The screen was filled up with crapload of data and blinking objects. Blips and sounds were the only thing on which Rasmus was concentrated. He simply ignored all other sounds and voices around as his crew was fulfilling their duties as always.
"New blips on the scanners, two hyperspace entrances detected."
It was the very first time, since the whole engagement began, as Rasmus looked away from the screen. "New? And only two?"
"Yes sir," the XO nodded to him. "Two signatures, class unknown."
"The unknown ships? I would never expect something like that from them, bring us about. We are done with these gunboats."
The steel-coloured ship moved around and began to charge its engine for booster speed. The targets were obviously in the nebula that had been behind them all the time - an unlikely entrance for their foes. They came from that cloud and
"Are we in range yet?" asked captain, but his officer shook his head.
"No. They are still invisible to our sensors. I advise caution, since we don't know whose or what ships are these."
"Advice noted."
The Austerlitz was already a bit battered after wing of light bombers had fired on the ship before. But it were just external damages, not really hazardous for such a ship - a somekind of frigate at the best. The least armoured ship in the whole fleet, but still...
"20-K from targets, prepare all Fast Track turrets," Rasmus ordered. He was watching the blips again, as the battle still raged on. One of explosions filled whole screen that had been covering back of the ship since they changed course.
And then... those had shown up... Rasmus stood up from his place as soon as possible.
"Captain, the scanners show two Capital class vessels."
"Class?"
"Class unknown sir. They bear no known IFF. Sir... These doesn't seem to be theirs." A tone of the voice was something that had not happened for a long time to the First.
He still stood after the ships were clearly visible on the scanners. They were going impulse speed, slowly emerging from the cloud. Even the battle behind could not distract officers from the rather unusual view. Two big steel-coloured vessels with blue yet seemingly strangely organic tints, that they hadn't seen before.
"Try to contact them."
"Yes sir, opening all hailing frequencies..."
Minute after minute have passed, since the order was given. The whole bridge went silent, as if everyone were awaiting a positive - or negative - reply from two unknowns.
"Sir, no avail. They are not responding."
"Damn... So they are playing with us again, aren't they...? Try to avoid--"
A raised voice came from behind. It was a female officer from her station. The insignia on her shirt clearly stated she was a support officer.
"They are powering up, two shots detected."
Rasmus shook his heard and ordered right away: "Disengage burn speed, fire up reverse engine at max. Strafe down and fire at the targets."
The Austerlitz did a very violent move, almost throwing away people from their battle stations. The frigate was pushed down with aux engines as well to avoid fire. The fire from two unknowns luckily went over them.
"They missed, captain," the female voice spoke again.
"Fire away... We don't need to wa--"
The violent outburst from behind had shaken the ship pretty hard and all people were thrown from their respective positions, including Rasmus himself. As they were still in state of confusion, one of the officers looked at the aft camera.
"What the hell is..."
The stellar anomaly, possibly created by misfire from the unknown steel-and-blue vessels. Something was pulling them into something... like a hole.
"All propulsion engines, fire up!"
"They are already on, captain!"
"God damn it!" Rasmus growled. "What is going on...!?"
The female officer spoke once again: "They are firing again, we are unable to dodge away."
"Upper engines, go!"
"Cannot comply... we aren't..."
Yet another violent thrust pushed ship closer to the anomaly. The ship's engines were very weak for a such gravitional force that was pulling them inside it. The ship started to shake more and more violently as they were closer.
"Fighters Four and Six lost.... We are being pulled into--!!!"
Rasmus head nothing at the time, as the anomaly had sucked the ship into somewhere... It took them many long minutes to realize that shaking have stopped and the enviroment around the ship have changed.
"Damage report?"
"Light damage on the engines, sir. She won't fly anywhere on our burst speed... Aaaand hyperspace drive has been fried..."
All stood up when they looked at the screen again.
The main screen showed up a system, in which double-star system was visible, as well as some planets around it. One of them was a purple gas giant with beautiful ring. The other was the oceanic planet in its nature... They were too far away to notice anything else beside these four objects - stars and the planets.
"Sir...? My map is on fritz."
"Is it?" spoke captain and glared over his own screen. "...the hell...?"
The officer had looked on other screen and started to speak slowly: "The telemetric scanners are on-line again... Checking... Either scanners are broken or we were dropped into our own territory. But that's impossible, since we can't find such a system in our databases."
"I agree with him," said First. "We should be in the middle of nowhere, not in... here. Also... position of the stars does not match any known position..."
"The hell is going on here?" mumbled Rasmus as he moved his interest onto two stars on the main screen.