The Sea of Darkness

"The hyperdrive engine is ready, jumping into hyperspace now." The Navigator said loudly above the noisy chaos of the bridge.

Iris felt relieved, but only for a second. Then she realized the Flagship and the plasma shots had not been replaced by the familiar colors of hyperspace in her sight. "Navigator, what's going on? Get us out of here!"

"I don't know. It seems like it's not working. The jump is ready, but nothing is happening. I think... I think we're caught in a Net!"

"No ship except our warships have access to that kind of technology!" Iris retorted, but the gears in her mind were turning.

"Shield is down to 29%, our Core is dangerously close to entropy!" Shouted one of the operators.

"I have an idea!" Iris said, her mind racing. "This Flagship is clearly Imperial by design, I don't know who is operating this thing or why they are firing at us, but I'm gonna try something. Operator, open a communication with the Flagship!"

"Uh, communication is now open, audio only, Captain."

Iris took a deep breath, then spoke. "Unknown Flagship, please cease fire. This is Lieutenant Colonel Iris Stjarna, captain of the Imperial Cruiser code name 'Coeurl'. We're members of the Imperial Fleet! I don't know who you are but I think you're fighting the wrong ship! In the Emperor's name please cease fire!".

An instant passed, and under Iris' inquisitive eyes, the operator confirmed that the message had been sent, but no responde had been received.

And yet, the artillery of the Flagship grew silent. As soon as Iris received the confirmation that the Flagship had stopped firing, she ordered the gunners to cease fire as well.

Time stood still as the two colossal warships simply stood there, almost orbiting a random planet from deep within the outer belt of the Empire.

No one dared speak inside the bridge of the Coeurl, as everyone feared that a single noise could resume this battle.

"Captain, incoming transmission, audio only!"

The speakers inside the bridge broadcasted nothing but static for a few seconds, then a rought, yet feminine voice emerged from them.

"I won't give you my name, or my ship name. What matters is that you're currently at my mercy. You've probably already noticed that I've deployed a Net. You can't escape. Lower your shield, and surrender, and I swear I won't destroy your ship. You have three minutes. After that, I'll let my plasma guns finish the job."

With that, the disembodied voice stopped and the speaker went silent. The communication was over.

"We are not going down without a fight! Gunners, fire at will! We still have an ace up our sleeve. Ready a tactical warhead." Iris snarled, anger warping her face.

As soon as the Coeurl started shooting again, the Flagship did the same. Plasma shot flew everywhere, brutally impacting shields, but still in spatial silence.

"Captain, if your plan is indeed to launch a warhead at the Flagship, I feel it's my duty to point out that both Foa-4 and our ship are way too close to the target. The blast, radiation and resulting EMP are going to hit us hard." The alarmed weapon operator insisted.

"Our shield will go down any second now, and we need it to handle the blast. And before you ramble something about Foa-4, I don't care! Ready that damn missile!" Iris growled, her eyes shooting daggers at the weapon operator.

"Very well. Warhead ready Captain."

"Fire!" Iris shouted, throwing her arm in front of her dramatically.

Iris watched the missile fly through outer space, time slowing down to a crawl. Even if the missile did damage the Flagship, the fight was very far from won. Iris knew that her weapon operator was right, this was a very risky move. As long as the Coeurl's shield was up, radiations were a non-problem for the Coeurl but they would be wreaking havoc on Foa-4. What Iris was afraid of was the blast. This close to the impact target it was going to be brutal. The Imperial Captain had no clue if what was left of her ship's shield was going to be enough to handle it, or if the Coeurl was going to be torn apart. And if they were still alive after that, the EMP was going to hit the ship seconds later. Technology had become resilient to that kind of event in recent times, but an EMP of that power was never good news for a spaceship.

After what felt like hours the warhead had covered half the distance between the warships. But suddenly the missile trajectory changed, slightly at first, then dramatically. It was now flying straight into nowhere, away from Foa-4 and both ships.

"What is going on? Where is my missile going?" Iris asked incredulously.

"We lost control of the warhead, I can't do anything!" The weapon operator answered, furiously pushing tapping his screen.

