The Beginning or The End? (SWG only)

[Balrogga]

LeGuin System
Last week

The Beginning or The End?

The Botany Bay dropped out of hyperspace, the star trails leaving an afterimage in the eyes of the pilot. The lone human checked the readout on the display panel and cursed. The ship was too close, too close to any humanity or other civilized life. He had to get the ship as far away from any intelligent life to stop them or it will be the end. Everyone else had already died and he was going to try his damndest to make sure it stopped with him.

Hitting the panel as hard as he could with his remaining mutilated fist, more stump than a construction of usable fingers. A piece of protruding bone managed to hit the buttons overriding the failsafes allowing the ship to make a jump without the nav comp interfering if it detected a gravity well withn the path of the vessel. Most likely a blind jump would end up with the ship hitting a moon, planet, or even a star. That is what he was hoping for, destroying the ship in a nuclear furnace so it would never be found.

Warning klaxons sounded and red light began to flash as the hyperdrive wound up, the vibration could be felt through the bloody durasteel deck plating as the ship tore from Real Space and the ghostly afterimage of startrails flowed once more over the canopy. Behind him, the pilot heard the door of the bridge open and that familiar cold feeling again washed over him. His breath clouded and the windows began to frost over.

The last thing he saw was the ship dropping out of Hyperspace in a planetary system.

In the distance, lights could be seen swarming around the orbit of the nearest planet. One of the lights changed course toward the newly arrived vessel as darkness blinded the pilot. The cold grew until it occupied his entire being and then nothingness….


---


“Senator, what is this nonsense about quarantine? They are not even members of the Alliance?”

The Admiral intercepted the senator as she walked through the halls of the Conclave. Since the attack on the center of government by Chaos forces, a hasty secondary location was set up to serve as a point to govern the galaxy while the combined Powers That Be tried to settle the affair. Trying to keep things in line while under fire has proven impossible many times throughout history so the secondary location was created years ago and kept as a failsafe plan. Once enacted, the governments would be contacted and given the alternate which was kept secret from the general public in case of just such a scenario.

“It does not matter if they are members or not. Probes were sent out to try and detect further incursions of Chaos and the one sent there found something strange. The initial reports indicated it would be best to keep everyone away for the time being until we can figure out what is going on. Quarantine has been placed by the senate and all member nations must observe it until a proper on site investigation can determine what happened.”

“Senator Lee, what the hell did the probe find there that the senate agreed unanimously to quarantine an entire system?”

Tanith stopped and looked Karl dead in the eye and spoke in a quiet voice. “Nothing. No activity, no communications, no electronic signals, nothing to indicate the system was being populated by an active civilization. A week ago it went silent and now there is no sign of life, just derelict ships showing on long range sensors from where the probe dropped in at the edge of the system. Seventeen billion gone with no explanations. Vanished. Poof. No signs of a battle or invasion, just nobody left there making any kind of noise or movement. That is why nobody goes there and you have orders to shoot to kill if anyone tries. Interdiction has been ordered and will be applied as soon as we can get the resources in place as well as additional probes already being sent for recon. With Chaos showing its rotten hand, a lot of people are spooked by things that cannot be explained so it was decided to lock the place down first, and then ask questions afterwards.”

“Surely someone might have an idea…” began Admiral Sagan before Tanith cut him off.

“No, nobody knows shit. Even the Ta’Nar Ambassador had no idea what is going on there. Lord Stark said they were going to investigate independently and enforce the quarantine until you get your ships in place to take over but until today, they never heard of the place since it is on the opposite side of the galaxy from their territories. That is what spooked the rest of the enclave the most, the Ta’Nar not knowing what to think. Lord Stark guaranteed they would not enter the system proper and instead try with their sensors from long range. We both know their sensors are better than almost anyone else and that is only from what we know about them, not what they have admitted.” Tanith shuddered thinking about some of the reports she has seen on that enigma of a race. “We both have a lot to do and shit is piling up further as we stand here discussing it.”

With that, Tanith turned away from Karl and walked away, leaving the Admiral to his thoughts. She had other things to worry about such as what if it was not Chaos behind the trouble. The last thing we needed now was a second invasion. Hopefully the Admiral’s watchdogs will keep things under wrap long enough to figure out what the hell happened.

