28 Hope's Demise

Anya was observing the data sent to her Cerebral Connector from the crew members in real-time while observing their stunning home planet in the observation deck. Somewhere below there was her beloved city, the Royal City of Neverwinter. Streams after streams of data appeared in the left pane of her vision. She activated her powers on the background so that she didn't have to truly concentrate on the data. Once an anomaly was detected, her powers will automatically single it out to its source and informed her. That was how convenient her powers could be when she worked with machines.

Anya was very satisfied with the first flight test result. They had just finished testing the first engine's integrity by travelling around their planet for three rounds before staying stationary at Neverwinter's airspace to check on the dreadnought's overall conditions. The flight was smooth, and the engine parameters were stable throughout their journey. Their cruising first engine for normal flight showed excellent stats, indicating no problems were encountered. In fact, with this kind of parameter, she had calculated that they could travel to their neighboring planet in just two days. She didn't skimp on checking for the other backup engine, auxiliary engines, and power reservoirs before she felt truly confident to proceed with the next step.

Anya watched pensively at their home planet with a melancholic feeling. Their 'Earth' was very beautiful, slightly purplish blue in color. The inevitable migration was not too far in the future. Once it happens, she will need to leave her homeland. An indescribable sadness she didn't know colored her emotions deep inside although her face remained stoic and devoid of feelings.After a deep sigh, she instructed her crew members to start with the second phase of the flight test through her Cerebral Connector. She had personally made an internal network connecting all personnel working on-board for easier communication and relaying commands with multiple clearance level.

"How's everything Sis Anya?" Zaleha entered the observation deck and greeted her.

"Everything still follows the schedule. All parameters are within range. Don't worry Zack. Make sure to stay alert during the second phase of our test run as we're going to test the FTL-engine as what has been briefed before takeoff." Anya smiled at the scaredy-cat.

For the last two years, she had bonded with this lady from their frequent interactions during the FTL-engine design and construction, on duty and off duty. In public, Zaleha looked unapproachable, a little boorish, and very crude. However, only a selected few could see Zaleha's true self behind the facade of the 'Unpopular Witch' title she gained. Zaleha's personality was contradictory with her super-strength-super-speed powers. Anya knew that her friend has been born at the wrong time. If only she was born during chaotic eras, she would be one of the strongest contenders to vie for a kingdom. She would be a living, breathing war machine.

Now, in this modern age, her friend was too afraid to touch anything. She had caused too many catastrophes inadvertently due to lack of control. The Witch Union spend tremendous amount of money to compensate the losses incurred by Zaleha's clumsiness. Only now was she able to truly harness her power after two years of rigorous training under the Immortal King's strict arrangements. She had become more confident with herself, but the old Zack was still there.

After making a brief conversation, both ladies went on their separate ways; one to the main control room, while the other, to the FTL-engine room.

...

Mr. On-lee was making the final check on the parameters exhibited on the screen in the control room when he received the 'OK' signal from his direct superior, Major Anya. These few days working under her was a bliss. Due to his position as the First Mate of the spaceship, he had been in a close proximity to the four beautiful witches, which was nearly impossible under other circumstances. The beautiful and talented superior of his looked unapproachable with a stoic face all the time, however, she treated everyone warmly. A silver of emotion can be heard from her voice when she interacted with the other witches. He hid his fanboy heart deep inside and followed his superior's orders to the letter every single time to show his devotion. Sometimes, he stealthily took some pictures of her to be admired.

From the captain seat, he instructed the crew members to get ready to perform their first jump to the nearby planet.

When Major Anya returned, he tactfully vacated the captain seat and stood one pace behind her before she continued giving commands to specific crew members. Prior to their first jump, she opened the network channel and announced to the whole crew on board, "This is the Captain of Hope speaking. We're currently preparing for our first jump in fifteen minutes. All personnel, stop whatever you're doing, be seated, wear your seatbelts, and brace for the best. The jump will last for five minutes. Until it is over, remain seated and pray for our success. Godspeed."

Everyone on the spaceship has dubbed it as the hope of mankind, until the name stuck. The original name of the ship was just a series of numbers, since the real flight was not officially deployed yet. However, due to the gusto of the masses, Anya had taken an extra effort to file for a proper name for the test-spaceship, "Hope".

The whole crew members consisted of researchers, engineers, staffers and military personnel stopped what they were doing and return to their designated seats with nervous hearts. Some started to close their eyes to pray, some was oblivious, as their minds were focused on their research, testing the validity of postulates after postulates.

...

"In five, four, three, two, one. Return to first engine mode." The young aviator, Hannan, powered down the FTL-engine and switched to cruising mode with a nervous heart. However, her hands were firm and precise. She had practiced with a simulator for a thousand times to be selected as the first ever FTL-engine aviator, defeating seasoned pilots and her peers.

