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Description
Valkyrie
Maiden Voyage

By: Myst-Dragon

Chapter 3

For Rand, it was just another day on Ygvon. He'd been assigned to the station orbiting Kandar for just over a year, and while he liked the benefits of occasionally going down to relax on unoccupied islands, he couldn't help but dislike the planet's most widespread civilization. The Telran Empire had spread over most of their continent. Any men who resist are slain either on the field or in the arenas, while all of the Empire's women are collared slaves. Rand sighed as his supervisor walked up to his workstation. He asked, "Is there any good reason that we haven't inoculated the women, children, and few decent men, and the drop a pandemic on Telran's collective ass?"

"You mean aside from that being mass murder and Kandar not being our world?" The other man responded dryly.

"Isn't that better than letting the Telran Empire, continue as it is?" Rand asked. "Doesn't our refusal to stop them make us complicit?" The younger Asgardian was more serious than he'd ever been in his life.

"We came here to observe the people of Kandar," the supervisor said, beginning to sound irritated, "not to enforce our own morality on them."

Before Rand could respond, an alarm sounded throughout the station. Through the speakers, a voice said, "A Tao-Zhe worldtaker has entered orbit over Kandar. All hands are to armor up and prepare to repel boarders."

Rand couldn't believe what he'd heard as he and his supervisor ran to their lockers. "Why would they come to this rock?" he asked. "There's no tech for them to steal."

The supervisor had quickly put on the pieces of his armor, which were interlocking as he responded, barely hiding his nervousness. "They can only be here after the metal." After a moment's pause, he continued. "If it looks like they'll breach this room, then I want you to hide in the server room's maintenance tube with a datapad. We have to make sure that someone knows exactly what happened here."

In other sections of the station, the following scene repeated itself. A hole blown open on an outer wall would be followed by the appearance of a blue field to hold in the air as the pirates rushed in through the breaches. The average Tao-Zhe appeared as a four armed humanoid insect with their exoskeletons acting as body armor. The defenders, while still somewhat off balance from the explosions, were at least protected from the partial decompression by their powered armor. As the Pirates rushed through the breaches, the Asgardians managed to quickly respond with their rifles, firing pulses of charged plasma. Having no intelligence of their own, except for what a nearby commander gave them; the drones didn't care about those killed by the Asgardians. The Pirates even used their dead as shields, allowing them to overrun the defenders with their numbers and blasters.

The station's commander clenched his fists as he looked at the map on his screen and saw his people being overtaken by the Tao-Zhe. His dark hair, full beard, and piercing blue eyes, had helped him fit in more during surface excursions, but set him apart from many of the younger members of his crew. "At this rate it won't be long before they reach the Command Center," he said. "I want all databases locked down, with Loki's encryption, and the servers dimension-shifted to the vault."

"Yes sir," Trina responded as she began the procedure. Many of the men admired her, as much for her skills as they did for her fit figure and golden hair, in its thick braid.

"Olaf, did you manage to get a warning out to our people on the ground?" The commander asked in a voice of iron.

"Yes sir," Olaf said. The younger officer's heart was racing, but he did his best to hide his fear. The only sign of it being the way he would run his hands through his brown hair.

"We may not be soldiers, but they won't take us without their queens having to work overtime to make up for the losses." The commander's grim declaration put a smile on the face of every person assembled.

The Valkyrie stopped at maximum sensor range and Lt. Jenkins began conducting an active scan of the space around Kandar. It didn't take the operations officer long to detect the ship, now orbiting the planet. "Captain, there's a Tao-Zhe Worldtaker orbiting Kandar, and all I'm getting from the Asgardian station is their condition green signal."

Vale sighed. "Thank you Lieutenant. I want you to send your data along with my status report along to Rear Admiral Briggs." The young Captain then turned her attention to the tactical officer. "Archer, put us at condition yellow," she said." I want shields up and weapons hot. Lake, get us there full throttle. Jenkins, keep scanning. I want to know if they've sent any teams down to the surface or the station."

Each of the officers got to work on their assigned tasks as the Valkyrie slipped back into fold-space at full speed. Vale thought about the situation that she was throwing her ship into. Worldtakers were originally colony ships, before the pirates got a hold of them. At close to two thousand feet tall, their football shaped hulls are roughly twenty times the size of the Valkyrie, with almost half of the lower hull's surface covered in shuttle bays. While they had been outfitted with turrets and missile launchers, a worldtaker's primary defense was its heavy armor. Captain Vale opened a comm. channel on her chair's console and said, "Loki, I need you and the Norn sisters to come to the bridge."

"We're on our way," Loki said. His response came faster than she'd expected.

"Captain, do you intend to take on a worldtaker?" Lt. Jelak asked.

Vale gave her first officer a confident smile. "If we have to, then we can rely on the Valkyrie's maneuverability," she said, "but our primary concern is to save any Asgardians." She looked away for a moment and then turned back to Jelak. "I'm mainly going to play this by ear."

It wasn't long after that Loki made it to the bridge, followed by the Norn sisters. "I take it that your request for my company means that there's trouble on Kandar," he said.

"A Worldtaker is currently in orbit over Kandar," Vale informed the Aesir, appearing as confident as ever. "You wouldn't happen to have a device capable of using Kandar designed shields to disrupt the Tao-Zhe, would you, Loki?"

The mischievous Aesir grinned. "Well, Skuld has been spending her free time working on a man-portable prototype."

The youngest Norn blushed, fidgeting as many of the eyes in the room turned to her. "I... uh.... it should work," she said. "I just need a shield from Kandar's Telran Empire."

"Well, we'll just have to provide you with one then." Captain Vale smirked. She looked over to the Tactical Officer and said, "Archer, I want a team prepped in DTS room Four."

