ENCOUNTER
(WARNING THIS STORY DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS AS IT TAKES PLACE AFTER EVENTS IN SHADOWED STARS BOOK 1 AVAILABLE NOW FROM PAGE PUBLISHING)
Minister Slade was a white human male. Dashing and good looking with a great charisma to his character. He had long black hair and deep ocean blue eyes. He was well built with a muscular tone. In every way he looked human and was, except for his right cyber arm that was covered with fake skin and several internal bodily organs and cell posts in his brain. He was the former prince of the Kylde Kingdom on the planet Aklowda. He became known as Minister Slade after he had obtained a Book of Prophecy just soon after the wormhole collapse that sealed off the new planet called Home from the known part of the universe. His duties were then charged to decipher the Book of Prophecy and oversee many different alien religions. His friend since just before that time was Security Chief Nat Gorondo. Nat was an older bald dark-skinned male that was one of many humans from a planet other than Earth but he too now resided on the planet Home.
They were both in a Luth Bik starfighter referred to as a shard for its diamond shape. It was a two-person starfighter with one pilot and one gunner. It was also one of few starfighters with hyperspace travel capability and the only known one with minimum shields. They had just finished negotiations with the savage carnivore race of Derths that had been trapped with the many other races on this side of the worm hole. The Derths were forced due to their past aggressions and hunting of other races for food lifestyle to settle on a swamp planet well away from Home and had colonized a few more. The negotiations were successful in establishing safe travel routes. Slade and Nat were now looking forward to getting back to their lives on Home. Slade was soon expecting the birth of his second child and Nat was excited for his son about to graduate from the academy.
To lighten the mood a bit Slade recalled an older mask debacle on the planet Yanve. They both laughed as Nat responded that he was unaware there was a mask worn exclusively to display that someone was currently craving a sexual encounter. The laughing continued until sensors detected a strange unclassified space faring vessel. It was medium in size and looked like a pile of triangles each stacked jagged atop the other. The ship had never been seen in this sector of space at least to any recordings of such. It was powered down and the ports were open as if it had been raided but there were no life signs registered.
They decided to dock and investigate. Nat carefully made an easy docking connection with the shard starfighter onto one of the alien vessel’s open ports. They de-pressurized and entered the dark and narrow corridors of the ship. Despite the protective gear that they wore, they still determined that the race that had once occupied this ship had to have had an extremely thin body build as they found it a tight squeeze to maneuver through the corridors. They used their war arms, highly technical lower arm bands that hosted an array of various weapons and devices. In this case spotlights that they moved in a sweeping side-to-side motion ahead of them. They had separated into two separate narrow and winding corridors. They had kept in contact through war arm comms and both had heard ticking and buzzing sounds up ahead. As they came back together from the re-merging corridors, Nat had caught something in his light.
It was a full cocoon. Slade had spotted more of them scattered about and ahead of their path. Nat used a blade that snapped outward from his war arm to cut into the thin shell-like substance. The inside of the cocoon was sticky and seemed to be transforming a lifeless humanoid body form inside it into a slime-like substance. Suddenly the ticking and buzzing sounds they had heard before had started up again. They used their spotlights again in a side-to-side motion and saw nothing but more cocoons. The sounds got louder and closer. Slade and Nat both looked above them simultaneously and witnessed humanoid body forms above them. War arm scanners still detected no life signs. They were covered completely in a chitinous natural body armor. They all had four fast flapping beetle-like wings that were allowing them to fly through the rafter structure above them.
From the beings’ lower arms, they shot intense spiral energy blasts that shattered the ship’s floor. Slade and Nat took cover to nearly avoid the heavy hits. Slade and Nat returned fire with the pulsating energy blasts from their war arms. The shock of retaliation sent the four beings in a straight flight escape pattern down the overhead rafters. Their chitinous armor was able to take several hits that only staggered them in the air. Nat was able to hit one in the four fluttering wings and it dropped hard to the ship’s floor. The other three continued to fly into the turbo lift shafts and throughout critical areas of the ship blasting everything in their path.
The being that fell was kicked over to its back side by Slade’s boot. Nat also stood over him and from his war arm shot an electric charge into the chitinous armor that was not tempered or reduced. The being shook violently with the active charge and as the charge dissipated the being’s movement halted. Suddenly the ship rocked with a larger thud as if someone had just physically shaken it. The ship started to explode from the inside and parts fell and crumbled all around Slade and Nat.
Slade figured the other three aliens had hit the ship’s power core as he and Nat left the fallen beetle man and fled back through the narrow shaking corridors. A corridor crumbled right before them and directly in their path. Nat adjusted his and Slade’s retreat with an outreached and guided arm. They ran down another narrow and dark corridor as it crumbled behind them.
They had made the mad dash back to the shard starfighter and Nat was able to pull away as that section of the ship exploded. The explosion shockwave did send the shard into an uncontrolled spin until Nat was able to gain control and stabilize the erratic flight. Slade spotted the three beetle-like armored warriors flying in space as they vanished into nowhere. More likely a cloaked ship. Slade told Nat to bring them home as he entered the encounter into the logs and designated the creatures as the Beetah.
THE END
