ESS Spring

The ESS Spring is a ship most famous for its voyage from over two years away from Earth Empire space, and returning to the empire safely. The ship also carried the worrying news about the thought to be destroyed Fard Imperium about to declare war upon the empire, just prior to the Second Fard Earth War.

It was designed to be the most advanced ship yet built and could hold around 1200 people.

## History

### Commission

The ship was newly commissioned in late 2164, 3 weeks before its venture into the wormhole taking it over two years away from the Earth Empire. It left the Pluto Space Docks with its sister ships also Russia class the ESS Summer, ESS Autumn and ESS Winter.

The ship spent it's first few weeks of service travelling from planet to planet in the empire often assisting in cargo runs and patrolling the border between the Earth Empire and the Poliron Federation. It also assisted in the discovery of the Kiteration Temple on Hirivia with the crew of Poliron Ship F'flakiantax, on the border of Earth Empire and Poliron Federation space.

### Wormhole

In early 2165, a distress call from a Poliron freighter was received by the ESS Spring. It was on their side of the border on a cargo run to McCaghrey Station, within 2 hours the Spring arrived at the site of the distress call. The cargo ship was being pulled into a wormhole, and with it's cargo having included flammable material from the gravitational effects, it exploded causing systems and propulsion to be down.

The crew of the Spring decided the only course of action would be to go into the wormhole and push the ship away with power being 90% on thrusters and the rest on a repelling beam onto the ship to push it away from the wormhole. The Spring got into position between the cargo ship and the wormhole and was about to deploy it's plan when the freighters systems completely failed. The ship hurtled towards the Spring and it's thrusters had to be used to keep away from being bombarded and damaged by a near light speed ship heading towards it. The freighter did tear of a large amount of outer plating from the Spring, leaving a large breach in the ship, whilst the freighter was broken apart upon impact.

The Spring was pulled into the wormhole which was clearly collapsing due collapsing wormholes having a gravitational effect. The Spring was flung out badly damaged in an area of unknown space 2 years 9 months and 16 days away from the nearest Earth Empire colony. The wormhole collapsed as the crew began the repairs of their ship before beginning the long voyage home, using much of the debris from the incident floating in space to path part of the ship up. A total of 23 crew members had died during the incident, roughly a fifth of the crew. Ye within 8 hours the ship was repaired enough to go to warp and in 12 it was underway on its journey back home.

### Refugee Trail

Less than three days into their voyage the ESS Spring reached a massive refugee trail of ships, heading in one direction. Many were slow large cargo ships, yet were protected by fighters of many kinds. The crew quickly found that like the ships themselves the crews and people on-board the ships were very diversified. They were quickly told that an unknown power, later to be discovered by the crew as the Fard Imperium had wiped out planets upon planets with no resistance seeming to be good enough to defend themselves against weapons which shredded instillations ships and planets alike.

Due to lack of resources the crew could spare few resources to the mass trail of refugees, yet provided protection for the next 13 light years as the trail and the Spring were headed in the same direction for that time. For the duration of the trail and the spring following the same course it was revealed that the Spring gathered much information on the attacks, and that many powerful factions in the area such as the Moght Empire and the Docorland Dynasty had been wiped out in a few days.

### Contact with the Flourn

Just over a week into their voyage the crew are rapidly intercepted by three ships. They are contacted by a race known as the Flourn, they discover to get home they will have to cross their space for another 2 months to get the optimum quickest route home. The Flourn however are not impressed. As a result a quick skirmish erupts between the two sides, with all three Flourn ships being disabelled. Yet the last message sent from the ships to the Spring is "You have made an enemy today, and will not survive the next two months. This as a result constantly puts the ship under a constant yellow alert status.

### Time Rigged

The crew of the ESS Spring reached a planet on the edge of Flourn space, after two days after their contact with them. The planet was spinning at 60 times a minute, yet scans showed that a planet of that climate would've torn itself apart if such happened in normal space, the ship ventured closer, yet got caught in the time factor, so as to be in normal space and position but that the spin and gravity of the time rigged planet didn't allow it to escape. As a result the crew were able to witness a civilisation develop beneath their feet.