"Check on all stats." Anya used her powers to sense the integrity of the spaceship as a whole while listening to her crew members' reports.

"Navigation, normal."

"Shield, 92 % intact, three minutes recharge to full."

"FTL-engine, normal."

"Antimatter core, stable. Energy consumption, 0.32%"

"First engine, normal. Auxiliary engine, normal."

"Life support system, normal."

"Power supply, 96.3%"

"Planetary detection system, 79%. Mild error detected. Needed to be recalibrated to reach optimal condition."

"Internal network, normal. Com-link with military base, disconnected during space jump, currently return to normal."

A series of reports from the personnel in the control room reported their analysis one by one to Anya. Anya heaved a relieved sigh deep in her heart. With these parameters, she was confident that they could move out of their solar system with enough energy. However, the most important question was how far they need to go before they found a habitable planet to start their new home. Another thing to note was the ability to procure more antimatter in the future if they really wanted to start living in space to support endless space jumps.

She planned to write a report to request for a tertiary energy reservoir in case of emergency, a specialist to find new sources of antimatter core stationed on every vessel, a harvester equipped with mining arms for future resources, and lastly a better system to detect a suitable planet for habitation. The system became slightly sluggish after the first jump, which was a problem if it persisted.

Anya opened the internal channel and made an announcement, "Ladies and gentlemen, we're successful with our first space jump. We're in the vicinity of our neighboring planet. You can appreciate the sight at the observation deck on the top floor. You may unbuckle and continue with your current activities. The next test jump will occur most probably tomorrow at the same time. Please be prepared. Thank you."

Everyone in the control room clapped happily. The mood of the whole spaceship was jubilant. It was shared with the personnel manning the control room in Neverwinter. Even Roland smiled happily once the news was relayed to him in the core of Sanctuary 3.

The hardworking Anya excused herself to return to her own quarters to start on the report immediately. She knew she needed to work harder since she requested for so many things. If they started on designing her requests immediately, she could check and improve on them as soon as possible, which will save some time. And just maybe, once they return, the enhancements will be ready to be fitted to Hope.

...

"That was quite exhilarating!" Vayu patted her weak heart. She thought they were going to die. The feelings she felt during the space jump could not be described. It felt like being strangled in a room devoid of sound but a low ringing tone. Unless it was just her imagination.

"It truly is." Khora's eyes sparkled. She could smell an elaborate business plan once they have gone through this catastrophe. What she needed to do was to stay friendly with the government and with the Witch Union to make sure she could utilize the technology later. She could see herself at the pinnacle of her career as a space-transport mogul not too far away in the future.

They walked in together into their experimental chamber to continue with their experiments. The results were positive so far. However, they still didn't realize the initial progressive collapse of one of the living-based independent space they created. The unstable space has been placed inside a very stable non-living storage-based independent space as one of the experimental parameters being tested. The alarm signal has been consumed by the chaotic movement of space inside before it even managed to send its signal out.

The living independent space was meant to be used as living quarters after the beta design, The Rabbit Series, has shown positive results by the Interstellar Gate Research Group a few days prior to Hope's maiden test flight. A few days of tests and adjustments had increased the stability of the space, now addressed as Quarters 1 to Quarters 30. They were still unfurnished fully but has been injected with air by Vayu to simulate a natural living environment.

Seeing no alarms activated after the jump, Khora felt relieved. Her initial fear has been allayed. She was afraid the folding of space outside will somehow affect the artificial space inside. If that happens, their plans had to be scrapped. There was no way they could travel to outer space with hundreds and thousands of motherships. They don't have that kind of resources and time. Just to be safe, she randomly checked fiveof the main white discs containing thirty Quarters each. She summoned three random Quarters from the first disc to the fifth disc and check the integrity of each space using her powers.

However, unknown to her, she had missed the white disc that contained the problematic independent Quarters.

...

Hope was ready for the second and final test jump before they return to Neverwinter Military Spaceport. Anya let her First Mate the honor of commandeering the second jump in history. She planned to head to the FTL-engine room to watch the progression of the Antimatter Core with Zaleha.

Five minutes before the jump, On-lee's voice was heard from everyone's personal Cerebral Connector as she fastened her buckle beside her witch friend. "..Entering our second jump in five, four, three, two, one."

She focused her powers on the internal workings of the FTL-engine, especially the circuits surrounding the Antimatter Core. She watched how the energy flow into the twin torus surrounding Hope as it interacted with the space around the structure, effectively bending the space outside smoothly. It was a wondrous sight to behold.

A few seconds in, an emergency alarm resounded in her mind! She realized the physical alarm of the systems onboard were normal. It meant, only she herself could detect the minute anomaly happening currently.

