In the quietness of space, not far from the Xliona system's asteroid belt, floated a single 900 meter long wedge shaped vessel. Its port side glistened from the sunlight that reflected off the metallic surface of the outer hull. In contrast to this gleaming half of the vessel, the starboard side was surrounded by darkness as it faced away from the system. Everything seemed dead and motionless until one shuttle and then another dropped from the ship's hanger bay. These two dark grey craft made lazy turns and proceeded into the asteroid field on their missions.

The Chimaera was one of the few ships bought by Stellar Enterprises from the Galactic Coalition. She had been fully modernized and armed more heavily than any other Victory Class Star Destroyer ever had been before. What had been just another broken starship hull ment for the scrap yards was now saved and restored to being a warship that it once war. The name given to this vessel was most befitting as it started its new service with the Stellar Enterprises Defense Force.

Visually this large vessel slightly differed from other Victory class ships. Unlike conventional Victory Destroyers, the Chimaera had no upper bridge structure. The whole former bridge had been removed, making the vessel look more sleek and streamlined. All command operations were now located within the ship inside a heavily armored internal bridge. This design kept the command crews safer from attack and through its wall to wall monitors, gave the captain in command a 360 degree view around the ship.

It was onboard this Command Bridge that Captain Rohnat Lo'maht stood and watched the two shuttles move causiously into the asteroid field on one of the large display screens around the bridge. The Dornean male looked out with his two large eyes and slowly blinked as the gaze he held shifted from the shuttles onto his ship's hull. He could see every fine detail of the ship's design and couldn't believe how she had been transformed from a piece of scrap into the once more beautiful vessel that she had been in her previous life.

This train of thought was interrupted when the woman seated at the sensor station called out, "Possible unknown contact at One-Six-Two sir! Thousand two hundred kilometers out..." The woman paused and hit some keys before leaning towards the screen. "Wait... it's gone Captain."

Puzzled the Captain moved towards the display on the wall that pointed in that direction. There was nothing there, but of course if that contact was so far out he wouldn't be able to see it at that range anyways.

"I want shields up and all weapons ready. Bring us around to face the possible contact." Captain Lo'maht ordered calmly. "Screen, zoom in on Grid Nine Zero, location One-Six-Two."

As he said this, the display in front of him quickly changed. The space out front zoomed in and began crystal clear. There was nothing to see, however, except for the countless stars sparkling in the darkness that lay beyond. Nothing moved and nothing seemed to exist. It seemed as quiet as it had been for the past two hours the Chimaera had been in system.

"Could it be a sensor malfunction?" The Captain questioned and turned towards the sensor station.

"It's possible, sir, but everything reads fine. I don't know what it could be. If something was physically there I would be able to detect it...there it is again sir! Thousand kilometers out this time, same heading. Computers indicate its roughly four hundred meters long. It's getting closer."

The Captain turned back around and stared at the display. He could now clearly see the ship ahead of them now as the Chimaera itself rolled on its side gently and turned towards this new contact. It was a ship he had never before seen in all his twenty years with various naval forces. The ship appeared to have a flat top with angular projections pointing down. At the rear and on top of the flat hull portion there was a vertical extention that stretched out towards the front and ended in a sharp point, almost like a talon. As he zoomed in on this mysterious ship, Rohnat could see that this vessel's hull was an offwhite color, not common in thie galaxy.

"Comms, open all channels." Captain Lo'maht said before starting to talk. "Unknown vessel, this is the Stellar Enterprises ship Chimaera. Identify yourselves and state your intentions."

Before he could even finish, however, a burst of static errupted from the bridge's communication speakers. This static seemed to come in a sort of pattern with highs and lows.

"Sir! Recieving massive comm Jamming. All communication off line. It's not just us either sir, seems like the whole star system is becoming effected."

As this was said, the ship moving towards them seemed to fizzle away. It didn't just disappear, but looked to have been disintegrated. Captain Lo'maht thought that he witnessed the ship becoming completely transparent just before it vanished from existance. It all seemed like a mirage. First it was there and then it had faded into nothingness.

"That did not seem like a friendly gesture to me..." The Captain stated just as something small slowly appeared in front of where the foreign ship had been.

