The Grey Wardens: Wardens in SPACE!

Friday had been a quiet day. For as much as days even existed, in space. The Libcord attempted to simulate some kind of day-night cycle by varying light temperatures, but so many planets were represented on the ship that mostly everyone just slept when they were tired without caring where they were in relation to Star 1147G-Kyzikos, the centerpiece of the artificial solar system.

The coming weekend would not be so quiet.

For once, Roavin, a native of one of the system’s natural planets, was awake. The reconnaissance centre of the Libcord was full of people who were not so awake. Jamie was half asleep, curled up on an armchair, listening to some classical music, stuff from the second millennium. Tim was tiredly insisting to Nakari that Overwatch was better than Fortnite. Vinny was eating ninth breakfast. Merlin grumbled a “Good morning.”

An alarm sounded and everyone perked up.

“Solar flare coming,” said Haku, “we’ll lose power for a few seconds.”

“Exciting! We can pretend it’s 2007 and use clocks and IRC!” Nakari perked up.

“We have backup generators, the power will be back on soon.”

“Aww.”

“Brace yourselves!” Phoenix shouted, and -

“That wasn’t too bad,” said Karp.

Out the window they watched as the merchant ships that dotted the system lost power, the little lights blinking out like a birthday cake’s candles being blown out.

“They’ll be alright, won’t they?” Phoenix was pressed up against the window. Already some of the merchant ships were starting to light up again.

“Should be,” said Gorundu, a mercenary from another of the natural planets. “They have engineers, and they were forewarned about the flare.”

Roavin examined a screen. “Yeah, but there might be raiders in the sector. We should watch out that they don’t take advantage of power going out. They’re not too dangerous, but annoying to get a visit from them.” A few blips appeared on the screen, and he frowned. “Yeah, we should take care of those.”

“Right, let’s get to our switch ships,” Vinny grinned. “Catch you guys back here for tenth breakfast.”

That night, not a single ship fell to the rogues.

The effects of the solar flare faded gradually, and Tim was finally able to reconnect to Overwatch. But not every ship managed to regain power, and not all were still asleep.

The defenders watched all. They’d been warned that the solar flare was the start of a solar storm, and they’d need to be vigilant.

There was an old ship floating out in space, riddled with laser holes from being used as target practise. It was still occupied, though. And now, as raider ships sized it up...

“Distress call from Warzone Airspace >_>”, said Fratt. “They’re being attacked.”

The second solar flare struck twelve hours afterwards.

Libcord had, of course, prepared. Mostly. Omega, a trainee from the aquatic South Pacific planet, had only been around for a few such situations before, and Acronius, who had spent a while out of the galaxy and only just returned to serve in the Grey Warden Fleet, were tossed around like jelly in an earthquake.

Haku peered at the screen, then rubbed it as if thinking there was dust on the display. “Two groups, from different directions,” he announced. “Let’s split up.”

So they did - one team chasing the speedy Trieltic-class raiders, the other team chasing the Black Hawks. The solar flare had sent ripples through space, and the raiders kept shooting themselves far beyond their target, missing it entirely. But for many, when the raiders got close, the defender fleets beat them off. For some reason, half of the time the defenders won, the protected ship automatically recognised Nakari as their new captain - she hung back occasionally and fired at a few raiders with the merchants’ weapons.

The electromagnetic disturbances faded, the raiders scattered into the blackness of space, the defenders reconvened into their ship, and Libcord gleefully reported that they had protected 41 ships that night.

Also there was this other defence. It was cool. Lasers firing and everything from the newly prettified Libcord.

Written by Nakari