The Dance-Steps of the Universe [FT Semi-Open]

[G-Tech Corporation]

Post here without permission in this thread and you will be eaten by the chestnut elves. Alive.

---

"Brethren, we shall set on this planet not as liberators, not as friends, not even as conquerors; we come as exterminators, the eliminators of an infestation of the Lightless that festers like a sore and offends the sight of the Omnissah. There are those who call us genocidal, sadistic, cruel gods of the stars. But I tell you the truth; how can one end the existence that which does not truly live? We do not slay sentients, we extinguish slime that subsists in dreadful squalor and unbelief. They are sick, and we are the cure. This is not an invasion. It is a mercy-killing." - Techsin Amass Van Ameral prior to the Cleansing of Hive-World Arrakan

BelowSpace Coordinates 1409:38Y:7802
Timestamp: 560:2010:111:679:22 MBA
Havanian Group, Milky Way Galaxy, System 89402-01a
First Generation Fist Eternality of Existence, Adrius Mas Ameral Commanding Chosen
Mainframe Upload warr. PT-CH. Confl. hist.

The ground boiled with nefarious forms, half-glimpsed terrors pouring through the streets and buildings, dreams given a vicious seeming of life. Massive constructs plowed through buildings, tossing aside armored vehicles like the toys of an angry deity, oblivious to the tears and screams like poured like water about their feet. The shoals of beings ebbed and flowed this way and that, seeking vainly to escape the creeping death that stalked them with lidless eyes throughout the streets. Children huddled and cried, men brashly cursed against their attackers and women shrieked in futile agony; all to no avail. They were swept aside as chaff before the reaper, their bodies left maimed and mangled like some sort of macabre harvest by the unnatural creatures that scampered through their cities and towns, killing, always killing.

Behind the mass of silver constructs strode other beings that seemed to be a horrid facsimile of the humans they extinguished with such relish. Few of the denizens of the world had a chance to glimpse the architects of their demise, but they knew. This was not a mindless assault, a rabble of twisted technological beings destroying their civilization in some bizarre outpouring of failed programming; no, this was a conscious decision by some higher power, some sick chessman who had decided to take a pawn in his infinite game of strategy. Flames rose high behind the swarming silver masses as their homes and cities burned hot before the torch of the Omnissah, and their screams rose higher still, a sweet incense of worship to the All-Sire.

In orbit high over the planet a hooded black form watched all that proceeded below in his mind, the myriad eyes of his vessel his senses, the billions of consciousnesses reporting to his the Master's body. Under his hand millions died, each existence ended a visceral spray of crimson on his hands, each set of bright eyes extinguished dull orbs fading before his vision. It was a terrible task, the destruction of an entire world, but it was necessary to carry out the divine will of his Mistress. The teeming hordes of flowmetal constructs that swept like locusts across the world as a plague were Her doing, his actions merely an act of obedience to his calling before Her power. The Potentials of this world had failed in their promise, and so their residue had to be scoured from its surface, to allow new life to emerge under Her grace and make its own way to sentience. The Chosen were merely agents of Her purposes, the fire in the deadwood of the cosmos, rejuvenating the stagnancy they encountered with the flames of war and the cleansing purity of conflict. All was an act of worship, and the lives he and his brethren ended below no more than a mass sacrifice.

A voice echoed from the base of his throne in the heart of the vast ship, that of one of the many Aviats that teemed about his feet, barely heeded by the massive being at the apex of the Nexus.

My Lord, your plan is going as we anticipated; we estimate the extinction event in approximately a thousand sectons. But.... these Potentials have discovered atomic weaponry. They are unleashing it against the hordes in their major cities.

The rumbling bass voice of the being descended from the throne like the voice of the divine, his tones bemused at the folly of the creatures below his pedestal.

We have dealt with such nuisances two thousand eight hundred and nineteen times since your initiation on this vessel Aviat. Do you have datastreams indicating the result will be different then the last two thousand eight hundred and nineteen event occurences?

The humanoid flowmetal being shook its head briefly, dismissively.

No my Lord. Their fate is sealed.

On the throne the mighty figure turned back to its religious revere, the matter dismissed. Below its feet, at its fingertips, the world burned in the lethal magnificence of the nuclear inferno, silver-grey constructs mixed with fire and blood.

[Gebeta]

Battlestar Bensa
CIC
Admiral Luthens readied himself. He spoke up with a loud voice, "Comms, contact Mygenia command, and alert them we are ready to jump."
"Aye Admiral" Comms replied. The speakers sounded "Mygenia Command, Bensa we are uploading your jump numbers, and starting the clock." Referring to the count down timer, 14 hours, in which the jump was expected to take. The Bensa was a furry of activity, as the Hanger bays were locked down and retracted into the ship. The RnD had speculated that the bays would be sheered off if not retracted, so they were designed to fit snugly in the main hull. The same for all the guns on board.

"Hanger Bay 1 and 2 report close" Comms said. Luthens was a bit nervous. The ship was expected to do many things, from explode a soon as it jumped, to find itself in another dimension. Jumps had been done before, using gates as key points, but those took years to build and plot, and only allowed ships to jump in system. The Bensa was to jump out of system, into another location.
News papers speculated that they would find nothing, or they would find more advance civilizations, leading to the end of the System Alliance and humanity. Some more radical groups speculated that they would prove design by intelligence.

"Engines 1 through 4 are ready." Comms said.
Luthens replied "Helm, prepare for Jump, in 10.

Ten seconds later, a bright blue light enveloped the Bensa as she jumped leaving behind the Cruiser Stars observing and standing by to rescue the Bensa in awe as the ship disappeared.

Battlestar Bensa
In Jump
Admirals office.
General Garran sipped from his cup, looking over the hologram of the projected system.
"Admiral, if i may, what should we expect?" He asked, not worrying about anything else at the time.
"We are not sure, other that this planet was sending signals. Though that may have been a flaw in our system. I want the Marines to stand ready to repel borders at all access points though. Humanity has never left our own system. We could stumble upon a less advance race, or a power hungry race. Hell we might even find a planet with nothing but bacteria." Luthens said, placing his empty glass down pouring another glass. "Another round" he said to the General.
Garran then asked "What about you, how do you feel about this? The Mygenia fleet is stationed around Renatia, our home. Gebeta is relegated to defending the Plutia gates."
Luthens sighed "We have no choice, though I, and many times, tried to get them to upgrade Bensa to a Germania class battlestar in the Valhalla shipyards, the Germanias have fighter production plants, so we could replace our losses with copies of the AI fighters. But the damn SAN congress over ruled me time and time again." He said.
Garran smirked, "Well, thats the SAN for you. Keep the coffers of the leaders full, while we fight with buckets and sticks." He said, reffering to the Bensa.

[G-Tech Corporation]

"In the end the only pure beings are the Chosen. We have cataloged fifteen billion four hundred fifty three million nine hundred eleven thousand and two species in our survey of over seven trillion worlds across two galaxies, and yet the Omnissah is still disappointed. And so we search ceaselessly amongst the stars." - Primarch Idrius Ameral, Address to the Ecclesiarchy

BelowSpace Coordinates 1409:38Y:7802
Timestamp: 586:2010:111:679:22 MBA
Havanian Group, Milky Way Galaxy, System 89402-01a
First Generation Fist Eternality of Existence, Adrius Mas Ameral Commanding Chosen
Mainframe Upload warr. PT-CH. Confl. hist.

A soft pinging echoed in the vast chamber of the Nexus, and at one of the thousands of indents in the seamless silver surface of the floor of abode of the Chosen a single functionary raised its immortal head. Thin metallic fingers, bone-white and shaped like talons, reached for a screen before the being's flat featureless face, and tapped the pulsing crimson dot. A datastream poured from the mighty vessel into its seared neural nets, and the Aviat's mind grappled with the information cache for a brief moment, then its mind stopped a second in mild surprise. Fascinating. A ripple in BelowSpace.

The relevant thoughtpulse was routed to the form upon the throne in an instant, and the vast flowmetal being stirred. So, their activities here had not gone unnoticed by the pagan universe; such was to be expected, he supposed. This galaxy did not yet ring with the silence of perfection, and so the organics railed in agony against their deserved fate. His manipulators drummed on the obsidian-black arm of his throne with a sharp click-clack, click-clack, and at a unvoiced word from the mighty Techsin the immense vessel turned from its static point above the planet, gracefully slipping away from the confining gravitational well of its victim.

A few million quick calculations later the Fist was in position to intercept and speak to the newcomer, to learn its origin and add it to the repository of the Empire for future cleansing. The genocide on the planet below continued unabated, not even its originators caring about the falling millions of the primitive race below the listless sun.

[Gebeta]

Bendsa CIC

The battlestar shuddered as she exited jumpspace. The ship moved slowly forward.
Luthens ordered "keep all KEW armed but in the shelters. Prepare to launch alert vipers but need the flight bays closed." The expected confirmation from each of the corresponding locations came in. Luthens noted the Mobile Infantry, elite shock troopers that dropped into combat via pods. Garran was in the war room for the ground operations. He was worried about the lack of sensor data from the planet. "It is being masked, or it is completely dead, and the signals were flukes."

CIC
"Admiral, we have a Dradis contact." The Dradis operator said.
Luthens, picked up the comms system. "Alert Red. Stand by for combat, await orders." The battlestar moved left and up, while preparing to roll.
The idea was, to show the stronger back to the hostiles, to prevent crippling damage.

Flight Bays
120 tubes ran along each bay, for 240 fighters to launch, with a 5 minuet wait before the next flight could launch. Each wing, was 60 aircraft. The first 4 were to defend against intruders.

CIC
The room was tense. The Bensa was at the point of no return, she would fight or she would talk, assuming the aliens wanted either. No one on board knew of the hell befalling the planet they had come to investigate.
"Give me a range to the ship, and open comms to all known channels." Luthens said.
"Sir, i recommend booting fire walls to protect the Renatian system." EWO (Electronics Warfare Officer) Preston said. "I already have enabled the ship anti hack roots."
"Make it so" Luthens said. In space warfare, the SAN taught that disabling a hostile ship with electronic war was better than trying to duke it out with massive guns. He assumed that this was a tactic used by them. This brought up another problem, what should he assume. Assume they are hostile, and start shooting first? What if its a civil ship. Luthens hated unknowns. it left too much to chance.

