Distant Hope

CHAPTER 3 - IQUAN MONITORING STATION

"Did you see the football last night?" Captain William Tebbit shouted to Lieutenant Izan Yulen a human from Earth.

The Lieutenant smiled I know Mars beat Earth again. Its the third time this year."

Captain Tebbit smiled "You still owe me twenty Peridima sagnets for the trouble."

The Lieutenant smiled and gave her cash "You win."

They both walked to the operations room an area of the station that monitored the Iquan there was only the two on board and it was a remote posting far from Alliance worlds.

The Lieutenant sat at her station to check the mornings activity she looked to the Captain "Their is still the Alliance world cup up over the next few months. Earth will win against Mars."

The Captain looked to her lieutenant and shook his head. Before he could say anything the lieutenant looked to her large glass screen "That’s odd."

Captain Tebbitt looked to her with narrowed green eyes "Whats odd."

She looked back to him "Iquos is quiet. There is no energy spikes coming through at all."

The Captain looked to the lieutenant "Are you sure."

He wondered over to the lieutenants console and he ran a diagnostic thinking one of the sensors had malfunctioned, they weren't.

Izan looked to her Captain "I'll check through last nights records."

She quickly cycled through the logs and noticed that Iquos had gone quiet at 04:06 the previous night.

The Captain knew this was unusual and he knew what to do knowing from history that the Iquan were capable of great deception. As he walked over to the communications terminal an alarm pinged citing an incoming ship.

Izan checked the screen "Its a resupply ship the Avenger, a trading vessel owned by a Lisa Hanson of the Wovan Trading Syndicate. It is scheduled to dock in half an hour."

The Captain shook his head "Of course, of course the Avenger is due."

Then a second alarm sounded the fluorescent lights of the station dimmed and a loud klaxon sounded indicating there was an incoming ship with weapons.

The Captain looked to the sensors to see three fighters of an unknown alien design close to the station. The ships hovered for several minutes.

The Captain knew the station was armed with plasma cannons but they were not powerful enough to take on three fighters.

Lieutenant Izan looked to the screen "I can't make any sense of their ships our sensors cannot penetrate there hulls."

The alien fighters started to open fire. They where arranged in a triangular formation and within minutes the station was ablaze and the Captain had offered the stations surrender. Lieutenant Izan had died from an exploding console. Realising his imminent death he fired a probe into space containing the stations data.

Soon the station was of pile of metallic fragments and the three alien fighters disappeared towards hyperspace.