On the planet the Spring caused many seismic events, and its appearance was seen as that of a legend. As the planet developed many stories about the Spring were made, though it's name was not known, nor was it's purpose, these questions caused the inhabitants of the planet to ask fundamental questions about the Spring more so than the universe itself. So much so that religious teachings of the planet each included the Spring, yet many conflicts of the Springs purpose were aroused, whether it was a guardian, whether it would start an Armageddon or whether it was there waiting to start a golden age.

Back on the ship a way to get out of the field was devised as to use the power of the planets rotation to help it escape. This was attempted yet was unsuccessful, as a result more seismic activity was seen on the ground. This failed attempt drained a lot of power and if they couldn't escape the Spring would be ripped apart by the planet in 5 hours.

On the planet the people were going through the start of a large industrial period, yet this caused a grand war on the planet, lasting 8 years and devastating it. Yet after the war many prayed that the Spring would help it rebuild, and the countries which had one formed an alliance to help the entire planet rebuild, and with a promise to one day find out what the purpose of the Spring is.

On the ship engineers managed to use the deflector to emit a field to keep the integrity stable, as to avoid the ship being ripped apart. Yet this however would come at a cost of radiation flooding half the ship, and if there was a minor fault the radiation would be blown towards the planet. This was done and though the ship was stable the radiation leaked and was blown towards the planet. Just after the incident it was realised that the planet was out of sync due to it's core being full of temporal flux, which were anomalous.

On the planet the radiation sickness to one of the continents caused the people to be extremely ill, yet as nuclear physics hadn't been discovered on that planet yet, it was mistook for a plague. Yet millions died, and as a result the continents broke from the alliance creating their own communist faction.

Back on the ship a probe was launched to see the progress of the planet for what would be 1,500 of it's days. Before sending the transmission back to the ship. It managed to do so, and reported of a war with advanced weaponry between the communist faction and alliance faction, with the alliance faction winning the war, conquering a continent liberating it's people. Yet the probe also reported the continent had higher levels of radiation than the others, explaining what happened to the excess radiation from the ship. Making the crew realise they were the reason for the war.

On the planet the alliance was building space craft as to get to the Spring. As a space race had begun between the military forces and the new space and satellite forces, to see who could be the first to reach the Spring. Eventually the Space and Satellite forces managed to do so, after the military gave up its efforts and gave all their research to the Space and Satellite forces. This resulted in a two manned craft reaching the Spring, and managed to break in.

The crew realised that the crew on the spring were living their lives much slower than they were. Yet the effects started to wear off and one of the crew members was destroyed by a lift on the ship, as they were on a lift ladder when the effects wore off. he other crew member was escorted to the bridge, after some discussion the Captain and Pod member realised that the Spring had just arrived. He also realised that everyone he knew would be dead by now, yet said he would go back to his people as to tell them that the mysterious ship was stuck their and had only wanted to discover more about them, not attack them. The Pod member also realised that their planet was out of sync, and that when he returned he would do all he could to make his planet aligned with the rest of space and that of trying to find a way to help the spring away from the planet.

When returning to his ship the Spring under came fire. It turned out to be lasers fired from the planets surface each 130 days, at the rate it was under fire the spring would be destroyed within ten minuets normal space time. The pod member returned to his vessel also in sync with the Spring and returned to his planet. For the meantime there was no way to get a lock on the weapon firing at them without destroying the planet. This caused much concern on the crew whether the pod member had succeeded.

The ship was undergoing more rapid fire and heavier fire with each rotation making the crew more and more concerned as main power was failing, and there was no shields available. All systems appeared to be failing as the rate and intensity of weapons fire increased. This was suddenly stopped, yet the ship seemed to be breaking apart due to the planets pull. Suddenly three ships arose from the planets surface, locked on a tractor beam onto the spring, and towed it out of the planets pull and to safety.

The pod pilot contacted the crew, saying their scientists were working on a way to counter the effects of the time distortion that their planet had, yet the device he was using allowed the distortion to be temporarily broken. He wished the crew the best of luck for the rest of the journey, and hoped that one day if possible his planet could join the empire. The captain said that they would be happy to allow them an application when their borders eventually meet, and aren't almost three years apart.

The Spring warped away whilst the pod member, now at an old age watched them go next to a mining facility designed to stop the temporal disturbances caused by the planets core.