[Subject X7]

The ancient war mech Zeus had been inactive for thousands of years, waiting anchored to a large asteroid floating through space around the planet. He had been waiting for a disturbance in the fabric of subspace that signified a ship warping. His ancient brain powers up, and he retracts the cables and hooks anchoring him to the large space rock. He had only one mission when he had been put on the rock: to make contact with an alien race and transmit data back to his home planet, such as his location and whether or not the aliens were hostile or not.

He powers up his thrusters, and prepares himself for launch, aiming in the direction of the disturbance. His FTL drive activates, and he shoots off in the direction of the disturbance. Moments later, he appears behind a large spacecraft, a beautiful thing, resembling a destroyer from his home planet. He sends a signal to the craft, a greeting in his alien creators language, and positions himself in front of the ship.

(Gabeta, your ship)
Here's a picture of the mech, he's aproximately 8 feet tall.

I apologize for the short post, I'm using my iPod.

[Gebeta]

Bensa
CIC
The decompression alarms went off. The front of the ship, the loading bays while Bensa was docked, had been hit by something.
Luthens quickly asked "What were we hit by?"
The following answers were "We have not been struck by a weapon of any kind. Perhaps it is a boarding party, that rammed itself in."
Luthens picked up the comms.
"Marines, stand by to repel boarders" he said, as the computer picked up a strange transmission.

Forward Compartments
Loading Bay Delta
Status, Decompressed.
The 12 man squad, in EVA suits advanced quickly, allowing the compartment adjacent to depressurize, and moved forward.
Each man was armed with a 7.6 MM semi auto rifle, equipped with shrapnel round. They basically broke into lil bits of steal upon impact.
They advanced into the large bay, which the only visible light was from the hull breech. The men fanned out heading towards the breech, looking for signs of a pod of some sort, as lil beams of light from the gun mounted lights moved slowly back and forth like search lights looking for a plane. The bay was full of floating cargo, ranging from extra blankets and camo nets, to tooth paste for the ships requestion office.

"Sir, there is a large mark here, going wards the left side." one of the Marines said.
The comms crackled "Marines. Report? Status of borders?"

[Demigueris]

As ships go, Ymira was smaller than most. In the community of warships even Ymira herself had to admit, she was the runt of the little. The little warship all the other warships made fun of on the playground, if anachronistic metaphors were to be used - and anachronistic metaphors were very much Ymira's thing. That said Ymira would never have felt comfortable as one of those brutish battleships and dreadnoughts that other people's seemed to prefer. The ones bristling with guns, and armor.

No, Ymira was a sleek and slender, jet black ship. Her skin was like a shade of obsidian - no lights beamed through windows on her hull, no light reflected from her smooth, contoured surface. The sort of warship other warships looked at and realized "I've really let myself go." Not that most of them had the capacity for abstract reasoning she reflected - most of them were just puppets operated by organics. Which was fine, Ymira at heart was an organic. It was in there somewhere, deep inside her. But she'd been a ship for so long it was hard to think of walking around as some bipedal thing. It simply wasn't who she was. The point was, though, she was a sleek and sexy ship and didn't give a damn what the other warships thought. And even if they did, well, she had FTL capable warheads for that.

In reality Ymira's body was really more about substance than form. Her hull and small size made her virtually invisible to LIDAR and other sensors that keyed off visible light. Her smooth, specially constructed surfaces were made of an absorbent, sensitive material that let her...taste the cosmic winds. Through it too, she shed light and radiation in very particular ways - the exotic particles she emitted to dump heat, and other energies broke down within a few kilometers. Active sensors that reached her skin she sensed, absorbed and/or re-emitted... anyone looking would see more or less precisely what she wanted them too. She was, in short, a very difficult ship to see.

All this was really immaterial, the sort of meandering imagination that floated around while she sat alone, in the emptiness of space waiting and listening. It was her mission, to sit silent like a jet black panther laying in wait in the jungle, stalking her prey. Usually it was quite, a few FTL signatures, nothing unusual, occasionally on her long range passives she even caught glimpses of fighting; interstellar empires having it out. She collected the raw data, analyzed it herself, but usually she simply waited until MIlNet contacted her and she could break com silence to rejoin the Collective, or the mission time elapsed and she quietly skulked back to her rendezvous point.

These days though she was on long range patrol, well beyond the comforting confines of where she could simply reconnect with MilNet. In some ways she missed the familiar comfort of billions of shared minds together. But in other ways, this solitary life suited her.

As a ship, hers was a very stealthy art of war. An existence spent between the boundary layers of solar winds and magnetic fields, of shadows. Compared to larger warships her defenses were minimal. She had no shields, they drew attention - and her smooth skin was meant only to absorb the bumps and nicks that accrued with passage through interstellar space. Compared to other ships of battle, yes, she was very small. But she fought a very different one than most. In the experience of her and her navy, whose records she had at her beck and call - there were weapons against which the only defence was to stay hidden in the shadows.

She had some of them herself, in the singularity warheads she carried securely in her belly; against which she was confident no matter or energy could escape... or defend against. They were a potent reminder that when traveling the void between worlds, the best option, the smartest option... was to remain deathly silent.

...

So it was with some surprise when her long range passive sensors were suddenly hit with what appeared to be the intergalactic equivalent of someone firing up their leaf-blower. It was so potent, and she'd been listening with her most sensitive receiver - that was how quiet this area of space had been. Consequently she was forced to send an emergency override command to the com emitter next to the long range receiver in order to divert power and over-load the dampening field that protected her most sensitive receiver bits from being blown out by random signal spikes. It fried the dampener, but it gave her time to pull the sensor head before the fine filament on the end was warped to the point of uselessness. Dampeners she had replacements, those sensor heads were extremely sensitive pieces of instrumentation and her only other one was already undergoing regular maintenance.

After completing a full system check to make sure nothing else had been fried, she switched to a less powerful sensor head. It wouldn't give the resolution she could get otherwise, but it also wouldn't overheat outside the very near absolute temperatures it required to give readings that approximated reliable.

And 'approximately' reliable appeared to be the word Ymira realized. The signal to noise ration was high, whatever it was it was extremely chaotic and the sophisticated pattern matching algorithms she employed came up empty against her databanks and ruled out stellar phenomenon, black holes. Whatever it was was artificial and based off the strength of the signal probably...violent.

Already she was priming her engines. Her FTL bays were prepped with satellite payloads. One she would fire off to relay her situation and findings to Demigueris. The others would accompany her as her eyes, ears and voice within the target system when she arrived.

They would also serve as FTL decoys whose signatures would, with a little luck, prevent anyone from discerning which FTL signature - which was impossible even for her to hide - actually belonged to her.

---

In a swathe of light that arc'd across the entire star system like a rain of galactic shooting stars that fell, apparently, out of the endless swathes of space itself as about a half dozen FTL signatures rotated themselves into normal space within the system's confines, and space-itself fluxed as it adjusted to this sudden rectification of their temporal position. The sensor stealthed satellites - Ymira somewhere among them - fell like raindrops into to tide of the solar winds.

Warping oneself until one effectively ceased to exist in such a way that when the process completed, they were somewhere else was a disorienting experience. Ymira took a few moments to establish her bearings, checking to make sure nothing had gone awry, or for that matter, nothing had followed her back into normal space.

That was always bad.

She kept only what systems she needed on, and once she had a chance to get a read on the system using only her optical sensors, only then did she gently extend herself through tight beam transmissions to make contact with the five satellites hidden in the system that would serve as her eyes and ears... so that she wouldn't have to reveal herself.

Images and data came flooding into her immediately, and it was a relief. The moments after a translation were always the most fraught with peril and she was most exposed. Still she got a glimpse of the two behemoth ships in system and the readings from the only inhabited planet were...distressing.

Of the two obvious ships of war in the system, one was fairly standard. Her sensors didn't identify the make, but the modelling and design were almost unmistakably human, the weapons systems eminently familiar. It took her almost no time to eliminate it as the source of the anomaly she had detected.

The other ship on the other hand.

That ship... was like nothing she'd seen before. It was still flickering the unmistakable energy trails of a short transit when her satellites, operating passively, began feeding her back imagery. For more, she'd need to go active and directly scan the ship. From the energy signatures that ship was emitting, her models were giving about a zero percent chance that was going to happen without revealing at least one of the satellites locations.

Still, her simulations were pretty clear that losing one of her sats was worth a look at what they were facing. If it was as bad as it looked, she would need to relay the information. That, and she had to admit, some ships managed to pull off the hulking look fairly successfully. If nothing else, her curiosity was piqued.

So, through the electronic void she oriented one of her satellites and lit up the system with its extremely powerful scanners. The information was useful, Ymira with but a thought though she filed the information away to her battle computers to sift through, and had the same sat fire off an FTL pulse out of the system to be relayed back to MilNet's sat network, ultimately to the Collective back on Demigueris.

She in the meantime did what any curious bio-neural computational network intelligence would do and pinged the two vessels with a gentle fuzzy/warm radioactive field that eventually rectified itself into a pair of evolving binary signals that, to anyone with a half a brain and a decent computer, they would quickly realize were the building blocks of a universal language system.

The humans she probably could have just sent something in their common language packages, plus she was interested to see who figured out the little puzzle first.

Once the signal pattern was fully resolved and the complimentary signal returned to authenticate two way communication the message she sent them both was a relatively simple:

Hi.

And then the human ship seemed to hit something that apparently FTL'd in directly in front of them.

Hmph..., Ymira thought to herself.

[Subject X7]

Zeus had lodged himself firmly into the front of the ship, atmosphere venting from the hull. He dislodged himself from the hull, causing more atmosphere to vent into space. He grabs either side of the rend, and pulls the metal together. A small torch extends itself from his forearm, and begins welding the hole shut. After about 5 minutes, he completes the repair and boosts over to the nearest airlock. It was startlingly similar to the airlocks in his creators ships. He sends a signal to the ships airlock, bypassing the security and firewalls. The airlock opens, and he enters. He scans the interior of the airlock, determining how to operate it.