She switched her vision into an energy sensitive mode which she strictly used to check the efficacy of sensitive circuits while feeling extremely anxious. Anya obtained her specialized vision after her magic core mutated the second time during a sudden enlightenment after an extensive research. The vision was sensitive to the smallest amount of anomaly but would strain her mind to the maximum. At most, she could use it for five minutes a day. She regretted not checking the engine yesterday using her energy vision after the jump. She had trusted her primary powers and the machine's analysis too much!

In just a few moments, her eyes turned red and her temples were throbbing.

Noticing the strange occurrence happening on her friend, Zaleha became worried. However, the tremors and sluggishness were so strong, she was unable to help Anya out. She could only inquire with her eyes.

Anya ignored her friend's inquiring eyes and did her utmost to detect the tiny energy leak resulted from the interactions of the anti-baryonic matter with the space outside. She unbuckled her seatbelt hurriedly, startling all the other engineers and technical staffs surrounding the both of them. She moved as fast as she could, following the flow of the energy and became alarmed when she saw the energy converged at Khora and Vayu's experimental chamber on the other end of the spaceship.

Once she entered the reinforced experimental chamber, she saw both Khora and Vayu unbuckling their seatbelts and ran into the core site of the experimental chamber, just a few steps before her. The Quarters were hovering in midair twitching while they distorted the space around them.

Khora was sweating while she tried her best to contain the condition. She held her palms to the front and concentrated hard to disperse the distortion occurring around the Quarters. While the space healed slowly, the other Quarters started to twitch, indicating their instability. Suddenly an explosion happened when the distortion touched a certain circuit and gas-linebehind the reinforced experimental chamber .

All three witches were thrown to the back. Vayu forced herself to get up as she bled heavily on her head and waved her hands to conjure up a carbon dioxide gassy space in an attempt to extinguish the fire from the explosion.

Khora's vision was already blurring as she shouted at Anya, "Exit the jump now! The Quarters couldn't take it!" She groggily crawled forward and held her left hand up to try to salvage the situation by stabilizing all the independent spaces simultaneously.

Anya's head was still ringing as she tried her best to turn on the internal network up, "Emergency announcement from your Captain. We have a situation right now. Exit the jump immediately! Once out, all personnel must enter the nearest life pod immediately!"

The jump was forcefully cut short by 30 seconds as Hope appeared at the vicinity of their home planet's moon.

"Arghhh, I can't take it anymore! Save yourselves!" Khora fainted as she bled from all of her seven orifices.

"Khora!" Vayu ran backwards to help her best friend while maintaining her powers.

Without the support of Khora, the Quarters' disintegration speed increased and even infected the stable non-living ones.

A big explosion occurred as Anya was running towards the panicking Zaleha as she was rooted to her seat, still fully buckled and all. A small number of engineers and researchers had managed to enter the nearest emergency life pods, but most of them were still running to an empty one.

Everyone and everything were engulfed in flames as Hope shattered into smithereens.

--------------------------------------------

"Tut-tut-tut

Tut - tut - tut

Tut-tut-tut"

A low beeping sound waken Anya up in the middle of a torn up spaceship with debris cluttering everywhere. She noticed the repetitive call-for-help code that has been drilled into her during her academy years and the corresponding blinking red lights following the rhythm of the beepings.

Her earlobes were shining and emitting a gentle ray as she was encased in a whitish translucent pod. She was actually moving slowly towards Neverwinter airspace by an illusory figure of a woman she had never met before. She tried hard to move her head to look for her friends and her crew members.

Not far from her, she saw her First Mate, On-lee; at least what's left of him after the explosion. He had a worried look on his frozen up face in her direction. She knew her subordinate must've ran towards her in an attempt to save her. He didn't know she had the life-saving earrings. Her heart stirred in deep sadness; she knew her subordinate liked her as his admiration towards her shone as bright as day from his eyes when he gazed at her. If only he listened to her command.. Her personal emergency life pod was integrated to the captain's seat. He would've survived if he just activated it. Tears leaked from her eyes but they disappeared as they were mixed into the nutrient solution with the lifepod.

Slowly, the illusory woman gathered her comrades from the Witch Union and descended slowly. She tried to tell her that there were still some survivors, but the translucent pod was soundproof. She could see a number of crew members inside emergency life pods blasted away from the current location due to the power of the explosion. She needed to do something!

She channeled her last remaining energy and directly send a mechanical message towards Neverwinter military base.

"Hope is gone. Surviving crew members scattered in emergency life pods. Request for assistance."

She blacked out.

...

A year of following the illusory angelic entity was extremely uneventful for Zenti and co. He didn't know the creature's lair was so far away. Many times, he had planned to abscond the mission but he still persisted. Partly because he was curious, partly because there was no further instruction from his douchebag employer.

