Battle of the Folium Nebula

"Returnin' fire!" Carl yelled. The corvette's cannons rotated in their housings, targeting computers calculating the required lead. After spooling for a moment, they opened up with their own volleys, each spewing forth a thousand rounds per minute as they filled the void with ordinance.

The streams of tracers met at around the midpoint between the ships, each trail curving as the turrets readjusted and the ships set new headings. Lambert had no time to see whether they scored any hits, keeping an eye on their overloading readout as he set a new heading, their speed rising. Each time he made a new turn in direction, the cannons had to pause as they corrected their aim, sometimes idling as the Raptors left their field of fire.

Proximity warnings on the incoming rounds bathed his face in a red light, Lambert grimacing as he upped their speed again. The Raptors were getting closer, and thus he had to change vectors more frequently, pins and needles shooting up his arms as they continued to twist and turn. Breathing through his mouth was hard, but through his nose was worse, the ship around him beginning to tremble.

Six g's, seven. Lambert could almost see the fine line between death by collision and death by bullets. Eight g's. The Raptors didn't let up, forcing Lambert to change vector again and again before they cut their corvette out of the void.

He could hear Carl trying not to puke over the channel. The alien ships were long forgotten, the Raptors all they cared about now. The edges of Lambert's vision began to darken as they bordered on nine g's. His implants helped keep Lambert from blacking out, but it was his comrade's voice keeping him conscious as Carl growled through the channel: "Target destroyed!"

One of the Raptor tags had disappeared, a hail of fire from the top PDC cutting it from bow to stern with a lucky volley. The ruined fighter spun away, the pilot still trying to shoot them down regardless, but its targeting gimbal must have jammed, the tracer rounds spinning wildly as the ruined fighter twirled away into the clouds of gas.

Both their PDC's focused on the remaining fighter, which had turned to flee after its wingman perished. The void around it became choked with streaks of bullets, Lambert plotting a box-shaped course to turn them around and get on their tail, angling back to keep the fighter in range. Now the chase was in reverse. It took several seconds for their bursts of fire to reach the Raptor, the steams crisscrossing to give the fighter less room to escape.

"Fuel thirty percent," Alice said, its voice calm even as Lambert's body felt like it was being crushed beneath the weight of an elephant. With all the high-g turns they were pulling and bottoming out their speed, they'd burned through more fuel in the fight than they'd used to even get here.

The Raptor continued to shoot even as it fled, Lambert growling as his vision began to darken when he pivoted out of the firing line. They were closing in on the fighter now, the Confederate pilot unwilling to go to higher speeds, and that meant both ships would have an easier time hitting the other with less leading time. But being the bigger target, Lambert's corvette didn't have the edge.

"Come on, lock on," Carl grumbled. "Lock on him..."

"Fuel twenty percent!" Alice reported.

The ships danced around each other, the kilometers closing to single digits. Out of the canopy Lambert could see the origin point of the fighter's ordinance, flinching when they streaked past, dangerously close to the glass.

"Ten percent!" Alice said, almost sounding worried for a moment.

The fighter was in visual range now, appearing to Lambert like it was flying in reverse as its cannons opened up, the view spinning as Lambert banked away.

"Locked!" Carl said. "Missile away!"

The missile launched from its hardpoint, visible only for a moment out of the canopy before it vanished, its travel time instant, ending its short journey by the Raptor's side, the explosion close enough to blow the nimble target into a slowly expanding sphere of debris.

"Slow us down, sir!" the computer warned.

Lambert was all too glad to comply, flipping and engaging their thrusters to counter their inertia. Soon the corvette was brought to idle, Lambert realising that he'd been holding his breath, and letting it out as he relaxed into his chair.

"F-Fuck me rigid," Lambert said, the adrenaline bleeding out of him with a sigh.

"You said it, Cap." Carl made a noise like he couldn't quite decide whether to laugh or cry, clearing his throat as he checked the ship's status. "Took a few scratches to the hull, but we're fine, integrity wise. Check it out," he added. "our friends wiped out the rest."