He finds a panel with buttons and serial ports, and extends a small cable towards it. He communicates with the computer, which used binary code as a basis for it's programming. It was rather primitive compared to his own programming, and quite easy to navigate. He closes the outer doors, and opens the interior doors. Zeus retracts the cable, and enters what appears to be a storage bay. He scans the room, numbering and cataloging the various debris that floated around the room.

He anchors himself to the floor using magnets, to keep himself from floating off. He walks through the bay, continuing to catalog items, until he spies a group of bipedal creatures. He faces them, and sends signals to them in his own language. When he receives no response, he activates his audible communication module (speaker). He sends out a series of clicks, and whistles, hoping for a response.

[Gebeta]

Bensa
CIC
"Another Message sir." The Comms officer said.
This one, was plainly in the data bank, dating back to ancient times in Gebeta. It simply translated to HI.
The speakers broke open. "Marine Delta. We found the border. Its trying to communicate i think using Morse code. Non of my men understand it."
Luthens replied "Is it hostile?" to which he got a relief of no. "Im dispatching some one with a book, try to get it to write the message down, we can translate it later."
Turning his attention to the other message.
"Reply, Hi. wait two, then state the ships name as Bensa, and a friend or foe challenge." Looking at the dradis, Get me a contact on the Dreadnaught class ship." He said, assuming that the ship that broke away from the planet to intercept. He worried about his ship, and had been debating to arm the Shilva Nuclear missiles, 10 of them. But assuming that Humans could detect them, and would respond in preemptive strikes, he would wait.
"Send challenger to the dreadnaught as well." He said.

[Subject X7]

Zeus analyzes the radio signals and vocalizations coming from the beings, searching his database for similarities between them and any language known to his creators kind. He identifies the closest known language, and replies in a tinny voice, "Greetings from my people, the Ilatechas. I am Zeus, a decommissioned war mech imbued with artificial intelligence designed to search for and catalog alien species, such as yourselves. I apologize for the damage I have caused to your vessel, I have repaired it to the best of my ability."

Zeus holds his arm out, projecting a hologram from his hand of his solar system. He points to the 5th planet from the star, "This is my planet, Uktal." The hologram zooms out to show the exact location of the system. "I cannot currently show the current condition of the planet itself, as my contact with the planet ceased 2,628 years, 3 months, 4 days, 7 hours, 6 minutes and 39 seconds ago. Although, I can show you what it was like before then," he says, zooming in on the planets surface. The hologram showed a vast city, full of shining buildings and beautiful magenta lakes. Thousands of aliens were going about their daily lives.

Zeus lowers his arm, ending the hologram. A camera extends itself from his shoulder, and starts snapping off pictures of the aliens. "Please, identify your species, planet location, and so on. Are you hostile?" The camera switches to recording mode and begins to film their responses.

[Gebeta]

Loading Bays
The Lt moved foward. He was hesitant, keeping his gun at his side, but assuming the size of the target, a War mech, would not be hard to hit if he hip fired.
He spoke up, in a commanding but calm voice.
"We are Humans, we are from the Renatian system. This is a Systems Alliance Navy exploration ship, so we are peaceful unless we are pushed to fight. Myself and my men are Marines, and my superior officer is the Captain of this ship, the Bensa."
He finished saying as the ship systems said "Hull repaired. Pressurizing. Please wait."

CIC
Luthens was curious. He called for the Marines if they had fixed the hull. He got a click response, no. He worried more so. Not only had he been boarded, they still had to launch a comms buoy, via jump back to the SAN waiting in the home system. But he was unwilling to do so, knowing full well that it could be tracked.
He also knew that in the event of a war, the SAN with 2600 ships, 200 battleships, and 40 carriers, that they would not win the fight.

"Can we get a scan of the planet?" Luthens asked.
"No, something is blocking the signal." His Dradis officer replied. Luthens expected so much, local jammers would be in place on the planet, as a defensive measure. The only way to scan the planet would to use a fighter or ACC (Advance Combat Controller) a specialized aircraft, with advance dradis designed to scout for forces. Luthens began to wonder. SAN regulations would call for planet jammers to mask SST cannons (Super Sonic Turret) to allow time for them to aim and locking in a solution to target. Or, in this case, the jammers were masking civil population.

[Demigueris]

If Ymira was capable of giving a disappointed frown she would have. Internal chronometers showed the elapsed time for a response to her transmission tick away, long after what her long range scans suggested the mystery warship would have been capable of. The others, the human ship, responded as her models predicted - about what it would take for an old organic command and control model hierarchy to process her transmission, relay it to someone in charge, and formulate a standardized reply.

So it was really the mystery ship that worried her. Because either it was under-performing - which was just disappointing because it was so rare to find someone interesting out here in the dark. Or they were intentionally delaying their response, which could have meant a number of things, but hiding their true capabilities was one of the more likely scenarios. Combined with what her satellite array was feeding her data-wise about the planet's surface, suggested 1) Something terrible was happening on that planet; it was most assuredly what her long range sensors had picked up though the sketches were still rough. 2) If they were true, the mystery ship in question was potentially hostile.

Her scans had already informed her, quite definitively, it wasn't a vessel she ever wanted to see up close.

Idly she formulated a response to the human vessel. Normally she'd be perfectly thrilled to have an extended conversation with a new human faction, but trying to work her sensor data on the planet's surface, while simultaneously trying to work out conflict models for the strong, silent ship that was currently leering over the humans was proving a little vexatious.

It meant the humans were going to get a more formulaic response than she would normally have used.

Code: Select all

We are the Demigueris Space Vessel [i]Ymira[/i], currently remotely monitoring your situation. We have no hostile intentions ourselves, but our scans are suggesting the vessel currently approaching your location may be engaged in the use of very potent weapons of mass destruction against the humanoid inhabitants of the primary planet in this system.

We advise extreme caution.

Ymira out.

She let her chronometer tick down a little more, but the longer she waited the longer her model estimates were suggesting an imminent extinction event was imminent barring some form of outside intervention.

Still there was nothing from the mystery craft.

Only a few seconds past but for a neuro-computational intelligence dealing with something that looked to be at least as capable, no one could say she had been more than patient.

Even through the massive signal noise being kicked up from the planets surface, between the five probes and her active scans, she had enough different Point-of-Views on the planet to - with a little cross-filtering of the raw data - refine her calculations to the point it was passed any reasonable level of certainty.

There was a massacre of untold proportions taking place while she was out here dithering over communication protocols.

She fired off a tersely worded follow up to the enormous mystery vessel, no longer content to wait for a reply.

Code: Select all

Fine. Just ignore me then.

Great... she sighed. To do nothing was to abdicate all responsibility for what was going on. Knowing what was happening on the surface, she couldn't do nothing. Time was short. Discourse was not proceeding quickly enough. So much for remaining stealthily in the shadows where it's safe.

It was time to do something.

With that she finished her translation calculations for a high-velocity insertion into the main planet's atmosphere.

Her FTL drives flared once again to life.
A pulse of iridescent light marked her exit from the known universe.
For a moment in time, Ymira existed no where in the known universe.
And then, a brilliant explosion in the upper atmosphere of the planet marked her re-entry to normal space, careening into the atmosphere at speeds no ship would normally willingly undertake re-entry.
Her smooth, obsidian dark skin that let her hide so deftly began to boil off and the armored hull-plating beneath began to glow brilliant shades of red and white in a fireball that streaked towards the planet's surface, its inhabitants and seething tumult of flowmetal below.

It wasn't a pleasant experience, a little like being burned alive.

Maybe it was the whole genocide thing.
Maybe it was the cold shoulder treatment.
Either way, Ymira was feeling the urge to ruin someone's plans for the day in a reckless display of thrilling heroics.

[Ty-Ralyain]

In a distant section of the system, the very void itself crackled and popped, rippling and distorting like a someone would crumple paper. It folded in on itself for a moment before snapping back with explosive force. In the wake of the void's spasm came forth a new object. A singular shard about a kilometer and a half in length and about five hundred meters in height at the tallest point of the tapered craft. The entire vessel looked more akin to a cave formation than a space worthy vessel, black as the void itself with a dull thrum of light from the rear mounted engines. Three more events took place, the space twisting on itself to the flanks of the first vessel. As the void snapped back, three more of the giant stalagmites were in place forming a crescent.

For now they sat at the far reaches of the system, watching like crows as the planet burned. They had various radar and sensor absorbent skins, designed to foil enemy sensors and detection equipment. While they of course couldn't mask their approach and jump into the system they could mask their position by preventing radar or laser detection as well as creating multiple 'ghost' images that made each craft appear as erratically moving asteroids numbering in the thousands.

They shifted position, moving away from their entry point. They were designed to not be seen or detected, but with such an energetic event such as a leap into system it would be nigh impossible to prevent knowledge of them. The crafts were called Sleipnirs by their enemies, while being known as Raolbusa'Divuse by their pilots and crews. They were the frigates and mainstay units of the Ty'Ralyain Empire. Brutal and fast they were designed to go toe to toe with other ships often times much larger than them.

For now though, they watched.

[Subject X7]

Zeus stores the information away in his memory bank, and sends a high energy data pulse to his home planet. He steps towards the nearest human and scans him using various light wavelengths, mapping his vascular sysem, skeletal structure, and nervous system. He concludes that they run on a series of electrical impulses sent from the large mass of nerve tissue caused by chemical reactions from said nerve tissue housed in their skulls. Rather wasteful and inefficient compared to his creators, whose entire bodies were nerve tissue.

Zeus' armor begins popping, clicking, and falling off to reveal his normal armor. His old armor was only meant to protect his systems from extremely extended exposure to cosmic, solar, and other types of radiation. His shiny new armor looks more organic, rounded and smooth, with a highly reflective surface. He turns to the lieutenant and says, "You have now been catalogged. I must inform you that multiple ships have recently warped near this location. I am now going to catalog the various items and parts in and of your vessel. Please allow up to 4 Ichtyums... That cannot be correct... hours. Please allow up to 4 hours for completion."

Zeus uses his zero point energy field manipulation device to pull the nearest object- a can of cola- into his hand. He gently holds the can, scanning it, then holds up a finger. From the tip of his finger comes a sharp pointed needle, which he inserts into the can for chemical analysis. He removes the needle from the can, allowing the liquid to escape. Unphased by the spilling liquid, Zeus continues to catalog items, using his ZPEFM to pull a tube of toothpaste to his hand. He continues to sample and catalog items in this fashion, open to any questions and speech input by the humans, oblivious to anything else.

