[h2][color=lightblue]Union/Wo Border, Eastern fringes[/color][/h2]




"Fear is a powerful tool"




Time for the crew of Nate's ship was running out. It seemed as if Coral was destined to be a scantily clad slave-girl while everyone else would either be killed or sold for cheap labor. All in the pursuit of the reclusive race known as the Wo. Who knew anything about them except them.. rumors would bring so many to this frontier where every story could potentially be the truth or in this case, a means to an end.




Nate was quiet, angry even at Captain Lars proclaimation, there was no doubt that they were going to die. "Coral, do not give in to fear, it's what these pricks want from us." But before he could assure her any further, one of Nate's crew began to urinate in fear, prompting the pirates to laugh and close in the group, shoving them lazily around the cockpit. 




Coral's already panicked breathing only worsened when the slaver brutes came close and started manhandling her. "Don't touch me you mental defectives!" She screamed as she tried to push back ineffectually. One of the pirates kicked her face-first to the ground, laughing sadistically like his comrades. The Qulseoc slowly rolled around... and then she saw it through a viewport. A looming shadow dwarfing even the slavers ship in size.




One of the consoles in the bridge suddenly began to beep, pinging the paralyzed operator with a receiving transmission. On reflex, the crewman answered the call, and the modulated voice that then blared from the speakers sounded more like twisted junk data being run as audio files than actual language. Perhaps this was made intentionally so to underscore the point of the simple two lines that were playing again and again in many different languages:




[b][color=red]"YOU ARE INTRUDING UPON HARMONIC SPACE. LEAVE NOW OR BE PURGED."[/color][/b]




Coral sat there in silent marvel, the pirates didn't matter to her anymore, for she had been proven right... the wo really did exist.




As no-one had ever seen a real "Wo", the pirates laughed at the incoming ships. It was pretty lame to them that yet another group would use the "Wo" as bait. But for a pirate to betray a pirate? Blasphemy!




A simple reply was sent to the incoming ship, a simple phrase, "This is our haul, scram." At that point, the pirate vessel showed some of its teeth as its shields activated turrets popped from the armor and they were of exotic design and putting out intense energies. Even this ship would be an imposing sight to a Wo.. This was one of the most feared pirates in the eastern fringe... Known as Horus the manhunter... And he wasn't going to just bail on a prize like a Qulseoc.




At that point, the mystery vessel began to change course, from directly towards the standoff in the dust cloud, to parallel of it. It appeared to mimic the display of the pirate ship as bay doors along its sides opened to reveal long racks of armed torpedoes. The muzzles of its laser battery were also gradually becoming brighter, and a corona of energy made itself visible as its shields powered up. The transmission had also changed,




[b][color=red]"THE WO ARE A PEACEFUL RACE WHO DO NOT CONDONE VIOLENCE. FIRE UPON US AND WE SHALL RESPOND IN KIND. LEAVE NOW OR BE PURGED."[/b][/color]




Coral saw the scene unfolding before her... the mythical beings that she had searched for all this time, flying to their possible rescue... she needed to just make the situation clear... The Qulseoc gathered her courage, the pirates on the bridge were distracted by the two titans of space facing off above them. They only noticed the Qulseoc throwing itself to the comms console when she was already pushing the man there aside and pressing down on the voice broadcast button. "Help us! we have been boarded by slavers!" It was all she managed to say before the man managed to wrestle her away from the console and threw her aside again. But surely, it would be all their rescuers needed to know... right?







On board the pirate ship, all they could do was laugh. The vessel was slightly smaller than theirs. Its true that size matters... To some. 







Captain Lars just shook his head before opening comms again, "if you do not want violence then go back to where you came from. This is our haul and our one vs one isn't going to end in your favor. I dont give a damn about your fancy words like "purged" so just take that pompous ass shit back to what ever hole you crawled from." He cut off the comms and put an active jammer directly on the Wo vessel. The jammer didnt block the Wo from in or outgoing transmissions but directly blocked it from talking to Captain Lars. 