"I... I want to go down with them," Skuld said. "I think it would be best if I could set it up and test it onsite, given the probable circumstances."

"Well, if you think that's best," Vale said. "Anything else?"

"I think that it would be best if I accompanied her." Loki said. "After all, who would I be if I sat out a chance for fun?"

The Worldtaker's crude jamming became easier for Jenkins to cut through the closer Valkyrie got to Kandar. The readings he'd been getting made it clear that the station had been attacked, but he couldn't get a clear enough life sign reading until they were just under three minutes out. "Captain, I'm reading Asgardian life signs!" Jenkins called out excitedly. "One group in the command center, and an individual by himself. The pirates mainly seem to be patrolling around the main group."

"Thank you Jenkins," Vale said, feeling grateful for the update. "Lake, bring us to a stop in the blind spot for the worldtaker's weapons. What about the surface?"

Jenkins adjusted his sensors, based on the Worldtaker's position over the planet. "There aren't any detectable disturbances. I should be able to give a better answer once we're near orbit."

Lake soon brought the Valkyrie to a stop behind the large pirate vessel. After waiting for the other vessel's response, Vale finally said, "Got anything new for me Jenkins?"

The young officer quickly finished reviewing the new data on his console. "There are a number of shuttles down by a mine," Jenkins said. "I'm picking up fifty Tao-Zhe and twelve local bio-readings."

Vale rose from her seat, taking in a slow breath. "Open a hailing channel." After giving Jenkins a moment to follow her order, she said, "Attention Tao-Zhe vessel. This is Lieutenant Commander Katherine Vale, Captain of the Union Starship Valkyrie. Recall your forces from the surface and the observation station, and prepare to answer for your actions here."

After several moments, Lt. Jelak said, "I think, they're ignoring us."

"I feel insulted," Captain Vale said, ruefully. "Let's make them regret that. Lake, get us on the other side of Ygvon. That rock it's built into will provide cover. Archer, take out any pirate shuttles you see. Jenkins, have DTS rooms One and Two bring the Asgardians over and have a medic on standby in each one."

The crew went in to action, following their Captain's orders. The Valkyrie moved quickly into position, next to the large asteroid containing Ygvon. Once the ship's plasma cannons took out the nearby shuttles, Jenkins signaled for the Dimensional Transport System operators to bring the Asgardians over from the station. "Asgardians, safely aboard," Jenkins said. "The Worldtaker isn't responding."

"Jenkins, inform DTS room Four that I'll be joining the landing party," Captain Vale said, as she stood up. "Jelak, you have the bridge."

The Sillaran XO rushed after the captain, holding her tongue until they were both in the corridor. "With all due respect, Captain, are you out of your mind?"

Vale smirked and gave her friend a pat on the shoulder. "Relax," she said. "We'll go down there, get Skuld's prototype working, scare the pirates, and be back before dinner."

"I don't think, that you're taking this seriously," Jelak said. "The captain of a starship shouldn't be putting herself into unnecessary danger."

"Look Mira," Vale said. "I can handle myself on the ground, and I know that you can keep everyone up here safe."

"Fine," Jelak said. "Just try not to make a habit of this."

Vale's landing team was sent down to a point just out of sight of the Tao-Zhe raiding the mine, behind the cover of a large rock. While they were all equipped with portable shield generators, the five marines in the group were also equipped with power armor and rifles. Vale had a pistol. Loki held his staff. Skuld had her large jammer prototype strapped to her back. The apparent weight of the device on her back was a display of how strong even the weakest Aesir could be.

After looking around a corner of the rocky formation, using a scope, Vale turned back to the landing party. "Okay," she said. "Church and Tucker, you're fire team Charlie. Simmons and Griff, you're Bravo."

"I have a question Captain," Church said. "Who came up with these stupid call signs?"

"One: they were based on your personality profiles," Vale said with a grin. "Two: given the phrasing of your question, you really don't want to know the answer to it."

"What about Sarge?" Griff said, as he pointed to the marine that Vale hadn't mentioned. "Why doesn't he have a call sign?"

"That is his call sign," Vale answered. "Moving on. Sarge and the rest of us will be fire team Alpha. Bravo will attack from the north and Charlie will attack, simultaneously, from the south; while Alpha comes in from the east. Once we have one off the local's shields, Skuld can set it up on her jammer and drop any remaining drones."

K’lyk was an officer, one of the Zhe hatched with the ability to spread his consciousness out to and control nearby drones. For over a decade he has honed this gift from the queen that spawned his egg. As the drones under his command gathered ore into their shuttles, along with the drones of other nearby commanders, he allowed his mind the luxury of wandering. The primitive world that he was on made him think about how an alien shuttle making the mistake of landing in Tao clan territory, had given them the key to the stars. From there the strongest and most cunning clan of the Zhe, the Tao-Zhe absorbed or eliminated most of the other clans. The scattered nature of the other space faring species, at the time of their ascension, made stealing more ships, and eventually the tech to make their own maintenance facilities easy. Anyone who had what they wanted became their prey. His mandibles produced several clicks. A sound that is the closest his species comes to a chuckle.

He was pulled from his thoughts by his drones taking fire! To K’lyk’s credit, he didn’t allow his shock to prevent him from coordinating his drones to defend themselves. The drones were being fired upon by at least two unseen units armed with beam weapons. “Why didn’t Worldtaker 538 warn us about any enemy shuttles?” he asked himself. Nothing about this development made sense. Focusing so much attention on his drones, trying to see the attackers, he missed the small group sneaking in from the east.

