Andrijan immediately grabbed on to Maggie's suggestion, snapping his fingers and pointing to her. "Yes, yes maybe it's some kind of radiation signature the system can't read. Dark matter, maybe?"<br/><br/>"It can read dark matter, Andy," Curtis retorted, as if taking personal offense. "What the hell kind of sonar would it be if it took false readings on dark matter?"<br/><br/>"Just run it again, skip the ping," Andrijan barked, panic starting to seep into his tone. Curtis began tapping his console with careful concentration, and the red brackets began to clear.<br/><br/>Moore opened up the comms channel. "Fuel Depot Hemera, come in. This is Cargo Hauler DS-Asura. Can you read me, over?" The control panel erupted into static, filling the room with white noise. "Fuel Depot Hemera, please respond. Over." More static. Moore looked up to his crewmates. "I'm going to burst the signal, wide band, maybe there's someone out here who knows what's going on."<br/><br/>"Alright, running the scan," Curtis replied, all eyes turned to the viewport, awaiting the return of the brackets. Torturous seconds ticked by, but no red appeared on the screen. "Oh shit... It's not a false positive."<br/><br/>"Ping it one more time," Andrijan commented, beginning to grip the control sticks mounted on either side of his chair more tightly. A bead of sweat formed on his brow as his eyes scanned.<br/><br/>"Charging it now," Curtis grunted impatiently.<br/><br/>"This is Cargo Hauler DS-Asura hailing all frequencies. Is anyone out there?" Moore asked, sending his voice out into the dark for anyone who could hear. "Anyone?" Static blared once again through the speakers into the cockpit. "Damn it!" he cursed, hanging up the microphone.<br/><br/>"Alright, pinging," Curtis said, sending out the wave of ultraviolet light to see what reflected it. This time a red bracket appeared in the center of the screen almost immediately, growing larger at a frightening pace.<br/><br/>"Oh sh--"<br/><br/>The object that struck them was only visible for a moment: a large shard of jagged metal, charred almost black. It was rendered even more difficult to see by the sun's position ahead of them off the port bow. They could only see the dark side of any debris floating. The ship rocked violently at the impact, sending Curtis face-first into his console, and Moore launching out of his seat into a railing protecting the pilot, a loud crunch barely audible over the sound of metal grinding on metal. Andrijan, having had just enough time to brace himself against the blow, remained in his seat, barely.<br/><br/>The lights in the ship flickered off for a moment, flooding the cabin in darkness. Moments later a red light began to flash and the critical systems slowly began to light up again. A klaxon began to blare loudly in the cabins behind the cockpit. Looking out the viewport, it was clear that the ship had taken on an unusual twisting motion, knocked out of its stable flight by the impact. A small crack had formed at the very top of the viewport, which Andrijan eyed with fearful suspicion.<br/><br/>"Arey!!" Andrijan exclaimed, terror creeping into his voice. "Everyone alive?" he called back. Curtis pushed himself off the console into his chair, looking dazed but alright. An affirmative sound managed out of his mouth.<br/><br/>Moore looked a bit less healthy, lying on the floor in a crumpled heap, gripping his side with a miserable expression. "I'm fine!" he growled, trying to push himself up but finding that nearly every movement caused him acute agony. He inhaled sharply, even the short breath seeming to cause him incredible distress before rolling over onto his stomach, pushing himself back onto his knees with one hand, the other wrapped tightly around his waist, trying to hold an unseen injury in place.<br/><br/>The last of the cockpit lights flickered on, and finally, the heads up display came back to life. The red brackets littered the screen again, innumerable and menacing. They did not hang idly in space this time. Now they moved rapidly towards and past the ship. Faint outlines of the objects showed them tumbling on all axes, making their direction of travel highly irregular and difficult to predict, but what was about to happen was clear.<br/><br/>The ship was about to enter the debris field.<br/><br/>"Get strapped in! NOW!" Andrijan called out, priming the thrusters and diverting power to the reaction control system.