It was going to become abundantly clear to Coral and Nate that this Horus wasn't going to back down, as the shadow from the Wo ship was blocked entirely by the massive pirate battleship moving to protect its catch. The situation was growing desperate by the second until Nate hatched a plan,

 

 "Coral, even with your ship pierced, you think it could self destruct? The explosion would at least disorient the Pirates long enough to possibly escape. I'd suggest using this ship but the explosion wouldn't do anything but send us to hell for nothing. Maybe we can pick up survivors if we live through it." 

 

As  Nate finished talking, one of the pirates leaned in, "I told you to be quiet, talking softly is still talking." When he finished, Nate felt a sharp pain to his gut when the pirate beat him with the stock of his weapon . There was a sharp cry as Nate fell to the floor, leaving only a smiling pirate slowly turning away.




The transmission had changed again, and no longer looped:




[b][color=red]"THE SEEDS HAVE BEEN SOWN. NOW, IT IS TIME FOR THE HARVEST.[/color][/b]




At that point then, the Wo ship's immense laser batteries flared into deadly life and sent supercharged bolts directly onto the pirate ship's hull, crossing the distance between the two behemoths easily. Simultaneously, twenty-four growing lights against the backdrop of cosmic dust and stars heralded the approach of homing nuclear torpedoes. Horus' own shields brightened like a newborn sun at such a great force colliding with their luminous surface, but after the volley was done, his own proud vessel was ready to answer back in kind.




Coral meanwhile, was considering nate's idea... The pirates attention was fixed on the battle outside and her dataslate was within tentacle's reach. The practical side of things would be easy against the ethical considerations... All systems on the ship seemed disabled, including the escape craft... As another volley of fire was exchanged overhead, Coral made her choice. She swiped the dataslate and broadcast a simple message to her ship. "Acquisition prevention alpha." The standard procedure for qulseoc to scuttle their ships in situations such as this. Better to die than to suffer the ravages of these slavers... Many things could have ptevented this plan. Coral's prime asisstant overturning her order, the ship being too damaged to overload the cores... boarders taking the bridge.




An alert went off on a nearby console. "Dangerous energy buildup detected, explosion imminent"  it read. Coral whispered a thanks and a goodbye to her crew. They knew as well as she did how improbable it would be for them to survive this. There was a brief moment of anticipatory silence, then an explosion tore through the hull of coral's ship. A cascading series of secondary explosions rolled through the ship, then the main core gave out. An enormous explosion, sending pieces of the ship everywhere. The shockwave rocked Nate's ship back and forth violently. The ship's stabilizers struggling to prevent the vessel from going into an uncontrolled roll.




The massive explosion from the Qulseoc ship was a fortunate turn of events for the Wo vessel. Just as the ship was preparing a volley of its own, including Horus's  devious shield piercing harpoon, the Axis was thrown off from the shockwave. The Pirate vessel began to roll out of control for a moment before stabilizing. Horus was furious,

 

 "What was that!?" He said angrily.

   

From behind him, a crewman shouted, "We've lost power to the broadsiders! Captain that Qulseic ship just blew itself to hell!"




Horus's gaze sharpened at the Wo ship which was likely gearing for another attack. He still could fight the Wo and possibly win but his hardest hitting guns were offline. "Very clever." He said before standing and walking towards a holographic viewer. 




On the viewer he could see an image of what was going on in the rescue ship. "Kill them all." Was the simple words from Horus.




As the pirates began to carry out their order, Nate decided to try and disorient the guards by rushing them. This ended poorly as one of the pirates caught Nate, throwing him onto the ground. Coral was fortunate as when the two men opened fire, one of the union rescuers fell and  pinned her to the ground under his dying body. The pirates never checked to see if anyone survived except Nate who they laughed, "Keep this prick alive as a witness and a warning."




Coral found herself alone on the now adrift rescue ship . Horus's attention shifted towards the Wo ship  and upon realizing the fight wasn't going to go as he wanted, the order was given to fire five torpedoes towards the Wo ship.  As the torpedoes sped towards the incoming vessel, the torpedoes deployed holograms of  his own ship. They emitted every signal that the real pirate ship did which would be good for throwing off his foes. And before any shots could be exchanged, the pirate ship rapidly accelerated into light speed. As fast as they had arrived, they were gone.




