FAN FICT: Talon

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saracen16

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saracen16

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12 years ago

Feb 14, 2013, 10:51:08 PM

This is my final instalment in the three-part series that includes Meteor and Azure. It's titled "Talon"... for obvious reasons. It will be subdivided into several parts. Here's the first one.

Hyperspace never gets old, bemused Avatar Malaki Greentail thinks to himself as the Roc-class dreadnought Accipiter sailed on the last cosmic string in his journey to the Typhon system. He sits on a command chair overlooking his subordinates working at their stations, frowns at the holographic console on his armrest. He taps it, replaying the distress call his ship picked up a few weeks ago from the Typhon system. Drumming his fingers on the armrest, his other hand on rubbing his feathery temples, he ponders on the fate of the worlds there, the image of a huge Craver fleet hovering over the dead husks of planets sucked dry of all life and resource flashing in his mind.

His focus, however, is not on the planets.

Greentail is a Hissho elder. His avian - no, raptor-like - features reflect the predatory nature of his race, his clothing their tribal culture that resembled what the ilk of the United Empire called the long-dead Aztec empire. His people hold that they were descended from a primitive avian species native to their homeworld.

What scares many Hissho is the prospect entertained by several historians in the galactic academic circles: that they may actually be the product of a twisted evolutionary experiment gone array. With the discovery of ancient ruins of what appear to be genetics laboratories, aviaries, and artifacts resembling the ancient Aztec culture of old Terra on the largest moon of the Hissho homeworld, the suggestion of the Endless having played a role in guiding their evolution is ever more frightening.

Still, Greentail, and most Hissho, shrug this off. He, like most of his brethren, view the other races the way an old British monarch would a manservant: with a disdain bred out of self-held beliefs of innate superiority. Their brutish ways ensured that they would war with each other almost constantly before they joined in a crescendo of battle cries that they would take to the heavens. In turn, their gods demand blood, those of their enemies, or their own.

It did not matter what enemy Greentail fights.

As long as it bleeds.

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jpwang99

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jpwang99

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12 years ago

Feb 15, 2013, 1:28:52 PM

O.o Can't wait for the coming up parts! Keep up the amazing work!

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Tredecim

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Tredecim

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12 years ago

Feb 16, 2013, 12:02:55 AM

Nice, well written!

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saracen16

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saracen16

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12 years ago

Mar 7, 2013, 1:05:31 PM

Greentail shifts his view to his subordinates, all occupied with some task or other, punching in telemetry numbers and checking onboard systems, although more than usually would be the case had this not been the Accipiter's maiden voyage, which it was. With Hissho scientists having only recently gained access to weaponized Dark Energy, the Accipiter bristles with the latest in laser, ballistic, and missile armaments. When word about the Craver incursion reached Hissho space, the pre-flight checks on the Accipiter were hastened on order of the Royal Navy.

A good thing, too, Greentail notes, for a trial against a relentless foe such as the Craver Swarm is fitting for testing the new limits of firepower the Hissho have achieved. All systems, a technician told him earlier, were nominal as of before the jump through the cosmic string. Now, another subordinate, the helmsman, voices to the Avatar. "Lord Avatar, we have arrived in the Typhon system. Pulling up viewscreen."

The window's opaque filter turns off, revealing an almost barren husk of a planet pockmarked with flecks of char and green. The wreckage of a Sophon frigate drifts lazily across the screen. Greentail's lower beak drops, gasping at the name of the planet on the IFF.

Typhon Secundus, Depleted.

"Sir, you will want to see this."

Orbiting the husk of a planet is a large fleet of twisted ships, hulls of decaying metal glinting against the blue light of Typhon.

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saracen16

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saracen16

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12 years ago

Jun 2, 2013, 4:43:15 AM

One more part after this...

The magnified hulls of the Craver ships on the vid screen yields a horrifying discovery: besides being tended to by Craver swarms orbiting these monstrous hulks, the ships themselves were assembled from the scavenged remains of what appears to be Sophon technology. A shame, Greentail thought, that such powerful workmanship ends up with these bugs. Still, he relishes the moment, for a Craver ship is manned by an even larger crew than the average Sophon battlecruiser, and bristles with more nefarious firepower. And more crew means one and only one thing to Greentail

More blood.

"Forward batteries, arm pinch guns and photon torpedoes. Stand ready for my mark." Punching the fleet-com, he barks, "All ships, line abreast! Anterior wing, launch fighters and load ultradense slug munitions. Guardian frigates, arm flak cannons." He ushers the helmsman to advance slowly through the debris field, keeping his eye on the vid screen showing the Annihilator-class dreadnought at the head of the Craver fleet. The Avatar always enjoyed the thrill of command, perhaps a little too much according to the paltry few of the crew who joined the Accipiter 2 months before the main contingent. He even went as far as to consider himself the Accipiter, his crew members merely the swords, shields, eyes, and ears through which he projected his wrath.

Suddenly, movement on the vid screen. The Annihilator dreadnought turns, at almost breakneck speed, towards the debris field and frighteningly accelerates towards the Accipiter and the main fleet, apparently on a collision course and gaining fast.