This object slightly turned towards the larger Victory Class Star Destroyer and for a moment just hung in space. When this moment ended, the object instantly shot foward at a great speed. A speed and acceleration not seem on any known missile or torpedo in the galaxy, other then ones fired from magnetical launch tubes.

Rohnat was about to issue an order when the bridge lights darkened and full combat alarms blared out. At the same instant a computer voice called out:

"Incoming missile detected! Rapid acceleration registered, time to impact fifteen seconds"

"All weapons free! Lock on and destroy any hostiles. Engage and destroy any missiles." Ordered the Captain as he turned to jog back to his command seat.

"Missile tracking lost! Repeat Missile tracking lost!"

This came from the tracking station on the bridge. The officer sitted at this station had witnessed the same thing happen to the missile as had occured with the larger ship. One moment it was there accelerated towards the Chimaera and the next it was nonexistant.

Light blossomed along the port side of the Chimaera as rotating laser cannons began to fire. Laser blasts shot out in quick succession towards the space beyond at a target that had just appeared. The target was the very missile now speeding towards the Victory class star destroyer as it floated in space. These anti-fighter, anti-missile defense systems had locked onto the missile as soon as it appeared on sensors and unleashed their deadly assault against it.

Captain Lo'maht watched as all these laser bolt intercected around the area where the missile was. Many hit the exact same space that the missile occupied, but nothing happened. The missile disippated before the blasts arrived and some even passed through it as it vanished from sight and sensors. The captain looked on in amazement as this happened before his very eyes. He had never seen anything like it before. It wasn't a cloaking device of any kind he knew about. Both the ship and missile seemed to simiply disappear from existance.

Lo'maht watched as his weapons became silent from lack of targeting data and looked to the bottom of one of the displayed. He called up the information gathered during the time the missile had reverted into real space and studied the data in front of him. It appeared that the missile had changed course slightly and then slipped back into nothingness. The Captain's mind scanned the information before him and tired to quickly come up with a way to counter these systems.

A sudden vibration spread across the whole vessel and caused Lo'maht to look up at the display that showed the Chimaera's upper hull. Out of the forward section a line flames shot out and appeared to come from within the ship itself. Pieces of hull plating seperated under the force beneath them and tore away from the hull. He didn't know what had happened, but it was his guess that this was the missile's doing. The thing had looked to small to have caused this much damage, but it stood to reason that if these unknown people had such advanced technologies, perhaps they had developed new warheads.

Alarms rang throughout the bridge, but were soon turned down. "Sir! Internal damage and port forward sections! Area is being sealed off, but containment will take some time. We're getting reports that the explosion seems to be... spreading." The man said with come confussion on his face. "Sir... I don't know what to make of it. Droid systems are reporting that whatever the explosion is, it seems to be consuming deck plating and spreading in all directions."

He man listened and looked up, turning towards the Captain. "Alright, it seems the explosion as stopped, but damage is extensive. Hull integrity is holding, but we have multiply armor fractures around the impact. I didn't see the missile appear. It just went through our shields like they weren't even there sir..."

"I know, I know." The captain thought and looked back towards the sensor displays. "Alright, listen up, helm give me one third speed. Make way to Grid Nine and keep us maneuvering. Weapons based on the projected movement of that enemy ship, launch staggered salvo of Disintegration warheads. If that ship reappears I went them to go off. Fire off turbolasers and keep them firing none stop till my command. Fill the spaces between the warheads."

He got acknowledgements quickly and from all stations. A moment later the ship vibrated again, but this time it was from heavy turbolasers located on his ship. They lanced out towards the unseen vessel and kept firing even though none hit anything. From the Chimaera 80 warheads fired out after they were magnetically ejected from their launch tubes. These tubes quickly rotated out the way and brought newly loaded ones into firing positions while autoloaders pushed in new warheads into the spent tubes. The captain didn't know if they vessel had left or not, but he wasn't going to take anymore chances.

"Contact! Grid Six Zero." Shouted the sensor operator.

Lo'maht smiled a little and watched as the vessel appeared on his screen. The ship was facing where the Chimaera had been earlier and was now having to turn in order to track it. His guess had been proven correct by that very action. The enemy could not track his ship while vanished and had to emerged in order to reacquire its target. The data also showed him that in order to change directions the enemy ship and most likely the missile as well had to emerge from being vanished.

