Special Reportfrom the Truane News NetworkPSS Chiara Attempts ContactWe go now live to coverage of the PSS Chiara’s attempt to establish contact with the fleet of alien vessels that entered the Truane’s Star system thirty hours ago. The Chiara has drawn close enough that visual contact is possible and we have begun receiving images from its main telescope.
Audio shifts and the sound of Chiara’s captain can be heard. “Well, these ships are unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. There seem to be several different varieties of ships in various sizes but they all seem to have some features in common.
“The bow of each ship consists of a sphere or flattened spheroid. This sphere is connected to the rest of the body by a slim neck. If we’re judging scale properly, these tend to five to thirty meters long and four to ten meters in diameter with the larger ones being on the larger ships.
“The main body of the ships are bulbous affairs all smoothed and softened, almost looking like it is melted together. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of sharp angles anywhere. They are unlike anything I’ve ever seen although they do hold some resemblance to early Dralasite ships.
“Many of the ships end in another sphere separated from the main body by a thicker waist. This aft sphere is where the engines are mounted. Like many of our Frontier ships, the engines are mounted away from the ship on struts. Perkins, are we getting readings on those engines?
“Yes, sir,” came another voice. “They have similar readings to our own atomic engines. They are probably similar in principle if not in operation. We should assume they have the same capabilities.”
“Very well,” the captain continued. “That’s one similarity at least. And like us they seem to use their acceleration to produce simulated gravity in their ships. All of the ships are oriented tail first toward their direction of travel and have their engines running. Acceleration seems to be oh point nine gravities. I guess that’s what they prefer.
“We’ve been slowly closing the distance over the last few hours with on the leading ships which happens to be one of the largest ones. We’ve been broadcasting greetings on all communications channels including using our subspace radio on occasion but have failed to elicit any response. Either they are deaf to our frequencies or are ignoring us.
“I’m beginning to think it is the latter. As we’ve been approaching, we’ve caught short bursts of transmission on a couple of different radio frequencies that have been non-random and seem to emanate from the ships. We’ve tried transmitting on those frequencies but have received no response.
“At this point, we are about thirty-nine thousand kilometers away from the large ship we are approaching and closing at a rate of about five hundred kilometers per minute. Once we reach thirty thousand kilometers we’ll slow our approach even more.”
“Captain,” a third voice called out, “there seems to be some sort of motion in the hull of the ship.” On the screen several protrusions that were visible on the surface of the ship were rotating and starting to point toward the Chiara.
“All crew,” the captain called out, “strap in and prepare for high gee maneuvers. Helm, rotate the ship perpendicular to our direction of motion and engage engines at maximum thrust.”
“Come on baby, rotate,” the captain’s voice came across the open circuit in a whisper, “come on.”
Suddenly there was a flash from several points on the alien spacecraft. The image shuddered for a moment and klaxons started sounding. “Get those alarms off,” the captain yelled.
"Bridge, Engineering. Both our engines are off line. They have both sustained damage of some sort."
"Hull breach in crew deck two," came another report. "The entire starboard section has been vented to space."
"Life support failure. Primary life support equipment has failed. Backup system engaging."
"Captain, radar. The alien ship has just launched a small object towards us."
The telescope camera had managed to stay locked on to the approaching ship. Just below the hull there was a small black dot surrounded by a glowing halo. "Radar, what is the speed and closing rate of that object?"
"Captain, it is accelerating at about thirty gee and headed straight toward us. Estimated time to impact is three minutes if it doesn't change its acceleration profile."
“Very well,” the captain replied, “Are we still broadcasting?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, prepare and send a burst transmission with all data collected on the data sideband.” After a pause, he continued, his voice flat. “This is the PSS Chiara. Having approached to within one hundred thousand kilometers of the lead alien vessel, we once again began attempting to communicate with the ship. We received no response until we closed within thirty-nine thousand kilometers at which point the ship opened fire on us with some sort of laser weapon. They have completely disabled our engines and opened up a couple breaches in our hull including damaging our primary life support system.
"Immediately after the laser attack a single object was launched toward the Chiara. Based on its acceleration profile and trajectory, I can only assume that it is some sort of missile or torpedo. Time to impact is now less than one minute.
"We cannot maneuver and the object is now close enough that it couldn't stop before hitting us even if it tried. We will continue to transmit data but if the feed suddenly stops, at least you'll know why. Good luck. Chiara out."
For a few seconds, the image of the incoming missile continued to grow until it flashed off the bottom of the screen. The image and audio stopped to be replaced by the TNN logo.
“The transmission from the Chiara has terminated,” the announcer said. “We can only assume the worst. We will keep you updated on further developments.”