*Action* - "Disposable starships" pt1

Who: 1st officer Jay Chrysler
Where: SCV Dauntless, near the Krylon Gateway
When: Deep space
The Dauntless was a large shiny battleship, all painted military
grey. It was polished to perfection, and even had micro turrets that
instantly vaporised any dust or space-dirt that decided to cling to
the hull.
The crew were military-trained, and each had oodles of qualifications
and experience on top-notch Space Corps battleships, apart from Andy
Longman, Kara McGellan and a few other ex-Dwarfers who were just
winging it.
On the bridge, Kara looked at the controls in front of her. Her
holographic matrix had been programmed to include full knowledge of
the complex navigation system on the Dauntless, as well as approved
military manouvers and strategies. The Spacecorps were trialing this
method with a few holograms, to see if they would be more efficient
than living people.
Sill, her personality remained the same, and she looked over the
large sea of controls in front of her and said "What the smeg are all
these for?"
Stood to her left and her right were more trained military personnel,
and behind her stood Jay Chrysler. Jay wasn't yet sure if he would
adapt to this militaristic lifestyle. Everyone was incredibly
efficient, and nobody grumbled when you gave them an order, then only
executed it after first making a cup of coffee, and checking their
emails twice. Jay was incredibly impressed earlier when he ordered a
course change, that the officer initiated it without checking his
facebook and changing his status to "At work. Bored".
But even with all this efficiency, Jay missed the nice relaxed
atmosphere of the Blue Dwarf.
As he thought about the Blue Dwarf, a crimson red wormhole opened in
front of them. Jay had seen the same wormhole many times before, but
always from the opposite side.
"Sir, the test ship is coming out of the wormhole it's the JMC..."
"Blue Dwarf, yes. Thanks Ensign, but I know what it looks like. I
actually worked and lived on it for the last... seven years?" he
paused in thought. "Wow, I hadn't realised it had been that long!"
He looked up, deep in thought. He was sad that a ship that had been
his home for so long was now being used as an experiment.
Everyone on the bridge of the Dauntless remained quiet, until a
science officer spoke.
"Remote control is operational. The Blue Dwarf is under the control
of SC Automated Recon."
Jay nodded. "Send her in."
**One hour Earlier... approaching the Krylon Gateway**
The Krylon gateway was a large tunnel structure in space. The Space
Corps hadn't collected much information about the Krylons so far,
other than they are 100% mechanical, and seemed to be pissed off with
the entire galaxy.
But what they did know, was that this is where they came from. The
gateway was approximately a mile in diameter and several miles long.
It was made of intercrossing wires that formed a lattuce, like a
toilet roll that had several metres of wires wound around, and then
the toilet roll removed.
But this was a toilet roll that was heavily armed. Any Spacecorps
ships that had gone anywhere near had been cut down by it's powerful
lasers, powerful to pierce any ship and cut all the way through it's
hull.
Most significant about the funnel-shaped gateway was that no ship
could pass through that had any type of organic life on it
whatsoever.
This was the gateway to the Krylon realm, a mysterious sub-layer of
space that had been given the name "Root Directory". Nobody knows
anything about this strange dimension, but this gateway was the only
way to get there.
The Krylons seemed to be sticklers for security, so they protected
this entrance to their realm incredibly well. Any ship that passed
through was subject to an intense scan that killed all living
creatures, only after a ship was rid of anything that isn't
mechanical it was allowed to pass through.
The Krylons seemed to be quite racist against anything organic.
Because of this intense scanning method, the gateway had earned
itself the nickname "the firewall".
"All stop. Don't get any closer to that thing!" Said Commander
Chrysler. Normally the Captain would be the one giving the orders,
but as Jay was new, he was standing back and testing his new first
officer.
Jay had been through the plan a hundred times already, so knew what
had to be done. Actually on his part it was very easy, he just had to
watch.
The Blue Dwarf had been stripped of all crew and essential items
because the Space Corps wanted to see what happens if they could get
it through the firewall. It would be flown by remote control into the
firewall, where it would be scanned before being transported to the
Krylon root directory. Once there it would scan the area and send the
data back to them before the Krylons realised it was a blatent big
blue spy and blow it out of the sky.
Jay had argued with the Admirals until he was blue in the face that
they should send a smaller ship, one that nobody cared if it got
blown up. Like a Starbug.
But the Admirals had all agreed, none of them cared about the Blue
Dwarf. It was an out-of-date rustbucket that they didn't want around
anymore, and it just happened to be roughly the same size as a Krylon
warship they had seen.
"The Blue Dwarf is approaching the firewall." Kara said.
"Lets hope they don't realise it's a fake before it gets there." Said
Jay.
"How could they not realise? It looks nothing like their own ships!"
Said Kara. "It's a big blue brick!"
"The Krylons seem to identify their own ships by code, rather than
what they look like. It'll get through." Said Jay optimistically.
"Then what?" Said Kara. "How do we get it back?"
Jay was quiet for a moment before answering. "We probably don't."
"Oh."
<TBC>