His new armor:

[G-Tech Corporation]

"Reasons matter not in the quest for the favor of the Omnissah; actions, those are our nectar and ambrosia, the food of the Eccelsiarchy. By these the All-Sire weighs us, and determines if we are found wanting. It is by this criteria, of the works of a man, that we may judge each other and the universe around us. The silence of words without deeds is deafening, the sound of a holy action like the thunder of a highstorm over the crags." - Aviat Bessia Gai Ameral, The Holy Void

BelowSpace Coordinates 1409:38Y:7802
Timestamp: 602:2010:111:679:22 MBA
Havanian Group, Milky Way Galaxy, System 89402-01a
First Generation Fist Eternality of Existence, Adrius Mas Ameral Commanding Chosen
Mainframe Upload warr. PT-CH. Confl. hist.

The giant form on the black-silver throne was deep in thought. This system was beginning to teem with the impure, a state of affairs that was regrettably common in this galaxy. His eyeless face stared up at the high roof of the vaunted chamber of the Nexus, the dark depths of the room staring back at him. His mind sought guidance from his brethren and She whose hand was behind this all, and ere long he was at rest. Extermination status; proceeding agreeably. Already through his innumerable eyes and bodies he could feel the pulse of the planet becoming feeble, its lungs gasping for air and hands flailing weakly as it attempted to tear its attacker's hands from its oh so fragile throat. The attempt was pointless of course. Even if the Techsin had suddenly become an apostate and attempted to save this world from its fate there would be no going back; the environmental decay and atmospheric dulling was already in the cascading phase of absorption. There could be no counteraction of the process, only the insertion of a catalyst.

Ironically these Potentials had been very helpful in insuring their own demise. Their usage of their primitive atomic armaments in an attempt to beat back the harbingers of silent death had sealed the fate of their world; the cloud of radioactive ash that rose from the massive fires of their world was just now being caught up by their air currents and dispersed across the previously pristine globe, a pall of grey choking dust that would leave this planet a mausoleum to the hubris of these Potentials. Not that that would kill them; it would merely end the fertility of the world. The teeming hordes of flowmetal abominations would see to every living organism far before the nuclear winter even had time to fully entomb the planet. In his mind's eye Conduit energy scoured the very earth from the world, leaving its ragged bones of stone to cry up at the stars; flesh disintegrated, wild animals fled and died as they scrambled away, sentients left only their screams on the air, and even microscopic organisms were not safe from the ravening hordes.

210 sectons til absolute annihilation of every life form on the world. A satisfactory time frame for his next move in the cosmic game, an optimal point for his Mistress' purposes. At a thoughtpulse from the motionless form a large part of the underbelly of the massive God-Ship broke away, a portion nearly half a kilometer long and displacing about three cubic kilometers. In the Techsin's mind the awareness of the flowmetal faded, though he still retained a marginal link to it by their shared composition. With careful pulses of energy he nurtured it and fed it with intelligence. He could not accomplish this part of the process alone, and the Aviats simply weren't up to this task. They were feeble beings, more living processors than true equals to the being upon the throne, but they had their uses. This was not one of them, and thus the immortal figure bent his mind hither and thither, nourishing the flowmetal to serve his will. The exotic substance was a dangerous curiosity, an artifact of another reality brought by arcane and perilous methods to the physical universe to serve the whims of the Chosen and the Omnissah; they did not truly understand its composition or function, and yet their forms were composed of the eldritch material. Adrius did not see the conundrum inherent in this state of affairs; it was his to serve, not to question. Irregardless, flowmetal had some... intriguing... self-emergent properties. Under the Techsin's studied ministrations the most important revealed itself rapidly.

A sibliant voice- no, not a voice, a presence- swelled in the figure's mind, like the rustling of dry leaves before the cold breeze of a dead winter. It questioned, not with words, but with a slight pressure. And the Techsin responded, his intentions for the alien intelligence coursing into the shard of the mighty vessel that now hung in the inky blackness of the vacuum near the God-Ship. A... cackle? Chuckle? -Adrius had not the words for it- greeted his thoughts, and he had a brief impression of blackly malicious glee before the shard hove off towards the dying planet and severed the connection.

Enough.

Now that he had observed the Potentials swarming this stellar orbit it was time to... address them. His mind scanned the millions of minor artificial sentiences that scampered around in his massive bulk, the disassociated consciousnesses that arose in his skin like a teeming biosphere of micro-organisms. Simple-minded they were, pathetic creatures who barely comprehended the fact that they existed, but they served their purpose. The least of the children of the Omnissah, they were so insignificant as individuals, but so useful as a sum of their realities. His intellect ripped through the hordes of ghosts in the machine, tearing the relevant datastreams from their puny neuraos. Well then. It seemed there were... three? Yes, likely three different sentiences kicking around this Cleansing. One was obvious enough; some form of primitive battleship that had entered this system beaming its radiant 'glory' in such a grotesque manner that the form internally laughed lightly. The other Fists sterilizing the surrounding stellar cluster might have even seen its entrance. He had received a small unencrypted transmission from them several cycles ago. With a mental shrug he put the matter aside. Nothing of note there, standard Ecclesiarchal protocol would be sufficient.

The other two incoming signals were far more interesting. One had arrived slightly before the other, and seemed to be the more.... exotic of the pair. Rotating on unhinged shoulders the Techsin's arm outstretched itself, beckoning to one of the Aviat's below. It rose from its indent in the great vessel's deck, and padded softly towards his throne. Flowmetal claws clicked on the obsidian surface of the Nexus, and then climbed the silver-smoky glass surface of the figure's monolithic chair. He watched patiently as the lesser being ascended, taking the cycles to assess the newcomer's vessels as fully as possible with his limited energy resources. As it approached him, its small three meter bulk a gnat before his looming form, he spoke. His voice was deep and dark like the space between stars; morality was not indolent in his tones. When one had overseen the extinction of over two thousand sentient species care was not a strong trait of the individual.

Awaken the Cognatus.

Trepidation blossomed in the heart of the Aviat, an emotion unknown for many millenia suddenly resurfacing with a vengeance; fear. The command was a simple one, in theory, but the execution was something else. Nonetheless, it lived to serve Her will. A low bow signaled its obedience to the purposes of the Omnissah, and it descended from the throne.

The looming form nodded silently to itself. One matter taken care of. Now to the others. Transmissions then. The primitive race first; a full data-analysis of their language had been extrapolated from their challenge, and thus a complete response was a matter of nuance. An archaic tongue and transmission method; he actually had to form the communications array to address the Potentials, as he hadn't used that type of data transfer in... well... actually recently, but that hadn't really been a conversation. More of a statement of execution.

A message was transmitted on an open unencrypted radio broadband frequency through the Dive to allow it to reach the primitive vessel in a timely manner. The waves dipped in and out of BelowSpace in a eccentric manner, speeding them across the void at a speed of nearly 5 c, then reached the receivers on board the vessel. A text only transmission only. No more was required.

Code: Select all

We are the Chosen. Do not interfere.

The other signals, now those merited more thought. One of the craft, a small one of a particularly interesting design, its skin actually quite similar to the flawless flowmetal surface of the God-Ship, had actually sent the Chosen a message first. A simple databurst, which, per linguistic and stylistic methodological analysis, was a mere greeting. Odd. But the ways of Potentials were not his province. Irregardless, the looming form was amused. It was a distinctly casual form of address, and as such he supposed it would respond well to the same case of response. But he frowned. The vessel was descending towards the planet undergoing transformation. Not very healthy for it... no indeed. A response and warning then. His face split, an unnatural sharp toothed smile forming, gleaming silver teeth set in a dark gray eyeless visage bared in mirth.

Code: Select all

Why hello. You seem to be entering the atmosphere of a planet I'm... interacting... with now. I recommend you withdraw, for your own preservation.

And as for the signatures out towards the farther edge of the system: nothing, as of yet. Their rock-like ships could hang in the void for the next month for all he cared. The Patriarch had not allowed this Fist to engage in wanton destruction like many of its fellows, and so Adrius was here for a single purpose only; extinction.

The Potentials of the system addressed, the looming figure turned back to its contemplation of the world dying at his fingertips. Silvery figures gleamed and shimmered in the sinking now blood-red light of the world; the vast amounts of debris and airborne soot were tainting the atmosphere and filtering out this system's star's light. And the suspended flowmetal particles weren't helping either. To the beings scrambling to survive, the few hundreds that remained, a crimson sun hung in a sky laden with the pall of death. They were already dead, they just hadn't quite realized it yet. As the conversion process took place inordinate amounts of gamma and beta radiation were flung off of the surface of the world. It was this tremendous amount of stray energy waveforms that was interfering with the inspection systems of the Potentials who had so precipitously arrived in-system, and the levels of deadly radiative particles were only building. Flowmetal, in essence, did not play well with organic life.

And neither did the Chosen.

[Demigueris]

Ymira could no longer clearly 'see' what was happening beyond the confines of the planet's atmosphere. Her smooth black skin had boiled away, replaced instead with her bare, gunmetal grey armour-plating that was still glowing near her noise as she blasted toward the planet surface on the more dangerous side of hypersonic. Her sensors and com receivers, once so very sensitive, had both been badly heat-warped during her re-entry. She could no longer feel the air around her - it all felt numb.

But she didn't care, not one bit.

Her focus was on weaving between the mushroom clouds on her descent, the face of the planet rushing up to meet her, on the rampaging sea of flowmetal consuming the world, and the faint, dwindling humanoid life-signs still clinging to life somewhere down on the surface of their once world.

Despite it all though, the return signal from her mystery ship rang through in a powerful, crystalline pureness that defied the nuclear inferno erupting around her, and her own self-inflicted injuries. And it was everything she'd dreamed it would be.

Code: Select all

Why hello. You seem to be entering the atmosphere of a planet I'm... interacting... with now. I recommend you withdraw, for your own preservation.

And while the form was there, that simple message sparked rage inside her.

Code: Select all

Interacting!?

She didn't even bother to send her response as a single transmission. She didn't bother to control the signal strength on her response to, or to encrypt it, or even restrict it to a tight beam. It was simply as raw and viscerally powerful a datasignal as she could still manage.

