Ekteth's First Contact (IC, FT, CLOSED)

[Sladek-Volkh]

OOC thread

Sladek-Volkh Station
Grand Patriarch's room

Y'tgar watched the sun rise from Sladek's horizon as the station continued its orbit. Long had passed since he got used to the absence of a normal day-night cycle, but it was still strange for him. He looked down to his planet. The devastated surface looked even more devastated with the sun running over it. He couldn't see it, but thousands of his people were dying down there. Such was the nature of his species. The ekteth life turned around the power of his clan, and around war. There was one time when fight was developed in the deepest forest, or at the sea. But those were tales from his youth: even 900 years ago, when he was born, Sladek was nothing but sand and rock. He tought about how life could be if they could collaborate, but he quickly discarded those thoughts. But they were going to have to do it, or they would disappear. His species was facing total extinction, caused by their violent instincts. He sat on his chair and took his datapad. He had a few hours until the meeting with the other Patriarchs.

[Sancti Roma Stellarum]

Through the great emptiness of space, the H.H.S. Copernicus moved smoothly at FTL on its mission. The Copernicus, of the great first line of spaceships commissioned 20 years prior by the Great Senate of Earth, had been for many a symbol of a better future. By that time, mankind had moved beyond earth and settled all about his solar system. The marvels of terraforming had allowed for many new "earths" to be built on Mars and the moons of Jupiter. Even then, however, Adam's seed was not satsified. It, as it always had, looked to the next frontier. To the twinkling stars and the promise of new life and adventure.

Captain Willian Hight, skipper of the vessel, had been one of the many to sign up for the program and become commissioned into the Pontifical Star Navy. He had trained alongside the best and brightest and earned himself a place on the bridges of many of the finest vessels in the fleet. He had gone in, born in Seattle on the North American continent, enthusiastic and hopeful. Reality crushed that though. Beyond earth was a chaotic universe that proved to crush even Hight's eager idealism. It was thus, with the last hope of a better future, of a new cause offered by the stars, that he looked for the last place he could go, out. So far, he and his crew had been at space for 2 years now looking for resources and new planets and sending the information back to earth for archival and analysis.

Hight stood on the more or less empty bridge of the vessel which was dimly lit. A few other officers moved about checking consoles, all about the large viewscreen at the front of the room displaying the starry expanse of space. He settled in a chair, checking through some star charts they had been generating from their travels into uncharted space. Suddenly, an eager young officer spoke up:
"Sir, we have something interesting on the sensors.."

[Sladek-Volkh]

Sladek-Volkh Station
Meetings Hall

Finally the meeting was over. There was now a general armistice between clans. Y'tgar saw two workers running out of the room with orders for the Comms Center. The Patriarchs were getting up and exiting the conferences hall, talking in groups or escorted by soldiers of their clan. He still was on his throne, accompanied by his political advisor, a young female ekteth without clan yet. Wich was strange, because she knew a lot about the clans and the patriarchates and matriarchates. He raised his glass of water and looked through it. "Now this liquid will be conserved for a few years, maybe a decade, thanks to what we've done today.", he tought. Even having strong violent instincts, the ekteth needed time to recover. New eggs had to be laid. The main moss farm had to be checked and rebuilt in some zones because of cave-ins. This armistice was like all the armistices he had seen and signed in his whole life.

His thoughts were interrupted by a communications soldier, judging by his uniform. He walked up to his throne, kneeled down and said, "Grand Patriarch, one of our satellites has detected an unidentified signal."

"From wich territory is it coming from?", inquired, ostensibly alarmed.

"It is not coming from the planet, sir", quickly answered the soldier "The signal comes from outer space."

[Imperialisium]

Slipspace

The Exploration Vessel; Imnes Projenitus, was in long range Slipspace FTL transit. Having finished its mission of conducting exploration and stellar cartography assignments a subsector over. That was atleast until the Ships A.I. picked up a stray signal. The Klaxons flared briefly by the Communications console and the Crew-man, an Aetherian looked at the holo-screen, puzzled.

"Shipmaster, unidentified signal of non-Imperial make-up has been detected." Said the Crew man. The Shipmaster, the 221 Year old Orbrenus Puleich pondered the thought of pursuing it. Certainly his superiors would be alarmed and congratulate him on the discovery, yes, perhaps it was time for advancement after all.

"Set a course and trace the signal." Commanded Orbrenus.

