With a few ship name changes, here's chapter 1 of my new fanfic (untitled though, unfortunately)
“Damn,” Sylvia Donahue sighed. “The captain was right. There’s nothing out here.” How did she end up out here, anyway? How did the entire three hundred man crew of the Saladin end up out here? She remembered now, though vaguely. She had overheard Captain Richmont on a comm channel with Admiral Khu about some sort of “anomaly” or “unknown signature”. So far, three weeks in the boondocks of the Alliance’s busiest economic center had turned up nothing, not even **** from passing freighters. Besides, if there was anything large enough to show up on the Arknu’s scanners, shouldn’t they have seen it by now? Pushing her flowing blonde hair back from her face, Donahue exhaled deeply, trying to fall asleep. As if that would be hard out here. The engines of the Saladin were relatively silent where she was on the ship’s bridge and half the crew were down in the barracks with the other half at Deck Seven. “Why don’t I just...” Donahue moaned, stretching herself out in the cold chair, “go to sleep. I need some rest anyway.” She did need rest, sort of. For the past three days, she had been up on the bridge running bypasses in the ship’s quirky mainframe and entering the navigational data from the Arknu into the Saladin’s automated helm control. God, she needed the rest.
“That wouldn’t such a hot idea,” A strong masculine voice spoke out from the opposite side of the room. Naturally surprised, Donahue spun in her chair. When she could see who it was, she turned right back around. “Lieutenant.” She gritted her teeth a slight bit before answering.
“What the hell did you do that for, Tomkin?” She put her hand on her chest, feeling for her heartbeat. Thumpa...thumpa...thumpa. It was normal, thank God. “You scared out what sanity I had left in me.” Jason Tomkin approached her from the rear and, grinning, sat in the seat to her right.
“Ease up, Sylvie,” He replied to her, relaxed. Oh, she hated it when he was like that. And most of all, she absolutely, viciously despised being called “Sylvie”. Grr... I wish I could rip that ugly brown hair right out of your head, Tomkin she often though to herself. He often followed her around so much that a good number of officers had made the mistake of calling them “lovebirds” or such. In fact, the last one to call them that ended up in sick bay for nearly three weeks. “We’re all losing it around here. We all think its boring as hell out here.” Out of all the people she could’ve been getting advice or whatever this was from, Tomkin was probably the worst. They had both been not-so-fond of each other since their days at the Academy at Beta Aquilae, where Donahue had gotten her head handed to her on a silver platter in the combat simulators against Tomkin. They were long, gruesome, and humiliating stories that she never liked to tell anyone about, or even liked to hear mentioned, for that matter.
“Isn’t that wonderful?” She replied sarcastically. “Let’s see what else you can notice, perhaps that Admiral Khu is a sadistic vampire for sending out here in the middle of nowhere for three damn weeks?!” She finally lost it. Clenching her fists tightly, Donahue hit the desk in front of her as hard she could possibly muster. And oh, God did it hurt.
“Relax, Sylvia,” Tomkin said to her, doing his best to calm her. Just as she relaxed, a slight rumble took over the ship. “We’ve got more important things to worry about.” Sylvia leaned over her controls, rapidly pulling up numbers onscreen.
“Running a scan now,” Donahue answered. A red, grid-like map appeared on the screen, indicating the Saladin’s location with a light-blue blip. A much larger black indicator appeared a few inches away on the map. “There. There it is.” She pointed out to Tomkin. After taking a quick glance out of the ship, she realized what was causing the anomaly. The room turned pitch red and filled with the sound of klaxons. A small window appeared on the monitor in front of Tomkin, showing the face of a middle-aged male in a uniform.
“Bridge, report.” The officer ordered sternly. After taking another glance at Donahue’s monitor, Tomkin answered him.
“Captain, we’re in the path of a massive object heading towards us at high speed.” Donahue burst in after him.
“Sensor readouts indicate some sort of structure, sir.” The officer’s eyes shot up in surprise, but quickly returned to a harsh stare. The klaxons grew louder as the object came closer.
“Impact: 10 seconds!” Tomkin reported off his screen.
“Full evasive actions!” The officer ordered, cutting the channel. Donahue was already on it; she had pulled out the equipment she needed. On the arm of her chair was a green button labeled “Emergency Power Allocation”, just in case of an event such as this. Under it was several blue buttons, each labeled “Main Weaponry”, “Engines” and all critical systems on the Saladin.
“Three...” Tomkin began to count down. Donahue pressed the green button quickly, then positioned her finger over the “Engines” button. “Two... Fire!” He shouted. Donahue’s finger swiftly pressed the button, and the Saladin’s engines burst with power. Pulling the nav stick in front of her, Donahue sent the cruiser into a steep dive, hopefully evading whatever the structure was. As it came closer to impacting the ship, Tomkin noticed blue-green texturing on the structure, along with the spikey edges on the front. The Saladin dove under the massive structure, avoiding any impact on the bridge. Unfortunately, that wasn’t true for the rear of the ship. The Saladin shook violently as the structure crunched into and through the main sensor array near the rear, finally ripping it off the Saladin like toilet paper.
“Close off Deck Twenty!” Tomkin shouted at Donahue, who responded by pressing a small red button in front of her. A few seconds passed, and the klaxons died down. “We’re clear.” Relieved, Donahue shut off the power allocation and released the ship, bringing it to a full stop. A hiss came from the opposite side of the room, where the Captain and at least a dozen crewmen rushed in.
“What hit us, Lieutenant Tomkin?” He questioned the officer leaning his head on the desk.
“It was huge, whatever it was. I saw blue and green marks on it, and it was spikey at points.” Captain Richmont’s face nearly turned pale at the report. Slowly turning to a group of crewmen, he asked, “Can you bring the auxiliary sensors online?” The two officers near the control panel nodded and pressed a series of keypad numbers.
“Uh, sir,” one of the officers said, numbed at whatever had appeared. “You might want a look at this.” Richmont sat in his chair and motioned to the front of the room.
“On screen,” he ordered. At the request, a large object appeared on the wall, labeled with one word: Knossos. After staring utterly confused at the screen and the intersecting sections of the portal, the captain muttered, “Oh my God...”
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I'll give some of you a few guess where I got the general inspiration for the scene itself...