Lambert blinked, switching feeds to the other skirmish like he'd forgotten all about it. The remaining Raptors had been destroyed, reduced to tumbling pieces by laser fire. Only three of the alien ships remained, their beams flicking off as the void went still. The larger, carrier-class ships idled way behind them, the one that had been hit by the missile listing to the side, Lambert unsure if it was critically damaged or not.

The alien attack ships realigned into formation, slowing to crawling speeds as the three, larger ships moved in towards them, the damaged one cruising a little slower than the others. Lambert's brow furrowed when he saw their tags on the tactical map close in to barely a few kilometers of each other.

They hung there as a group for a few moments, then as one, they banked their ships in unison, turning their bulbous canopies towards the corvette's direction, Lambert's chest tensing as he could look right down their laser barrels.

"Think we should skedaddle?" Carl asked. "I'm gettin' laser warnin's."

"There's a problem with that," Alice said. "You burned through most of our fuel, sir. My predictions suggest we may not make it through the nebula without activating our distress beacon."

"What else was I supposed to do?" Lambert replied. "This is the first time anyone's battled in space since... since ever." Spaceships had been armed for warfare since before Lambert was born, but the concept of fighting with them had only been experienced through simulations, there had been no major space conflicts, at least until now.

"I did not mean to sound rude," Alice replied, its tone apologetic.

Before Lambert could reply, the alien group started moving, their IFF tags moving closer, until Lambert could make them out through the canopy. The laser targeting warnings flicked off after another moment, Lambert's hands clutching the flight sticks tightly as they came closer and closer.

"They're gonna hit us," Carl said, Lambert shaking his head.

"They're not stupid. Put the PDC's back into their housings, Carl, and keep your hands off the missiles."

"Are we surrenderin', Cap?"

"Look at their guns, they're lowering them. We're just returning the courtesy."

Carl grumbled something incoherent, then complied, the rotary guns twisting into their default positions. The alien weapons had likewise done the same, sinking back into their recesses, so Lambert wasn't worried about retaliation, though his gut was still twisted with apprehension. They were coming in very close now, enough that Lambert could make out the small lines of where each individual panels of the hull met on their strange fish-like ships.

The alien convoy came to a halt a few kilometres out, the trio of huge ships practically filling up the canopy view with their silver and orange bulks. The attack ships idled in front of the big ones, the little engines on their sides shooting out wisps of flame as they stabilised the crafts.

Lambert was almost afraid of moving his hands, the alien ships just sitting there, probably running scans over the corvette by the way the systems were giving off signal warnings. After a long minute, the leading attack craft moved forward, Lambert recognizing its tag as the same ship they'd followed in earlier.

The other alien ships remained idle, Lambert's heart racing as it closed in to two kilometres, one, then a few hundred meters before the alien ship stopped. It was pretty much right beside them at this point, Lambert leaning forward on his console to peer over at the large glass dome situated on the alien ships nose. It was coated in a smokey shade of orange, but he could just make out movement behind the glass, the shadowy outline of... something.

The strange vessel tilted in a three-sixty spin, its canopy rotating in place as the rest of its ship twirled round. It ended the spin the right way up after a few moments, paused, then did the spin again, this time going the other way.

"The hell are they doin'?" Carl whispered, as if afraid they'd be overheard.

"I don't know," Lambert replied, shifting in his seat when the alien ship came to a stop, as if waiting for Lambert to do something. He thought for a moment, then grabbed the left joystick, tilting it to the side with a mechanical whir. The corvette turned on just the one axis, Lambert's perception becoming a mess as the alien ship appeared to turn, when in fact it was the corvette that was technically spinning.

The corvette did a full spin, then Lambert turned it the other way, copying the alien ship's gesture. He even added a slight tilt to the left and right, the way jet pilots would flap their wings in salute to nearby planes.

The aliens copied the gesture, Lambert grinning as the fish-like fins on its flanks tilted to and fro.

"I think this is going well," Alice said. "Keep copying them sir."

"What are we, parrots?" Carl mumbled.

The alien craft stopped mimicking for a couple minutes, Lambert doing the same. Then, flipping so that its rear faced the corvette, the alien ship inched forward a few hundred meters, then stopped. It flipped again, its canopy facing Lambert. It flapped its fins in greeting again, turned around once more, and moved another hundred meters. It repeated the whole dance twice more. Lambert would have scratched his head if his helmet was off.

