The Dragon Maw Nebula, location of the Dominion Capital, Var'kara
Penitent Flame
Portent-class Destroyer
Dragon Maw Nebula
Ship Master Narshoon Vord rubbed his eyes as the ship exited the slipstream, tired but committed to seeing the ship enter Dominion holdings safely. He could sleep then.
It had been a violent shock to him and his fleet group - nearly sixty-two hours ago - to find a group of children on the hostile planet, living among the wreckage of a Trade Hulk's crashed carcass. It had been just them, a few of the crewmen of the Trade Hulk, a Necrian man whose ID brand had no record in any computer and a Kitsune male dressed in a little more than ill fitting and tied together tarps.
But it was finding young Sanjia Neerthan - daughter to the High Ship Builder Aunjh Neerthan, who had disappeared three weeks prior - that had been the culminating event. Though Vord had no intentions of accepting the reward Aunjh had offered for his daughter, it was hefty amount of rin.
Came from being one of the oldest Houses of the Dominion, but also as the genius engineer behind the new experimental Astra Drivers.
As they neared Var'kara, Fleet Command contacted the Ship Master.
The brief and harried conversation resulted in several major alerts and halts to incoming traffic and the Penitent Flame was allowed to access a civilian docking port, cutting out a military mooring and shuttle to Var'kara proper.
Within another few minutes, several commercial vessels were making way through the clouds of the nebula and the destroyer's comm crew was screening comms from media sectors.
Ship Master Vord sighed. Guess that sleep was coming a little later than planned.
As the destroyer dove through veils of red and orange dust, followed closely by its frigate complement, Sanjia Neerthan slid out of her bunk and dressed quietly in the spare, slightly bigger uniform of a ship's engineer. The other children had been given cots in a spare cargo space, but the Ship Master had insisted she rest in a spare bunk of his Chief Engineer.
Not that Sanjia had seen her at all. She had developed a report with the other children during the time they were stranded on the planet, their only hope of salvation the tachyon beacon on the Generous Child. They had gotten to know each other, and all of them had gotten to know Kazuki, the lone Xiscapian kitsune amongst them.
And all of them had gotten to train with their abilities.
Psychics... if one followed the teachings of Necrisis - the Old Scriptures from the First Era, at least - psychics were agents of evil, a tainted bloodline and the work of the Forsaken, the ones who strayed from the Path of Necrisis. Demons, evil magic, sinful power.
Of course, when the Emperor revealed himself as a Psychic and produced the New Scriptures, founded by the High Priestess herself, no one would argue with it.
But herself? A dozen others? Kazzi? To think that they all had psionic potential? That they could all move things with their will alone, read and feel the thoughts and emotions of others? Some of them could even manifest their energy into a 'solid' objects for a few moments.
Through all the nose bleeds and migraines, they smiled every time they learned a little bit more, understood another layer of their abilities.
Leaving the room on bare feet - she had always liked the feeling of cold metal on her skin - Sanjia hurried down the corridor to the holding cells.
There hadn't 'been enough room' for Kazuki with the others and had been put up in a holding cell deep in the destroyer's belly. Even with the energy barrier down, it was no place for her friend.
Nodding to the Royal Marines standing guard on the cell block, Sanjia ducked into the holding pen and tapped on the wall above Kazuki.
"Hey, bushy-tail." She winked as his eyes flashed open. "I wanted to show you home. Not something many aliens get to see, but they don't really know what to do with you, so let's enjoy their indecision."
The Portent-class Destroyer, though of an earlier design, was the basic chassis for her father's work, and in order to allow crews to adapt more easily to new posts, the basic layout was no different than a Gen-VI vessel. Sanjia had grown up on ships, built models in her spare time, created new ship designs in the rest of her time outside of her studies, tinkered with machines on the side.
As they took the freight elevator up to the observation deck on level 10+ ("The tenth level above the main spinal core of the Portent," she prattled on. "Less armor, mostly redundant systems or none important ones. Observation is where we get the best view though") Sanjia talked about the ship, too nervous to let silence rain.
"This has to be a Gen-II Portent. The aesthetic is very Templalic, but during its 'Golden Age' -literally- all ships were run directly by the Temple and the Emperor or Empress was actually closer to a Grand Priest, the head of Necroist Faith. You can still see some of the runes on the walls. The Portent Destroyer was actually the only ship besides the Arbiter-class Dreadnaught to have enough bulkhead space to carve out the entire Old Scripture. Seeing as no Arbiter vessels were constructed and nearly 68% of all Gen-II Portents are decommissioned, this could be one of... thirteen? Fourteen ships to have the Scripture all written into its walls. Older practice was for passages with a certain compunction to a field or post on a ship to be written in that space, to inspire the troops. Some older crewers still practice it and carve passages of the Scriptures - Old and New - into bulkheads. We have shrines on each ship for prayer now though." She turned to Kazuki, ignoring the three engineers riding the freight with them - their faces a combination of concern towards the kitsune and confusion or surprise towards Sanjia - and continued without actually seeing him. "These old capital ships have so much retro-fitted hull that the plating we are standing on could be well over a thousand years old but the outer hull be younger than either of us. Same for the anti-matter cores. While they have been upgraded, the fittings and decorative portions are still older than a dozen lifetimes."
The Necrian aesthetic did seem to touch everything, and even though Kazuki was likely unfamiliar with any Necrian architecture or aesthetic, it was obvious that the military hardware and operation of the vessel was veiled beneath a sense of please form and look. While the surfaces were gunmetal grey or various hues of such, they were smooth, almost seamless. Reds and crimson purples decorated a lot of the passages and a brief flash of red around a door signaled that it was about to open. Though there was a strange gold streak that ran, unbroken, though the corridors, marked or worn with markings.
The Observation room was no different. A simple dome at the crown of the ship, the deck was large enough for a hundred individuals shoulder to shoulder. As it was just Sanjia and Kazuki, they had the whole space to themselves in the cold, uninsulated room as the brilliant reds, yellows and oranges of the Dragon Maw Nebula flooded them, bathing them in golds and crimsons.
"I know that a lot of things like this are seen as strange luxuries by other fleets," Sanjia said, starting to blather again, her nerves getting the better of her. "But aside the fact that the dome is well above the common weapon damage line, the floor under us is pure hull plating, as is the one-way plating above us."
She smiled as the destroyer plowed through one last column of dust, its shields flaring a little, and Var'kara itself came into view.
In fact, Var'kara didn't look like much on the outside. At their distance, it was but a single, greyish red planet, though certainly larger than any planet had a right to be and still be called home by a frail race like the Necrians.
Yet, as they got closer, Kazuki would be able to see that it wasn't the surface of the planet he was viewing. The surface was studded with kilometer long spires, buildings, shipyards and docking yards that could fit several destroyers, cruisers and frigates before being moved on. The massive Trade Hulks could even dock against the spires, smaller shuttles zooming about like flies.
They went closer, the frigate flotilla breaking off to their own berths as the Penitent Flame descended to hers. Around them, stretching for what seemed like kilometers, were docking platforms, massive coolant systems that boiled with visual ripples. Ships of all sizes and shapes flew around and departed, even as police authority corvettes started to circle the destroyer.
Dozens of ships skimmed the docks, media vessels with powerful lights, a few headed off by police ships, as the magnetic mooring gripped the destroyer and the whistles sounded.
Sanjia turned to Kazuki. "How's it feel to be the first alien to set sight on Var'kara?"
