It began just like any other interdiction: bulkheads groaned under the strain of invisible forces violently ripping the ship out of supercruise. The G-Forces had been dialled down for the simulation, but enough remained to throw Alastair against the pilot seat straps as the ship spun uncontrollably on re-entry to normal space-time. Ionised particles conducted electrons to places they should never be, sparks crackled and fizzed all around the cockpit. The odour of burning circuits flooded his nostrils.
Just the everyday roller coaster ride of an interdiction, thought Alastair.
But then the everyday gave way to something terrifying. A primal animal groan vibrated through the cabin. Hairs pricked up in fright all over his body.
Another groan filled the cabin. Alastair's heart jumped from his chest.
"What the hell is that?" Alastair cried out.
Grey blue energy waves smacked into the ship, rocking it sideways before dissipating. Alarm klaxons filled his ears. Warning messages flashed on the HUD about unknown system malfunctions. More warnings followed, but only for an instant. Then all went dead. Ship power was gone. No lights, no humming motors, nothing.
Just like that Alastair was left in silent darkness.
He looked around frantically, but saw nothing. Was there an animal in the cockpit? How else could he hear that awful groan? Sound can't pass through a vacuum.
He shifted in his seat for a better look, but the darkness hid everything, and the straps stopped him moving far.
Then it was there. On the screen. The animal groans magnified.
"What the hell is that thing?"
A grotesque barnacle covered flower approached the ship. No doubts as to the source of the groans now. Reptilian, almost dinosaur-like, eight menacing petals rotated around a central hub. Those petals glowed and pulsated as it approached. Angry, aggressive, fearless.
The most evil, poisonous plant he had ever laid eyes on
Horrific whaling intensified - the question of how, never again entered Alastair's mind.
Suddenly, golden threads reached out towards him like beam lasers. But not straight and direct as light should be, instead they resembled whips, lashing out at him and crunching against the hull. He felt the impact of every punishing lash as the petals glowed with ever greater menace, throbbing with excitement.
Then it stopped. It all stopped. The whipping beams, the throbbing petals, everything stopped.
Silence. Like an inanimate coral statue, the flower of death hung in space before him.
It was then that Alastair noticed the ice building up on the canopy. How long had the ship's systems been down? He couldn't think. He knew he should be freezing cold now, but sweat poured down his body, and his heart was pounding from his chest.
"Boot sequence initiating," the ship's computer interrupted. Lights flickered back on. The HUD came back to life. But something was wrong.
Text flickered, lines were blurred, ship stats changed erratically. Hard to read, even harder to trust with accuracy.
The pilot regained control, activating thrusters he slammed the ship forwards. He pointed the ship up towards the attacker. That was the last place Alastair wanted to go. It took him a moment to remember this was a simulation, little more than a movie. It was so vivid.
There in front of him, filling the screen was the darkened silhouette of the flower-shaped dinosaur. He now realised that this was a Thargoid. Dark grey against the background of space, the throbbing petals were no longer. What had just happened, and why was it no longer interested in its prey.
180m the HUD announced. That quickly fell away as the pilot foolishly approached this giant monster. 160m, 150m, 140m. The ship's spotlight flickered to life, reflecting off the scaly surface of this mysterious vessel.
It looked like inanimate rock as he danced the light over it.
Then it spun to face them in one terrifying instant. A screeching roar filled the cockpit.
Alastair jumped against his straps.
Petals throbbed angry gold once more.
The flower spat seeds from behind each petal like a snake spits venom. Even more terrifying groans. Alastair watched in dread anticipation as a dozen, two dozen, maybe even three dozen of those seeds gathered around the host,
The pilot begin blasting away at one of the petals, almost immediately the swarm of seeds formed up and spun around their host like a Catherine Wheel. Faster and faster they spun until individual shapes blurred into a halo around the mothership. Alastair watched in horror as those seeds were unleashed at his ship like a sling shot in some biblical myth.
Thargons, he realised. Remote controlled suicide drones, each armed with a selection of rockets, but just as willing to dive head first at any target.