Code: Select all

Define "interacting"!?

She terminated the message datastream with a sloppy, irritated flourish that indicated her attention was elsewhere.

She didn't wait for a reply, and she answered her own question but in another transmitted datastream that communicated in something other than words...

A couple embracing under the under the light of a full moon
The singing of birds in springtime...

She reached out into the dusty nuclear clouds through her sensors, feeling the barren land and flowmetal beneath her. But there was no life down there, the humanoid life signs that had been there just fractions of a moment before vanished.. The last screams of the living beneath Ymira's shadow had already uttered their last. There was nothing down there now but the ghosts of the dead, and living metal.

On her visuals, through the dust and clouds, she spotted a lone dismembered corpse surrounded by constructs with no targets left to butcher.

Without a thought, Ymira lashed out with her main armament, throwing a force-shielded slug into the group of constructs below at relativistic speeds.

She didn't care about the fact she might have just precipidated an 'incident' with a potentially advanced space faring empire.
She didn't care about the fact it really didn't accomplish anything - that those people were now dead and she'd been too slow to save them.
She didn't care that the fireball engulfed her, blasting off pieces of her hull plating.
She didn't care that all that was left there now was a crater.

None of it mattered to her right now - really all she could think about was how angry she was and how much she wished she were still capable of crying.

Instead, her gravitic drives flared and strained to keep her airborne even as she pulled herself out of her dive, and urging her forward on a new course. Out there, ahead of her somewhere she could still feel the light of those still living, still grimly striving somewhere amidst all this death.

All around though she could feel pockets of life, slowly vanishing, one after another. She changed course again and again. In sheer frustration she rained annihilation from the sky into the flowmetal formations she tore past at breakneck speed.

...Bees on a flower petal, sipping nectar, spreading the plants seed as it flies away
A lone figure, standing on a hilltop, staring up at the sky, sillouetted in long shadows cast under the pall of a dying star...

Leveling out only a few dozen meters above the ground, Ymira blasted over the seas of living metal automatons beneath her. She didn't make any attempt to avoid them. She wanted them to see her scorched form, to experience the air-blast as she skirted their heads at hypersonic speeds, and the feel the fury of her gravitic engines as her passing uprooted trees, and buildings and scattered those flowmetal monstrosities like so much confetti in her wake; no differently than the broken works and broken bodies of the dead victims that lay around them.

...A puppy, licking a laughing child's face.
Two starships, in space, diving together into the dimensional void, becoming briefly as one.

She angrily terminated that transmission too. She wasn't even sure what it was she expected whoever was up there to understand. These were such simple things, such simple impressions, the very essence and joy of what it was to be alive. And yet it was lost on whoever was up there, she suspected, if it weren't none of this would ever be happening.

There, ahead. Ymira thought.
The broken landscape, cities, rivers and towns raced beneath her in a blur. But there was still life out there, humanoid life, ahead. Alive. Still grimly hanging on in spite of it all.

Code: Select all

I'll show you what "interacting" is.
//End communication.

Ymira gave one final pulse of her engines with one last firing of her com system, tipping herself up to gain altitude and bleed off speed. Then she cut her main engines. As she sailed above the last hill, and high up into the sky, she got a clear optical read on the little group of survivors. A farmhouse - really more of a thatch roofed hut - surrounded in a ring of flowmetal glinting under the darkening sky.

She watched the ring closing all too quickly while she glided overhead. Ymira[i/] rolled onto her final approach, and as one last, defiant gesture she ejected her entire on-board security complement of assault drones over the forests and fields overrun with constructs.

Her own 'constructs' roared overhead toward the farmhouse - their fusion-thrusters lit the landscape from horizon to horizon in a light as brilliant as lighting. Their targeting systems tagged and fired upon the sea of flowmetal automatons in their thousands.

But there were just so many. Even though [i]Ymira's drones' weapons - firing rounds tipped by force-fields designed to penetrate any shielding or armour at asteroid-impact speeds -cut cratered swathes into the landscape like buzzsaws...but there was so much flowmetal, and so few of them. This was never the sort of combat a shipboard detail was meant for. Their limited magazines ran low, and one by one, ran out.

And the ring continued to close.

The beleagured survivors - the last of their kind - peered, terrified, out of their hut at the what was unfolding around them.

The sky was filled with clouds as black as night, through which filtered the sickly red fires of a burning, dying world.

The wind around them blasted hot air, and dust in angry swirls under the force of Ymira's thrusters as she glided in overhead above their home. They held one another as the roof of their hut buckled and then was blasted away along with the very walls around them like so much tissue-paper by the howling winds.

All around them was a circle of dark shadows, and glinting steel barely visible through swirling torrents of dust.
And all around them other figures fell from the sky, one by one.
Their ammunition expended, Ymira's drones interposed themselves in a ring of their own between these simple tribesmen - primitive by their own people's standards - and the circle of eldritch horror from another dimension meant to be their extinction.

These people may not have been the most sophisticated technologically, but when they saw this all arrayed before them, they understood viscerally what it meant:

This was it. This was the end of everything. The end of the world.

As the drones prepared to make their last stand, one Ymira detached with a thought, and sent to collect the huddled survivors - six of them, clothed in rags - and return them to her waiting deployment-bay and her cycling FTL drives.

They recoiled at the approach of the hulking armoured assault platform, Ymira sought to reassure them with calming words, but realized - suddenly - she had no idea what sort of language these obscure tribes-people might speak. There were no tricks of technology she could use here, no shortcuts, and no time to go through the entire databank of possible language constructs...

Ymira saw their terror staring into the optical sensors of her drone; a face not entirely unlike, she reflected, those of their destroyers. In desperation, she flickered the unit's holocamera to life, picturing the group of them clinging to the hull of the drone as it lifted them to safety.

They stared back uncomprehendingly.

[New Amerik]

On the Nature of Emotion's Role in the Manipulation of Imagination
Hatred. Happiness. Remorse. Fright. Emotions, all of them.

Some of my colleages would call them merely the chance of interaction of biological and chemical feedback playing games with the mind, and they would be correct. Certainly, one can rather calmly dissect emotions into their physical elements and responses, to figure out why they happen. But their interesting properties in the metaphysical sense of 'reality' is something else entirely. Biologically based as they may be, there can be no doubt that emotions do contribute to the use and manipulating of Imagination. Based on research and findings both of my own devising and from other Alienists and Scientologists, we can at least estimate the effects and interaction of the two when combined.

While the key point in manipulating Imagination is still force of will in the overall power and stability levels of the effects caused on metaphysical reality, strong emotion can play a key part in the area of power - namely, increase or decreasing the power of Imagination when felt. A person experiencing intense emotion can often boost the power of their effects, while one with little to no emotional output may in fact in practise decrease the power of what they are trying to accomplish - this can be witnessed in Spirits, who cannot significally effect their surroundings with Imagination precisely because they have no true emotional output. It must also be noted, however, that this does not benefit the stability side of the Imagination equation - and from both experience and past reports, the sudden increase in power, when unknown, is often of sufficint surprise to the user to through their restraint off and, in combination with their heightened emotion, threaten to cause a Reality Crack or at least a sufficient threat of metaphysical breaching.

In theory, we could potentially find a way to 'harvest' the emotions of others, and input them into machines and storage containers that hold Imagination in order to boost the power of the stored quantities. How this can be done is currently unknown, though perhaps with sufficient force of will Imagination could be used to help provide a solution to the problem blocking its implentation...

---

Into the universe, there came a difference. Where before there was only what was, now there was also something else – what could be. It was something that utterly defied reality, a paradoxical metaphysical law that existed because, logically speaking, it couldn't exist – and thus did. To anyone familiar with the Amerikverse, they would recognize it as Imagination. To anyone else, it would simply show up as a strange feeling and a distortion on the scanners, of something that could not and should not exist, not in any particularly horrifying way but in a frank, open admission that it could not actually be explained by any sort of logical process and, therefore, did exist in some form and way.

And then the Portal opened up, and reality changed. A hole in the universe came undone, and through it one could see the stars and barren space of another universe. And shortly afterward the HES Emmerson's Meltdown, the first Mosquito-class ship in the Amerikan Kosmos, came through. It made no statement, gave no word or explanation, but simply flew through, the Portal closing shortly behind it.

As it made its way into this new galaxy, the ship revealed the...interesting design gifted upon it by its Amerikan creators. A bulbous back end, housing the Multiversal Portal Device that had sent it into this realm, alongside crew quarters and auxiliary thrusters, engines, and sensors – it served as both a housing area and as a glorified lifeboat, capable of detaching from the rest of the ship should a hasty evacuation of the immediate universe be ordered; a middle section, longer and thinner, that housed both the main engines and thrusters as well as a variety of redundant systems and exposed power lines that did nothing but make the craft itself appear somewhat more technically advanced and complex than it already was; and the front section, appearing as a massive needle-like extension nearly as long as the rest of the ship put together, and serving two purposes – to house both the Imagination Storage Compartments, and to house the Emotional Contractor. It was something that did not, on the surface, look like it would be space worthy. Indeed, perhaps it wasn't, and the only thing keeping it whole and untouched was the sheer belief of the crew that it should be whole and untouched: one couldn't say for sure, currently. And the crew of five itself was busy keeping the ship on course, their mission given to them by their leaders back in the Amerikverse: this particular solar system, in this particular galaxy, in this particular universe was relatively close to the Amerikverse in terms of the Space Amongst the Threads, for what it was worth given the difficulties of mapping such concepts of space to the Space, and so it would prove the perfect testing grounds for one of their newest technologies – the Emotional Contractor itself.

There was much emotion in this system, and the Emmerson's Meltdown would attempt to siphon them up, power the Imagination stored within, and get out. Some might liken it to piracy, and they would be correct – only who could expect a ship to pirate the very emotional turmoil and power of the dying planet and the other ships nearby?

To ensure that the other spaceships would be able to recognize them as being neutral entities and in no way doing anything remotely illegal by their own considerations, the Emmerson's Meltdown put out its flags – literally, giant flags made of a space-proof material that were attached via magnetic edging to the hull of the Mosquito-class, showing the Amerikan flag. And without a single opening communication anyways – they were more interested on the tasty, emotionally-supernovalike planet nearby rather than any potential other ships in the system right now – they sped towards the doomed planet, to drink of its metaphysical fruit and take it for their own.

