Thrynn Confederacy
Gazurtoid Frontier
Three space jocks in vacuum suits, a Gazurtoid warship and a shameful space cartplowed through a hazy twilight between space and sky over the jovian world. “Boz, this is the best spot to clamp it on,” said Nexbo, slapping the monstrous underside of the dreadnought’s hull. He, Boz and Yssk were tethered to the Yardbird, floating along just below their find. Boz lifted a hand and nodded weakly inside his helmet, generally unhappy with the notion of “extravehicular excursion.” Nexbo picked up on his queasiness:
“Who loves ya, baby?” Yssk hissed with glee before Boz became irritated and barked at them to shut up. Over a grueling five hours, the three detached the cylindrical contraption from its perch on the dorsal section of Yardbird and maneuvered it into place, where Nexbo had marked the Gazurtoid behemoth with a stick of chalk. Several meters across, the cylinder fit snugly to the curved hull, each of four clampls on the outside of the cylinder folding down to meet the metallic surface. Several explosive grip fasteners and a great deal of heavy welding later, the installation was complete.
“Alright,” said Boz, back on Yardbird’s cramped bridge, “let’s ease her up alongside this monster’s port flank...look for an entrance.” Sweeping a spotlight over the cold outer hull of the Gazurtoid ship, they found a small, improvised hatch some time later. The tramp runner docked precariously with the warship and the crew and the new Thrynn exiles crossed over with a few pallets of supplies and some light weapons. The hatch hissed open as the slight pressure differentials equalized. “Airbrethers, repent,” muttered Boz, a weak irony in his voice. The vessel was bone dry.
On the other side of the hatch was a dark spherical chamber of tarnished metallic surfaces and tubular passages leading to the rest of the vessel. The ship had been designed for the Gazurtoid, a species of squid-like creatures, apostles of a not-coming apocalypse. They were quite mad, and frighteningly powerful. On the bulkheads were a series of optical and computing devices, clear in their purpose, but alien in their operation.
Yssk set a case down on the deck with a thud and turned to the rest of the group. “Thiss is one of the Vell Bralisss Nova batch for certain--these...modifications.” Some time earlier, in Gazurtoid vessels fitted for use by air-breathers, the Thrynn had lashed out at Vell Bralis Nova, a city orbiting New Scotland. Making the ships suitable for use by non-aquatic creatures (by way of framing the Gazurtoid for the attack) must have been an engineering fight to the death. The crew was standing in the result.
Yssk gestured at the handiwork: superimposed awkwardly over this dry aquarium was an elevated catwalk network obviously meant for bipedal species. He led the others up the steps to the catwalk and fumbled with a switch box until a set of shoddy lights cast a grey light over the cavernous globe. Satisfied, Boz walked back to the hatch and pulled down hard on a T-lever and heard a loud, hollow chunk as Yardbird detached from the grand hull of the warship. Boz, Yssk and Nexbo, along with Grssn and the senator, walked into the bowels of their new ship, making their way to the bridge nearly a half mile away.
As the Yardbird drifted slowly away, on-board cameras dutifully recorded her surroundings. On the bridge, a monitor tracked the Gazurtoid ship in the murky soup of clouds and presently, well forward, practically on the leading edge of the warship’s bow, a new light blinked to life. Then, like a great beast raising itself from the ground, the ark pulled creakingly upward out of the clouds and into the cold space of a dark star.
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Next: “Split the Middle”