Chapter 5

Walking onto the bridge I looked around. Everything was exactly as I'd dreamed it so many years ago. I felt a cold shiver slide through my body at the realization that I was my own man. That no one could command my destiny. No one had the power to hold me in one place. Well, almost no one. Whoever this damn Captain was he sure as hell had me waiting.

Taking my place in the captain's chair I asked Chris to open a comm to my grandfathers home world.

"Sir, I've attempted to connect to your grandfathers private comm several times. No one is accepting the call."

Now that was strange, one of the bots should have answered, at least his estates AI. "Did you try the public comms as well Chris? Maybe they are having some problems."

"Negative Captain. Still unable to connect." Now I was really worried, but before I could commit any further thought Chris interrupted my thinking. "Captain, I have multiple contacts."

"It's about time, I was starting to get worried. Grandfather must have been messing with his system again. Put him on screen."

"Sir, that's not what I meant. I have multiple contacts appearing on screen. They're on the far side of the station. Captain, the design of these vessels are not in the database of registered spacecraft. I can only assume they are of an unknown origin. Also Sir, they are not responding to any station based F.O.F requests."

My body tensed as Chris' words rocketed through my head. "What are they doing? Christine, take the navigation. Start moving us away from the station. Keep us moving as slowly as possible." I was hoping we could escape in the shadow of the station if this turned out bad.

"There is a message coming through, it is in galactic standard. Audio only. Should I put it through Captain?"

Nodding my head in the affirmative I waited with baited breath. "Federation Scum, we are the Lians, surrender now and live in slavery or die in the cold harsh vacuum of space. You have one time unit to comply."

"Captain, they are forming into an attack position." This was getting worse by the second.

"Christine, increase speed slowly, try to make it seem as if were just space junk and bring our jump engine on-line. We may need to make a run for it."

"Sir, if we activate the jump drive too close to this systems star the gravity may cancel out the jump," Christine's worry showing on her face.

"I'm aware of that, I'm hoping that we can get a safe distance away without being noticed, so we can make a safe jump. If not, it may not matter and I'd rather die then to get forced into slavery." I'm not sure where that came from. Slavery had been banned by the Federation over 2300 years ago. I've never encountered it before so I wasn't sure why my feelings were so strong. They were though, and I saw no reason to change.

Just as the startup procedures began on the jump drive the armada before the station must have received an unfavorable reply. They rushed forward as the station opened what appeared to be all batteries.

We watched our screens and sensors as the missiles and lasers lanced forth. The resulting explosion was awe inspiring. But before the dust settled ships just slightly smaller than mine burst from the clouds left by the explosion. Lasers of their own lanced out causing the shields of the massive station to flare briefly before crumbling under the focused assault. The fewer but larger ships joined in as well. Their beams seemed to have no trouble punching holes into the station effortlessly. Air was leaking from the ever increasing holes forming in the hulls and I realized that the Federation as I knew it stood no chance against such wrath.

"Christine, bring all our engines on-line. Turn us around and get us the hell out of here. Whoever these guys are, they mean business and I mean to be out of here soon." Just then I noticed that three of the smaller vessels separated from the formation and headed right for us. The distance between our ships started to close a lot faster than I was comfortable with. "Chris, bring our rear shields on-line. Divert 50% of the forward shields to our rear shields as well."