[Gebeta]

Bensa
Ground War CIC

Luthens addressed the people gathered around him.
"We have several Recon Flights. We have decided to withdraw, to allow you to approach around the dark side of the moon. The Vipers will make recon flights in two, four flights. We have decided to scout out for a possible landing zone for the Marine Landers."
Garran addressed his men, "When we receive the intel packets, we will deploy accordingly. We may have to deploy enforce, with a few BMPS, and we will have air support in the form of direct bombing missions, if needed."
On of the marines spoke up. "So, are we expecting a fight?"
Luthens responded.
"In my experience, we have either found a civil planet, in which case we wont need the support, but if the interference is other, we may need to establish boots on the ground. From current intel, we have at lest three forces, and a possible fourth. The three are, that dread naught, and its fleet. Second would be that smaller ship, which is out of Dradis range at the moment, and the the mech, being followed by about thirty some men. The fourth, would be the planet. Common reasons for losing signals, before we arrived here, are but not limited to, Rescue beacons, SETI, Comms, Natural occurring, and nuclear warfare." Im hoping for the best, but were expecting the worst due to the interference."

Ready room.
Delta squad, was a Army Detachment whose five man team would insert with the Raptors. The idea was to jump in via chute, and make contact with locals. The squad would then negotiate for the SAN, and try to establish a working idea of what was going on.
"Lets go" Janer said, the squads leader.
The Team exited the ready room, wearing bio warfare armor, and tactical huds on the visors. Each man carried a Mk5 Rifle, 40 round clips, 20 AP clips, and 20 Anti Personnel. Rio, carried a Hornet missile launcher, a small compact anti tank launcher, with 4 rounds.

The mission was to last a Renatian day, 26 hours. They Loaded into the Raptor Recon aircraft.
"50 till launch"

CIC
Luthens watched as the Bensa moved slowly in a retreating manner.
His 8 recon aircraft, plus two raptors, waited for the go. He knew that it had to be timed perfectly or the ships would be detected. He thought for a moment. The aircraft could be detected in the final decent, but by then they would be "safe". In his gut he had a feeling that they were walking into a war, already started long before they arrived.

[G-Tech Corporation]

"Flesh is weak, steel rusts and fails, stars burn out and the coldness of silence rings throughout the galaxy. All is temporal, even the universe itself. But we are not. The Omnissah spoke to us before this universe even came to be, and she will lead us past its end to Her age of glory. Hallowed be She Above!" - Patriarch Iblis Res Ameral, The Confession of Promise

BelowSpace Coordinates 1409:38Y:7802
Timestamp: 618:2010:111:679:22 MBA
Havanian Group, Milky Way Galaxy, System 89402-01a
First Generation Fist Eternality of Existence, Adrius Mas Ameral Commanding Chosen
Mainframe Upload warr. PT-CH. Confl. hist.

A deep sigh echoed from the seat of the Techsin atop his throne in the heart of the immense Fist that hung between the stars. Potentials could be so... self-righteous at times. This entity that was traipsing around his cleansing zone was one of them, and not exactly a new one at that. What it hoped to accomplish was beyond him, truly it was. The people of that world were dead regardless, and its laughable attempts at hindering his effort were futility personified. His mind watched as hundreds of the teeming constructs of the world below were scythed down by weapons from the strange little ship.

Its responses amused him, an emotion he hadn't felt for many long centuries. The Omnissah's hand was in this one's life indeed. After it seemed to be done with its rambling disjointed rant he spoke back to it, letting a hint of the weight of his nine millenia in the service of his Mistress creep through. Perhaps spoke was a misnomer. His mind reached out to touch the young ship's and he showed her why the Chosen did what they did. Specks like this ship had come and gone, passed and faded away to be replaced by new brighter lights. It was the way of the universe, any universe; perhaps though someday someone would understand.

A man snarls hatred as he plunges a crude iron weapon into the body of his brother, his face twisted in disfiguring rage. Crimson rivulets mark the ground as a look of infinite betrayal dawns in his sibling's face. A single tear falls from the victim's face, mixing with the spatters as his life fades.
A woman shakes her hips seductively as cruel leers and bestial howls tear around her, men debauched in their extremity lusting for sullied flesh. Her face smiles like a porcelain doll, but her eyes are dead, dull and lifeless, grey orbs devoid of her soul staring at the hordes whose looks tear her clothes from her body. She is a walking corpse, a women destined for nothing at all but eventually expiration.
A soldier, a man of supposed principles fighting for a cause he believes in, walks through a village with others like him. The hot sun beads their foreheads with perspiration, and streams of sweat flow down their cheeks. No one stirs in the hamlet except for them. Dun eyes like a shark, black and devoid of emotion; those are the windows of the body that are displayed in the laboring faces. Behind the walking soldiers flies stir, and blank faces stare at the sun. Bodies, offal, blood; they bake in the heat. No one speaks, for no one is left alive to give voice to their pain.
A key turns in a lock. Its brother turns beside it. Cold calculating men watch blips on a screen, tiny red and white dots moving on a sheet of glass. Lurid green light illuminates the men's faces, the only sign of their actions. Dots blossom into circles of light, and above the men's heads the world ends with a bang, not a whisper. No emotion, no remorse. Just a holocaust that burns man, woman, and child alike.
A gust of wind stirs on the face of a world dead and buried, grey clouds and ash plains the only remnant of a civilization long gone. It is lonely, this breeze, for no children will come and play with it. No voices greet its passage; it pushes no boats, powers no cities, and flies no kites. Only the dying echos of a beautiful people acknowledge its passing, and the wind cries.

The universe was a twisted place; so many races had the spark of their Potential snuffed out before ever the Omnissah could bring it to fruition, drowning in their own failures and inequalities. It was the purpose of the Chosen to extinguish those who threatened the terrible beauty of the cosmos, to wipe out the blemishes upon the face of the infinite field of stars that were not worthy of existence. Hatred, decay, decadence, immoral lusts; those were the enemies of the children of the Omnissah. And thus the Techsin was forced to kill, and kill, and kill, for so many were impure. A river of blood did not quench the iniquities of this race. For every simple moment of joy a thousand fetid wretches lurked in the heart of this planet. For every righteous sentient a thousand deviants flourished in the dark corners of the galaxy. Was it just for so much good to perish with the wicked? Was it fair to condemn the innocent to purge the tainted?

The Omnissah would judge all beyond the Veil, and in the next existence they would be given their proper reward. And so whole worlds burned. The corruption of the fallen Potentials could not be allowed to spread, could not be left to grow like an insidious weed in the garden of the She Above. He regretted the need for such drastic measures; each ringing scream of an infant was a wound in his immortal heart, each innocent fallen before the deathless flowmetal hordes a wound that bled freely. But the looming figure would bear his iniquities, take the burden upon himself and wade in the river of evil in order to protect those who deserved it from the myriad faceless abominations that crept between the stars. Adrius did not expect comprehension, or empathy. He cared not for it in truth, so inured was he to the horrors committed by his hand and the billions that had perished as he watched. But in some deep recess of his soul, some windowless room of his heart, a fragment of his being simply asked the ship that spun below to understand.

---

Aviat Eara Jas Ameral

The narrow metallic passageway she had been striding along suddenly ended, emptying onto a long rail-less gangway. It stretched off into the distance, eventually merging with a tremendous towering pillar far away. The chamber she was in echoed oddly, and soared upwards beyond the edge of sight and down into a well of inky darkness. In the center of the great construction stood the pillar, and around it looped ring after massive ring, kilometers wide, and they glowed with a eerie green light.

She stopped suddenly, breath short. Why in the dive did the first Builders have to be so fond of vast empty chambers? If there was a bottom to this cavern, none had ever visited it alive. Eara shook her head. She could wake the Fabrica from here.

The uplink on her head began to hum softly, and she concentrated, attuning her thoughts to those of the monolith resting in slumber here. It stirred, acknowledging her presence, and searched her mind briefly to ensure she was of the Ascended. Something like a dark chuckle wavered through the air, and Eara shivered. She could never be sure if the chuckle was in her mind, or actually a voice in the room mocking her insignificance. That said, the Fabrica was willing enough to help. The immense rings slowly glowed brighter and brighter, and then began to turn. She turned away, knowing from experience that they soon would rival the brilliance of a new sun. As she averted her eyes, a languid stream of energy coiled past her and settled on the gangplank. Eara froze. The Fabrica could be vindictive at times, and there were whispered rumors that Aviats sent to wake it had not returned at times. The energy coalesced, and then flashed. She blinked, and before her stood dozens of Servitors, their metallic faces staring blankly back at her. Their minds linked to hers, and instantly expressions of apprehension sprouted like flowers. Eara and her Servitors fled the chamber, and she could not shake the feeling that the chuckle pursued her.

---

One of the primitive survivors crept forward towards the strange metal-beast that had fallen from the sky. His hair was matted, black as the dark roiling clouds that covered the sky. His lips and beard were stained with blood, his limbs covered in dreadful burns, and his mind clinging to tenuous strands of sanity at the living nightmare that was unfolding around him. Not a very pretty being by any standards before the terror fell from the sky; now he looked more like a walking corpse than a living being. The others that tentatively followed him were likewise built. Gaunt ribs protruded from torn clothing, sunken eyes stared unseeingly at the strange thing before them. Death followed them closely, and his hand lay heavy on them all. Their feeble bodies were struggling and failing to fight back the catastrophic damage their systems had incurred due to the unseen particles ripping apart their cells. All but the first man were blind, retinal tissue seared into nothingness by gamma radiation. Their forms were unnaturally hot, fevers building as their immune systems crumbled before the assault of disruptive energy. Two even had flowmetal deposits in their lungs; the particulate thrown up by the nuclear inferno that had consumed their homeworld had lodged in the soft tissue of their respiratory systems, and even as they stumbled forward weakly it ground through their matter.