"Any ideas what this all means?" he asked no one in particular.

"The most likely intention I can predict is that they want us to follow," Alice said.

Lambert watched the ship move further away, then stretched one of his shoulders as he gripped the sticks.

"Here goes nothing," he said, inching the craft forwards, keeping their thrust to an absolute minimal. His heart raced as they fell in behind the alien ship, passing between its two cohorts idling up and off to the sides. From this angle they got a clean view of their laser guns. Each turret had two individual barrels, one above the other, the lengths flaring out near the middle and end, where a square muzzle capped the barrel. They were connected to the hull by blocky housings, what appeared to be wiring wrapped messily over the bulks. Each turret had to be fifteen or twenty meters long from muzzle to base, about two thirds the size of the alien ships themselves.

The alien craft matched their crawling speed, heading for one of the carrier ships, leading them right between its two main branches, where a few kilometers of empty space divided the two sections of the ship.

They cruised in closer and closer to the carrier ship, the pink void replaced by great swathes of metal hull trimmed with orange bands of light. It felt a little like sailing between two horizontal skyscrapers, football fields worth of metal stretching out in all directions except for directly down and up.

Silver decks jutted out of the thick branches of the alien carrier at random intervals, huge tubes snaking out of the great slips between them. Humans would cover up internal wiring, but these creatures appeared to not have bothered. The way the internal lining of the ship boxed in huge shafts of space gave off the impression of giant, empty bookcases, the shelves shadowed by the decks that covered them from the distant sun.

"This thing has no weapons, barely any armour, and is as big as a prison ship," Carl mused. "It sorta looks... I dunno. Primitive."

"I know what you mean," Lambert replied. The very first spacefaring ships that left Earth were just as blocky and oversized. And yet these aliens had somehow invented shields for their smaller ships, it was quite jarring.

The ship they were following suddenly switched off its own protective barrier, the arrangement of polygons simply fading out of existence. It slowed down to a halt, then banked on the spot so that it faced the left branch. Lambert copied the maneuver, his canopy facing the great wall of metal.

After a pause, the wall between the two decks in front of them began to split down the middle, the two slabs of metal sliding back into recesses on the left and right. Lambert leaned over his terminal, his eyes wide as he peered into the slowly revealing interior. A row of circle pedestals rose out of a colourless deck, lined up parallel to the opening doors. There was another attack ship resting on the pedestal on the far left, secured to the dial by three-pronged skids extending out of the craft's chin and rear - landing gears of some kind. There were also thick straps of cloth snaking along the hull, looping over the ship like a giant harness.

Lambert counted half a dozen pedestals when the doors disappeared off to the sides, the rest of them empty. Behind the dials was a deck that was populated with tall machinery, probably equipment allowing the aliens to repair their bulky ships.

Their alien escort craft began to drift towards one of the empty dials. The hangar, at least that's what it appeared to be, was barely tall enough to accommodate the alien ship, Lambert holding a breath in anticipation when its roof almost grazed the low ceiling, the craft cruising into position slowly.

It hovered over the empty dial for a moment, its landing gears extending out of the recesses on its stomach. It inched down towards the pad, landing like a truck dropped from a great height, its suspension dampening a rather rough-looking landing.

"What're those things floating around over there?" Carl said. "Behind the pads?"

Lambert blinked, seeing dozens, no, hundreds of figures between the ship pads and the far wall. The figures were slightly hunched, bipedal creatures sporting bulky, green suits that made them look especially large and tall. Zooming in with a camera, Lambert noted that each one sported long, beak-like visors that stretched forward over where the head would be on a human, with thick tubes connecting the chins to the chests.

Each alien was grasping something, whether that be a nearby handrail sprouting from the deck, a piece of strange equipment, or each other. They floated through the microgravity, their visors turned towards the corvette's canopy, Lambert swallowing a lump in his throat as he examined the huge number of aliens inside.

"Is the whole crew down in that hangar?" Carl asked. "Look at em' all."

"You'd be abandoning your post too if an alien boarded your ship," Lambert replied. "How come they're just floating around? Where's their magnetic boots?"

"Perhaps they have no base concept of simulating gravity," Alice mused. "Or lack the technology."