Five Minutes Later
The Imnes Projenitus burst from slipspace with a brilliant blue portal tearing the fabric of real space. The vessel was of traditional Emperian design and 240 meters long by 40 meters wide at its widest. Emperians take shipbuilding like an artform and the vessels hull was laced with brilliant blue crystalline Seradite. The hull was polished silver in color and edged in Bronze.

[Sladek-Volkh]

Sladek-Volkh Station
Communications Center

"Set a global red alert.", said Y'tgar. "Commander, prepare the soldiers.", ordered while said commander rushed out of the room. "Prepare the evacuation ships for an emergency and man the turrets." The station was full of activity now. Y'tgar picked up the radio microphone and broadcasted to the station, "Attention crew. The Grand Patriarch speaking. We have detected what appears to be a ship entering our solar system. One thing is sure: it is not ekteth."

[Hedron]

...Stand Ready...

By the Emperor's biding I must comply, by the Emperor's biding I must do, by the Emperor's biding I must protect. That is Hedron law.

On the outskirts of Hedron Space - resides a fleet in a deep space patrol seemingly assigned a mission of a superstitious preemptive strike from one of the hostile factions. Intel suggested Ork's were advancing rapidly into Hedron Territory, which answers the increase in patrols on the northern Ultima Segmentum, though no Ork's or even any hostile factions were reported in the past 12 years. Must've been a paranoia among the Navy Hierarchy.

The battle fleet 67th of Hedron is composed of mostly support craft based warships and as well housing Four Imperial Regiments, also explains the massive size of the fleet, even though mostly support craft based - the 67th, just like any other Hedron fleet, is packed with immense firepower. The most distinguishable trait is the "Emperor's Barrage" which can single handed-ly provide an astonishing fireworks display as well as the fearful destruction on the end of the cannons. The fleet itself marks the skulls of Hedron and their proud Astartes; the Silver Skulls.

Practically drifting in the dark void of space - Admiral Yaun sits in his chair drinking his morning coffee as his officers maintain their required duties. Flipping through his datapad seemingly uninterested of the news being transpired across worlds such as one from "Hedron Times," called the "Forge World Viris crisis solved!" He grunts as he says to himself, "Damn rebels...Never turn against your own kind...." then he continued flipping through until finding something quite interesting.

Without any mentioning the Bridge door opened, splitting itself in four parts and evolving itself inside the hull of the ship. A Lieutenant with his escort arrived in the bridge and saluted the Admiral, "Admiral Yaun!" he sounded off, "Lieutenant Amedies reporting!"

The Admiral sets aside his datapad and stands up saluting the Lieutenant. Then both of them simultaneously dropped their salute before the Admiral asked with a deep punched voice, "What brings you on my ship Lieutenant," asking while picking up his coffee, "Don't you have a Regiment to be baby sitting?"

LT Amedies remained at attention while looking straight forward, "Admiral - General Jair requests specifically of when the Regiments will get to see action."

The Admiral chuckled, "I'm quite sure they get enough action in their tight packed quarters Lieutenant," then paused as he faced the Bridge window observing the space, "At ease Lieutenant."

Amedies immediately relaxed and went to parade rest, paying attention to the Admiral, "Heard about the news of the 72nd?"

Turning around interested, "Lord Admiral Krasus commands the 72nd - seems 'News' travel less here than in the Warp."

"The 72nd under the command of Lord Admiral Krasus was decimated by a hostile fleet of unknown proportions."

"An experienced armada under the command of a prestigious Admiral - decimated?" he scoffed, "Preposterous."

"Well, everything is possible Admiral," then he reaches into his pouch pulling out a paper, "Almost forgot Admiral," jutting out the paper towards him, "This is from the Imperial Court of Hedron."

Moving towards the LT he takes the piece of paper and flips it open as he read the first important words.

Code: Select all

...67th....
...Command jurisdiction 4 4 5...
...Under Imperial Military Law...
...Dispatch to received coordinates...
...Exploration demanded...
...Expect resistance...
...Expect losses...
...Priority one...
...Imperial engagement detected...

Then the LT viewed the facial expressions the Admiral performed and seeing the Admirals eyes wince as if focusing and understanding a sentence or two?

He softly spoke, "Prognosticators requests Hedron to intervene immediately..."

The LT questioned, "A prognosticator?"

"Seems the Silver Skulls demands our action immediately," placing the paper to his side, "Prepare your regiments. Out of my Bridge LT."

