By the Hollow Ships: Patrykos first contact (reboot). FT.

[Patrykos]

OOC: I expect proper entry and good grammar. No dick measuring please.

"Sing Muse! Sing of the long-kindled wrath of a royal son, seed of rugged Ithaka of the saltless sea, slow burning rage of the fortress-born, firing the stars with the burning wakes of his black ships."

There was a pause as the bard jotted down a few more lines in the angular script of his people. The officers in the mess listened as his pen scraped across paper. Then someone cleared his throat.

"It's good, Menelaero. A good start to our voyage. Who knows how it will end?"

The bard looked up, and immediately made to lunge to his feet and snap to attention, a movement the speaker aborted with a simple wave of his hand. The other officers in the mess chuckled, and the man, tall and trim and olive-skinned in his light blue uniform, allowed himself a small grin that did not reach his deadly serious eyes. Deep-set, gray-green as the sea, full of intensity and introspection. The eyes of a prophet. Or a madman.

"No, sit, please. Compose. I just wanted to tell you we have left system. Apparently the Senate listened to the King and my well-beloved father. The arm-wrestling is over, and the real test begins now."

Menelaero nodded. "What next, then, my captain?"

"We end our jump in two hours and scan. And jump, and scan. We will find something eventually, "The Deep does not forever hold its dead.""

There were mumbled words of assent from around the room at the fair use of the Delfic prophet's words, and the bard itched to write the line. The Captain's eyes took a grim set, and he turned.

"And when that day comes and we emerge to find those who laid our people low with slavery and rapine and murder six centuries ago, can I count on you, my arms-brothers?"

"Komi Patrykos, Captain. Our word is stronger than blood, by the Seven in One." Menelaero the bard said, his voice ringing across the echoing mess. The Captain nodded savagely.

"Good."


Deep Space Expedition, Task force Akrouno Kosmonoi, CIC, Skeptro Patroio (Akhilleso-class), Kapaetno Paraklo Thurminoio, commanding

The vessel punched into Real Space like the very Spear of the Warrior, and her two sister ships flashed into being beside her, shield generators ready to enfold her in invisible walls of adamant, sensors scanning the vicinity and comparing the systems to extant starcharts.

The bridge was a flurry of activity. The captain, a young man of slender build, trim in his light blue uniform, the gleaming hilt of his Makhiaro glinting in the ceiling lights, his close-trimmed hair and beard well within regulation, paced the central well, intent. Paraklo narrowed his grey-green eyes as he surveyed the readouts. Something was nearby. FTL drives that matched neither their own or their quarry's. He cued the comm and spoke, hoping someone would reply as the message beamed into the silent Void.

"I am Captain Paroklo, Son of Thurmino, captain of the Confederacy Ship Skeptro Patroio, and representative of the Union of the Patrykos. We come in peace, to establish relations. Please respond in kind."

[Patrykos]

Ahem. Bump. Nibbles?

[Washington Resistance Army]

Calvertan Imperium
Ardenia System, Imperialis Secundus sector
Aboard the battleship Triumphant Victoriam
763.M53

Admiral Sicarius quietly sat in his large ornate chair aboard the bridge of the Triumphant Victoriam, contemplating if his forces would ever have anything to do in this border area of the Imperium. Whilst the Admiral had a large force for a frontier fleet consisting of an Executor Class Battleship, 3 Vengeance Class Cruisers and two dozen Fury Class Frigates he had no purpose for them. The last time this portion of the Imperium had seen action was nearly a millennia ago when the final remnants of a Tyranid infestation were wiped out. The creatures were thought to have left the galaxy nearly ten thousand years ago, though this was merely legend and only the Grand Librarium on Calverta has the truth on if they did exist so long ago. The infestation on the sparsely populated planet of Nyesia alarmed the Imperial Council greatly and a large fleet carrying dozens of Astra Militarum regiments as well as two Grand Companies of the Adeptus Astartes was dispatched to contain and destroy it. This much is known to high ranking members of the Militarum, though many greater details are still classified.


Alas, the Admiral had his orders and he would perform his duty for his people even if it meant patrolling space along the frontier. The last thing the Admiral was expecting on this day was to have a trio of xenos ships appear on the outskirts of the system. Alarms blared throughout the ship as the ships were detected and crewmen began racing to their stations, not knowing if they were hostile or not. Suddenly paying more attention to the rapidly developing situation, the Admiral sat forward towards his command console and began contemplating a plan if they did attack his force. Deep in these thoughts, the Admiral was taken back when a crewman aboard the bridge informed him they had received a message from the xenos, ordering it played aloud the Admiral quietly listened.

“Have we ever heard this language before crewman?” The Admiral asked as he glanced towards the young man who had informed him of the message.

“No sir. Cogitators are already working on translating it but we have little understanding of the language.” The young crewman replied.

Sighing at his luck, the Admiral shook his head and stood out of the chair and began to speak again; “Send a response message in all known languages telling them they are intruding in Imperial space and asking their purpose.”

The crewman simply nodded and gave a quick yes sir as he began punching commands into his Cogitator terminal to relay a response. Admiral Sicarius quietly thought to himself if this fate finally giving him something exciting to deal with on the frontier, he chuckled at the thoughts and relaxed himself back into his chair. This was turning into an interesting day.