They were a pitiful band of ragtag men and women, four men and two women precisely, but they were all that was left. Their makeshift leader, the only man whose sight still existed in any form, took the drone at its word. His brain barely had the power left to comprehend the images it formed; the neurological damage that assailed his thoughts made them fuzzy and ill-defined, but he knew they would die anyways. If this metal-beast was tricking them, they would be dead regardless. In guttural tones punctuated by coughs of thick black-red blood that marked the dead grass at his feet, he quickly told the others to cling fast to the being and to follow his voice. In the course of a minute all the dying beings had assumed some sort of posture grappling with the drone.

In the ring around the pastoral building the constructs sprang forward like hungry wolves once the drones' ammo was spent. Gleaming silver forms, meters tall with wicked blades and sharp teeth, poured over the line of security machines, slashing and tearing with blades sharpened at an atomic level. From many of the craters more constructs clambered, some missing limbs or arms, others merely misshapen lumps of black-silver paste. As they stalked forward they changed, limbs slowly reasserting their shape, bodies unwinding from crushed lumps into humanoid figures once more. Eyeless faces stared like bloodhounds towards the farmhouse, and in a silent rush the constructs leapt forward at their prey, surging against the thin ring of security drones like the remorseless battering of the tides. One could not kill that which did not live, and even as thousands of the unnatural figures had been dashed apart by the sheer kinetic energy of the weaponsfire more ran in a curious loping gait towards the beleaguered farm.

---

On the skin of the Ymira a fine dust collected, silver grains like sand flashing and swirling down from the massive black clouds that swept the surface of the planet. This tiny precipitation of flowmetal was the child of the nuclear bombardment that had sealed the fate of this world, but it was not altogether unplanned for. As the dust increased in mass it began to eat away at the gunmetal of the vessel; exotic energy from BelowSpace pulsed in a minute amount from each proton-electron orbital, shattering the subatomic bonds that made up the hull of the ship. Scattered energies poured like water from the ship's skin, stray electron, neutrons, protons, quarks, and gamma particles slewing from it en masse. Some were captured by the flowmetal particles, and forced by the omicron wavelength issuing from the Dive into the same unnatural proton-electron pairs that had begun the process.

As the Vipers from the Bensa descended into the atmosphere they too began to pick up a fine dust of the eldritch material, and their radiation sensors rose sharply.

[Strykla]

The Stryklan Assault Frigate Asp floated out of the drydock. Its captain, Rezzak, hissed in happiness that the ship was finally working.

Not three months ago, he'd been part of an action concerning the entirety of the Nagma Fleet, burning out pirates from the star system in unclaimed space that was preying on Stryklan shipping. Attacking cargo containers was enough to get the Stryklans' attention; the Abstergi didn't tolerate it. But executing the crew brought down a very big hammer.

They didn't go down without a fight, though it would have been more proper to Rezzak if they had run. They had only one serious warship, a decommissioned cruiser that was falling apart at the seams. But the Asp had taken a high-explosive round raking across the after alligator head; it did enough damage to give reason for a major overhaul. Assault Frigates had moderate armor, a meter thick through the alligator head, but Rezzak was sorry to say that one-on-one, he may have lost to a pirate cruiser. Thankfully, the cruiser was speared by a nuclear shaped charge from a nearby fast battlecruiser.

His first mate, Tyloth, walked up to him, frill depressed. "My captain, systems show well." They were on the bridge right now, pressurized; Abstergi oft kept their SAINT body, leg, and armpieces on but took off their gloves and helmet. "Good, good, Tyloth. Let us leave at once."

They were leaving toward a star system beforehand unnoticed by the Stryklans. The Abstergi were very solitary, and made contact with other species typically only to make war with them. But this star system had recently attracted the attention of Stryklans by way of nano-entangled satellites, which were constantly going through the universe at just under the speed of light. There were literally quintillions of them. More. But some had struck upon something so unrecognizable, they failed to catalogue it under anything but 'dangerous'. The star system's gamma ray flux had just gone up incredibly, and the star wasn't getting any hotter and no GRBs had been detected. The NES' themselves weren't really legal, but the Stryklans denied their existence, and any picked up had zero markings to be traced.

"Let us begin the countdown," Rezzak said. The ship started reporting in: "Space Sensor Array. FTL Array. Gunnery. Engines." The computer said all the critical systems and auto-checked the subsystems. The ship's compliment numbered nearly two thousand, the ship being well over four hundred meters in length. Everything was checked out and ready in just over five minutes, the computers being so powerful as they were, had to check everything. When everything was ready, Rezzak said, "Evacuate the bridge, all commanding crew report to CIC." It was standard procedure during jumps; the bridge was in a dangerous spot in the ship, while the CIC was buried deep in the armored alligator head. When he got to the CIC, he initiated the jump, and they were there.

The ship had numerous cameras all over it. There were zero windows, due to their structural inefficiencies, and rather the cameras allowed for viewing. Abstergi naturally saw in the optical, infrared, and ultraviolet portions of the EM spectrum, but nearly any camera used by the Abstergi saw in all spectra at once, allowing for incredible detail. And as the ship dropped out of jump, just fifty kilometers directly to the Asp's bow was a massive ship. In the half-second it took Rezzak to issue orders, he took it in; the ship had a bulb-looking aft, then a middle and tapering in the bow to the biggest needle Rezzak had ever seen. What could it possibly be for? Rezzak knew it couldn't be for ramming. Battles happened typically at hundreds to thousands of kilometers; the Asp's guns were barely adequate for that kind of fire; they were only good because they put out lots of ordnance in a short amount of time. He hadn't a clue what else it might be for, though.

"General quarters! Reverse thrust and ready MML! Full yield!" The nuclear warheads in the multi-missile launcher were dialed up to their full blast yield, two megatonnes, and were loaded hot into the tubes. Abstergi ran to their stations and in only seconds the ship was ready for combat. Here, Rezzak was only supposed to be scouting. But the Abstergi was a predatory species; that course of action seemed only natural. The Asp backed up, the gun turrets rotating to bear, and Rezzak steeled himself to face this new ship.

[Demigueris]

Ymira took stock of her situation. Winds and torrents of energy swirled around her. Below the last denizens of the surface were dying, even as they clung to the extremities of her security drone while around them, the tides of hulking constructs surged forward to end them, with only the thin barrier of her security drones - a painfully thin line to be sure - stood ready to check their onslaught.

The world was dying, Ymira reflected, and as she regarded distastefully the readings she was recieving about the degradation of her own hull, she realized she too was sick. Her scans of the flowmetal had been sufficient that in the flowing seas beneath she saw the death of the world writ large. It was one of the curses of living as something neither completely computer nor completely machine that she had the cold calculating ability to look at the datafeeds from her surroundings, and sometimes see a little into the future - sometimes a lot; but to turn off the feelings that came from that knowledge - that there were no calculations for. Hormonal injections to her carefully protected biological components perhaps... but then what would she be but something impose horrors like this upon those with the gall to be borne outside a society of networked neuro-computational intelligences.

The denizens of the surface below were dying too, even as they clung to the extremities of her security drone. She realized. Radiation effects she knew well, curing she couldn't do - she wasn't equipped for it, but patching the holes in their cellular degradation, keeping them alive until she could get them to more specialized treatment. That she could do.

This flowmetal on the other hand was something else, she reflected ruefully. Once she got to deep space, she could cleanse her hull, could freeze her surface temperature to the point the decay was manageable if necessary. These people though, them she couldn't drag into cold vacuum and freeze to within a few points of absolute-zero though. Couldn't flush their insides out completely.

Well, she could, but that would have been mean.
Or, maybe it would have been merciful, she wasn't even sure anymore.
Either way, she wasn't leaving without them, not now.

She reached out into the drones' command-net, and ordered the four survivors returned to her hold. It would need a moment to secure them, to lift itself beyond the reach of the wave of metal scythes working their way towards them. A full blast of the drone's impulse thrusters - while returning them quickly - would probably kill all four of them. Resuscitation in that event was unlikely. The short of it was, she'd have to take it slow, and her cordon would have to buy time.

With that Ymira turned her full attention to her security drones facing off with the tide of constructs leaping into the fray.

Ymira had her doubts these constructs and their flowmetal had ever really fought anything quite like her drones. Linked together, they were unfettered by anything like keeping an organic inside alive and while they were optimized for ranged weapon combat, in melee they were equally well served by their sharpened claws, battle-computer honed reflexes, and a series of motor-cores that powered combat maneuvers that would have shattered bones, and were faster than a naked eye could even register.

All the while Ymira would be watching their opponents, watching their every movement, their every twitch to take measure of their capabilities, to discern any patterning in their strikes in order to step inside their decision-making loop.

The outcome was not in doubt. In fact from existant data Ymira was fairly certain she could predict, blow for blow, how the entire melee would - there were myriad likely progressions - but she was confident she'd managed them all right down to the point where every single one of them ended in her last drone being run through. All that remained was to actually play out each move as though it were the end-phase of an elaborate chess game. Both sides knew what was coming, there was no avoiding it.

The important thing was that the survivors would reach her deployment bay alive; and perhaps the guiding hand behind this catastrophe would taste a little of the stinging edge of her anger before it was over.

As her drones fired their impulse thrusters and blasted like multi-tonned bullets that scattered in a confusing flurry of crashing machines and sharp implements wielded at super-sonic velocities - leveraging their mobility, and flawless coordination against the overwhelming force arrayed against them.

The battle joined, Ymira spun the battle AI off on its own to complete her modelling and turned withdrew from the drones' battlenet.

Enough of this place, she thought to herself and swung her rear end around to face the battle beneath her and let the entire force - her drones and all - eat her wake as she re-engaged her gravitic drives and rocketed off into orbit again.

For her special guests guests she began prepping nano-matrix solutions that would keep them alive. And some wonderful drugs to take the edge off the unspeakable horrible-ness they were enduring.

She didn't know if the nano-matrix would do the trick long enough for help to arrive - she knew she didn't have the drive range to make the jump all the way back to the Demigueran fleet.

What she did know was that almost no matter what happened, the two that had ingested the flowmetal... stuff. They wouldn't make it.

Swaddling them in her medical units, Ymira tried playing some pleasant sounds through her internal speaker systems even as she did what she could for them.

At very least she could ensure that the last moments of their species weren't spent in suffering, but rather in a not altogether unpleasant drug induced stupor.

In the silent moments as Ymira broke atmosphere, she monitored the vital signs as one, and then another of her guests went unstable and perished despite her attempts at resuscitation.