"But they've got shields," Lambert replied. "It doesn't make any sense. Are these things even Suvelian?"

"I reckon not, Cap," Carl said. "I've seen pictures. These guys are way too big to be Suves."

"Another species?" It wasn't beyond being impossible - once the Suvelians were discovered it became almost a guarantee that more aliens would be out there, but after more than a hundred years of encountering nothing, it was still a shocking realisation. "Then why were the UEC attacking them?"

"Could have been the other way round," Carl suggested.

"Doubt it," Lambert replied curtly.

Movement from their escorting ship drew his attention, a hatch on the top of the vessel flipping open, the lid bouncing on the side of the hull before a hand reached out to stop it. A figure lifted itself out of the ship, an elongated visor turning towards the corvette. Lambert could almost feel its eyes on him, the figure's arms raising into view - the limbs sported an opposable thumb and three long fingers, the alien gesturing towards the empty dial on the ship's right.

"Looks like they want to meet us," Lambert said, gripping the joysticks in his hands. He hesitated, the huge crowd scrutinizing him from within the hangar.

"This was your idea in the first place, Cap," Carl said, as if sensing his apprehension.

"I know, just... I'm kind of, terrified."

"Me too, man."

Wishing he could wipe his brow, Lambert eased the corvette forward, the pad, and the crowd, coming closer by the second. Hangars like on the Hub were so compact, and this alien ship was oversized in comparison, having so much space open to the void was a strange sight to say the least.

With Alice providing corrections, the corvette floated into position above an empty landing dial, main and secondary thrusters adjusting their inertia until they were settled. Lambert flicked the landing gear switch, hearing the mechanical whirs of the legs extending somewhere below him. Watching the tactical map which had turned into a wireframe representation of the hangar, he tapped at the thrusters, easing the ship down to the deck, much gentler than their alien counterpart had, and in half the time, too.

The thunk of metal rumbled through the corvette as they landed, the suspension rocking the chassis as the gears automatically used their magnetic locks to secure them to the surface. The corvette was much smaller than the alien ships, the dial stretching at least ten meters in all directions from them. The aliens slowly floated closer when Lambert powered down the engines.

He flicked off the safety belts of his harness, the straps blooming out from his chest as he pushed himself off the chair by the armrests. He gripped one of the overhead rails to stop himself from flying into the canopy, unplugging the cables that connected his suit to the flight terminal.

Most pilots compared the cables to restraints, but Lambert felt a great sense of freedom each time he jacked into the flight systems. In space, one had complete freedom, and being stuck in the tight confines of the larger ships for months on end was the real restraint in his opinion.

When he was free of the cockpit, he used the hand grips along the walls to turn himself round, moving to the hatchway that led into the main section of the ship. He pushed himself into the corridor beyond, awkwardly adjusting himself so that his feet touched the deck. All flightsuits were equipped with magnetic boots, designed to let personnel walk on ships without centrifugal force.

Little lights on his ankles turned green as his feet neared the deck, Lambert hitting a button on his forearm sleeve. The boots turned on, gluing the man to the floor, though the strange sensation of microgravity still had an effect on the rest of his body.

Keeping one foot on the ground at all times, he moved down the corridor, passing by doorways and other hatches leading to different parts of the ship. His boots turned on and off each time he paced, making his footsteps loud and mechanical.

To his left one of the doorways slid open, a human clad in a suit identical to Lambert's stepping out of the frame. The Hub Navy patch was etched onto his breast, the human's bearded face just visible through his tinted visor.

"Cap," Carl said, the speakers in his helmet giving his voice a tinny effect. "We really bout to meet some aliens?"

"Looks like it, try and be tactful for once," Lambert said. "Good shooting back there, by the way."

"It ain't much different from the sims," Carl replied, shrugging. "Lot scarier, though."

At the far end of the corridor, a staircase led down to the lower bay. They made their way down, boots whirring as they switched their magnetics on and off with each step. The cargo bay was a dark, small room packed with crates secured to the deck by straps and magnetic rails, the tracks set up in line with the ramp so that cargo could be easily rolled out. A few of them contained ration packs and supplies for day-long missions, while most were full of ammo belts for the PDC's.