Searching for the Devil

[Khendon Sevon]

Two pitch black Prophet craft launched form the housing of a large space station in Guild space, escorted by a squadron of the latest TIE Executioner model towards the outer areas of Guild control. They sped towards their target as the escort broke off and the two craft activated their electrical jamming and cloaking systems, making them invisible to most forms of detection. The Prophet’s a fast as an Executioner at full burn with boosters on, 300 MGLT, but lacked the punch of an Executioner, and are almost three times larger.

As the craft hit the outer boundaries of patrolled areas, they entered hyperspace, they were on a desperate search using the latest in electrical scanning and detection systems, they were searching for the Devil, for the AI that had declared war upon the Guild empire.

[Khendon Sevon]

The top secret facilities of the Guild that were dedicated to monitoring and decrypting as much radio traffic as their super computers could handle was fully at the disposal of this search mission. Using the Prophets as extensions, they probed waves for any sign of the ‘life form’, expecting a lack of results, which is exactly what they found.

**********

I slowly twirled my fingers around the control stick, wondering how long I would have to wait until real space reentry. I did not have to wait long, the white sparkles that dashed across my cockpit slowed to a stop and formed pin pricks, each a glowing hot mass of gas, “a miniature hell,” as my instructor, Khendon, would have called it.

As we approached the only planet in the Heinikian sector, command piped in over an encrypted channel, “Avenger flight, we’ve guided you to the current sector due to an anomaly detected, a high power beacon, a warning maybe… or distress call. It is clad in a high encryption we haven’t broken yet, we want you to land and investigate.”

“Shouldn’t we continue searching for the AI?”

“This will only take a moment of your time, gentlemen, and it may be important.”

“Roger that. Vapor, you hear that, buddy?”