[Once we got a new case, we'll immediately turn around. Before that, just follow the angel.] He kept on repeating the same sentences in his mind for the n-th time.

The 'angel' was very resolute. She had maintained the same course and moved nonstop. Zenti was wondering why it didn't perform any hyperjumps to shorten her travelling. Most spacebeast have the ability to perform spacejumps or at least has the ability to move at extremely high speed. Is she sightseeing or something?

A sudden request for help was transmitted to his ship alerted him. It even used the age old S.O.S system originated from aeons ago. Zenti sped up his spacecraft as he was a planet away from the entity to maintain their stealth.

Once his view was unobstructed, he saw the debris of a spaceship in front of him with lifeless humans floating everywhere. The 'angel' went into the debris and dragged out four life pod-like things which was emitting the S.O.S. signal.

At that moment, Zenti's spacecraft detected a video message. A heavily wounded woman with silver hair and irises was saying something with a distressed looked but with no sound. However, an electronic message was embeddened at the bottom of the video. Most probably, it was a repeat of what the woman was saying. He tried to match the language to all language present in the empire's server but couldn't decipher what was being said.

"We need to save the girl." His wingman said.

"I think the angel is saving them." Zenti countered. "Let's just watch first."

Suddenly, someone fired at the 'angel'. It was one of his buddies at the back.

"What are you doing?! Now that creature knows we're here!"

"Sorry boss! The girls are human. Let's save them ourselves first. I think this planet might be the lair of that angel. Save the girl, destroy the creature. Simple and sweet ait?"

Zenti was speechless with the dumbass's opinion! It was obvious as day that the creature might be connected to the girls in the life pods! Now they were considered enemies!

...

Neverwinter military base had received the distress signal cum message from Major Anya Stratosky. They immediately contacted the Witch Union for a team of Combat Witches which has the ability of flight led by Extraordinaries, before prepping the second dreadnought for launch into space to save the other crew members. Inside the dreadnought was a small team of fighter jets on standby which would assist as necessary.

The witches were equipped with metallic Recombinant Suits which has the ability to assist for life support in space and defense. The only downside was the suits were not equipped with a flying ability yet and was just a beta version, hence, only witches with the ability of flight could help in the rescue efforts.

Roland had stealthily slipped in a number of WIA agents to assist in the search and rescue. Especially the four main witches, they were the main pillar of hope for the survival of the people!

...

Shantelle was eager for some action as she sped off in formation with the other nineteen witches while wearing the brand new Recombinant Suits. Since she had the fastest flying ability, she led the formation to immediately enter the airspace above Neverwinter when she saw the catastrophe in front of her eyes!

Isn't that their Elder Witch Alethea which was on an extended mission? Their leader was evading a series of bombardments from an unknown spacecraft!

"Report! An unknown spacecraft detected! It is judged as hostile! It is attacking the witches from the Witch Union!" She spoke rapidly while prepping her laser-based powershot gauntlets. All witches joined hands and started prepping their own gauntlets. They had not brought along any other artillery since it was supposed to be a rescue mission of Hope's surviving crew members.

In midair, six fighter jet were deployed from the second spaceship as it penetrated the planet's air barrier. They immediately attacked the foreign spacecraft while it was distracted by half of the combat witches' aerial attacks.

Another half of the witches took over the four translucent white lifepods from the Elder Witch and moved them immediately into the cruising dreadnought. Although some of them didn't know who the witch might be, they believe she must be affiliated with Graycastle. After that, they haphazardly scoured the nearby region for life signals and save the rest of the emergency life pods. They worked extremely fast and efficient.

...

Zenti was baffled by the retaliation from the planet's indigenous community. It turned out these humans were more advance than he though! These people had turned a blind eye towards the angel apparition and directly engaged them without fear. He felt a slight respect towards their courageousness.

Truly, all the attacks had been absorbed by their energy shield. Zenti was still in a dilemma on how to deal with these indigenous humans of the planet. It seemed that the ladies were in powersuits, while the men were in fighter jets. The distinction was pretty puzzling. He needed to make them stop. However, he didn't know how to communicate with them as their language was not in the database of the empire.

The presence of these indigenous people meant that the company had blatantly breached the Empire's rule! The company shouldn't harvest the energy source of a solar system with intelligent beings present on one of the planets.

He kept repeating the same message of peace into all open communication link to start on negotiation while trying his best to stop his hot blooded mates from retaliating.

After a few minutes, he heard a reply in perfect old English, an ancient royal language popularized by the Empire, "We heard you loud and clear. This is Roland Wimbledon, the representative of this nation."

Zenti heaved a sigh of relief, "I am Zenti, the captain of Ballista Mercenary Group."

....