This ship had come out among the barrage of warheads and turbolaser blasts. When orders were given, the warheads went off as one. Most did nothing as their disintegration fields didn't reach out far enough, but four were close enough to have an effect. Three vaporized sections of the upper hull while the fourth was so close to the ship's engine bay that it vaporized two thruster nozzels as well the reactor room that was apparently near the belly of the vessel. Backup power units went online instantly though and the ship kept on turning, but much slower.

"Captain reading seven more missile launches!"

"So it begins again." Said Lo'maht to no one really and looked out at the screen. "Increase sleep to flank. Set course for Grid Five Five."

As the missiles flew on, energy blasts from the damaged alien ship lanced out at the Chimaera. The Victory class ship's shields flickered with each hit, but held strong throughout the assault. It appeared that these turbolaser were somewhat weaker then the ones used by naval powers of today. Perhaps while advanced in certain technologies others were left alone. This was most fortunate for the Stellar Enterprises vessel because the alien ship seemed to possess quite a large number of these weapon emplacements.

The heavy weapons of the Chimaera, however, was having a greater effect on the alien ship. It's shields shuddered with each impact from Heavy turbolasers and held off until the rotating turbolasers powered up and fired. These batteries unleashed a hail of turbolaser energy fire into the forward shields of the other ship and soon pierces through them after causeing an overload. The stream of bolts slammed hard into the hull plating of the enemy vessel and vaporized it before pushing on into the ship. Decks underneath the hull plating disintegrated under the heat of each turbolaser blast. Whole sections disappeared and secondary explosions errupted from some of the damaged areas.

Within moment, though, another shield became operational and stopped the rest of the turbolaser blasts that continued to rain down on the vessel. The secondary shielding glowed with the impact of the heavy turbolaser batteries that become operational seconds after the rotating ones ceased fire. In addition to the heavy weapons, the rotating heavy laser cannons once again fired out at the missiles that crossed the distance between the two ships.

With the help of the Chimaera's movement through space and ever changing direction of travel, the missile systems had to emerge into space to reconfigure their guidence systems. This direction changed allowed some to be targeted and destroyed before they entered their invisible states. Four of the seven made it through the defensive fire, however, and proceeded to strike against the Chimaera.

As it happened, one of the four passed through the Chimaera's shields and armor, but somehow failed to detonate inside the ship. The others did, though, and once against caused more damage than their size would suggest possible. One reverted right behind one of the three populsion nozzels and exploded. This resulted in the destruction of one engine and the damage of another close to it. The blast expanded out and triggered a backup power generator to overload. It was only the quick work of surviving engineering droids, which managed to drain some of the building energy, that kept the explosion from ripping the rear of ship right off. As it was the detonation shook the whole ship and shot out of the top rear of the vessel. In the end a deep hole was formed in the hull of the Chimaera.

The other missiles exploded inside the hull as well, causing damage many other systems. None were deadly to the large ship, but that didn't make the situation better. Numberous weapons systems went off line as their power connections were severed or droid brains controling them were destroyed. Bridge crews raced to try to take over the firing of still operational ones while repair droids went out to try and fix the power supply problems.

Captain Lo'maht gripped the handle in front of him as the ship violently shook and looked out over his bow, seeing two explosions shoot out into space. These areas were quickly sealed off and the vessel pressed on its attack.

"Sir! warheads ready and solutions are plotted."

"Fire! Let them have everything we have. They will pay for damaged the Chimaera." The emotional Captain called out. He had just lost crew members and was not pleased at all

As he stood there, thirty warheads lept from their launchers and in seconds were joined by fifty more. After these came the next wave of the full eighty warhead launchers. It was a barrage more massive than Lo'maht had ever seen before. He watched these weapons arch towards the alien ship's starboard side and the first thirty impact in a tremendous blast. The Captain could almost feel the concussion inside him as the witnessed the ship shake and the starboard side shields flicker and collapse. The next fifty warheads passed through this gap and exploded against the ships hull, ripping away hull plating and destorying eveything in their path. Large fireballs shot out of the vessel's side as the warheads detonated.