The LT snapped to attention and performed a brief salute before being escorted out of the Flagship. Admiral Yaun paced towards his chair and places the paper above his datapad. Taking a vox mic he spoke, "Attention 67th - This is the Admiral speaking. Begin warp jump in 15 minutes to the desired coordinates sent to your officers. Regiments prepare yourselves. This is not a drill. Battle Ready yourselves 67th!"

Placing the mic away he then looks at the bridge window ahead of him, anticipating what would happen, would it be another 72nd incident? Hopefully not.

The datapad on his side bleeds the words, Naval Hierarchy outraged - 73rd Formed for retaliation.

He sips his coffee...

[Sancti Roma Stellarum]

It took Hight a few moments to completely compute what he was seeing on the sensory console. As usual, the black of the display was broken by dots of various coloration and size denoting suns and other celestial bodies, however there was one difference this time. In the near corner, one was shown in a color he had not seen since departing Sol: bright red. They had been trained for this circumstance, but to be honest, none of them had every really considered it would happen.
"There's radio signals coming from that system." Hight said, stating the obvious.
"Yes, sir. That would be what the red means." the Lieutenant replied, tapping the dot to bring up a display, "From the looks of it, there could be a whole civilization down there, comparable to our own honestly. Though, it could be a malfunction of some sort.. I heard the Churchill thought they'd run into a planet to turn up nothing."
"Yes. I understand," High nodded a few times before turning, "Helm, we have a new course."

It would take a few hours for the Copernicus to come into the system and drop out of FTL. This ship is elegant, a streamline shape reminiscent of a bird. It bears a small SRS flag painted boldly on either side of the body in full color.

Technology is primitive by most FT standards, only in the earliest stages of efficient use of FTL, sensory capability, and interstellar communications. Weaponry is plasma based though minimal, mostly designed to destroy threats such as debris and asteroids as well as perform rudimentary mining operations for scientific sampling.

[Imperialisium]

Imnes Projenitus
The exploration vessel thrusted on sub-light engines in an arc, indirectly, around the station at roughly 1000km. Scanning and correlating data on the system, ultimately also scanning the station. Bio-signs had been detected and per usual a beam message was encoded and sent back to Imperial space, the findings would certainly attract attention and possibly bring more Imperials to the system. Then another ship dropped out of FTL in the general design of a bird, this was quite becoming the popular gathering thought the Shipmaster. This was becoming more then simply an exploration detour.

[Sladek-Volkh]

Sladek-Volkh Station
Bridge

Sayor'i looked at the radar. Two small but inquietant dots had appeared on it, to close for her to be comfortable. As the commander of the security of the station she had full responsibility on what happened to it, and two alien ships on their system wasn't what she was used to. She pressed a button to open the direct comlink to the fleet wing commanders and ordered them to prepare their ships. Judging by the sudden of the ship appearance the ekteth technology could not rival with them but maybe they didn't know that. She ordered the the Mechanized Squadron to ready their combat exosuits and move to the superior platform. After that, she checked that the evacuation ships were ready, and the Patriarchs ready to flee. Once she did that, she entered the barracks where her squadron was waiting, made a hand signal to them and ran to the main hangar. They were going to prepare a nice welcome comitee for those aliens. Just in case.

[Hedron]

... Unwelcome arrival...

Sometimes my crew asks me personally with my approval, "Admiral - why?" I responded looking straight into their souls, "Why not."

Traveling through the warp tunnel - it was rather, uneasy with all the colors flying by and the chaos and what not. To be more specific you can't really tell what is happening because the warp is not real space/not real time. Everything can be unpredictable to the insanity of one man - fear can make it worse. That is why the Imperium of Man developed living human beings to guide the ship through the maze of the warp.

The 67th Battle Group of Hedron makes their way into the designated required coordinates on the hunch of the Silver Skulls Prognosticators. As a sole loyalty to Hedron - the word from the Silver Skulls is a high honor and must be carried out without question; even if it was death.

Inside the bridge room the Admiral remained sitting on his chair, his cup of coffee empty, his datapad scrolling words, a hologram visualized in front of him. Leaned forward a hand on his chin he examines his personal warship. Speaking to himself, "Apocalypse battleship class," shaking his head, "Complicated machinery..."

The ship's AI booted randomly and responded to the Admiral's comment, "Complicated Admiral?" as if offended.

Not flinching he just nods his head and continues swiping the hologram to the side to observe the engines and their max output, "Well, I will have you know that the only Battleship within' the Imperium is outfitted with the most devastating cannon."

