The Dark Ship Options

[Franavu]

This is a story I've been writing for a while now, sort of an ongoing project. I think it is ready to be posted, or at least the first part of it.
The story is elder scrolls related, it'll just take a while to get there.

As English isn't my first language I hope you'll forgive me any spelling or grammatical mistakes I might have missed.

Okay, here goes the first bit, I hope you'll like it.
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The dark ship

The dark ship shot through the great void of space, on its way to a planet of legends…

Meanwhile,
Captain’s log, supplemental
We still haven’t found the smugglers’ ship we were send here to find, we lost its warp trail two days ago, we haven’t recovered it yet, and I don’t think we will. How we lost the ship is still a mystery to my crew and me, one minute it was there, the other it was gone and nowhere to be found.
I wonder what they were shipping, one more thing we have never been told, I don’t like this, I don’t like this one bit... [Pause]…What’s worse, my first officer, who is from this region of space, looks like he hasn’t slept the past few days. When I mentioned it to him, he murmured something about bad dreams. He clearly doesn’t want to talk about it and I haven’t pressed him…not yet at least.
This region has some pre-industrial civilizations, none the smugglers could have wanted to go to…I hope. We really don’t need Prime Directive issues; of course it has to be taken into account, at least until we know why they went this way.
[End of log entry]


The dark ship stopped, they had lost their pursuers, for now. His red eyes shone with hope.

Captain’s log, supplemental
Still no smugglers, I have ordered to search all the inhabited planets for the ship…I don’t really expect anything from it, but I just had orders from command to keep looking…No reason given. This is madness, the bloody ship can be anywhere by now, I hope they have a damn good reason for all of this… [Pause]
I spoke with my first officer this morning, he looked worse again…I couldn’t keep ignoring it. First he evaded my questions, but I kept pressing. So at last he told me about his dreams, about a woman speaking to him at night, about glowing red eyes in the dark and strangely enough about large sugar crystals. I have advised him to talk to the ships counsellor about this; I hope he will follow my advice.
He also spoke about the stories of his people. Their legends tell about an exile from their birth planet by red eyed warriors and about lesser, greater and false gods. The stories say this exile happened because they had become so arrogant they thought they wouldn’t need the gods anymore. Sounds like a standard tale of hubris to me, earth must have dozens of them.
[End of log entry]

[Franavu]

No updates in a while, university has been keeping me busy. Real life has this habit of kicking you in the teeth, but I haven't given up on my story yet, so here's the next update, hope you like it.
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They were all over the place. Dozens of them. Behind him he heard them attacking his pursuers. He shot of a shock bolt to his left, while he put up his sword to ward of one of the creatures heavy blow.
If he only had his magic at full power. No time for that now, another shock bolt, and a blow with his sword. Two down, too many to go. One spider from below, one good kick and the sound of breaking metal. A sphere came rolling towards him, another shock bolt but that didn’t seem to slow it down. He spun around trying to keep them off him. He focused on his sword, a sphere of fire extended from it. Two red hot centurions melted at his feet. It gave him some time; he shot a look at the ones who had been following him. They were surrounded and shooting their weapons. They had been his enemies before, now he could only hope that they could hold them off.
A flash of steel to his right interrupted his thoughts. As he jumped out of the way a curse escaped from his lips. He couldn’t afford to be distracted. His sword danced in a complex pattern and took the head of the nearest steam centurion. At least they were not that smart.
Another shock bolt took care of the three spiders scuttling towards him. But it left him exposed to the blow of a sphere that rocked him on his feet. He focused on his sword again. This time the sphere of fire was stronger, hotter. At least it gave him some time to breathe. His side, where the sphere had hit him hurt like hell.
He stepped back a little, and cast a healing spell. It took the edge of the pain away, but no more than that. And now his reservoir of magic was running dangerously low. He wouldn’t be able to use his sword’s enchantment many more times either. Two steam centurions were closing in again. He dodged a blow from the first and hacked an arm of the other. Not that it stopped him. Another kick took care of a smaller spider.
The one armed centurion was getting close again. A slash of his sword, now it went straight into the vital mechanisms. That was the end of that one. The other centurion came into his vision again. One slash and a now headless machine tumbled over. He heard the whining sounds of the alien’s weapons; one was now on the ground. But there were also notably less animunculi around. There were heaps of dead iron everywhere.
But then, a sound from behind, a hard blow sent him flying. He managed to twist in the air and land on his shoulder. Something cracked, his left arm hung useless as he stumbled to his feet and brought his sword up. Just in time to hit in the crack under the head of his attacker. It stopped the centurion dead in his tracks. But with only one hand he couldn’t get the sword back out again.
Hurt and unarmed he readied the last of his magic to cast a spell that would give him time to get to safety. But it didn’t stop the sphere centurion behind him. He didn’t dodge fast enough. One hard blow to his head and then, darkness…