[Balrogga]

LeGuin System
30 minutes later



Space-Time was shredded as several vessels emerged from the newly formed wormhole about three light hours from what was considered the edge of the system. At the same time, a second wormhole also formed and deposited several more vessels spin-ward from the star. A large vessel, nearly a thousand meters in length exited the wormhole accompanied by her escorts. By standards of other nations, the ships were miniscule and seemingly pitiful but these were Ta’Nar vessels. Each Intruder Carrier was accompanied by a pair of Impaler Battleships, four Infiltrator Cruisers, four Interceptor Destroyers, and half a dozen Infernal Frigates. The cruisers vanished into T-Space as the escorts took up a defensive position around the carriers and an ebon swarm seemed to flow from the carrier to a space a short distance away from the vessel. A second emergence of a wormhole formed near the swarms and a large asteroid drifted through the transference only to be set upon by the swarm. A structure slowly began to form as the individual Kythons moved pieces from within the vessel and assembled the checkpoint station upon and inside the asteroids. After about twenty minutes of continuous and efficient construction, the structure seemed to be completed. In the secondary position spin-ward, a similar process was being undergone with the same results. Thirty minutes after the shell was constructed, the internal components were in place and after several checks both stations were ready to be placed into operation.

The locations of the two stations were important; they were calculated to be in such a position that they intercepted the two Hyperspatial routs allowing transportation to the system, providing a means to control access into and out of the quarantine area.

Commander Tar’Reehm, the Primus Checkpoint has been completed and final checks are being undertaken. Once completed, it will be ready for operation. Secondus Checkpoint is also on time and will be ready about ten minutes later.

Good work on the assembly. It would have been easier to just use Kythons to form the station but since this is a joint operation and we are only in charge of initial setup, the facilities needed to be “more friendly” for other member nations. Many are still afraid of anything Kython.

The sub-commander scoffed mentally. Many are still barely sentient, still bound to their physical bodies.

It is neither the time nor the place for that discussion. We have more pressing matters. How are the Interdiction systems?

They are being transported from the cruisers in T-Space to their locations will soon be ready for operation. They are there to prevent their controls from being affected in case of a break of the Quarantine. An escort of an Interceptor and two Infernals will hold place in T-Space to protect and operate the two Powertaps. The presence of the Interdiction will prevent incursion into the system and calculations show they will arrive about two light minutes away from the checkpoints. That should be enough time for the combined fleets to stop them from limping in system on their sub-light drives.

Status of the stations?

Matter-conversion reactors are in place and fueled, the check point stations are operational and ready for the international forces to arrive. Environmental systems are operational and defensive systems are online. Everything is ready.

OK, fire up the SGEs.

Several light minutes away at a safe distance, space-time again was ruptured. An area of empty space became incandescent and light began to be emitted seemingly from nothing. The intensity of the light grew until it seemed like a small star. As power grew, it began to shift from the white spectrum and turned red. As more energy grew, the spectrums shifted lower through orange, blue, green, until it settled upon a deep violet. Energy continued to pour into the rupture until it overcame known laws of physics and quantum mechanics and then the violet collapsed into a sphere of utter nothingness. The quantum singularity began to fluctuate slightly and then stabilized, forming a gravity well which was calculated to be strong enough to stop any ship operating on a hyperdrive principle but was not strong enough to cause any problems with ships near the station, much less the astromechanics of the LeGuin System. A couple minutes later Secondus stabilized the second singularity, completing the first phase of the operation.

Commander Tar’Reehm, both stations are completed and full Interdiction is operational. The system is under Quarantine.

Initiate full scans of the system using the cruisers in T-Space. I want every rock, ship, and station mapped out before the investigators arrive. I want the data ready for them to investigate as soon as they take command.


OOC:

Anyone wishing to post is now able to. I figured interested players can send a ship or three for quarantine enforcement, research, or a mix between. The two stations are there to provide a place for vessels to dock and characters to interact while conducting the investigation. There will of course be NPC ships/characters we can all use for cannon fodder or RP as long as nobody does anything stupid. The tech will be based on period SWG with the exception of our personal techs, of course.

Let us have some fun trying to figure out what I am doing here.