Vale’s team moved in, taking advantage of the distraction provided by teams Bravo and Charlie. They moved to the nearest shuttle with a few dead mine guards. Skuld had already taken the prototype jammer off her back and begun clamping one of the shields to it by the time a group of Tao-Zhe drones spotted them. As the drones raised their rifles, Loki waved his hand and the team vanished in a puff of black smoke. The confusion expressed through the drones was short lived as red and green blaster fire ripped through their exoskeleton bodies. “I… I’m going to need a few minutes to make the final calibrations,” Skuld said.

“Take all the time you need,” Vale said. “We’ve got all day; right, Sarge?”

“Sure thing, Captain,” Sarge said, with a voice that sounded like he gargled gravel. “I live for using pirate blood as armor polish!”

“I can alleviate, at least, one concern,” Loki moved his hand again. This time, Skuld vanished from sight, and his body shimmered for a brief moment.

“That should be helpful.” Vale smirked. “Okay, let’s make sure the lady has some breathing room.” Vale and Sarge each moved to a corner of the shuttle, knowing that they were too close for anyone that might be inside to use its weapons on them. Vale was at the front corner, while Sarge was at the rear. Loki stood near the center of the shuttle’s outer wall, grinning confidently. As more of the pirates converged on their position, they each did well to put down any drone that wasn’t diverted by fire teams Bravo and Charlie. One unfortunate drone found that his well-aimed blast went harmlessly through Loki’s chest. The only effect being a ripple traveling across his body as if someone broke the surface of a watery reflection. The Aesir responded with a blast of emerald energy from his staff, putting a hole in the pirate’s chest. For her part Vale shot two of them between the eyes in rapid succession.

Back on the bridge of the Valkyrie, Jelak sat in the captain’s chair, lightly tapping her finger on the armrest; the main screen displaying the Worldtaker. “Lt. Jelak,” Jenkins called out. “I’ve got multiple Tao-Zhe shuttles preparing to launch from the Worldtaker.”

Jelak rose to her feet. “Lake, prepare to intercept,” she said. “Archer, I don’t want anything from that ship other than debris breaking the atmosphere. Jenkins, hail them again.”

“Channel open,” Jenkins said.

“Tao-Zhe vessel, this is Lt. Mira Jelak of the Union Starship Valkyrie,” she said. “You are threatening an underdeveloped world under the protection of the United Planets Confederation. This is the last time you will be told to stand down and surrender. Failure to do so will force us to resort to measures that you will not like.”

“They’re hailing us,” Jenkins said.

“Bring them up,” Jelak said.

The image of the Tao-Zhe soon appeared on the forward screen. While the cross of humanoid and insect features, disgust some, others might find it intriguing. “A Sillaran?” said the pirate, his mandibles clicking in amusement. “When humans could only sling trash into orbit, they were still more dangerous than when your own people gave us our first ships with barely any struggle. I don’t care about the demands of your ‘Union’, especially with a pitiful thing like you voicing them. Besides, we have guests aboard I know that you’d be loath to endanger the local primitives.” His mandibles made the familiar clicking noise again. “As the humans say, ‘Go screw up yourself.” The screen went back to viewing forward space as he cut off communications.

The bridge crew were certain they heard their Executive Officer growl. “If that’s the way he wants it,” Jelak said, “then that’s the way he’s going to shallen get it!” She barely kept herself from yelling every expletive she’d ever learned. “Archer, Lake, after we take down any shuttle they’re stupid enough to send out, we’re going to introduce them to the Harken and tear that ship apart, piece by shallen piece! Any problems?”

“No Ma’am,” both officers answered in unison. As shuttles began launching, Valkyrie went into action. Archer directed the weapon systems, disabling and destroying shuttles; as Lake flew the ship between the planet and the Worldtaker. The helmswoman varied the ships speed as well as using hard to track maneuvers to avoid most of the shots from the enemy vessel’s turrets.

Meanwhile, Vale and her team continued keeping the pirates busy as Skuld worked on her jammer. A shot, causing her shield to flicker, forced her to duck back for cover. Once her energy shield had recharged, she leaned back out from the corner to start shooting again. To her surprise, a pirate drone took a swipe at her neck. Her falling back caused the claw to scratch her neck instead of tear into it! She quickly fired a few blasts from her pistol into its abdomen, causing the drone to fall back: dead.

“Are you alright, Captain?” Loki called back.

“Don’t worry, my pants are still dry,” Vale said, blood dripping from her neck. She glanced over to where she believed the currently hidden Skuld was. “As fun as this is, I’d like to see if that thing works before we kill every pirate on site.”

As Captain Vaile returned to her cover and held a piece of cloth against her neck, she heard a strange whine and saw all of the pirate’s collapse. She then heard Skuld's voice. “I hope you don’t think that had anything to do with what you said,” the Norn said, as Loki rendered her visible again. “It was just timing.”

Vale was about to say something else when the shuttles’ engine’s fired up. “Damn,” Vale said, “the commanders!”

Skuld quickly pulled out a platinum disk with a blue stone in the middle, and placed against the side hatch. The stone turned red and the hatch opened. The commander got up from his seat and tried draw his pistol, but was stopped as Sarge put a hole in his chest, ending the career of K’lyk. The other shuttles managed to take off with their cargo.

As Vale looked around the shuttle, she saw a couple of people among the ore. “This is not good.” She sighed.

On board the Valkyrie, Jenkins looked at the new readings on his console. “Lt. Jelak, their shuttles are coming up from the surface,” he said. “It’s faint, but I’m getting non-Zhe life form readings from them, and the captain is calling for pick-up.”

Jelak closed her eyes and sighed. “Get us back behind Ygvon and bring them back.” Lake quickly complied, breaking off the assault on the shuttles that were returning to the Worldtaker.

Within a few minutes, Captain Vale made it back to the bridge with a hurried step. “Unless someone can give me a good reason for us not to,” she said, “we need to disable that ship’s engines and Dimension-shift the Kandarans out of whatever hold they’re in.”