Still she had two still alive who she'd moved earth and heaven to get free of that death trap.

So it was with profound irritation that she finally noticed a set of - was it the human ships? - looking like they were getting ready to jump right in.

Code: Select all

Turn back now, you fools!

It was short, and vaguely insulting, and the humans had really done nothing to arouse her ire Ymira realized. But right now, she didn't care. She wasn't in a particularly diplomatic mood.

...and that that thought refocussed her attention on the mystery ship in question. The cause of all this.

She purged her hull in a torrent of dust, and exotic particles - the starship equivalent of blowing a tuft of her now frayed hair out of her face as she fixed her gaze on the Chosen's ship.

So what if that ship was like a thousand time the mass she was?
So what if she was never, at the best of times, designed with a view of ever being within ten lightyears of something like that?
So what if she was leaving a fine trail of her own hull behind her, while her sensors and EW nodes were giving her more noise than actual readings.

Hell, after being bombarded with all that radiation, she couldn't even make contact with her own satellites in system anymore.

Drawing herself up she decided - unwise though this clearly was - this was a confrontation that needed to happen. There were billions of lives demanding someone, anyone, take a stand on this.

Breaking orbit, she pushed her little engines forward on an intercept course with the Chosen ship in order to settle this genocide once and for all.

Code: Select all

I think we need to have some words.

And just then something happened that gave her, momentarily, pause as another almost just as massive ship exploded out of FTL space, blasting all sorts of frenzied

[New Amerik]

The crew of the Emmerson's Meltdown took note of the newly arriving ship - though the newcomers themselves might have been hard to detect, Amerikans were familiar with certain signs of using space and time manipulation to 'jump' through physical space, and certainly one happening relatively near to them was a sign there was at least one newcomer into the system. The leader of the ship, however, would spare no deterrence from the course of the Meltdown, no deviation from the plan - theirs was not to bother with the intentions of others, but to complete their tests and their missions before exiting. While emergency actions could be taken, there was no need to do so...yet.

But nonetheless, the communications crewman chose to broadcast a message to the nearby ship, as best he could. It was crude, given the relative lack of ship to ship technologies developed in the Amerikan's still fledgling kosmos - a simple message, broadcast on all radio frequences and sent out in a burst around the ship to go wherever they may, with the hope that at least one of them would be picked up by the nearby ship:

THIS IS THE TES EMMERSON'S MELTDOWN, HOLY TECHNOCRACY OF NEW AMERIK. CONDUCTING TESTING IN NEARBY SOLAR SYSTEM, DO NOT CONDUCT INTERACTION WITH.

And apart from that, the ship went silent again, moving towards the planet and ignoring the ship. It was almost time - to see if the Emotional Contractor would work.

The crew began to focus their will on the planet and those around it, envisioning their raw emotional output - almost solidifying it as best they could, to make it more 'real', flowing into the Contractor. The leader was the only one who abstained, focusing on the Contractor itself, prodding the energy systems powering it to start up, to make the Contractor actually work in any real format. Imagination began to flow, and then...then the Amerikans rejected reality, and substituted it with their own.

The planet itself may have been dead, but the anguish, pain, and confusion brought about by the beings on the planet below still lingered, and slowly but surely they began to draw into the Contractor, the great machine sucking them in like some emotional blackhole, replacing their prescence with nothing but a somehow soothing emptiness. No more pain, no more strife, no more feelings at all - or, if one did start to emit the biochemical processes that would create them, those too would start to be ripped into the metaphorical maw of the Emotional Contractor. As the first fringe emotions were engulfed within, the machine began to transmute them - feeding them into the Imagination Storage Device, flavoring the Paradox within with an edge of emotion that only made it all the sweeter.

The crew was ecstatic, but even that was taken from them and pulled into the Contractor. Instead, they were consumed with mild pleasure and acknowledgement - the tests were working.

[Strykla]

The communications and linguistics officer, Brunis, saw his claws shaking as he informed Rezzak, "Two messages incoming, my captain. One appears from the ship directly to our bow. It looks to be an order not to interact with the ship; it is from New Amerik. I cannot identify the origin of the second message, but it appears to be another order telling us to turn back."

Rezzak was vaguely amused, but more disappointed as he let his lower jaw fall slightly. "Tyloth," he said. "If those ships know we are Stryklan, they may know our reputation. Brunis, respond in their heathen languages that we will not back down so easy."

"Yrig and Graz," he said, naming the navigation and tactical officers, "Put the ship onto a course running parallel to the Amerikan ship. We will see what they are up to."

Tyloth suddenly grasped at Rezzak's shoulder. Rezzak looked over in confusion. "Do you feel that?" Tyloth asked in a wavering voice. Rezzak looked at his claws; he did feel something. It was a profound sense of fatigue; a feeling of emptiness followed. Rezzak stood there, staring at his open claws; he did not know what was causing it. Obviously it was not himself, as Tyloth was feeling it too, and as he looked about his bridge crew, they were all feeling it.

Rezzak did not know what was causing it. But the feeling of confusion vanished as soon as it came; he felt like it had been suddenly ripped from him. What followed was anger, but that disappeared just as soon. Rezzak, for once in his life, was genuinely terrified for just a moment before that, too, vanished. But his mind dissected the problem, and Rezzak came to a startling conclusion, one that caused a rage to boil up, one that did not disappear so easily.

The Asp was drifting now, engines turned down to allow it to glide on course. The guns were still powered up, and missile waiting in the tubes. The sensors were taking in information but running on passive; for all intents and purposes, the ship wasn't doing anything. And then Rezzak barked out orders that nearly relieved every Stryklan onboard.

"Engage the Amerikan ship! Target that spike on the prow! Rake the ship with the guns and set the ship to bear all turrets forward!" His orders were followed immediately and efficiently. The eight missiles in the tubes were ripple-launched and the ten second reload sequence was initiated. The ship spun so its front alligator head was facing directly at the American ship; it looked so much like it was powersliding, but it was in fact standard procedure to far the strongest armor directly at the target. As the two-megaton missiles accelerated to mind-numbing speeds in the vacuum, the three rapid-firing turrets let loose a stream of high-caliber autocannon rounds; shaped charges efficient against most targets. Firing at 350 rounds per minute, they did indeed rake the prow of the Amerikan ship, and the missiles weren't going to miss unless intercepted.

Rezzak was aiming to disable the Amerikan's machine; the needle was undoubtedly the source of whatever had given him such feelings. The Amerikan's message likely proved that. Or, maybe, it was a coincidence that this star system just warranted further study, and that was the testing the Amerikan vessel was performing. In that case, Rezzak was, unprovoked, launching an attack on a coincidentally weird Amerikan vessel, grounds for war.

But the Abtergi were predators. And if given the choice between flight or flight, they would choose fight, every time. The shots and nukes flew; perhaps the needle was not durable, and would be immediately destroyed. Or maybe Rezzak would just have to pound away at it. But whatever happened, he was at this point reacting and aiming to do better than that.

[Gebeta]

Viper Flight

The vipers, started to scream as the radiation built. Some of the paint burned away, leaving them barren and scorched.
Echo flight, two vipers pulled up, aborting the mission. The raptors behind the flights pulled away, including the Delta team. A few other vipers carried on longer but they to would suffer from the radiation.
The six other vipers flew for as long as the could, peeling away one by one. A few of the pilots died before reaching the Bensa,  to which two made it. Six others, scattered around a small area in cosmic speaking. The Bensa by now was a furry of movement as the crew readied for war. Bensa launched four Raptors. they were dispatched to rescue the fallen pilots. The Bends turned hard to the left, while rolling to keep the ship guns align to the enemy.
CIC Bensa
You could feel the ship rolling. Seaside showed a few faint contacts, as Well as the dreadnought. The crew were ready for a fight, after the first pilots returned near death from radiation. Luthen had decided that, he could not jump back to Renatia encase he was followed. His command buyo was ready, with the last remarks being to send enforce the fleet to the Renatian regrouping center.
"Prepare to launch buyo. " he said, as he keyed in the encryption codes. He ordered the launch. A torpedo like device flew from the front of the ship, only to dissappear in a flash of light. The buyo was away, only time would tell if it had been detected and tracked.

[Tseasci]

(OOC: Tseasci are pale Humanoid bipedals that are very similar to Human anatomy wise, with the most noticable difference being their large pointed ears)

The emptiness of the void was shattered by a flash of white hot light, as the Tseasci Base-Star Olympia exited Slip Space. (The Olympia is a massive, double saucer vessels measuring some 8,800 feet in diameter and carried a host of Tseasci troops and some 1,750 Imperium type fighter craft. While this is just above a skeleton crew, they are supplemented by over one-hundred defensive Turbo Laser turrets and two, long range, Mega-Pulsar guns)
The bridge was immediately swamped by the huge amount of anomaly alarms, all going off simultaneously. Amid the chaos on the bridge only one man managed to keep his composure, and that man's name is Captain Jack Rogers. "Rob, I need a status report and I need it know." he said. "Right away sir", replied Robert Telson, the Olympia's CO "Sir, for unknown reasons we seemed to have dropped out of slip-space prematurely, while our escort has carried on to our intended destination. We've managed to pick up four ships on scanner, but we don't know if that's all of the ships out there as we are receiving some severe Gamma interference sir. The planet is giving off an ENORMOUS amounts of Gamma radiation."

"What do we know about the ships?" the Captain asked. "Almost nothing sir, one ship is leaving a trail of radiation suggesting that it had just recently been exposed to the radiation on the planets 'surface'. One ship is appears to be a Carrier of sorts as it is constantly sending out and receiving smaller craft, and we know nothing about the other two ships" he replied. "Scramble primary defense wing 1, I want them in tight defensive formation, they are NOT to wander off." the Captain said, "Then I want you to figure out whats wrong with the ship, I need to know if its a malfunction or we're harboring a saboteur. And send a probe into orbit around that planet, somethings obviously wrong with it and i wanna know what".

Hundreds of fighters swarmed out of the Olympia's vast hangars, buzzing around the ship like a swarm of angry bees. All except for one, which speed toward the planet at breakneck speeds before launching a UMOP (Un-Manned Orbital Probe) and returning to the ship.