Emergence: Storeus Cloudships

Both Saiun and Cinradahs took a step back as the Cloudships erupted out of Narcsia. Constantly shifted, the green masses crackled with static electricity as they slowly moved towards Cinradahs's fleet. His hand found Saiun's, and he gripped it tightly, before glancing over to him; Saiun was transfixed until Cinradahs squeezed his hand, at which he point he turned to him and gave a sad smile. Cinradahs disengaged his hand and walked back over to the centre of the bridge.

“Scan those ships!” Cinradahs pointed at the ships in question with a shaking finger. “Find their weaknesses!”

“On it, Commander!”

Cinradahs punched the com button on his control panel. “Strom, can the Orbans do anything to these things?”

The reply was crackling with static. “No sir, we're too far away at the moment. And even then, we were barely able to get rid of a few Storeus together, let alone these...things.”

“Dammit all...Keep me up to date.”

“Will do.”

Cinradahs opened up a new com channel. “Retlin, your crew know anything about these?”

The Adjeti commander barked something to his crew. “Not at all, sir. While we have encountered the Storeus before, we have never seen these sort of, well... Cloudships.”

Saiun approached the console and asked, “How did you defeat the Storeus before, in the last war?”

“We didn't.” Retlin's tone turned rough and defensive. “We couldn't; our vortex weapons did nothing to them, they just broke themselves down and reformed somewhere else in the speed it takes to blink. And it wasn't a war. War implies that both sides have a chance of winning. We fled from them before, and they were content to stay on their own world.”

Cinradahs looked at the Cloudships growing closer. “Not anymore.” He closed the channel, and turned to his crew. “You got anything yet?”

One man stood to attention. “These Cloudships have exactly the same structure as the Storeus themselves, but more dense, which I imagine is something that allows for interplanetary transport. From the readings, they have no weapons that we can observe.”

“That means nothing; they're almost certainly armed with something.” Cinradahs swept his hand through his hair; one of his anxiety tells. “Weak points?”

“None, just like the Storeus; they have no fixed structure.”

“Damn...” He leant on the console and stared out of the viewing screen, as if would somehow perturb the Storeus ships. Saiun placed a hand on his shoulder, but it did not comfort him. “Fuck it!” He kicked the console, letting out his helpless rage. He kicked it again and again until his foot ached and he stood, breathing heavily. “All channels! Open fire on those ships!”