Sterbelicht - One Sacrifice At A Time Against The Galaxy (40K)

"Captains Log:
19th Day of the 5th Rotation of the 1111th Year after the Day of the Archangels."

"Oh Martyr, please tell me she isn't doing what I think she is doing," Derdak mumbled, hunching over their console as they tried to put the cheesy speech of Starshine (a very typical colonial name, if there ever was one) out of their mind by focusing in work. Unfortunately for them, it did not work.

"We have arrived at the system's edge aboard the 'Second Try' after completing the tests and run-down cruise of both him and his engines, particularly the Miracle Drive."

Maf chuckled nervously, leaning over to nudge the priest in the arm with his elbow, the whirr and whizzing of his hand-mounted manipulators humming angrily as they tried to compensate for the sudden movement. "Be glad you only had to hear this a few times. I had the pleasure for two decades."

"Though the issue of minor auditorial hallucinations persists whenever the Miracle Drive is in use too frequently, no harm has come from it in the last eight years. And in case something goes wrong with the drive, Chief Engineer Maf is fully qualified to repair it on his own," Captain Starshine continued unperturbed to the chuckling of said engineer and the muttered grumbling of the priest as she floated before the viewing screen at the front of the bridge.

"Martyr, please let there be no issues," Maf chuckled, "I don't think I could handle her 'Logs' if that'd happen."

"Dunno, seems like fair play to me, as you are plenty willing to let her handle your 'Log,'" Master Gunner Urkon said, grinning at the chuckling Yeen to a round of amused snorts.

"And so, with a skilled crew and the gathered well-wishes of all Yeeni-kind behind us, we will begin our mission once we spin up the drive: to set out into the Tyrant's Tooth System and find out what happened to the 'Bold Explorer' and his crew, and recover any additional information from the likely wreck it has been turned into so we can continue her mission: seeking contact with the Winged Watchers." Captain Starshine continued her log, unbothered by the ribbing of her crew around her. Not that it was hard, as the mention of the Winged Watchers had caused a hush to fall over the four Yeeni out of twenty-seven on board.

Few knew all the information gathered about their visits, which were first noticed several decades ago, and fewer had had the privilege of listening to the singular recorded instance of their speech. Captain Starshine was one such individual, and neither had done anything to curb the burning passion to learn more within her soul.

It was a fact that there were Archangels soaring through the vast Worldspace above their small world, hateful beings who despised technology and delivered fire and death upon the innocent whenever they could. For so long, the history of the Yeeni had revolved around hiding from them and rebuilding whenever their burning gaze shifted from their homes and kin.

Until they didn't arrive when they should have, their dark forms were nowhere to be found within the system as their people crossed the upper threshold of technology and population long speculated to act as a trigger to summon these hated demons. Decades passed as their people advanced, rising higher and higher until they hurtled ships filled first with explorers and then pioneers and settlers to Gnaril. They dug deep and fast there, hoping to prepare future generations for the fight against the Archangels when they would inevitably come.

They...did not. Instead, their people continued to prosper and reach ever further into the Worldspace...until they discovered an Archangel Artifact.

A station, one captured by a passing probe, massive and domineering all ships they then had at their disposal. Its function was quickly determined to be that of a watcher, the equipment it used alien yet not too different from what technology may provide in a few centuries or millennia. All governments had quickly come together to create and launch a probe into the station to gather what information they could...only for the Winged Watchers to appear.

They sent a communication to the station, a few words in a language that none could even begin to decipher or translate, and then...ripped it apart with ease.

It was then that tragedy struck, as the ship of the Winged Watchers turned to head into the system proper, only to be hit by the probe. Spooked and likely believing it was an attack by a hidden weapons platform, they turned and fled. Fleeing through a portal of swirling energies.

They returned, of course, yet they never ventured into their home. They merely sat and listened for a few days before leaving, often not even long enough for a communication attempt to be made. They did so for decades, all the while people tried to gain their attention, yet their appearances were so random that any ship that may have been in the correct position to catch them the last time would be weeks of burning away when they appeared again.

Ever since they had destroyed the station of the Archangels, speculation had run wild, with most believing the most likely scenario: that the Winged Watchers and the Archangels were at war and that the borders had shifted to encompass their people from one faction to the other.

From those who burned and killed to those who watched and listened.

And if it hadn't been for a plague devastating their homeworld, a program to seed their entry point with communication satellites could have been started decades ago. Instead, the march of time and careful examination of records, data, and videos gave them another option: meeting the Winged Watchers as fellow travelers of the Worldspace rather than as ignorant children grasping at their elders for attention.

The creation of Faster-Than-Light Travel.
The creation of the Miracle Drive.

Starshine knew little of how it worked, but she knew enough to know that it 'skimmed' over a dimension of energy, or the underlying architecture of the universe, to propel the ship at speeds faster than light. This allowed the ship it was built into to traverse the distance between systems in a short year rather than multiple decades, as a trio of sleeper ships were attempting now.

Granted, there was a minor issue with auditory hallucinations when used too frequently, as testing had shown, but that was the price once paid when skimming over the foundation of reality.

But regardless of such musings...

"Helm," Captain Starshine said, grabbing a truss above her to push herself into her chair. Its harness swiftly secured her body as her mind spun free. "Please begin checks for FTL. We have dawdled enough, and an infinite universe is calling for us. Let us no-"

Space was torn asunder. Violent purple, white, black, and red lights cracked in mists and lightning before the 'Second Try,' two hulking behemoths of thick armor and bristling weaponry emerged from within and flanked the tiny ship.

Not a soul aboard the bridge spoke, eyes wide and shocked, ears flat against skulls and bodies frozen as the computer systems of the ship were showered in alarms of radiation and energies washing over the vessel. Massive weapon batteries painted their hull as two gigantic turrets swiveled to lock onto their suddenly too-fragile-seeming hull.

It seemed that their second mission had just finished: the Winged Watchers had made contact.

And they sent a message:
(6-Hour Moratorium)
[] (Write-In)

AN: I had ten hours of First Responder Training today. Have this, I'm going to sleep. Also, keep in mind that you don't have perfect translations for this species' language/s. Whatever you say will get mangled up. So, as the saying goes: "KISS."