Jelak raised an eyebrow as she noticed the bandage across Vale’s neck. “I was planning to do just that,” she said, “as soon as we finished preventing them from sending down more shuttles. The deserved irony seemed hard to resist. Well that and no one deserves to be their guests.”

“Archer, Lake, let’s end this,” Vale said, and the officers went to work. Lake moved the Valkyrie out from its cover and into position for the Harken cannon, which runs most of the ship’s length, to have a clear shot at the Worldtaker’s engines. Before Archer could fire the weapon, the enemy vessel went into Fold-Space.

“Lake, run them down,” Vale ordered. The helmswoman fired up fold-space drive and matched the pirate vessel’s course. It wasn’t long before they caught up with the larger ship. “Archer, fire the Harken,” she said.

Archer looked down at her console and was surprised that engineering hadn’t diverted power back from it for the engines. “Firing Harken,” she said, as she pressed the button and send a massive blast of energy from the underside of the ships nose to the rear of the Worldtaker. The large ship soon dropped out of Fold-Space, with the Valkyrie following.

“Lake, get us in close to their blind spot,” Vale said. “Jenkins, have as many DTS rooms as needed, move their Kandaran loot from their holds into ours.” She smiled as Lake and Jenkins followed their orders, and after a brief moment said, “Hail them.”

“Channel open,” Jenkins said.

“Tao-Zhe vessel,” Vale said, “since your engines appear to be disabled, a patrol group will be arriving soon to assist your ship to the nearest detainment facility. It is in your best interest to power down weapon systems and comply with any further Union instructions.” The enemy vessel responded by powering down their weapons.

Two days later, Captain Vale finished looking over a report, and looked at the screen on the wall, showing the planet below. She looked at the image, parading as a window, and a sardonic laugh escaped her lips. Kandar was fortunate for the Valkyrie’s arrival, but it was only a target because of an Asgardian discovery. She heard a knock on her office door, distracting her from her thoughts. “Enter,” she said.

Lt Jelak walked in and gave her friend a smile, as Vale turned to face her. “How’s your neck?” Jelak said. “I heard that Dr. Brenka couldn’t keep it from scarring, after all.”

Katherine Vale gave her friend a rueful grin and said, “He said that since I waited too long to see him, he would’ve been tempted to make me keep it as a reminder anyway.” She smirked. “Besides, I’ve heard some cultures find battle scars attractive, especially Asgardians. Mostly the woman, but I can still work with that on the side.” Vale gave a light shrug.

Mira Jelak shook her head burying her face in her right hand. “You’re incorrigible,” she said. After she managed to stifle a laugh she finally spoke again. “I hear that you and Loki have made a deal with the abductees.”

“We relocate them and some of their family still on the surface to an unclaimed land away from the Telran Empire,” Vale said, “and they teach the Asgardians their techniques for crafting shields.”

“Our people are doing a good job helping with repairs to Ygvon,” Jelak said. “The station should be back to business as usual soon, and from here on out there will be a regular patrol keeping an eye out for trouble.”

“We’ve got a great ship and crew here,” Vale said. “This has been some maiden voyage, don’t you think?”

Jelak grinned. “Let’s try to keep it up without relying too much on luck.”

Notes:
Dimension Transport System (DTS) also known as Dimension-Shift Transporter (DST):
The process is sometimes referred to as Dimension-shifting. The system works by creating a Dimensional pocket, where from the outside one half is around the target at the origin point and the other half is at the destination. From the inside it is on continuous bubble, and the target is shifted by the system operator from one side to the other. When the target is on the destination side, the pocket is dissipated.

Fold-Space Drive:
The original concept was to imagine a sheet of paper folded so that the starting point and destination are closer, effectively using a wormhole to get from one point to the other. This seemed to limit the ability to chase and for objects in "normal space" to affect ships in Fold-Space, so I went with a different way for the system to work. -/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\- Instead of a single Fold in Space, the Fold-Space drive system creates a series of folds in front of the ship. So instead of a Wormhole effect, I have Vessels travelling through distorted Space-Time.

United Planets Confederation (Union):
Shortly after a mysterious race helped fend off a Tao-Zhe attack on Earth and helped humanity rebuild, they introduced the humans to the Asgardians and Sillarans. Together they formed the United Planets Confederation for the purpose of working together in protecting their colonies and trade interests. At the signing of the Charter, a new era was recognized as United Planet Year 0, or more commonly U.P.Y. 0. Most people refer to the multi-world government simply as the Union.

United Planets Defense Forces (UPDF):
Formed as part of the United Planets Confederation Charter (Union Charter), the UPDF is made from United Planets Marines (UPM) and the United Planets Space Defense Force (UPSDF). Among the SDF, the 4th fleet was established as a diplomatic and exploration fleet primarily due to the urging of the Sillarans, but also with a number of Asgardians supporting it.

Zhe:
The Zhe are an Insectoid species that is primarily known for their piracy. They are normally referred to by clan and then species, separated by a hyphen. The Tao clan rose to dominance after capturing a Sillaran Exploration vessel. Most Zhe are assumed to be Tao-Zhe, since any other clan would need to steel a ship from the Tao and then slip by any other ships in the area. From lowest to highest, their hierarchy is: drones, officer/commander ranks, Queens, High Queen. The queens can control whether the makeup of the Zhe in each egg, with the ability to make the larvae to eventually become more insectoid, or more humanoid. They can also determine if the larvae will grow into a drone or an officer/commander. Officers/commanders are able to spread their consciousness out into drones to control them, mostly subconsciously. Drones are essentially mindless with only enough mental capacity for autonomous functions. When no officer/commander is controlling them, they go into a hibernation state. Drones are simply an extension of the officer/commanders and are considered expendable, especially with a lower ranked queen nearby to make more.

