“BEEEP – BEEEP – BEEEP”


    Yawning the middle-aged human sits up on his bed in the small cabin. Through the window above his bed the dark night of space can be seen. He reaches for the button on his small desk Damn, only two hours of sleep “Yes?”


    “Bridge to Captain, we just received an emergency call by FTL-Pulse. A Colony had an earthquake and needs help.”


    “Wake the rest of the crew, have George calculate the distance and Cheyenne check how fast we can push the folddrive to get there. I’ll be on the bridge in ten minutes.”


    “George is already working on it, he had duty-shift. I’ll wake the chief engineer next. Bridge out.”


    Half of an hour later a good looking but partially dirty human woman steps onto the bridge, where the captain (Lieutenant Commander Dylan Shelton, Human), the first officer (Lieutenant X’hh’ylan, Reetou) and the logistics specialist (Chief Petty Officer M’raan Feshur, Caitian) were already waiting.


    “Sorry for being late, Captain, but given the situation I wanted to shift the drive focus to speed before coming here. It’ll be 10% faster now, although it will use up 20% more fuel for that speedup.”


    “Good call, Cheyenne, that should allow us to get to the colony faster. XO? What’s the situation?”


    Lieutenant X’hh’ylan skitters to the monitor of the bridge on his six legs, where he calls up a picture of a green-brown planet before speaking.


    “34 minutes ago we received an emergency call by FTL-Pulse. It reads:


    [[Viora IV to Council Patrols +stop+ Emergency Call +stop+ Earthquake destroyed Colony Center and Main Power +stop+ Request Help for Survival and Rebuilding]]


    Viora IV is a struggling mining colony that was founded only 73 years ago. If both the Colony Center and the main power reactor are down, they are in a big trouble. Distance is about 247 light-years from our current position. With the improved drive speed we should be able to get there in four days and three hours.


    We have no more info than that and can’t ask for more – with main power disabled they most likely shut down the FTL-Pulsor after sending that emergency call. But most likely they’ll need everything from medical help to disaster relief to spare parts for their repairs.”


    Lieutenant Commander Dylan Shelton nods to this and turns toward the Caitian on the bridge. “Chief, what is still in our cargo bays? I assume we can’t offer food because we’re near the end of our patrol circuit?”


    “Correct, Captain – but on the other hand those people are lucky because we still have the semi-automated factory module installed that we got for prototype trials. It will drastically speed up turning raw material into spare parts. Considering how rarely we needed the additional sensor module that it replaced from the default on a Ranger-class scout corvette, they might even decide to install that module in the other patrols - at least in those that fly between the inner stars of the galactic confederation.”


    “Then there is nothing more we can do at the moment. All possible preparations before arrival can be done in a few hours, and we are still four days away from Viora IV. Back to your regular duty everyone, I’ll go and inform Dr. Farren about our ETA so she can prepare the Medbay in time.”


    --------[Three days later]---------The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Two humans and a caitian sit in the control chairs of the bridge while the rest of the Sunhawk was silent. The caitian works on a side console while one of the humans sits in the pilot chair only watching how the stars shift and dance outside the ship that is travelling under folddrive.


    The last person is Dylan Shelton, sitting in the command chair at the back of the bridge.


    The caitian suddenly turns toward his captain. “Captain, I just received a message from the Swiftwing, she arrived at Viora IV a day ago. The situation is even worse than we thought.


    The earthquake was six days ago and when it damaged the Colony Center, it also damaged their FTL Pulsor. They needed two days to repair it for the emergency call, and then it burned out afterwards.


    The Swiftwing has connected their reactor to the colony grid and is providing additional power, but the situation is still very bad with a lot of wounded people. The Council should dispatch one of their emergency reaction cruisers and organize a transport squadron with supplies, but…”


    A shudder goes through the ship and somewhere a groan comes from the strained hull structure, interrupting the message. The pilot begins to frantically check his instruments.


    “Sir, unknown energy detected outside the space fold corridor. The drive is overheating…


    The corridor has collapsed and we are now travelling sublight.


    The Sunhawk is captured in an energy field of unknown origin or type, those readings don’t make any sense at all.”


    “Red Alert, Dr. Davis to the Bridge, initiate emergency procedures everyone” the captain starts shouting commands. “Mathew, copy those readings to console four – as soon as George gets here he needs to check if he knows what’s going on.”


    Throughout the ship the tiny crew is working hectically, especially when the decompression alert is added two minutes later.


    A jaguar-like but alien looking cat is speeding through the corridors into the bridge, only to turn into a humanoid just before jumping into one of the free chairs. The captain addresses the new man.


    “Omnuun, what caused the decompression alert?”


    “I don’t detect any decompression or loss of air anywhere – the alert was given from the engine room.”


    “Engine? What caused the alert?” the captain asks after activating the internal communication.


    For a few seconds nothing but some fabric movement could be heard over the communication system, then the characteristic click of a spacesuit helmet snapping into place before Lieutnant Cheyenne Morin speaks:


    “Some unidentified energy just disintegrated the outer hull and a corridor down here, I’m looking into space now. There is no direct decompression because the same energy now holds the air inside, but I don’t want anyone to be caught without a spacesuit when that energy decides to stop holding the atmosphere.


    I can see the energy field around the ship – it’s a sphere, and it is shrinking. I see the starboard wing bending under the pressure of that field, but it’s not breaking. I’ve never seen something like this.”


    “Shipwide, this is the captain. We have been captured inside an unknown energy field that is twisting and destroying the Sunhawk while currently keeping our atmosphere contained. Everyone into spacesuits in case we lose air later. Report any outside effect you might see.”


    The captain looks at the human now working on console four. “Astro, anything you can tell us about this?”


    “No captain, I’ve never seen an astrophysical phenomenon like this – the energy readings are shifting and partially vanishing without making any sense. Best guess is that this is an energy form we never even detected before and don’t know how to correctly scan either.


    And I strongly doubt that this is a natural phenomenon, it’s too targeted and intentional for that.”


    “Captain, look out of the right side window!”


    Everyone on the bridge turns to see out of that windows. They see the back half of their ship, with three of its four wings bend and twisted, slowly coming to rest near the bridge. It looks as if something cut the Sunhawk in half in the middle and placed the two halves next to each other to reduce the length to fit into the further shrinking energy sphere.


    Then there are suddenly glowing energy tendrils growing from somewhere into the view, searching for something. The inside of those tendrils seem to be twisting into impossible directions as well.


    Everyone tries to evade those tendrils, especially after the first one attaches itself to the astrophysicist and Dr. Davis begins to scream.


    The captain tries to get everyone to evade and out of the bridge, but the space distortions are everywhere, disturbing everyone and after a short while one of the tendrils hits Dylan in the back.


    “AAAArrgghhh”


    Seen from the outside, the energy sphere that captured the Sunhawk seems to shrink and become transparent at the same time, giving the impression of speeding away in an impossible direction while standing still, until nothing remains of it or the starship that had been traveling here.