The Galactic Nomads

The Attack

After several hours in their wide orbit, the Galactic Nomads still hadn't encountered anything.

Jean had just finished chatting with Drake telepathically. She really liked the guy, but sometimes she felt a little bit guilty when she and him would talk smack about her brother behind his back.

"Uh.... Why can't I access the ship's logs to delete them?" Ray asked Jerrel.

"Hmm, the wireless interface must be malfunctioning," Jerrel explained. "You're going to have to plug yourself in manually."

Suddenly, the ship dropped out of light speed and powered down most of its systems.

"What the hell?!" Jean shouted annoyed and confused, and just a little startled.

"Oh shit, Gwen just lost connection with the ship!" Jerrel exclaimed. "We're going to have to connect her directly! ... Jean! Give me a hand!" ze hollered.

Jean ran up and entered the access code on the control terminal. Then a hatch disappeared, revealing a jumble of wires.

"Oh hell! This is a really old system!" Jean exclaimed.

"Alright, I've got her brain. Just connect these wires to the neural outlets. I'll take care of the sensory inputs!" Jerrel ordered.

So Jean began to connect each wire to the appropriate spot on Gwen's brain. Damn! Gwen has SO many physiology adoptions! Jean realized, I'll bet if she wanted to she could control the form of a giant 12 legged Tyrocraptor!

"Jerrel! We're veering off course!" Drake yelled.

"We've almost got it!" Jerrel shouted.

Jean was hurriedly plugging cords in, when she came across a physiology adaption she didn't recognize. "What do I do with these?!" she shouted.

"Hang on!" Jerrel said telepathically.

Suddenly, Jean lost control of her body. She soon found herself opening a small hatch on the right side of the square shaped adapter, and plugging in the third cord, then plugging the other two in the remaining neural outlets.

"Hey! What the fuck Jerrel! You could've just told me!!" Jean shouted angrily.

"It would've taken too long to explain!" Jerrel explained.

Eventually, after painstaking work, Gwen was once again connected to the ship. Jean felt emotionally exhausted and was still pretty pissed off at Jerrel for simply possessing her instead of trusting her with the task.

"Hopefully we didn't go too off course." said Ray.

"Hmm, Gwen just told me we traveled about 30 kilometers off course," Jerrel informed the crew.

Just then, right before they were about to make a course correction, they encountered a planet.

At first glance, Jean thought it was just another lifeless hunk of rock. But upon closer inspection, she noticed some darker spots that could signify organic soil.

"Well, here's your planet Jean!" Jerrel said.

"Gwen informed me that there appear to be strange structures and rock formations on the planet," Jerrel mentioned.

Just then ze stood stock still and zers pupils widened. Jean was confused and a little concerned. It looked as though Drake felt the same way. And Ray looked like he was gonna puke.

"I know where we are!" Jerrel shouted suddenly. "We have to get out of here!"

But just then they were hit by a disrupter beam. Someone had fired on them.

"Crap! It's a Gem warship!" Jerrel said, panicked.

"uh ... our shields should hold, right?! I mean it's only a Gem vessel!" Ray stammered.

"Yes. But we're only a beat up class 1 utility vessel, and that is an era 2 Gem warbird!" Jerrel said.

"Fire back!!" Jean shouted.

"We're not in position yet!" Jerrel shouted back.

Suddenly, the ship began initiating evasive maneuvers. But the warship matched almost every move they made and managed to fire a direct hit to their shield generators.

"OH SHIT! OH SHIIT!!" Ray screamed, having a panic attack.

"Our shields are down! We need to fall back and retreat!" Jerrel shouted.

But before they could do so, the warship fired a volley of photons. Sparks started flying and the lights flickered, as they heard a sickening crack.

"The ship's structural integrity is failing!!" Jerrel cried.

Jean was in a panic. Oh fuck! Is this how we're gonna go?! Is this how we die?! Jean thought.

"We have to abandon the ship!" Drake yelled!

"Agreed!" Jerrel shouted. "Help me disconnect Gwen!"

"We don't have time for that!!" Drake cried.

"We can't just leave her here!!" Jerrel yelled.

"If we don't leave now, we're all gonna die!!" Drake shouted.

"Fine! I'll disconnect her myself the rest of you go!" Jerrel ordered.

"C'mon!" Drake yelled. Drake led the way, as they all scrambled to get to emergency airlocks.

Although Jean was afraid, she didn't feel like it was the right thing to leave Jerrel and Gwen back at the bridge. Just then, they came across an airlock.

"One of us is gonna have to telepathically enter in a code!" Ray shouted.

"Don't you remember! The telepathic systems are down!" Drake yelled, "And there isn't a manual interface either!!"

"Forget it! Just break through," Jean cried, as she punched the hatch off.

Directly after she did that, they were instantly sucked out of the ship, as it exploded.