Description
Valkyrie
Maiden Voyage

By: Myst-Dragon

Chapter 3

For Rand, it was just another day on Ygvon. He'd been assigned to the station orbiting Kandar for just over a year, and while he liked the benefits of occasionally going down to relax on unoccupied islands, he couldn't help but dislike the planet's most widespread civilization. The Telran Empire had spread over most of their continent. Any men who resist are slain either on the field or in the arenas, while all of the Empire's women are collared slaves. Rand sighed as his supervisor walked up to his workstation. He asked, "Is there any good reason that we haven't inoculated the women, children, and few decent men, and the drop a pandemic on Telran's collective ass?"

"You mean aside from that being mass murder and Kandar not being our world?" The other man responded dryly.

"Isn't that better than letting the Telran Empire, continue as it is?" Rand asked. "Doesn't our refusal to stop them make us complicit?" The younger Asgardian was more serious than he'd ever been in his life.

"We came here to observe the people of Kandar," the supervisor said, beginning to sound irritated, "not to enforce our own morality on them."

Before Rand could respond, an alarm sounded throughout the station. Through the speakers, a voice said, "A Tao-Zhe worldtaker has entered orbit over Kandar. All hands are to armor up and prepare to repel boarders."

Rand couldn't believe what he'd heard as he and his supervisor ran to their lockers. "Why would they come to this rock?" he asked. "There's no tech for them to steal."

The supervisor had quickly put on the pieces of his armor, which were interlocking as he responded, barely hiding his nervousness. "They can only be here after the metal." After a moment's pause, he continued. "If it looks like they'll breach this room, then I want you to hide in the server room's maintenance tube with a datapad. We have to make sure that someone knows exactly what happened here."

In other sections of the station, the following scene repeated itself. A hole blown open on an outer wall would be followed by the appearance of a blue field to hold in the air as the pirates rushed in through the breaches. The average Tao-Zhe appeared as a four armed humanoid insect with their exoskeletons acting as body armor. The defenders, while still somewhat off balance from the explosions, were at least protected from the partial decompression by their powered armor. As the Pirates rushed through the breaches, the Asgardians managed to quickly respond with their rifles, firing pulses of charged plasma. Having no intelligence of their own, except for what a nearby commander gave them; the drones didn't care about those killed by the Asgardians. The Pirates even used their dead as shields, allowing them to overrun the defenders with their numbers and blasters.

The station's commander clenched his fists as he looked at the map on his screen and saw his people being overtaken by the Tao-Zhe. His dark hair, full beard, and piercing blue eyes, had helped him fit in more during surface excursions, but set him apart from many of the younger members of his crew. "At this rate it won't be long before they reach the Command Center," he said. "I want all databases locked down, with Loki's encryption, and the servers dimension-shifted to the vault."

"Yes sir," Trina responded as she began the procedure. Many of the men admired her, as much for her skills as they did for her fit figure and golden hair, in its thick braid.

"Olaf, did you manage to get a warning out to our people on the ground?" The commander asked in a voice of iron.

"Yes sir," Olaf said. The younger officer's heart was racing, but he did his best to hide his fear. The only sign of it being the way he would run his hands through his brown hair.

"We may not be soldiers, but they won't take us without their queens having to work overtime to make up for the losses." The commander's grim declaration put a smile on the face of every person assembled.

The Valkyrie stopped at maximum sensor range and Lt. Jenkins began conducting an active scan of the space around Kandar. It didn't take the operations officer long to detect the ship, now orbiting the planet. "Captain, there's a Tao-Zhe Worldtaker orbiting Kandar, and all I'm getting from the Asgardian station is their condition green signal."

Vale sighed. "Thank you Lieutenant. I want you to send your data along with my status report along to Rear Admiral Briggs." The young Captain then turned her attention to the tactical officer. "Archer, put us at condition yellow," she said." I want shields up and weapons hot. Lake, get us there full throttle. Jenkins, keep scanning. I want to know if they've sent any teams down to the surface or the station."

Each of the officers got to work on their assigned tasks as the Valkyrie slipped back into fold-space at full speed. Vale thought about the situation that she was throwing her ship into. Worldtakers were originally colony ships, before the pirates got a hold of them. At close to two thousand feet tall, their football shaped hulls are roughly twenty times the size of the Valkyrie, with almost half of the lower hull's surface covered in shuttle bays. While they had been outfitted with turrets and missile launchers, a worldtaker's primary defense was its heavy armor. Captain Vale opened a comm. channel on her chair's console and said, "Loki, I need you and the Norn sisters to come to the bridge."

"We're on our way," Loki said. His response came faster than she'd expected.

"Captain, do you intend to take on a worldtaker?" Lt. Jelak asked.

Vale gave her first officer a confident smile. "If we have to, then we can rely on the Valkyrie's maneuverability," she said, "but our primary concern is to save any Asgardians." She looked away for a moment and then turned back to Jelak. "I'm mainly going to play this by ear."

It wasn't long after that Loki made it to the bridge, followed by the Norn sisters. "I take it that your request for my company means that there's trouble on Kandar," he said.

"A Worldtaker is currently in orbit over Kandar," Vale informed the Aesir, appearing as confident as ever. "You wouldn't happen to have a device capable of using Kandar designed shields to disrupt the Tao-Zhe, would you, Loki?"

The mischievous Aesir grinned. "Well, Skuld has been spending her free time working on a man-portable prototype."

The youngest Norn blushed, fidgeting as many of the eyes in the room turned to her. "I... uh.... it should work," she said. "I just need a shield from Kandar's Telran Empire."

"Well, we'll just have to provide you with one then." Captain Vale smirked. She looked over to the Tactical Officer and said, "Archer, I want a team prepped in DTS room Four."