It was at this time at the next eight converged on the striken ship. These angled in from the topside and slamed into the area of the hull housing the missile launchers. When they detonated, they caused the missiles stored in these launches to explode as well. The result was something Captain Lo'maht had not seen in so many years. It was also a first for many of the crew onboard the Chimaera.

In a blinding flash of light the whole enemy ship came appart into three sections. All of these spread out from an massive erruption along its center line and curved up and out. These large pieces of a once great warship burned at the edges as their metallic structure was heated to extreme tempertures. Debris slowly spread out around this now dead ship into the coldness of space.

It would have been one ship or the other, the Captain thought as he looked upon this destruction. He was glad it was not his.

It was now almost a day since the engagment and the Chimaera still floated near the asteroid belt as she had before. The ship was damaged, but still had the ability to fight if need be. Leaders had decided to keep the Victory class ship on station until a replacement could be readied and sent to the system. Before that happen, though, scientists had been transfered to Xliona to study the damaged ship as well as the destroyed vessel floated ahead in three large sections.

The scientists worked over the Chimaera had analyzed every section of the vessel and had quickly taken copies of the battle footage in order to understand the enemy better. They had also carefully extracted the one missile that had not exploded and rushed it back to a lab for study purposes. Hopefully they could find a way to fight these new missile system or discover their secretes. It was not known who these attackers were or where they had come from, but it would be great to had something against them the next time they attacked.

Along with the scientists that went ovet the ship, repair droids and personal were transfering new parts all over the ship to repair the damage that had been inflicted. There was only so much they could do without a full dry dock, but they were trying their best. The damaged engines could not be repaired on site, but newer power systems were brought on board and linked with the main reactor in order to provide more power.

If Xliona was going to be a battleground, it was deemed neccessary to had reinforcements brought in. Joining the Chimaera now were four other ships which had been quickly assembled and dispatched to support her. These ships included the large Stellar Class Star Cruiser Paramount, under the command of experianced Captain Wilkinson. He had been placed in command of this newly created Xliona Defense Force.

Along with this massive ship two Steadfast Gunships had been also moved into the system and a Hellfire class frigate joined them soon after. All these ships had brought with them enough equipment to set up a system wide sensor net that would hopefully alert the Stellar Enterprises force to any incoming ships. Recon drones had also been sent out in all direction once the force had been assembled in the hope of locating the enemy's base of operations. The drones had been concentrated along the vector that the enemy ship had first appeared on.

Now as Captain Lo'maht sat at his command bridge seat, he looked over the footage of the battle on his data pad. He couldn't believe how much damage his new ship had suffered after only small number of missile impacts. It was not really the ship he was concidered with, but with the lose of life suffered by his crew. They had been senselessly attacked with warning or provocation. As he watched the footage of the combate that took placed, the captain swore to himself that he would learn from this and not be surprised by the enemy again.

"Sir, I have something interesting here." Interupted on of the bridge officers.

"What is it lieutenant?" Lo'Maht looked up and towards the man's station.

"Well, I have been going over the data gathered during the battle and there seems to be something here that had missed initially. It was not even concidered before and dismissed by the computer, but it might be worth looking into."

The Captain thought for a moment before getting up and moving towards the lieutenant. "What do you have? Anything is better than nothing."

"Yes sir. Well look at these charts. These are data from our sensors of the surrounding areas in space. They so the usually chemical make up and cosmic rays, but than at this point here," The man pointed on his screen at what seemed to be a graph. "There was a radiation spike. It's not natural radiation either and not in heavy amounts, but its there alright. I cross refranced it with the other data and before the enemy ship appeared, it was non-existant. My feeling is that that ship emitted the radiation. Perhaps as a byproduct of its drive systems or that field it was creating to disappear."

"That is most interesting lieutenant. It could give us the upper than on the next engagement. I want you to make sure the computer no longer discards this information, but instead lets us know immediatly. Forward this information to Captain Wilkinson as well as the scientists."

"Yes sir, it shall be done." The man said and paused a little as he turned back towrads the captain. "There is one more thing sir, it appears there was a short ultra high frequency transmittion directed at us the first time the enemy ship appeared on sensors."