Iris started laughing maniacally. Their enemies were using Imperial technology against them. Of course the Flagship had some missile countermeasures, her own ship had some!

"Captain, shield is at 4%!"

"Captain, the Flagship is sending boarding ships!"

Iris couldn't hear what her crew was telling her anymore. She saw her life flashing in front of her eyes. Her childhood, her student years, her duties. She could not accept this fate. How could it end like that! This was so unfair. She was the Imperial Ship Captain Iris Stjarna, her life was not meant to end here, in orbit of that stupid planet, hunting down that stupid pirate.

"The shield is down! The hull won't last long!"

As the shield went down, the Flagship reduced its firing rate, still battering the Coeurl with plasma, but almost carefully now.

"Captain, we have breaches in multiple sections and multiple decks! The ship is depressurizing!".

Iris stood there, watching her crew looking at her with hopeful eyes, expecting her to have one last trick, one last brilliant idea that would help them all. But she had nothing. In front of certain death she was nothing.

She saw the head of security, a tall, burly man, running towards her. She watched, sheepishly, as he slammed the butt of his rifle on her head.

She fell to the ground, and her world faded to black. The man who knocked her out yelled instructions, trying some desperate moves, maybe hoping to save the crew of the ship.

"You! Close every damn door in this damned ship! You! Conta_t the e_emy sh_p, te_l th__ w_'re sur__nder_ng un_dition_ly. Be_ th__ to sp__e y___ life __ y_u n___, b_t m__e t___ STOP FIRING! __'__ ___ d____ ____.".

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Jay was standing in the cargo bay of the Coeurl, a ship he had very recently acquired. His crew was busy loading crates after crates of materials inside cargo ships.

His queen approached him from behind, Jay acknowledging her presence with a nod. They stood side by side for a few minutes, observing the intense activity in the bay.

Then Jay spoke. "Did we get what we were looking for?"

"Yes we did. Well, they fired one of them, but we're currently trying to stop it. I'm confident we will be leaving this system with all eight of them." his Queen replied, her eyes still focusing on the outer space visible behind the forcefield keeping the bay pressurized.

"Then I guess this is a success, my Queen." he had to admit. While he disapproved of the whole operation, everything worked out nicely. In any case, he was not going to express his doubts there. This was neither the time nor the place.

"It is. We've got a new powerful ship and eight missiles mighty enough to shake the very foundation of this world. And I've got a new toy. One I'm gonna enjoy breaking." She commented, grinning. Kara was quite eager to get started with her new pet.

"So this was a petty revenge after all." Jay joked.

"Maybe." Kara said with a smile, before leaving Jay to his thoughts. After all, she had a guest, and it would be rude of her to not be there when she woke up.

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Hey,

Thank you for reading this non erotic chapter.

I felt like some context was needed here, so you'll get a double dose of author's notes.

I've been publishing my stories out of order here on Literotica. The Sea of Darkness is a story driven series of 8 chapters and one of my earliest works. While I gave this chapter a facelift to get rid of the most egregious things, you may notice a drop in quality compared to some stuff I have already published here. Despite this, I wanted to publish it because The Sea of Darkness is the story I'm the most fond of, for various reasons.

By the time you read this, the second chapter will be in the publishing queue, so please bear with me, I swear there's sex in the next one :-).

My original notes are below for posterity.

Hey,

Again, thank you for reaching this far into the story.

There was supposed to be more backstory for both Kara (the queen) and Iris (the imperial captain), but as a scifi fan I went a little overboard with this chapter. At some point I realized this was supposed to be a porn story and that I should probably be writing, well, porn. So I removed some stuff from this introduction, which is still way too long, and still pornless. (there's slight nudity)

I tried to go for a small jebait. I wanted the reader to think that Iris (and the empire) was the good guys in this story but that didn't lasted long as the first paragraph already has mention of slavery, propaganda and brutality. Spoiler alert, there are no good guys in this story. There's winners and losers.

Next chapter will be mostly smut, hopefully.

As always, feedback and comments are much appreciated.