The Maelstrom Incident

A New Horizon

Present Day:

"Acting Captain's log, date on Sol 30.12.2645. Acting Captain Scout Downer recording. It's been 5 days since our first encounter with the Aliens that call themselves "the Ercots", hell of a Christmas present." I shook my head gathering my thoughts.

"First Contact with the Ercots did not go as planned. Captain Carlson of the ISV Dauntless and all hands dead. The command bridge heavily damaged and all senior officers minus the chief engineer of the ISV Revival are dead. Leaving me, Lieutenant Scout Downer, acting captain as the most senior officer left alive." I took a deep breath bracing myself on the console as I looked ahead into the recording field. I gathered my thoughts.

"The situation is dire, the ISV Dauntless lost with all hands, senior officers of the ISV Revival dead, our FTL capability is currently out after the damages sustained to the Arc Drive in first contact. In addition to our Arc Drive being disabled our communications tower was also destroyed preventing us from calling for help. Currently I have three options: I can attempt to limp away at sub-light speed, I can fight, or I can try to establish communications." My heart races as the dread of the decision washed over me. The more I thought about it the more I realized I truly had only one option.

"Fighting is not an option, while even in this heavily damaged state this ship would be sure to take down at least a couple ships, I am up against what seems to be the entire Ercot species. From what we have been able to deduce from our limited sensor data. There seems to be a mix of ship classes sorted into distinct fleets."

"The way the situation stands currently directly off our bow seems to be the Ercot main battle fleet. Seeming to consist of 1 dreadnaught class warship, 3 carriers, and a hundred or so cruisers and frigates. Just beyond that and directly reinforcing them appears to be a raiding fleet consisting of a few hundred frigates and gunships led by about a dozen cruisers. And just on the edge of our scanners appears to be what we are calling a civilian fleet, consisting of thousands of ships ranging from cargo and repair facilities to entire habitat and garden ships." I shook my head at the sheer insanity of it all. One badly damaged cruiser couldn't possibly take on hundreds of millions if not billions of people spread between thousands of ships.

"Since the ISV Dauntless' reckless broadside of what appeared to be a civilian vessel during the tense and confusing first contact followed quickly by her destruction and the disabling of our own ship there has been no further action taken by the Ercot flotilla. They have made no move towards further hostilities, nor have they moved on abandoning us to our fate. They seem to be waiting for us to make the next move. In absence of a further chain of command I have made the decision to attempt to contact the Ercot and establish peaceful relations. Though this decision has been met with mixed reactions we have no other choice. I will not lead this crew to death and destruction. End of log."

I stepped away from the log recorder and glanced around the large captains quarters. Occupying the top loft space of the cruiser it had everything a captain could want from their ship. A large vid screen, a nice bed, space to get away from the crew, even its own office space. The downside was it was still full of the now deceased captain's belongings. It didn't feel right to be in this space. It felt intrusive, even if I was now the acting captain of the ship, I didn't belong here. I certainly hadn't earned it.

Five days ago I had been the flight leader for the squadron of interceptors onboard. Of course that was before the primary command bridge had been spaced and senior leadership along with it. Now I was expected to be the captain. To lead the remaining crew through this crisis and get them home safely. The problem was I had no idea what I was doing.

I was in over my head, the Commanding Officer (CO) of one of the most advanced ships in the Imperial Navy and my Executive Officer (XO) was a Lieutenant Junior Grade. We were wholly unequipped to lead a warship. I shook my head to clear out the negative thoughts and set out to work. It was time to figure out who the Ercot are and why they are out here. Maybe if we were lucky we could avoid the fate of our sister ship.

I walked over to the reflector staring into briefly examining my features. My close cropped brown hair was a little ragged and tussled like I had just rolled out of bed, my hazel eyes had large bags underneath them like I hadn't slept for days, which in fairness I hadn't. My eyes slowly roaming down my pale skin to my wrinkled fatigues. If I was going to attempt first contact o should probably put on fresh clothes first. I walked to the closest and looked through the few belongings I had brought up so far. I picked a clean pair of fatigues dawning the dark blue and grey cloth against my skin. I glanced back in the reflector and figured it was as good as it was going to get.

I walked back over to the door of my cabin after leaving the refresher. Feeling slightly better than I had minutes earlier I stepped out onto the landing in front of my room. Just a corridor between the door to my room and my elevator to give some privacy. I walked into the elevator headed down to the Combat Information Center (CIC), essentially the brain of the ship. We could do everything we needed from this room. It even served as one of a trio of auxiliary bridge sites where we could control everything if the main bridge was destroyed. I pressed the button to descend and waited, my mind racing with what the future would bring.