Oak Orks of the Antilles: Into The Night

Today, there was very little in the cluster that could significantly challenge an Oak Clan Star Ship, nor, admittedly any other clan cruiser in the horde. Sure, there were minor skirmishes with pirates, brigands and spy vessels that had to be vaporized. There were also the odd planetary disputes to be settled, generally with local in-fighting on those worlds; but never anything that a few dropships with squads of heavily armored Oak Marines couldn’t “resolve.” The last battle that had actually required the Skull Crusher to marshal her full might had been with a squid ship, nearly four GY ago, well before Trig had joined the ship.

All of which made today, much more interesting. While on duty, Trig had received an Automated Ӕthereal Message from the OCSS Bone Wracker; and while there was nothing unusual in getting a message from another clan cruiser, this one was a Call-To-Arms. An extremely rare type of message that was only issued when a ship encountered a situation that was beyond the capabilities of a single OCSS. Further, and more troubling, he had tried repeatedly to hail the other shaman, and gotten no response. That was completely out of protocol and could only mean something had happened to the shamans aboard the ship.

Of course, the truly exciting news was that his superior, Thargus, was temporarily incapacitated, making Trig the acting First Shaman, giving him a front row seat to the investigation as part of the First Away Team. It appeared that, at long last, his on-duty life would get exciting enough to distract him from his off-duty life.

His off-duty time had been a bit more than interesting. It had, in all honesty, been completely bizarre. About two Galactic Weeks ago, a long dormant shaman stone passed down his family tree for thousands of years had suddenly become active much to Trig’s surprise. Upon examining the stone, he’d discovered that it was linked to another stone—in a different universe, beyond the Astral Plane. And the people who had activated the stone? Well, they were an ancient army of mythological immortal warriors that his grandfather claimed had once ruled a vast Multiversal Empire, but then vanished for no known reason.

It seemed that these, no longer quite so mythological beings wanted Trig, by heredity and as the owner of the stone, to join them and assist in their ‘Restoration of Glory.’ He wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but he was more than a little concerned that doing so might be a conflict of interest with his allegiance to the horde.

A worthy adversary for their ship and a heated battle or two should serve to keep his mind off his mythological being problem.