The K'ryth'ralli Conflict Part Two

Posted on Sun Aug 9th, 2026 @ 3:05pm by Ensign Charalyne Blackwood

Mission: The Library
Location: Planet K'ryth'rall
Timeline: Year 2242

Contains profanity, descriptions of combat violence, and bloodshed.




The Launch And The Failure



02MAY2242. Six deep space Valiant class Infiltration craft were loaded up and ready to fly. I was on board Echo Whiskey as chief pilot. We always took a ribbing over the call sign because it spelled out "EW". With us, were Echoes Hotel, Kilo, Foxtrot, Sierra, and Golf. This many troops in that many ships were in case the K'ryth'ralli spotted us and tried to shoot us down. Very unlikely, but not a zero percent. With the non dimensional star drives it would be little more than an hour of hard vacuum flight. Fast, clean, and virtually no detectable residual particles from exhaust. We had the best tri-ionic steel shielding available. We haven't found anything that can penetrate it, but it's light as a feather and can easily be cast into whatever shapes are required. We had plasma cannons on all sides. We had a battery of Richards Tachyon missiles at hand. Nasty nasty devices. Every troop was armed with dual phase arc rifles and particle pistols. Not conventional projectiles like 20th and 21st century firearms. The rifles fired a concentrated electricam charge of up to 35 amperes at 6,500 volts, while the pistols would launch a pellet made of a superconductor at near light speed. Humanity had never had such a well equipped military in known history. Nor has humanity known such grave hubris. Originally we were to touch down in six different locations away from populated areas. We all had our coordinates locked and were just about to make atmosphere when the first missiles struck. Echo Kilo was first on the coms warning us of incoming, but she never finished her message. Lieutenant Vriess was a classmate at the academy and one of the hardest hard asses I've ever met. I always figured her last words would be along the lines of "What the actual fuck..." but I never imagined I'd be correct. At 1:15 mission time Echo Kilo was particles blazing across the K'ryth'ralli sky. Holy shit. We were puckered up and making ready for some hefty evasive maneuvers. The Valiant class had some truly incredible structural integrity and the gravitational dampers made evasive movement a breeze. Only whatever was being fired at us moved better. Our incredible tri-ion steel shielding barely withstood a single hit, let alone the two or three dozen aimed at us. Echo Foxtrot was taking fire, but steering clear of any direct hit. We didn't get a good com from them because their link system had been damaged. Choppy sentence fragments at best.



"Be advis..." and something in Latin..? They disappeared from our scanner at 1:17 mission time. Fuck, we're getting our asses kicked up here and we're not even sure how. My co-pilot watched the scanner as Golf, then Sierra disappeared. It was down to Whiskey and Hotel, only Hotel was reporting of taking fire. The 12 of us held our breath, hoping and praying to whichever gods we adored, that we wouldn't be the only flight to land. There was a staticky, scraping sound and Hotel went quiet. They were still on our scanner so that was the least of the good signs we were hoping for. Things suddenly got bad for us.




The Destruction and the Dive



At approximately 1:20 mission time we saw the warning on the tactical display. At 1:21 mission time we were in free fall with pressure suits and parachutes, watching Echo Whiskey vaporize. Damn, that was our ride home. All we had left were the armaments in hand; all the special gear was vaporized with the ship. 45 minutes later we landed in reasonable safety.

After we ditched the parachutes and pressure suits, we sent a coded message to Command. It would take 15 minutes for them to receive it.



"Update. Zero point eight tree out. One point six unknown. Commencing recovery"

We weren't expecting any response so we began heading to the objective. There was a land crawler on the ship and we fucking wished we had it for the 7 kilometer trek to the first location. We were fortunate enough to land that close, but the cover of the original 24 kilometer ride in a vehicle would have felt better.




The Hike And The Discovery



Mission time 1:56. We arrived at what appeared to be an abandoned industrial facility. A large building with windows about 3 meters above ground. We found a door and scanned. Zero life forms. Zero movement. Zero electrical activity. Ensign Shyklo pulled a flying scanner drone out and let it loose. It flew up to the window level and commenced its scan. Some kind of machinery inside. Nothing active. It flew to the left side and out of sight. Video display showed very little difference as it went along. About 4 minutes later it came back from the right side. No life forms for a radius of 7 kilometers, which was the maximum range of the short scanner. It also showed a door of sorts not far up the right side. Strange that intel would send us to an abandoned industrial complex when we were looking for information on the singularity bomb. We heard a warning beacon, a click, and a bright light filled the air.




The Weapon



We all went flat on the ground. There was a brief rush of wind, pretty violent actually. It sucked the air out of everyone's lungs. After a few seconds of the gust everything went still. We waited for a moment in case more was going to happen. Shyklo's drone was gone, and he had no feed from its scanner. Petty Officer Sjudman launched his drone as we remained prone on the ground. What we saw was unreal. The far end of the building was gone. Like torn off and eaten up gone. After we saw that we decided to beat feet out of there. Based on what the Argellan science academy had devised about singularity bombs, we were narrowly missed by one. There wasn't any kind of sound at all, just a click and flash. We took refuge in a hilly, rocky area about 264 meters from the building. We activated scan dampers and expected hostile presence. After 3 minutes we weren't disappointed. A land vehicle with six or seven K'ryth'ralli soldiers arrived and they spread out around the building. After a few minutes the one who was likely in charge spoke to a device on his arm. I tried to study the K'ryth'ralli language at the academy but it was insanely difficult. The syntax is short bursts and lots of breaks,



"Schreeg, k'nut'hohan beh. Homani, k'nut." Something, something, nobody here. They returned to their vehicle when the leader stopped and looked right at us. This wasn't a time to forget that K'ryth'rall are a predatory species with remarkably keen hearing, olfactory sensitivity, and some unreal eyesight. Grey skin, mamallian phisiology but no hair. Orange eyes. Whoof. His voice got really low in pitch, almost impossible to hear. "Homani...schreeg beh...". In spite of being scan proof and practically invisible, we were made. Before he could get word out to his comrades we had to act fast. We opened fire with the arc rifles. They returned fire. In spite of excellent vision, their aim was moderately bad. Seven K'ryth'ralli hit the ground in pieces. We cautiously approached the vehicle in case there were more. Initial scans showed no more, but they also made some really good combat androids. The air smelled of old cheese and boiled cabbage. With such a keen sense of smell how do these guys smell this bad when they die? We carefully peeked inside the vehicle's cargo area. What appeared to be three large rocks, roughly the size of volleyballs. We didn't touch anything but fell back to the rocky hill we had been hiding in. Another drone went up and into the vehicle. Scans showed the rocks made up of a metallic material. Something like iron but not as dense. About two centimeters thick. There was a spherical object inside with about a 2.4 centimeter radius. Humming, faintly at 422.6Hz. Very odd for a rock, let alone a trio of rocks. Ensign Foshe advised us to get out of there, fast. 422.6Hz was the same frequency detected coming from the object in the Tsoram Event. We had gotten about forty-five meters from the vehicle when it clicked and flashed and a hefty gust of wind. Someone screamed and was very suddenly cut off.