The Osprey was vibrating so violently he could feel his teeth shaking. Jace adjusted the course to account for the gravity wake that the station left. The systems on the ship were struggling in these conditions but were still operating.
Jace watched in the monitor with the view of the rear of the ship as the chain reaction caused by the first station's destruction was slowing down to almost a complete stop. Seems despite the chain reaction of gravity failing there was still a massive effect on time because of the gravity.
But for some reason their ship was currently unaffected as they sped towards the edge of the system at an unbelievable speed. He could hear the groans from the rear compartment from the rest of his unit. At the same time he could hear the creaking from the ship.
He tapped a few buttons when he had a chance and confirmed that he still could not make a connection with the ship. So instead he flew straight toward their location. Initially they would have only been gone for at most a few hours from the Anvil and Judas' perspective.
—------------------------
"What just happened?" Hammers asked as he walked into the ready room where Taylor Hielo should have been watching the situation on the holotable. But as he walked in he could hear her snoring as loud as a bear.
So instead of looking to the extremely capable but at times unreliable engineer he looked to the other two individuals in the room. Cain, the robotic dog with an artificial intelligence inside it. The other was Ember, the shipbourne artificial intelligence for his ship.
"Cain and Ember, will one of you explain to me what is going on?" Captain Hammers marched down the stairs while glancing at the holographic projection. He was fuming in anger since Taylor was not answering any communication signals. But he could not do anything to her at the moment since she was sleeping. So for now he would focus on why he came down here in the first place.
"Which part? You will have to be a bit more specific in what you are talking about." Cain informed the captain. He was currently looking at the hologram, watching it carefully. Jace had double checked Taylor's work ahead of time. But for some reason he did not actually inform anyone, Cain noticed but did not say anything either.
"Which part? How about the fact that they are moving so fast?" Captain Hammers asked as he glanced at the hologram and then did a double take as the hologram began changing. "What is going on now?"
"Well I cannot say for certain but I believe whatever delicate balance that was held together by the various stations with gravity generators and the systems blackhole has been broken." Cain declared. "But before that, the reason they were moving so quickly was because of the time-perception component of gravity. Nowadays it is rare for it to be important when charting a system. But this system seems to have a rather strong effect on gravity because of the various strong gravitational forces."
"What does that mean for Spectre Jace and the rest of his unit?" Hammers asked as he watched the blue dot race back towards the edge of the system after only being at the black dot that denoted the marked station for only a moment.
"It means these ten minutes for us were roughly a four day trip there and a day trip back if my calculations about it collapsing are right." Cain declared after a moment. "I would account for a day of error going either way on both estimates. Calculating something is tricky even for me."
"The modified Osprey is about to exit the system. Should we prepare anything for them?" Ember interrupted them.
"Just prepare the hangar to receive them. Have a medical team in the hangar as well. Will we be able to establish communications before its arrival?" Hammers asked Cain after giving orders to Ember. Then before Cain could answer he realized something and asked another question, "you said the system's delicate cycle has been broken right? Are we at a safe enough distance to not be affected by the collapsing system?"
"Unsure, I will begin the calculations now. But just in case you should start gaining distance and warn nearby systems about the collapsing star system. Considering the technologies at play here there is no way for us to know for certain what will happen. For all we know the entire galaxy or even the universe could implode." Cain informed the captain as he moved around the holotable.
Captain Hammers' eye twitched as he processed Cain's words. After a moment he realized that the Artificial Intelligence was making a joke in addition to giving the report. "Basically you are saying that we should be prepared for just about anything?" He walked up to the holotable and connected a channel to the Judas. "Captain Arthur, we need to send warnings to all known inhabited systems in the area. We cannot do it ourselves because of the classified nature of our existence. So I am requesting you do it in our place. I will have an artificial intelligence named Cain that will send you what to say." Hammers looked over at Cain.
Cain made a humming noise and Hammers could almost swear the lights in its eyes blinked for a moment. There was a clicking and then Cain spoke. "I am done, and I excluded the joke this time and instead gave them a very brief explanation. The explanation avoided detailing anything important or secret." Cain informed him.
"I will get this done, Captain Hammers." Captain Arthur told him over the communication connection. Then it disconnected and Hammers turned to Ember.
He sighed for a moment as he composed himself. "I am heading down to the hangar. Alert me if anything disastrous occurs." Captain Hammers then turned around and walked out of the ready room.
He walked quickly to the hangar. Arriving at the same time as the medical team. As they walked in, the metal covering on one of the hangar doors was opening. At the same time a bunch of the hangar workers were quickly clearing a space near the door. Not even a minute later the modified Osprey flew through the atmospheric barrier landing in the hangar with a loud thud. Metal screeching as the Osprey landed.
As soon as it landed the Osprey started falling apart. The landing gears collapsed causing the Osprey to bounce on the ground. While one of the wings collapsed and an explosion occurred a second later from the engine.
There was loud banging coming from the Osprey. Then the front windows of the cockpit came flying off, crashing into a nearby wall. The rear ramp of the Osprey broke open, throwing metal everywhere.
Out of the front jumped someone from Jace's unit. While the rest of his unit came out of the back of the Osprey. They were quickly moving clear of the ship while the fire unit on standby in the Hangar ran forward with tubes and tools to extinguish the fire.
The unit under the Spectre's command walked toward Captain Hammers and the medical unit that he arrived with. "Spectre Jace?"
Jace walked up and saluted. "Captain Hammers. I apologize but this was a waste of time. We walked into a trap. I managed to retrieve some data from the station but-"
All the devices in the hangar began loudly blaring. Jace and his unit all flinched like they suddenly heard something loud. It was the emergency alert noise the Vexical Military had in the event of a catastrophic failure.
A moment later the announcement came through all the speaker systems and devices at the same time. "Per Emergency Action permissible by- ah screw it, the star system is imploding. We are getting scans of the stations and the facility that is wrapped around the system full of anomalies. The scans show that the facility has suddenly absorbed too much mass and is imploding as a result." Ember's voice started off generic but they seemed to switch to a southern accent after a moment.
Hammers opened the full alert on his device. It was detailing how both the Anvil and Judas were about to rush into an emergency warp. The warp would move them into the Waterswan system which they were near. The warning was occurring because it was without the captain's orders and despite the advanced technology on both ships they still need to make preparations usually. But this time they did not get a chance to do so.
The ship shook and the metal hangar door slammed closed as everyone was thrown off their feet. Only two of the people in Jace's unit managed to stay on their feet. Hammers grunted in pain as he pulled himself up. The fact that they decided it was necessary to take emergency measures must mean that something on the sciency side had occurred to cause it.
He would leave it to the resident geniuses to figure that out. He had to remember his purpose on this ship was just to direct the ship to its next destination. But either way these Spectres were starting to give him a headache.