In The Darkness

Posted on 01 Dec 2018 @ 3:16pm by Commodore Harvey Geisler & Commander Jayla Kij

336 words; about a 2 minute read

Mission: The Kalisa Conundrum
Location: Space
Timeline: MD01 || 1230 hours

It was obvious that whenever someone arrived in the Kalisa system that they were there for one reason and one reason only: to get to the archive. While the Black Hawk remained stationary well outside of the defensive system's range, the crew of the Federation starship had done little, if anything, to recognize the massive debris field that surrounded the outer rim of the defensive grid. There had been so many attempts to enter that the debris had somehow found itself in a slow and sparse orbit. Hulks of starships and bulkheads lay adrift, trapped in a slow tumble as it brushed by the grid, each a relic of a forgotten war or attempts at piracy.

All of those hulking bits of metal had attracted a certain microscopic species accustomed to living in a vacuum. They did not typically congregate in such numbers, but the sheer volume of space debris had attracted them and provided ample food for them to multiply almost completely unchecked. Unseen, they crowded almost every single surface in the debris field.

And now, some of them had taken notice of the new surfaces just begging to be populated. Thousands of them had abandoned their perches and were even now drifting invisibly towards the uninhabited bit of metal that had just arrived. Soon, they would have a new home.

The shields erected around the large vessel would have no effect as they were tuned for polaron fire and projectile weapons, not microorganisms of this magnitude. Its sensors were locked forward, watching, waiting, for something to happen in the minefield. They, too, were set for much larger objects. So, the microscopic organisms passed through shields and sensors without anyone even noticing and began settling on the hull, quickly spreading out, enjoying the luxury of an empty surface for the first time in a long time. By this time, thousands- perhaps millions- more had begun to drift across space towards the new object. Soon, it would be as crowded as the rest of the debris...

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