[Patrykos]

Calvertan Imperium
Ardenia System, Imperialis Secundus sector
Aboard the battleship Triumphant Victoriam
763.M53

Admiral Sicarius quietly sat in his large ornate chair aboard the bridge of the Triumphant Victoriam, contemplating if his forces would ever have anything to do in this border area of the Imperium. Whilst the Admiral had a large force for a frontier fleet consisting of an Executor Class Battleship, 3 Vengeance Class Cruisers and two dozen Fury Class Frigates he had no purpose for them. The last time this portion of the Imperium had seen action was nearly a millennia ago when the final remnants of a Tyranid infestation were wiped out. The creatures were thought to have left the galaxy nearly ten thousand years ago, though this was merely legend and only the Grand Librarium on Calverta has the truth on if they did exist so long ago. The infestation on the sparsely populated planet of Nyesia alarmed the Imperial Council greatly and a large fleet carrying dozens of Astra Militarum regiments as well as two Grand Companies of the Adeptus Astartes was dispatched to contain and destroy it. This much is known to high ranking members of the Militarum, though many greater details are still classified.


Alas, the Admiral had his orders and he would perform his duty for his people even if it meant patrolling space along the frontier. The last thing the Admiral was expecting on this day was to have a trio of xenos ships appear on the outskirts of the system. Alarms blared throughout the ship as the ships were detected and crewmen began racing to their stations, not knowing if they were hostile or not. Suddenly paying more attention to the rapidly developing situation, the Admiral sat forward towards his command console and began contemplating a plan if they did attack his force. Deep in these thoughts, the Admiral was taken back when a crewman aboard the bridge informed him they had received a message from the xenos, ordering it played aloud the Admiral quietly listened.

“Have we ever heard this language before crewman?” The Admiral asked as he glanced towards the young man who had informed him of the message.

“No sir. Cogitators are already working on translating it but we have little understanding of the language.” The young crewman replied.

Sighing at his luck, the Admiral shook his head and stood out of the chair and began to speak again; “Send a response message in all known languages telling them they are intruding in Imperial space and asking their purpose.”

The crewman simply nodded and gave a quick yes sir as he began punching commands into his Cogitator terminal to relay a response. Admiral Sicarius quietly thought to himself if this fate finally giving him something exciting to deal with on the frontier, he chuckled at the thoughts and relaxed himself back into his chair. This was turning into an interesting day.

Au Kapaetno, they're right on top of us!" A junior bridge officer said, pointing up at the primary tactical readouts, panic tinging his voice. Three vessels. They had dropped out a scant twelve kilometers away from three vessels. At this range, a fight would be devastating to all parties. No room to maneuver.

"Au Kapaetno, incoming transmission." Paraklo nodded at the translator, and the transmission piped through. Angry sounding gibberish.
"Feed it through."

The language was garbled, but the tension in the speaker's voice was clear to Paraklo.

"Clearly derivative." Nestiro, the grizzled veteran who functioned as his second in command. "Humanoid articulation."

"Sound like xenophobes." Menelaero grunted from the navigations console. "I advise we focus on our shared similarities. May I recommend we send in visual?"

"Very well. Also, we will prepare to raise shields. Readiness report?"

"The Daana reports fighter, shield, and railgun battery readiness. Likewise the Plono Theononoi. We are fully ready to up shields and jump out if the situation becomes hostile." Nestiro said, rattling off the figures.

"Good. Bring me my rod of office and cloak."

Moments later, Paroklo stood before the imager, calmly speaking, attempting to integrate as many words of the foreign language into his message as he could.

"I am Captain Paroklo of the Confederacy Ship Skeptro Patroio. As you can see, I am not a 'xeno', whatever that means. We mean you no harm, and we have come to establish peaceful relations between our people and yours."

[Washington Resistance Army]

Admiral Sicarius quietly sat in his chair awaiting a response from the still unknown xenos who had appeared in the system. They had yet to fire on him, while he would like to imagine they were peaceful he attributed this more to his large numerical superiority. The hope did remain in the back of his mind though that the xenos wouldn’t be hostile and something positive could come of this. The same crewman who received the message once again spoke to the Admiral;

“Sir, we are receiving a pict-message. Do you wish to have it brought up on screen?”

The Admiral was slightly taken aback by this, either the xenos had not understood his message or were attempting to respond yet again. Standing up and adjusting his uniform and placing his Admirals hat on, he turned and spoke to the crewman;

“Have the cogitators finished translating their language?”

“Not fully sir, though a large number of words have been translated to High Gothic.”

The Admiral let out a breath of air, he hoped the speech would be intelligible. He quietly told the crewman to bring the message up on the bridges main display screen. When the image finally sparked into existence Sicarius was stunned, they appeared human yet didn’t speak Gothic and seemed odd to the man. Quietly listening to the man speak, the Admiral let him finish before he himself began to speak. While he had only caught some of the words being successfully translated, he would make due.

“I am Admiral Hadrak Sicarius, commander of the Imperial Naval Battlegroup Tempestus. You’ll have to forgive the lack of formalities, we’ve never come across anything peaceful among the stars. We are still translating your language but if you say you are no threat you will not be fired upon. Sicarius out.”

Motioning for the feed to be cut after that the Admiral relaxed once again back into his chair, deep in thought. Humans? The old Imperium fell untold millennia ago, they could be descended from the empire of old but they seemed odd, different. He quietly awaited yet another response.