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Chapter 4 â€" The Flight

"He will always triumph when he knows when to fight and when not to fight" - Unknown Reference â€" Discovered in computer wreckage from probe in the Milky Way Galaxy

Location: Terra Nova â€" Orbit of Terra "Raven's Nest" shipyard

"This is not going to work" chanted Hy as he looked out on the beautiful planet of Terra from the window on the bridge of the Terra Nova. This whole idea seemed completely pointless and almost suicidal to him, they were risking their ship and their lives to retrieve a few members of the resistance that had been caught and incarcerated on Raven's Nest shipyards. However the whole place was swarming with Asgardian ships that seemed to shimmer in and out of phased reality. Hy had longed to get a closer look of those vessels, see how they worked and how the Asgard were manufacturing them so quickly.

"Calm down Hy!" said Eclypse from the chair in the middle but even he had his doubts about this mission. They had received a secret communication from ex-commander Ironheart about four important members of the resistance that had been captured during an attempted to lead a revolution from inside one of the mines that now littered Terra. Eclypse had tried to avoid the responsibility of this task but the truth was that this ship was the only vessel that was fighting against the Asgard and therefore the only one that could rescue them.

Eclypse played with his whiskers nervously as the Terra Nova hung in space, just inside the shipping lane which brought in supplies from Silmeria to Terra. His plan was to use an old shipping I.D that Hy had obtained when he worked as a cargo hauler to allow the Nova to dock with "Raven's Nest" and then Eclypse, Silver and Annuka would attempt to rescue the hostages with a minimum of fuss and violence.

"Any word yet?" Eclypse asked Annuka who turned around, listening into the communication channels. Annuka stroked her muzzle as she did this, feeling the soft fur under her chin. She shook her head. This instantly made Eclypse nervous and thus made him wondered why Raven's Nest were taking so long, when other cargo vessels were moving much faster. "We are going to have to get out of here in a hurry" he said to himself. "Come on! What's taking so bloody long!"

Finally Annuka put her paws into the air, indicating that the ship had received clearance to dock. Eclypse drew a sigh of relief as Silver, who had been watching closely, began to draw the ship towards the docking port.

"ALL SHIPS! STAY WHERE YOU ARE!" shouted a voice over the intercom that boomed through the bridge of the Terra Nova. Eclypse shot a look at both Annuka and Hy, who were both sat at their stations but looked a little panicked. Another, female voice came over the intercom from the ship in front of the Nova shipping lane. "RN Shipyards... I have precious cargo which includes volatile chemicals... they are already starting to degrade through their containers and need to be transferred to a proper storage facility immediately ... Can I please enquire to the nature of your reason for having us all stop?"

The next second felt extremely long winded as they waited for a response from the space station. Hy started to fiddle with his tail as they waited which Eclypse found extremely annoying. "We suspect that there my be terrorists in this shipping lane... all ships will be stopped and searched."

"Dammit!" thought Eclypse realising what a dangerous situation they were in now. He looked over at Hy and then to Silver who stared up from the cockpit. Hy twitched again and began to bash away at the control systems, getting the engines powered in case they had to escape.

At that moment, a ship began to emerge from the inside of the drydock. It was huge compared to the other vessels, it was about one thousand metres across with a triangular head and a long body with four "wing-like" protrusions that separated out like an "X" on the bow of the ship. On the side of a ship, there was a nameplate called the Tigris.

"All ships, this is Commander Aaron of the Tigris" ordered a voice over the intercom. "You are all ordered to stay where you are, submit your flight plans and ship I.D's to the Tigris. Any ship that does not comply will be fired upon."

"What sort of ship is that?" asked Eclypse, the pressure starting to get to him. He looked down at Hy from the command chair. Hy was frantically analysing it with a strange look on his face, it almost seemed gleeful.

"It's a type of ship that I've never seen before... seems to be Terran, according to the database but I never knew that they make ships that big... I don't know... ANYTHING ABOUT THIS!".

"HY!" shouted Eclypse, moving from his chair over to Hy's console which was showing no information about this ship. "Calm down! Silver... I suggest you get us out of here... we can come back for the prisoners later!"

"Already on it!" shouted Silver, as he pulled back on the throttle, throwing the Nova up and into a spin before attempting to run from the massive ship that was moving along the line.

"Unidentified ship, power down your engines...!" boomed Aaron from over the intercom. Eclypse looked over at Silver and nodded his head to keep going. The Terra Nova weaved in and out, around and above the multitude of items that were floating in the space above Terra. The Tigris had powered up its engines and with a green blinding light, it shot off to give chase. Eclypse hoped desperately that the repairs on the engines were enough to outrun this vessel...

Or they might not live to see another day.