temporary fix, which to be frank was all that he needed, consisted of creating a high pressure area inside his shield bubble. This way, the acidic gas would stay outside. He also spent a good amount of time finding out the approximate size of the object and fitted a special radiation proof container in his bay. With all this done, he entered the planets‘ atmosphere.
The atmosphere was thick. With an effective viewing distance of around 50 metres, dol was basically flying blind, guided only by the chime. The shield flickered visibly whenever there was a fluctuation. But so far, his plan worked. After what seemed to be an eternity, he finally saw it. Just above ground there was a sphere hovering. How could that even exist? Even from such a short distance his scanners still were telling him, that there was nothing, so he had to rely on eyesight to guess the size of the object. It seemed to be roughly 4 metres in diameter and of a silvery-greenish color. Dol spent a solid quarter of a second lamenting the possibility of slowly scooping up the sphere with his ship by carefully flying backwards with an open hangar, then decided to just use his grappling arm. He positioned his ship and slowly extended his grappling arm through the shield. So far so good. He grabbed the sphere, and began to slowly reel it in. When the sphere made contact with the shield, the shield collapsed. In a fraction of a second the protective high pressure area dissipated. After dol realized what just had happened, he cursed and hauled the sphere in as fast as possible. As soon as he closed his cargo bay, dol fled from the atmosphere as fast as possible.
After he entered a stable orbit around the planet dol checked on his ships status. It was a dire situation. His ships hull had already begun to corrode, although the process was delayed due to the cold space and lack of reagents. However, the next time he entered an atmosphere, he would have to land his ship and abandon it. Staying in space on the other hand was also not an ideal option. The hull corroded to the point where he was more or less exposed to the radiation, and had become so brittle, that even the smallest microcomet could probably deal serious damage to it. However the cargo bay was in the worst shape. Everything except the sphere was bubbling, and a hull break there was inescapable. So dol was forced to relocate the sphere to another part of his ship, which proved to be nigh impossible, given the size of it. In the end, all dol managed was to move the sphere into the corridor behind the cargo bay, before he depressurized the cargo bay and opened it to delay any further corrosion. After taking care of that, dol prepared the route back home, which turned out to be rather hard with half of his sensors gone. Even his own sensor was damaged. Everything he now got was muffled considerably by crackling, static noise. Hearing this was heartbreaking, but he couldn’t get himself to shut it down. All he could do was to start the warp drive.
As his ship began to build up the warp drive, he watched the construction of the warptunnel. The forces of the warptunnel started to shake his ship around, filling his ship to the brim with rumbling noise. Slowly the rumbling noise turned into a hum, which gained in intensity until it was deafening. The warptunnel seemed to react to the hum, it seemed to blow out of proportions, wriggling like a living worm, until it collapsed in front of the ship. Shocked, dol watched as now the rest of space seemed to follow the warptunnel, expanding in some places, shifting and flowing into itself in other. Dol could no longer bear watching it, the lack of consistency made him feel sick. The speakers provided him with a cacophony of some of the most violent sounds he had ever heard. He tried to shut off the speakers, but his ship no longer reacted to his input. As his whole bridge was engulfed in light, he lost consciousness.
Dol awoke, lying on the floor. He seemed to have been unconscious for quite some time, as he he felt completely whacked. He got up and stretched. What he then saw made him wonder if he was actually awake. Wherever his ship was, it wasn’t space. It was some sort of space, but it seemed to be ever changing. Patches of blackness wandered around on a background of pink, changed size and disappeared, only to appear in another seemingly random place. Everything seemed to move slow, sluggish, as if the space consisted of a highly viscuous matter. From his speakers he could hear:
"… während in … Reis umgef… "
What was that just now? It sounded like words, but none he ever heard of. He focused all his attention to the speakers, and he could swear that there was some sort of music playing for a second or two, but then it turned back into static. He tried to turn the sensors off, but still couldn’t. Still nothing worked. He needed to find out how he could regain the control over his ship or he would be out of luck. He had an idea what could’ve been the cause so he went and took a look. The sphere was still where he put it. It was way more active than at the time when he put it there. It was clearly emitting heat, and seemed to be vibrating so much, that he could hear it humming. He sighed.
“Should never have picked you up.”
Dol didn’t know how long he spent in that weird space. His ships clock has been completely out of whack, showing him different times and dates every few minutes, He tried to keep himself occupied by trying to regain the controls, but nothing worked. Whenever he took a break, he listened to the sound of the speakers, listened to these fragments of otherworldly chatter. After what seemed to be months, He heard something new. The sound of a big bell. At first, he thought that it was just part of the banter, but it kept reappearing. Periodically. It kept getting more clear, until it overshadowed everything else completely, whenever it rang. And then he saw it. A ship, unlike anything he ever had seen before, hung there in the middle of space, not moving even a bit. Dol was sure, that this was the ship from which that darn sphere originated from. He kept watching as he got closer to the ship. When he was close enough, that the ship filled the whole window, he could see something moving. It seemed to open a way in, but his ship was too big to ever fit in there. That was the moment when he realized the sudden creaking all around his ship. His ship was about to collapse. He panicked for a second, then ran to his space suit and put it on quickly. Not long after he had put it on, his ship burst into thousands of little pieces. The first thing he realized, was that space was warm. He could feel the heat through his space suit. The second thing he realized, was that the sphere was about to move past him. He did his best to latch onto it, and watched at the remainder of his ship, as he was sucked into the ship, together with the sphere. Shortly after the sphere entered the ship together with him, the doors shut, leaving him in complete darkness.
Ok I’m a bit retarded so I think I know what happened but could you explain it to me clearly? I would like to know if I like it.
Great! We have 4 stories now, from which 3 are the right length. This is the bare minimum so the latest deadline will stand. However I encourage more people to finish their stories before the deadline 
It’s quite open to interpretation.
As an educated guess, I’d say that Dol got engulfed in a space-time rift together with his ship. When the mysterious sphere managed to anchor to his origin point, his ship cracked to dust and he had no choice but to hang on to the sphere into the unkown.
Maybe a metaphor for a rebirth?
Anyway, it’s my favorite story so far.
@LucasFIN Almost done, just a few loose ends to tie up
You pretty much nailed one of my intended interpretations, although I didn’t think of it as a metaphor for rebirth rather than an ironic situation where the wish to assimilate alien technology lead to the protagonist himself being assimilated by that technology. Which, given that he’s now aboard an alien structure with undetermined population might as well count as a rebirth, where he is as helpless as a newborn baby.