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EagleEye TwoSix lazily cruised across the surface of the newly discovered plantoid in the Xliona system. The barren moon like body had been noticed when a mining droid had gotten close enough upon a sampling mission. This plantoid was curiously almost completely obscured by smaller asteroids that acted like moons all around it. The sheer number of these asteroids pervented its surface from being visible from far away. Only upon close inspection could the creatored surface of the plantoid be seen.

In order to examine this object floating within the asteroid field the EagleEye drone had been sent out to scout it. As it flew over the ten thousand kilometer circumferance of the body it scanned it with ground penetrating radar. This proved extremly difficult, however, as much of the surface consisted of dense metallic ore. The areas that were not heavy in ore deposits seemed to show deep and large caverns of some sort that appeared to be mostly hallow.

Another interesting fact discovered by the mission was the existance of deep cracks within the planetoid's structure. It was not known how deep these cracks pentrated towards the planetoid body, but these would have to be searched on later missions. Initial scanned seemed to indicate that this body had appearantly somehow been put together and assembled from other large pieces. It was not know how this happened, but that was the general concensis from reviews of the gathered data.

Out of the surrounding ring of asteroids emerged a small fourty meter long vessel. The oval shaped craft moved slowly through the floating asteroids and towards the large planetoid's surface. Its smooth hull glistened in the light that reflected from the brownish colored surface below it of a barren landscape. In the back two engines gave off a blue hue as they propelled the ship forward towards its destination.

This destination had been picked from the scans conducted by a recon drone no longer than a day before. The scans had revieled a large concentration of a dense metallic deposit. After scientists and computers failed to identify this substance a sample mission was drawn up to extract as much of this substance as possible. Once this extraction was completed the scientists could analyze the substance further and develope possible uses for it, if it could be used at all.

It was on this mission that the mining drone had been sent. As it neared its designated sample area, four arms extended out front around the forward section of the craft and spread out to the sides. While they extended and locked into position the whole rounded tip opened up, reveiling a plasma mining drill. All the while, the drone's internal systems analyzed the environment outside and adjusted to the slow rotation of the planetoid as well as the different gravatic effects that occured outside it. For reasons yet unknow, the planetoid seemed to have a variation in its gravity fields depending on where one was. Some areas were low in gravity, while others were twice or even three times the normal for an object of such size.

It was this high gravity region that the drone now decended into. The forward thrusters fired quickly to slow down the craft and repulsor fields were erected around the craft to stop its motion completely before hitting the surface. These fields had to be readjusted quickly do to the increase in gravity and hold the ship in place as each of the extended arms moved down and dug into the ground below it. Once the task was accomplished the legs bent as one and lowered the miner's nosed right against the rock beneath it.

As contact was made, the foward plasma drill came online and quickly vaporized the rock beneath. It slowly pushed down deeper and deeper into the planetoid's surface to extract the minerals underneath. This job was taking longer than expected, however. The material make up of the upper layer, while not that dense, seemed to be quite resistant to the plasma do to a yet unknown magnetic field around each particle that composed it. The task would only get more difficult with each meter of crust the drone drilled into. It soon become apparent that this mission would take much longer than estimated.

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The Hellfire class frigate moved slowly through the space that was the edge of the Xliona System. She was only one of very few such ships that had not been sold off to other clients. With the Hellfire class in high demand around the galaxy, it was chosen to keep only a limited few and sell as many as possible to make profit. The few that had not been sold off and in turned kept for private use in the Stellar Enterprises Defense Force, had all been upgraded with the latest sensors and other Stellar Enterprises technologies. While they weren't the most advanced ships in the SE Defense Force, the Hellfire Class frigates were great ships for the price they cost.

This particular ship, which had been dispatched to protect the Xliona System, had now been sent on a system patrol mission. Its long range sensors, working in conjuntion with the scattered sensor net , would hopefully help it detect enemy formations at long range and give the other ships time to prepare for their arrival. Micro jump coordinates had already been preprogamed into the computer systems so that the ship could quickly jump back to the asteroid field and join formation with the others.