Coral however, was still fully awake, the pirates had lost track of her, pinned under one of Nate's crew as she was. She could feel the life leak out of the bleeding human on top if her. She shivered as the crewman breathed his last. She remained there , paralyzed in fearful anticipation of a pirate noticing her and finishing her off, but that moment never came. The pirates left the ship laughing in that nfuriating mocking tone. And soon after the ship was rocked by the impact of weapons.




Despite everything that was going on, Coral found herself surprisingly lucid. Perhaps it was some psychological defense mechanism against the stress she was being put through right now, perhaps she just performed well under pressure... Regardless, it was clear to her what she needed to do. Slowly but intently, she wrested herself out from under the bloodied corpse and shuffled over to the comms console. It had survived the mass-execution and sat there, ready for input. On the way she noticed the engines had been shot out from another readout. Did those pirates really have to be so unreasonably spiteful?




She lifted herself into the human-sized seat in front of the console, it was far too big for her smaller body, but she could reach the controls if she stretched her tentacles out. She looked through the available preprogrammed broadcasts... A distress beacon was an option immediately available. It was a good system architecture to not leave such options buried in several layers of menus. A distress signal was broadcast forth into the void. Coral spoke a message into it that made the situation quite clear.




"Pirate attack... Engines disabled... crew mostly dead... send assistance" She was dimly surprised at how shaky her recorded voice sounded... Though she did suppose... that was to be expected... The qulseoc remained seated there, a pitiable pile of misery.




A long shadow lingered upon the shot-up interior of the bridge as the Wo ship, having easily shot down all the oncoming torpedoes and disabled its own, drew nearer. Its void shields were still bright as they operated at their full capacity, and its gun turrets were staring fixated upon the much smaller rescue ship. Gliding gracefully alongside it, its massive, gleaming form dominated the view of every window aboard Nate's vessel. Then, consoles that operated the ship's sensor suite flashed warnings as powerful electromagnetic forces and a deep spacial disturbance made themselves known. A sudden flash and the deafening sound of thunder outlined Coral's shaken form then, as behind her there was suddenly a massive metallic creature.




It was as regal as it was terrible - a towering bipedal automaton with four arms whose hands each clutched a powered saber. All along its armored frame was elaborate, alien calligraphy unknown to even the Quelsoc scientist's learned mind, and other adulant iconography inlaid with gold. From its broad, gilded shoulders hung a crimson cape of fine silk. Its mostly featureless head surveyed the bloody room with a passive disinterest from two glowing, unreadable eyes. Then its alien gaze came upon Coral, and he pointed one menacingly curved blade at her.




"Alien," was his first word. His voice was deep, rumbling, and unmistakably electronic. And yet, his Quelsoc was flawless. "What has happened here?"




Coral was stirred from her shocked state by the computerized voice. Up until now, she had communicated using the standardized interstellar language, so hearing her own native tongue spoken to her was... very unexpected




She swiveled the chair around and stood awed by the alien's unknown heraldry and intimidated by the weapon it was pointing at her. "They killed everyone... and they laughed while doing so... like we were just insignificant krill to them". Coral was a deep dark red. A worrying color meaning an unstable and potentially volatile state of mind. "Are you here to help us?" She saud unsteadily. For some reason she couldn't help but feel threatened by the..  thing. She felt like running and squeezing into a crevice, something she vaguely recognized as a primal instinct of her species.




The Guard nodded. "The Harmony of Wo... sees no benefit in your death." He looked towards the window, where his ship lay ready for the command to fire. "More of my brotherhood are coming. We have orders to keep you safe."




Coral nodded as well... a thoughtful look on her face for a moment. "So... you're the real deal then? please tell me you're real... Tell me this wasn't all for nothing..." The qulseoc looked like she was about to either burst into tears our burst out laughing mad... And then she perked up in realization of something "What do you mean keep me safe? The threat is already gone..." She followed a very sudden train of thought... Ships 

had always been disappearing in this region... The wo had never been confirmed as real even though one of them surely stood in front of her... No, she had to get back home somehow. She couldn't just let the culmination of her life's work slip through her suckers like that. "Maybe you should check if anyone else is alive... heh... maybe some of my crew hid under corpses like I did..." Coral laughed loudly at the statement... Why was such a morbid statement so funny to her she now wondered...