The young woman leaned over the railing as she observed the children playing the park below. It wasn't often she had the chance to do this, the Storm was never an easy place to live, but coming home to port gave her the opportunity to relax, while her ship was undergoing repairs. Nothing too unusual in these parts of the storm, they'd run into a Raider group on their way back from some trade talks with the Raythil, talks that had gone well. She'd been able to trade some of their excess food for some water filtration systems that they needed. More than she'd let on while conducting the meeting, but she figured the Raythil had been just as desperate for the food, so things had gone pretty well actually.
She was joined a moment later by someone else, "Thought I'd find you here, still thinking about missed chances?"
"I wasn't until now, but I don't think you'd interrupt me just to talk about old boyfriends."
"Afraid not, I've heard some rumors and after that battle I think they have some merit."
"Oh? What rumors?"
"Of someone new, there have been some sightings but they are hard to verify. People describe their ship as shadowy, and until I pulled something from the raiders I thought the Storm was getting to them."
Now she was curious, "Okay what did you find?"
"Their combat record," he said as he pulled a portable terminal out, and show it to her.
She activate the open file, it seemed to be in the middle of the battle.
The ship shook as the crew moved with frantic energy, "Port shields have failed!"
"Bah, fire all cannons! New vector, two one four mark six, reset the shields."
"No effect, enemy plating is holding!" shouted someone as a shadow came into view on the recording, it loomed over the smaller raider frigate on screen, just as several turrets lit up. The storm flashed just before a series of energy pulses tore into the frigate.
"Bak's Treasure," they choked for a moment, "Lost with all hands."
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Onscreen she watched the frigate breaking up, which only spoke to the power of the vessel behind the attack, her shape was hard to make out, her hull dark. None of the usual shimmering caused by active shields showed themselves either. Were they running shields down? That was nuts, the Storm would kill them without shields. The radiation alone was deadly, of course there were plenty of other hazards here as well, like the Eddies, the rim, hell even the Emergences were dangerous.
Then something else came into view, small, fast, deadly. As it swarmed a second frigate, pulses flashing and fireballs erupting, while a third was taking fire from the capital ship.
Panicked conversation filled the flag bridge of the raider, before the captain ordered, "Signal all vessels! Retreat! We've been outmatched."
"Aye sir, getting us the hell out of here."
The video turned black a moment later, and she turned to the man. "Um Okay, that was something. Were those fighters?"
"Looked like it to me, but what's strange is the timing of these rumors. The last time the Storm had a surfacing event was two years ago, yet we've never seen nor heard of these people before."
"Crazy, using fighters and no shields? Who are these people?"
"Don't ask me, I haven't met them yet. Just consider the implications, if they don't need shields to survive the radiation."
"That would be something, a game changer."
"Don't salivate too much, we have other things to worry about."
"Right, so any luck with the power coils we brought back?"
"Working wonders, we should have that old shield generator working for another decade or so."
She smiled, "Wonderful, I didn't want to have to say goodbye to the old girl."
"Well speaking of the old girl, I do have some news, not all good, the number four engine is a lost cause, it will need to be replaced. Unfortunately, we don't exactly have a spare cruiser engine lying around."
She sighed, "A shame but not unexpected, any other lost causes?"
"Engineering hasn't been able to lock down the leaks on deck six, so its still uninhabitable, and we lost your favorite observation room."
"The one with the big windows towards the front of the ship? How?!"
"Seems it took a hit during the fighting, while our sensor net was out."
She grimaced and cursed, "I loved that room! Gods damn it, if their captain wasn't already dead I'd...."