Starsnatcher - Trapped In An Alien World [COMPLETE]

Chapter 5.1 (Part 1) - Eden

The Mothership featured here is heavily inspired by the Crescent Class Cruiser from Orion's Arm (I take a lot of inspiration from OA in general):

https://orionsarm.com/eg-article/486e9b6d04852

Image copyright goes to Chris Shaeffer

I plunged onto my back. This time, an airbag from the ground cushioned me, ensuring my survival.

A strain of at least three gravities pressed against my chest. It disappeared. And reappeared. And disappeared. Almost as if the pauses only served to prevent me from getting used to it.

The Seizers sat on airbags themselves, though due to their lower center of gravity, they didn't fall over.

"Pilot, behind the moon!" Crick transmitted. "This is an order! Everyone else, pay close attention."

On the table, a spherical holographic coordinate system showed an armada of orbiting points.

In the middle were two yellow dots. Judging from the fact that one was at the center and didn't orbit anything, I guessed they were Eden and its moon.

Several red dots were the moon. One of them had small holographic fins attached to it and must have been the Dragonfly. If so, the other points represented automated ships on our side.

An army of sepia dots closed in on us from a higher orbit. Our enemies.

"The sepia dots have been orbiting this planet for an indeterminate time period," Crick explained. "One reason we believed we could pass them without engagement."

So, they were peaceful before Starsnatcher sent those irritating radio waves.

If that wasn't a strong argument in favor of the mind virus hypothesis, I didn't know what was.

The holographic screen changed again to show a ship in space.

If Starsnatcher already looked wrong, then I had no idea how to describe this abomination of a craft. Its general outline was scythe-like and its color so black that Crick had to highlight it with glowing lines. Probably intentional, as that made it harder to spot in space. It was shrouded in a cloud of equally dark fog.

Much like with Starsnatcher, it lacked turbines, plumes, or anything suggesting it could fly at all. As shown by a comparison to the Dragonfly, its length was measured in miles.

The hologram zoomed out to focus on the ships around it. They were triangular, moth-like, and, as shown by the comparison, a quarter of the Dragonfly's length. They, too, blended into the dark void. As did their torpedoes.

"There is another ship coming after us," Crick transmitted and summoned a new hologram.

The Firefly.

"As noted before, this ship is too fast and too well-guarded for us to shoot it down. Fortunately, it has not shown hostile behavior so far. As easily as this could change any moment, it is not classified as a high-priority threat at the moment."

That was everything Crick wanted to tell us. With the hologram gone, Tesla focused on having our ship catch up with the moon's orbital velocity.

The Dragonfly became a rollercoaster that only went faster and faster. I couldn't raise myself anymore, even if I wanted. My vision dimmed and tunneled. Breathing wasn't subconscious anymore, more like expanding my lungs against the anvil of inertia.

"Two minutes!" Crick transmitted.

Two minutes. The device translated units well. We had a hundred twenty seconds to get behind the moon and accelerate to its velocity.