Old Frontiers: The Severan Contingency

Chapter 4, Part 2

 "What is it?"

"Unknown."

Rather didn't like that response at all. Every time they found something unknown they had a tendency to almost die. The sensor readings were unpredictable and similarly unknown. He wanted a closer look at the surge spilling out into space. There was some sort of materials being sluiced from the surge as well and they were pelting the surrounding hulks.

"How unknown?" Ref asked.

"Nothing in the Silquint database—this is new," Macross replied. She sat at the tertiary station where Quinton usually stayed during their approaches.

"I want a visual as soon as we are close enough." They were braking on approach to the coordinates given by Tahe's signal. No contact with the Teclomat as of yet, but they had found the sleek ship sitting a short distance from the surging energy. The materials were currently pelting the hull of the advanced warship as it drifting lifelessly.

"All sensors on... that." Grathe was in the engine room, no doubt salivating at the surging energy that had no clear point of origin.

Rather watched both fearful and with a burning curiosity. What was that? More importantly, what was being disgorged from the surge? Another part of him—chained in darkness—wondered how they could keep running into these events. The Shifter kept finding the lost and forgotten, which wasn't always to their benefit.

How much was forgotten out here?

"Energy output is unknown."

Shocker Rather thought. If they ever ran into anything familiar he would be surprised. "What about the material that is hitting the Superious?"

"Mats."

"From the Mat-Fields?"

"Yeah," Grathe replied.

He had to consider that one for a little while. The vortex was pouring out alloy debris, which surrounded the outskirts of the mega-station's orbit. That had been the first place their ancestors had flown to in order to gather supplies with little transport shuttles. It took them several centuries to advance into the Out-Fields, which were considerably farther away.

"There is damage on the Superious' hull—look at that." Ref brought their visual sensors into the main screen. The impact was extensive and may have shattered the interior skeleton of the ship. "Not from those mats."

"Looks like ramming damage." Macross obviously had been out here to know what that looked like or at least had studied visuals of the Out-Fields in depth.

"Zatak, Grathe, we may need that towing line active while making a pass. Think you can manually target?" Rather asked. He didn't like that the Teclomat was drifting so close to the vortex, which was spitting out debris at a rapid pace.

"We can do that—Quinton might need your reflexes."

"Yep."

They drifted closer to the vortex and scan data continued to pour through with confusing details. The enormity of the surge was large enough to swallow up the station shard the Antechaim came in on. There was a definite flow to the forces involved however: the vortex was pouring out junk from an alternative location.

They watched in shocked silence as something large and jagged protruded from the energy surge. The object hurried out at a dangerous speed directly towards the Superious, rivaling it in size. As they saw more of the object come into view there was no mistaking the fact that this was a ship, another Teclomat by the looks of the undamaged sections. Watching helplessly the jagged end of the warship narrowly missed the Superious and flew into the Out-Fields with the other dead hulks.