"I... I want to go down with them," Skuld said. "I think it would be best if I could set it up and test it onsite, given the probable circumstances."

"Well, if you think that's best," Vale said. "Anything else?"

"I think that it would be best if I accompanied her." Loki said. "After all, who would I be if I sat out a chance for fun?"

The Worldtaker's crude jamming became easier for Jenkins to cut through the closer Valkyrie got to Kandar. The readings he'd been getting made it clear that the station had been attacked, but he couldn't get a clear enough life sign reading until they were just under three minutes out. "Captain, I'm reading Asgardian life signs!" Jenkins called out excitedly. "One group in the command center, and an individual by himself. The pirates mainly seem to be patrolling around the main group."

"Thank you Jenkins," Vale said, feeling grateful for the update. "Lake, bring us to a stop in the blind spot for the worldtaker's weapons. What about the surface?"

Jenkins adjusted his sensors, based on the Worldtaker's position over the planet. "There aren't any detectable disturbances. I should be able to give a better answer once we're near orbit."

Lake soon brought the Valkyrie to a stop behind the large pirate vessel. After waiting for the other vessel's response, Vale finally said, "Got anything new for me Jenkins?"

The young officer quickly finished reviewing the new data on his console. "There are a number of shuttles down by a mine," Jenkins said. "I'm picking up fifty Tao-Zhe and twelve local bio-readings."

Vale rose from her seat, taking in a slow breath. "Open a hailing channel." After giving Jenkins a moment to follow her order, she said, "Attention Tao-Zhe vessel. This is Lieutenant Commander Katherine Vale, Captain of the Union Starship Valkyrie. Recall your forces from the surface and the observation station, and prepare to answer for your actions here."

After several moments, Lt. Jelak said, "I think, they're ignoring us."

"I feel insulted," Captain Vale said, ruefully. "Let's make them regret that. Lake, get us on the other side of Ygvon. That rock it's built into will provide cover. Archer, take out any pirate shuttles you see. Jenkins, have DTS rooms One and Two bring the Asgardians over and have a medic on standby in each one."

The crew went in to action, following their Captain's orders. The Valkyrie moved quickly into position, next to the large asteroid containing Ygvon. Once the ship's plasma cannons took out the nearby shuttles, Jenkins signaled for the Dimensional Transport System operators to bring the Asgardians over from the station. "Asgardians, safely aboard," Jenkins said. "The Worldtaker isn't responding."

"Jenkins, inform DTS room Four that I'll be joining the landing party," Captain Vale said, as she stood up. "Jelak, you have the bridge."

The Sillaran XO rushed after the captain, holding her tongue until they were both in the corridor. "With all due respect, Captain, are you out of your mind?"

Vale smirked and gave her friend a pat on the shoulder. "Relax," she said. "We'll go down there, get Skuld's prototype working, scare the pirates, and be back before dinner."

"I don't think, that you're taking this seriously," Jelak said. "The captain of a starship shouldn't be putting herself into unnecessary danger."

"Look Mira," Vale said. "I can handle myself on the ground, and I know that you can keep everyone up here safe."

"Fine," Jelak said. "Just try not to make a habit of this."

Vale's landing team was sent down to a point just out of sight of the Tao-Zhe raiding the mine, behind the cover of a large rock. While they were all equipped with portable shield generators, the five marines in the group were also equipped with power armor and rifles. Vale had a pistol. Loki held his staff. Skuld had her large jammer prototype strapped to her back. The apparent weight of the device on her back was a display of how strong even the weakest Aesir could be.

After looking around a corner of the rocky formation, using a scope, Vale turned back to the landing party. "Okay," she said. "Church and Tucker, you're fire team Charlie. Simmons and Griff, you're Bravo."

"I have a question Captain," Church said. "Who came up with these stupid call signs?"

"One: they were based on your personality profiles," Vale said with a grin. "Two: given the phrasing of your question, you really don't want to know the answer to it."

"What about Sarge?" Griff said, as he pointed to the marine that Vale hadn't mentioned. "Why doesn't he have a call sign?"

"That is his call sign," Vale answered. "Moving on. Sarge and the rest of us will be fire team Alpha. Bravo will attack from the north and Charlie will attack, simultaneously, from the south; while Alpha comes in from the east. Once we have one off the local's shields, Skuld can set it up on her jammer and drop any remaining drones."

K’lyk was an officer, one of the Zhe hatched with the ability to spread his consciousness out to and control nearby drones. For over a decade he has honed this gift from the queen that spawned his egg. As the drones under his command gathered ore into their shuttles, along with the drones of other nearby commanders, he allowed his mind the luxury of wandering. The primitive world that he was on made him think about how an alien shuttle making the mistake of landing in Tao clan territory, had given them the key to the stars. From there the strongest and most cunning clan of the Zhe, the Tao-Zhe absorbed or eliminated most of the other clans. The scattered nature of the other space faring species, at the time of their ascension, made stealing more ships, and eventually the tech to make their own maintenance facilities easy. Anyone who had what they wanted became their prey. His mandibles produced several clicks. A sound that is the closest his species comes to a chuckle.

He was pulled from his thoughts by his drones taking fire! To K’lyk’s credit, he didn’t allow his shock to prevent him from coordinating his drones to defend themselves. The drones were being fired upon by at least two unseen units armed with beam weapons. “Why didn’t Worldtaker 538 warn us about any enemy shuttles?” he asked himself. Nothing about this development made sense. Focusing so much attention on his drones, trying to see the attackers, he missed the small group sneaking in from the east.

