Joining The Resistance
@recklessresistance
“You’re going good and steady, Rocinante. Anything showing up on your end?”
“Negative, Medina. All our readings are completely normal. Well, as normal as it gets.”
Alex listened to Naomi’s conversation with Medina Station with one ear and to a soothing jazz song on the other as he carefully eased the Roci closer to the Ring. For the past three hours they had been in the process of sneaking up to the gate, inching their way forward while constantly monitoring the sensors.
Every single ship that had gone through this particular Ring had vanished. Not immediately, but close enough to their entry into the gate that it was clear that there was some kind of correlation. The funny thing was, nobody could tell what could have caused the sudden vanishing of twelve ships so far.
They would just go through, report back fine for sometimes up to a day afterwards and then suddenly go dead silent and vanish.
“We’re one and a half clicks away.”, Alex reported back and felt the shift in gravity as the Roci made another minute adjustment in course to keep them pointed at the middle of the gate.
“Keep us on course, Alex.”, Holden piped up from the command chair. “Naomi, keep an eye on the sensors. Medina?”
“Yes, Captain?”, Fred Johnson’s gruff voice replied and the tension in it was clear.
“We’re going in, keep your eyes on us.”
“Will do. Good luck, Rocinante.”
It took eight hours and seventeen minutes for the crew of the Roci to find out what had killed all those ships.
And Alex sure as all get out was glad he was currently riding a warship.
“Buckle up, boys.”, he called over the coms before he pushed the Rocinante out of the way of an incoming projectile with a quick and violent manoeuvre. The entire hull was vibrating the the sharp rapport of the PDCs as the ship plucked even more pieces of potentially deadly metal out of the vacuum.
“We found aliens.”, Holden said, not for the first time, sounding stunned.
“Yes, and at least some of them are shooting at us.”, Naomi gave back deadpan and adjusted something on her console. Alex knew her long enough to know that the bite in her tone was stress. Her way of coping with a situation almost impossible to comprehend.
It said something about their relationship and situation that he recognised that particular tone as well as he did, he thought.
And then thought nothing for a while as he weaved the Rocinante between other ships, around the immense, triangular warship that seemed the source of the entire conflict and who had wasted no time shooting at the Roci the second she showed up on its radar.
“We still have no long range communication. Someone is blocking us, but … oh.”, Naomi reported. “Uh… we’re being hailed. I think.”