Interrupting, "The Nova Cannon of the Emperor," chuckles, "Tell me something I don't know."

"Wha - you - hmph!" shutting itself down as if nothing else to say and resided itself from humility.

Swiping the entire hologram aside he sits up straight and glances at the timer which now ticks at (0:10). He clears his throat and says to himself, "The Emperor Protects..."

The warship immediately released sirens - alerting the 1 million (EST.) crew members on board that they are exiting the warp. Then as soon as it started - the ship moving at immense speed immediately breached the wall of the warp. On the other end a Portal of immense purple light shrieked with intensity then re collapsed itself as the temporal world rejected such anomalies to exist. Multitude of portals ejected themselves out literally flooding the entire sector.

The 67th is now deployed into the sector.

Admiral Yaun picks up his VOX mic and specifically contacts all Imperial forces on the channel

All Imperial forces in this subsector - immediately respond.

This is the 67th Battle Fleet of Hedron and their proud allegiance to their Adeptus Astartes; the Silver Skulls. Under the command of High Admiral Yaun - identify yourselves.

The 88 massive warships hover themselves still completely aware of the objects orbiting the planet and as well other warships of Imperial design. They were weapon ready and especially ready to counter attack with deadly efficiency.

[Sladek-Volkh]

Sladek
Somewhere on the south hemisphere
Military convoy

"Received.", said Ranoiq. He pressed a button on his mech control pad and said through the radio "Attention units. The nobles on the station have signed an armistice for the next 10 years at least, so abort the mission. Also, we are being deployed to the station. It looks like they might have located something."

"What in hell have they found up there? Unless they found it on an asteroid or something I dont think there is anything interesting around here.", thought Ranoiq. Even being a soldier he was interested on the new technologies and he knew that apart from Sladek-Volkh, the station, the hadnt got any way of living out of their barren planet. Whatever it was, he was going to see it soon.

[New Armarzia]

"...And beginning approach," said the head pilot of the cruiser. A flash of light appeared before everyone in the bridge and just as fast as the light appeared it was gone. Once again the cruiser was shrouded in darkness with only the light of stars and now a different, distant sun. The majority of the bridge remained silent and almost seem to be holding their breath save for a few officers following mandatory procedure. "Jump complete, captain," said the pilot.

"Stealth systems are engaged, captain," said one of the many systems officers. The captain stood in the middle of the bridge on a raised walkway. All the officers and pilots were stationed in the area forming around the walkway in a lowered section to give the appearance that the bridge was less cramped than it really was. The captain, a caucasian man with balding hair stood still, staring at the communications officer.

The officer, a member of the human sub-race known as Elvarians, sat at her station with a head set on. The women was slightly shorter, but more slender than the average human with long, brunette hair and slightly pointed ears. A small hologram stood on the a piece of glass at her station that appeared as a human in an evening gown. the hologram appeared to be conversing with the officer, but made no sound. Everyone stood still for a few seconds more before the communications officer finally hit a switch and over the bridge's speakers everyone could hear, 'Jewel in the Abyss', this is 'Silent Hope', 'Aldun's Garden' is accounted for, we are clear. All throughout the ship a sigh of relief could be heard, the dangers of space folding was largely nonexistent compared to when it was first applied to ships long ago, but every few decades a ship always never came out the other the jump, a tragedy that happened to claim the life of an empress a century before.

The captain rolled his shoulders, feeling as if a burden had been just lifted off his shoulders. Protocol immediately kicked in and he began spewing commands, "Close all channels, activate our long range scanners..."

The communication officer interjected with a strong, but warm voice, "Captain, Silent Hope has just deployed its scouting drones."

"Good," replied the captain who was now staring into the empty space, he appeared to be transfixed by something. "Buoy our scanners off of the drones." The captain stared into space, he felt as if the weight of the mission being thrown back onto his shoulders. He made the jump successfully, but now he had to account for all signals in the system. If an unknown signal was found he would have to identify if it was a threat without compromising their mission, if he was lucky their would be no signals and he could begin the next step of his task.

His hope was shot down when the Elvarian said, "sir, the drones have picked up an unknown signal, it is pretty strong. Suggesting either an established presence here or a heavy amount of traffic."

"Damn," cursed the captain under his breath. He folded his arms and continued to stare into the nothingness. "Inform Silent Hope and Aldun's Garden to begin stealth protocol. Establish distance between us and them. Once that is confirmed send a signal towards their way, see if they respond, and if they do have that AI begin working on establishing an understanding of whatever they send back..."