Vale’s team moved in, taking advantage of the distraction provided by teams Bravo and Charlie. They moved to the nearest shuttle with a few dead mine guards. Skuld had already taken the prototype jammer off her back and begun clamping one of the shields to it by the time a group of Tao-Zhe drones spotted them. As the drones raised their rifles, Loki waved his hand and the team vanished in a puff of black smoke. The confusion expressed through the drones was short lived as red and green blaster fire ripped through their exoskeleton bodies. “I… I’m going to need a few minutes to make the final calibrations,” Skuld said.

“Take all the time you need,” Vale said. “We’ve got all day; right, Sarge?”

“Sure thing, Captain,” Sarge said, with a voice that sounded like he gargled gravel. “I live for using pirate blood as armor polish!”

“I can alleviate, at least, one concern,” Loki moved his hand again. This time, Skuld vanished from sight, and his body shimmered for a brief moment.

“That should be helpful.” Vale smirked. “Okay, let’s make sure the lady has some breathing room.” Vale and Sarge each moved to a corner of the shuttle, knowing that they were too close for anyone that might be inside to use its weapons on them. Vale was at the front corner, while Sarge was at the rear. Loki stood near the center of the shuttle’s outer wall, grinning confidently. As more of the pirates converged on their position, they each did well to put down any drone that wasn’t diverted by fire teams Bravo and Charlie. One unfortunate drone found that his well-aimed blast went harmlessly through Loki’s chest. The only effect being a ripple traveling across his body as if someone broke the surface of a watery reflection. The Aesir responded with a blast of emerald energy from his staff, putting a hole in the pirate’s chest. For her part Vale shot two of them between the eyes in rapid succession.

Back on the bridge of the Valkyrie, Jelak sat in the captain’s chair, lightly tapping her finger on the armrest; the main screen displaying the Worldtaker. “Lt. Jelak,” Jenkins called out. “I’ve got multiple Tao-Zhe shuttles preparing to launch from the Worldtaker.”

Jelak rose to her feet. “Lake, prepare to intercept,” she said. “Archer, I don’t want anything from that ship other than debris breaking the atmosphere. Jenkins, hail them again.”

“Channel open,” Jenkins said.

“Tao-Zhe vessel, this is Lt. Mira Jelak of the Union Starship Valkyrie,” she said. “You are threatening an underdeveloped world under the protection of the United Planets Confederation. This is the last time you will be told to stand down and surrender. Failure to do so will force us to resort to measures that you will not like.”

“They’re hailing us,” Jenkins said.

“Bring them up,” Jelak said.

The image of the Tao-Zhe soon appeared on the forward screen. While the cross of humanoid and insect features, disgust some, others might find it intriguing. “A Sillaran?” said the pirate, his mandibles clicking in amusement. “When humans could only sling trash into orbit, they were still more dangerous than when your own people gave us our first ships with barely any struggle. I don’t care about the demands of your ‘Union’, especially with a pitiful thing like you voicing them. Besides, we have guests aboard I know that you’d be loath to endanger the local primitives.” His mandibles made the familiar clicking noise again. “As the humans say, ‘Go screw up yourself.” The screen went back to viewing forward space as he cut off communications.

The bridge crew were certain they heard their Executive Officer growl. “If that’s the way he wants it,” Jelak said, “then that’s the way he’s going to shallen get it!” She barely kept herself from yelling every expletive she’d ever learned. “Archer, Lake, after we take down any shuttle they’re stupid enough to send out, we’re going to introduce them to the Harken and tear that ship apart, piece by shallen piece! Any problems?”

“No Ma’am,” both officers answered in unison. As shuttles began launching, Valkyrie went into action. Archer directed the weapon systems, disabling and destroying shuttles; as Lake flew the ship between the planet and the Worldtaker. The helmswoman varied the ships speed as well as using hard to track maneuvers to avoid most of the shots from the enemy vessel’s turrets.

Meanwhile, Vale and her team continued keeping the pirates busy as Skuld worked on her jammer. A shot, causing her shield to flicker, forced her to duck back for cover. Once her energy shield had recharged, she leaned back out from the corner to start shooting again. To her surprise, a pirate drone took a swipe at her neck. Her falling back caused the claw to scratch her neck instead of tear into it! She quickly fired a few blasts from her pistol into its abdomen, causing the drone to fall back: dead.

“Are you alright, Captain?” Loki called back.

“Don’t worry, my pants are still dry,” Vale said, blood dripping from her neck. She glanced over to where she believed the currently hidden Skuld was. “As fun as this is, I’d like to see if that thing works before we kill every pirate on site.”

As Captain Vaile returned to her cover and held a piece of cloth against her neck, she heard a strange whine and saw all of the pirate’s collapse. She then heard Skuld's voice. “I hope you don’t think that had anything to do with what you said,” the Norn said, as Loki rendered her visible again. “It was just timing.”

Vale was about to say something else when the shuttles’ engine’s fired up. “Damn,” Vale said, “the commanders!”

Skuld quickly pulled out a platinum disk with a blue stone in the middle, and placed against the side hatch. The stone turned red and the hatch opened. The commander got up from his seat and tried draw his pistol, but was stopped as Sarge put a hole in his chest, ending the career of K’lyk. The other shuttles managed to take off with their cargo.

As Vale looked around the shuttle, she saw a couple of people among the ore. “This is not good.” She sighed.

On board the Valkyrie, Jenkins looked at the new readings on his console. “Lt. Jelak, their shuttles are coming up from the surface,” he said. “It’s faint, but I’m getting non-Zhe life form readings from them, and the captain is calling for pick-up.”

Jelak closed her eyes and sighed. “Get us back behind Ygvon and bring them back.” Lake quickly complied, breaking off the assault on the shuttles that were returning to the Worldtaker.

Within a few minutes, Captain Vale made it back to the bridge with a hurried step. “Unless someone can give me a good reason for us not to,” she said, “we need to disable that ship’s engines and Dimension-shift the Kandarans out of whatever hold they’re in.”

