Deep Space
Spemin Empire
The Shanghai

The idea was a fairly simple one. Taking a space shot through Spemin territory in an Interstel ship was a guaranteed firefight with every Jell-O bowl inside communications range. But worked in tight under the keel of the Gazurtoid warship, Belfast Windfall wouldn’t register on anything but a narrow beam scan from close range. Out of sight, out of crosshairs.

Leghk technology or not, ‘allies’ or not, the Spemin still kept a healthy distance from the Gazurtoid arks that occasionally drifted through on their way to who knows where. That was Belfast Windfall’s ticket to the far side of the Spemin Empire: look like the Gazurtoid. The Shanghai gunned uncontested across space, the bass thrum of her engine core reverberating through the warship’s frame.

Deep Space
Spemin Empire
Spemin Cruiser Mplonk

“Humans! Ha! Close in on that signal,” ordered Captain Glushbah of the Spemin Death Fleet as he speared a plump leach from the bowl with his spiny antennae. Glushbah plunged the squirming creature under his gelatinous epidermal layer where digestive acids immediately went to work. “The worthless vertebrates will make excellent slaves in the Bemfblunk baths,” chortled the witty overlord, prompting an uproar from his bridge crew. “Play the message again,” he demanded, quivering with syrupy glee. The distress call crackled through the static.

“...to any Arthenean or allied vessels in range, this is Captain Zell Shanera of the ISS Battaran. We are drifting critically damaged well inside Spemin territory. Request immediate armed assistance. To any Arthenean or allied…”

The message looped.

“They will bow before your splendid magnificence, my lord,” assured the first officer as the Mplonk vectored on the source of the signal. At full throttle, the mass-produced cruiser approached the source of the signal and armed its weapons.

“Optical scan range,” reported the science officer, calling up a schematic picture of the damaged vessel on a holo projector. Glushbah hooted with joy, seeing an entire engine nacelle torn clean off and heavy beam damage scarring the vessel’s spine and the bow wings. Mplonk covered the final distance to its quarry, the crew laughing and bragging the entire way.

Then, just before ISS Battaran came into visual range, the data stream feeding the holo projection blinked out and the distress signal gave way to dead air.

“What was that?” screeched Glushbah. “Where have they gone? Give me visual!” The main viewer showed nothing but a blank starfield. “Bring us to the projected location—they must have detected us coming. It won’t do the doomed weaklings any good to hide,” said a slightly less buoyant Spemin overlord. Finally, Mplonk was hovering over a small contraption, not more than two cubic meters of black metal with a
small red strobe light. “Wait—that’s no Human ship!” bleated Glushbah, broadcasting his keen revelation across the bridge.

The decoy was a masterful piece of engineering, able to feign the presence of an actual vessel at remarkably close range. In a rare insight, it vaguely occurred to the first officer to haul the decoy aboard and find who had left it and why.

But that’s when the blinking decoy stopped blinking.

It exploded in a white chemical flash, ripping a full module and its connecting supports off the cruiser. By the time the wild panic on Mplonk had subsided and the damage was contained, several other Spemin vessels had arrived in search of the crippled Interstel vessel.

Further outward, and lighter by one decoy transponder, the Jussru sliced through the void, following a path toward the grey twilight of the Uhlek Badlands.

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Next: “ Concealment” The Jova Lounge: Home of the Heroes and Villains