The Hellfire had been built for defensive duties and that was why it had been sent into the system. While it was proficient in dealing with some capital ships, it was much more compitent against fighters and projectiles. It was hoped that now with the newly discovered detection method this vessel could intercept more of the warheads before they could do damage to other ships.

With it being over three days now since the attack and no sign of the enemy coming back, it was proposed that with the destruction of one of their vessels, the unknown aliens could not return for some time. Today, however, would prove those theories wrong. At the very edge of sensor range, a group of radiation signitures became visible, out of nowhere. Unmoving, the sensor reading indicated them just hoving in space, as if waiting. For what it was not yet appearent.

Like a ripple spreading through a calm pond the vibrations from one large explosion spread throughout the Paramount. The missile had passed through the Star Cruiser's shields and had reappeared inside the ship before detonating. A large ball of fire had shot out from the ship's middle on the dorsal side, taking some weapon systems with it. Internally the fire had continued to spread until it was finished consuming all materials in the surrounding areas.

Captain Wilkinson sighed in relief as he watched the display screen in front of him and eyed the gapping hole that now existed on the dorsal surface of his ship. It had only been the first salvo from the enemy formation and they had already taken damage. So far the only positive thing was that thanks to an office aboard the Chimaera all the enemy ships were now somewhat visible to his formation. Their distinct radiation signature had been feed into every ship's computer system and now the spectrographic sensors could filter them out more distinctly and concentrate almost exclusively on their readings. What this meant was that even while the enemy ships were invisible the radiation their drives gave off was not. All their movements could be tracked relatively accurately.

"I guess one out of five isn't that bad." Captain Wilkinson remarked in an attempt to lighten the mood.

He stood in the middle of the Stellar Class Star Cruiser's internal bridge and watched every display he could. The recent events constantly running through his mind. The enemy ships had appeared on the edge of the system no more than three hours age and for some reason had floated there for some time before finally moving towards the Xliona Asteroid Field. What had surprised the Captain was that the alien ships did not jump closer to engage. They had simply moved through the system slowly on regular drives.

As had happened before, the enemy had set up a jamming field almost immediately. This didn't really effect the Xliona Defense Force ships since all of them had been equipped with laser data links. By the time the enemy formation had gotten within range, Captain Wilkinson and Captain Lo'maht had devised a strategy that might be able to defeat this four ships that came to oppose them.

For this plan the Paramount and the Chimaera would move together side by side with the Hellfire frigate between them. Ahead of them a screen of fighters and bombers, as well as the two Steadfast Gunships, would move ahead like hunting packs. These packs would follow the invisible enemy ships and would be in the right places should they appear. Looking at the sensor screens told Wilkinson that everything was going as planned. The gunships were out stalking a single ship, while the fighter and bomber groups were spread out among the three remaining ones.

"Got one sir!" A sensor operator almost screamed out.

This was the man's first combat mission and the Captain forgave his enthusiasm as such. He wanted his men to professional and to not take joy in combat. Somewhere out there people were dieing and that was not a thing to celebrate, for when you do, you cease being a human being and become something much worse. Wilkinson did not wish this on anyone of his crew.

As his eyes switched screens he could see the image feed from one of the long range photo-optic sensor sights located at the front of the ship. This was a large telescope type unit with incredible zoom and image clarity. That image was now focused on a rather large vessel that had come out of hiding to change course. As it had, however, the two almost black Steadfast Gunships that had been stalking it opened fire almost immediately.

On the display the Captain could see warhead after warhead emerge from the launchers on board the gunships and close the small distance to impact against the other larger ship's shields. With all of their weapons designed to deliver as much firepower as possible on a target in front of them, the gunships did what they were designed to do. They ripped into the ship quickly and effectively. While the plasma warheads detonated against the ship's shields and quickly drained them of their power, repeating turbolasers hammered at the ray shields to open up gapping holes in these protective barriers. It was through these opening that more laser fire and warheads poured into. Explosion after explosion blossomed out from the enemy's rear as the ship was torn into without remorse. There was a sudden shudder through the enemy vessel and in a bright flash of light the whole rear detonated, pushing the remaining forward half of the ship away from it. Both of the gunships had reacted quickly and maneuvered away from the larger hull pieces taking only shield damage. They moved as one and turned away from the wreckage to seek other targets.