Jelak raised an eyebrow as she noticed the bandage across Vale’s neck. “I was planning to do just that,” she said, “as soon as we finished preventing them from sending down more shuttles. The deserved irony seemed hard to resist. Well that and no one deserves to be their guests.”

“Archer, Lake, let’s end this,” Vale said, and the officers went to work. Lake moved the Valkyrie out from its cover and into position for the Harken cannon, which runs most of the ship’s length, to have a clear shot at the Worldtaker’s engines. Before Archer could fire the weapon, the enemy vessel went into Fold-Space.

“Lake, run them down,” Vale ordered. The helmswoman fired up fold-space drive and matched the pirate vessel’s course. It wasn’t long before they caught up with the larger ship. “Archer, fire the Harken,” she said.

Archer looked down at her console and was surprised that engineering hadn’t diverted power back from it for the engines. “Firing Harken,” she said, as she pressed the button and send a massive blast of energy from the underside of the ships nose to the rear of the Worldtaker. The large ship soon dropped out of Fold-Space, with the Valkyrie following.

“Lake, get us in close to their blind spot,” Vale said. “Jenkins, have as many DTS rooms as needed, move their Kandaran loot from their holds into ours.” She smiled as Lake and Jenkins followed their orders, and after a brief moment said, “Hail them.”

“Channel open,” Jenkins said.

“Tao-Zhe vessel,” Vale said, “since your engines appear to be disabled, a patrol group will be arriving soon to assist your ship to the nearest detainment facility. It is in your best interest to power down weapon systems and comply with any further Union instructions.” The enemy vessel responded by powering down their weapons.

Two days later, Captain Vale finished looking over a report, and looked at the screen on the wall, showing the planet below. She looked at the image, parading as a window, and a sardonic laugh escaped her lips. Kandar was fortunate for the Valkyrie’s arrival, but it was only a target because of an Asgardian discovery. She heard a knock on her office door, distracting her from her thoughts. “Enter,” she said.

Lt Jelak walked in and gave her friend a smile, as Vale turned to face her. “How’s your neck?” Jelak said. “I heard that Dr. Brenka couldn’t keep it from scarring, after all.”

Katherine Vale gave her friend a rueful grin and said, “He said that since I waited too long to see him, he would’ve been tempted to make me keep it as a reminder anyway.” She smirked. “Besides, I’ve heard some cultures find battle scars attractive, especially Asgardians. Mostly the woman, but I can still work with that on the side.” Vale gave a light shrug.

Mira Jelak shook her head burying her face in her right hand. “You’re incorrigible,” she said. After she managed to stifle a laugh she finally spoke again. “I hear that you and Loki have made a deal with the abductees.”

“We relocate them and some of their family still on the surface to an unclaimed land away from the Telran Empire,” Vale said, “and they teach the Asgardians their techniques for crafting shields.”

“Our people are doing a good job helping with repairs to Ygvon,” Jelak said. “The station should be back to business as usual soon, and from here on out there will be a regular patrol keeping an eye out for trouble.”

“We’ve got a great ship and crew here,” Vale said. “This has been some maiden voyage, don’t you think?”

Jelak grinned. “Let’s try to keep it up without relying too much on luck.”

Notes:
Dimension Transport System (DTS) also known as Dimension-Shift Transporter (DST):
The process is sometimes referred to as Dimension-shifting. The system works by creating a Dimensional pocket, where from the outside one half is around the target at the origin point and the other half is at the destination. From the inside it is on continuous bubble, and the target is shifted by the system operator from one side to the other. When the target is on the destination side, the pocket is dissipated.

Fold-Space Drive:
The original concept was to imagine a sheet of paper folded so that the starting point and destination are closer, effectively using a wormhole to get from one point to the other. This seemed to limit the ability to chase and for objects in "normal space" to affect ships in Fold-Space, so I went with a different way for the system to work. -/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\- Instead of a single Fold in Space, the Fold-Space drive system creates a series of folds in front of the ship. So instead of a Wormhole effect, I have Vessels travelling through distorted Space-Time.

United Planets Confederation (Union):
Shortly after a mysterious race helped fend off a Tao-Zhe attack on Earth and helped humanity rebuild, they introduced the humans to the Asgardians and Sillarans. Together they formed the United Planets Confederation for the purpose of working together in protecting their colonies and trade interests. At the signing of the Charter, a new era was recognized as United Planet Year 0, or more commonly U.P.Y. 0. Most people refer to the multi-world government simply as the Union.

United Planets Defense Forces (UPDF):
Formed as part of the United Planets Confederation Charter (Union Charter), the UPDF is made from United Planets Marines (UPM) and the United Planets Space Defense Force (UPSDF). Among the SDF, the 4th fleet was established as a diplomatic and exploration fleet primarily due to the urging of the Sillarans, but also with a number of Asgardians supporting it.

Zhe:
The Zhe are an Insectoid species that is primarily known for their piracy. They are normally referred to by clan and then species, separated by a hyphen. The Tao clan rose to dominance after capturing a Sillaran Exploration vessel. Most Zhe are assumed to be Tao-Zhe, since any other clan would need to steel a ship from the Tao and then slip by any other ships in the area. From lowest to highest, their hierarchy is: drones, officer/commander ranks, Queens, High Queen. The queens can control whether the makeup of the Zhe in each egg, with the ability to make the larvae to eventually become more insectoid, or more humanoid. They can also determine if the larvae will grow into a drone or an officer/commander. Officers/commanders are able to spread their consciousness out into drones to control them, mostly subconsciously. Drones are essentially mindless with only enough mental capacity for autonomous functions. When no officer/commander is controlling them, they go into a hibernation state. Drones are simply an extension of the officer/commanders and are considered expendable, especially with a lower ranked queen nearby to make more.