Some hit the hull with painful thuds. Sparks flew from consoles as impacts ionised channels through the ship's electronics. Crackles fizzed in the cockpit all around him and burning filled the air once more.
Alastair was thrown against his seat as the pilot boosted away in evasive manoeuvres. The HUD flickered and flashed in pain reporting damage with numbers so distorted they couldn't be read.
Quickly the Thargoid was back in view. Pulse lasers, Alastair assumed, blasted out at one of the petals. The HUD was still too blurry for him to read.
The pilot jinked and thrusted in strange directions, no flight assist for this battle. Weapons remained locked on target, strafing that one petal at every opportunity as the ship danced around evasively.
Every hit diminished that fiendish pulsating glow. Alastair sensed the petal getting weaker and willed the pilot to fire again, and again.
The Thargoid accelerated this way and that, but still the pilot kept it within his sights.
Ruby red lasers flashed back at him, hard to see against the blackness of space. Alastair wasn't sure he'd noticed them until now. The swarm was always threatening, but usually on the wrong side of the mother ship. Surely that was down to the skill of the pilot.
Alastair felt the G-forces with every change of direction. Incessant lateral thrusting, liberal use of boost. His body thought it chaotic, his eyes admired the skill in keeping weapons on target while hiding from that deadly swarm.
The more Alastair watched, the more his fear eased. Never had he experienced such skill. Flying without flight assist was a black art to most, yet this navy pilot made it look so natural right in the heat of battle.
A fight to the death brings out the best in some. An enemy of unimaginable power along with its swarm of drones. His thrusters jinked the ship away from those ruby red beams as the Thargoid struggled to counter his moves. Even so, enough hit his hull to make the contest frighteningly even.
His beams struck the petal time after time. Alastair knew nothing about its significance, but watched the pulsating glow die after a barrage of hits. When it broke away, he wasn't surprised. The petal cracked into pieces and floated into the ether.
Another roar filled the cockpit, angrier than any heard thus far. The wild beast spat out another swarm of Thargons, instantly they circled the mothership at high speed.
They looked like animals, mother and children, living creatures in the hostile environment of space. Human ships were clearly manufactured from sheet metal, but these weren't. Muscular, he thought, that's what they looked like. Big, meaty, muscular flowers. That was the best Alastair could fathom.
The battle waged on. His ship's shields resisted very little. Each hit of ruby red energy pierced the hull directly, Alastair realised those shields were nothing but a desperate attempt to add something, anything, to the ship's defence.
They were well matched opponents. The HUD reported much damage, but difficult to read as it flickered and jumped around the screen. Thargons crashed into the ship now and again, thumping it off target for an instant.
By the time half the Thargoid's petals had been destroyed, his HUD reported his own hull's integrity bouncing between 30 and 60%. Where the human pilot relied on skill, the Thargoid was aggressive and fearless.
Swarms of Thargons were an exhausting irritant. The pilot rarely distracted himself with them. Impossible to keep at arms length the more swarms there were, he swallowed the hit time after time. His priority was the petals, tanking the never ending drones a necessary chore.
Always he kept that weapon pointed at the target, never flinching, always spinning, directional thrusters working over-time in the battle for survival.
And then a new trick from the monstrous giant before him.
The Thargoid lashed out with lightning bolts of green energy. There was no escape. Down went his hull integrity, critically low.
A violent, last ditch effort to live, Alastair realised as it stuttered to an end. A last desperate volley from the Thargoid.
Its remaining petals pulsated, gasses released, and an almighty whaling groan of pain filled Alastair's ears. Thargoid death throes, Alastair realised, agony, pain, despair.
One by one, the remaining three petals exploded. Clouds of grey-green gasses floated around as whatever passed for hull material floated off into space. One final explosion ripped apart the beast from within. A blinding flash of yellowy green light quickly dispersed into grey green powdery smoke.
Silence ensued.
Alastair's ship sat motionless staring at the debris.
Thargons hung in space, lifeless.