Solar System Imgarl (Uninhabited)
Imgarl VI
The initial pulse was enough to utterly devastate the nearest moon, as a single blast tore the crust off the stellar object, destabilizing the orbit. Rock and stone we blasted into space, roaring out with the fire of passing through the weak atmosphere, though they slowed quickly, tumbling, and began to return. The remains of the moons dove toward the gas giant, diving into a growing storm of fire where the hydrogen in the atmosphere ignited. For several minutes the blazing storm raged, covering several thousand square kilometers of the gas giant, releasing exotic particles that had no natural place in the empty solar system.
The second event was even more spectacular. An instant of gravitational distortion gave way to a suddenly massive warship hurtling out of the side of the planet, trailing fire and wisps as it tumbled away from the planet's gravitational pull. Sections of the ship still burned from old battle damage, with fires blazing until the hydrogen of the planet had burned away, leaving only the relatively small fires where oxygen leaked from the craft. Hundreds of smaller craft clung to the outside of the massive warship, and next to it, another, much smaller battleship tumbled helplessly, captured in the gravity well of the gas giant, and carried back into the heart of the planet to meet its end.
The mighty ship bore lesser craft all across its hull, some sealed against it, while others clung, destroyed, by one or two lingering grapples that stubbornly clung to the hull, leaving them to knock like bone rattles against the armored sides of the ship. Many were full of corpses, with their atmosphere leaked, and holes blown through them, bodies slowly trailing out the hull breaches into space. Some few others actually showed lifesigns, as what appeared to be humans lived, moved about, and, by all appearances, fought.
Scans showed lifesigns still swarmed over the ship, as if the battle from long ago still lingered within the hull of the lost behemoth, and weaponsfire, while not constant, was still common as the Spirit of Man tumbled toward the edge of the solar system, unpowered. Several sections of hull were dead quiet, where the defenses of the ship had been disabled and power failed to fill the sectors. Despite this, despite the gaping holes in the hull, much of the ship was intact. Heavy doors had slammed down, keeping the atmosphere breathable. A largely undamaged sector of the ship carried hydroponics, a veritable forest now that had overgrown most of the deck and supported a limited ecosystem. Many of the halls in the area were damp, coated with water, and plants had begun to make their way out of the hydroponics bay.
The reactor still powered much of the ship, keeping the defenses active, the lights on, and the air warm enough to live in. It shuddered, power inconsistently applied in ways that sometimes caused the aging FTL drive to halfway activate, fighting against the loss of power. Shields flickered uselessly, but somewhere in the ship, the computer at its heart still gathered information.
The first to arrive barely knew what they were getting into. Drawn by the anomalies the Spirit created, the pirate ship Bilgerat appeared from FTL not far from the behemoth. They seemed almost sisters, in the battle damage they had endured, but where the Bilgerat suffered from older damage, the Spirit seemed like it had taken fire in the last 14 months. Her injuries were 'fresh', and only minor damage control had been completed. The Bilgerat had seen repair after repair, with one of her four docking arms disabled and hanging off like an atrophied limb. Scorch marks and hull breaches had been carelessly repaired to keep the ship working, with parts stolen bearing the markings of several nations.
It held more than a few weapons, mostly energy weapons, but the three docking arms were the first to go active. Two small dropships pulled away, while a smaller assault craft shot off the docking arm. The massive ship, as old as it was, remained silent for some time, but the reactor warmed as the ships neared, and the gun turrets that had sat so idle for so long began to turn. The emptiness of space made the slow turning of the guns seem ponderous, as if they were unable to keep up with the strike craft, and the massive scale of the warship fooled the mind into thinking that the guns which now rotated to face them were small.
Point defense weapons capable of gutting most destroyers of its time came to life, white bursts of light marking the release of rounds, dots in the eyes of those who made the dash to the ship. The cold darkness of space hid the desperation of the run, a gamble that the pirates took frequently to get their largest prizes. Today, they made it, their ships diving into the hull and clinging like barnacles on an old wooden ship's hull, lost in the sea of wreckage. It's job done, the pirate ship backed away from the weapons, waiting for the call to collect its prize.
