NationStates

Gothi star System, Planet Danaios
Alpha Qudrant, 22,000 lightyears from galactic center, 250 light years form Alpha-Gamma border



Stretching and sighing, Orban waited for the transport to finally set down. After three months of delays, he was finally getting back to the dig site on Danaios, and this time, most of his crew members wouldn't be coming back. Instead, the folks back home had elected to use the unclaimed world, and system as a diplomatic exercise, inviting several foreign "experts" to come onto the dig site. He didn't like it, and he didn't trust him. They hadn't been here for any of the initial dig, and now they were moving in like they belonged here. He didn't have a choice though, this was a government funded dig, which had started to try and find out why the biosphere had such diverse plant life, but it's animals on land was limited. They had uncovered the ruins in the thick jungles, and those had become the focus of the dig, though the planets biological history was still an objective to figure out.

The dig site was just a few miles south of the planets equator, on a jungle peninsula that eventually turned into marshes along the coast. A small clearing had been made about fifteen minutes from the dig site to allow for the transports, and supply runs to come and go without disturbing the main site. The ruins were metal, a dark red alloy that had yet to be identified, but was extremely tough, they had to blow open the doors with plasma charges in order to get inside, and even then it took several attempts before there was enough damage to get them in. Some sort of material with the builders language had been found, while resembling paper, it had lasted hundreds of thousands of years and was still strong enough to be moved, and studied. Samples indicate that it's a carbon-iridium compound, with the marks being burned into the surface by a hot, but thin pen, the writing was elegant, flowing from word to word smoothly. Copies of many of them had already been created for the xenolinguist coming in so maybe he could crack the code. They had named the material Pliahtine

They hadn't had any luck getting further into the structure, doors in their path were made of the same tough material, and couldn't be brute forced the way the entrance could without destroying artifacts that were as of yet, unmovable. Plasma torches had been applied to them, but it was slow going, the metal had obviously been designed for military purposes of an advanced star-faring installation. This was backed up by start charts discovered among the Pliahtine documents, and calculations indicated they had been up-to-date about 100,000 years prior. There was even still power in the building, one of the locked doors had a control panel in the alien language, and an AI had temporarily been diverted from a trade station nearby to try and brute force through the door, it's core programming had been damaged by defenses, and was quickly removed for repair, and compensated for the damage.

Orben had graduated from Heriodon Interstellar as a Paleontologist specializing in ancient civilizations, and had since then been in 24 digs of extinct civilizations, most of them had never reached the stars. This one, however, intrigued him more then any other. Whoever they had been, they had built this installation to protect something, and the fact that it was still powered in areas meant it was supposed to last a long time without supplies. On top of that, they had invented, and used materials unknown to the U.T.S.D, which was one of the reasons the dig was continuing. If they could reproduce the installations metal, they might have a contender for a new armor for ships, and other military assets.

The wind near him picked up as the shuttle finally started to come in for a landing, blowing up dust, and plant life, causing large flying arthropods to take flight, and flee the area. Good, many of them had been bothering the digs site, this would keep them away long enough for everyone to get set up. His foot tapped impatiently, he wanted to get back to the site for dinner, and some of that Blood-Wine he had been sent by his wife to keep him sane in dealing with a bunch of foreigners he had never worked with before.

---

Nytex Battlecruiser under the command of Admiral Ra'Thun Anshaar
Crux Observation Field 12, Alpha Quadrant

"Warning: Approaching Itaash," the on-board computer announced as Ra'Thun entered the bridge. Ra'Thun's ship had been reassigned to patrol the section of space designated as C.O.F 12. With the end of the Long War - stragglers once under the banner of the Betrican Federation were now raiding supply lanes to and from the Crux. Word had it, that some had set up small outposts in seemingly abandoned or uninhabited systems.

Ra'Thun didn't think they'd be willing to come out so far, but the Betricans had ended up in Gamma across the Galaxy, and near their home systems. "Rathena - start scans, see if there's anything here," Ra'Thun said, sliding into her chair as she leaned back and stared at the blue screens. There was a lot of concern about Betrican raids on the Crux's coregates, many were still under construction.

"Looks like there's four planetary bodies here Commander - starting bio-scans," Rathena said as she moved some things over in her cluttered holoscreen, and pulled up the silhouettes of the planets.

"Biological Scan Initiated," the on-board computer announced. Ra'Thun took a moment to stretch before reaching over and hitting the comms panel.

"Yez, You there?" she asked, releasing the transmitter's button. She looked over at Rathena's screen for a moment to see the scans progress - "Yez, you better be at your post," she said. There was a moment of silence before the sound of static and then Yez' voice coming in.

"I'm here Commander, What do you need?" Yez asked, she was the ship's main engineer and had been sent down to the engine room for some repairs on one of the cooling vents to the reactors. She scratched her head a bit, gazing back at the panel she'd removed from the auxiliary vent - a light blue glow illuminated the small crawlspace from this opening.

"Yez, is the cooling system for Reactor A ready?" Ra'Thun said over the intercom, "I'm going to need you to grab a Welding Mech and head over to the flight bay and wait," she said not giving Yez enough time to answer. Yez shook her head before banging it on the wall - she'd been all over the ship for the last few hours replacing and trying to fix several things.

"I have a few more bolts to put in, and then I can move over there Commander," she replied, hoping that answer would suffice.

"Roger that," Ra'Thun said, cutting off the intercom as she again eyed Rathena's screen. The scans were nearly complete, Ra'Thun slumped in the chair and rubbed her face for a moment, "We can't afford another chief engineer - you'll be fine, oh yes," she said mockingly under her breath. Trying to get the Sagittarium to give her additional equipment was harder than pulling teeth from a Wyrm.

It didn't take the scan long to pick something up, "Unidentified Vessel Detected," the computer announced as a red light inside the bridge began to flash. Ra'Thun sat up and turned on her holoscreen, quickly shuffling things over to get to the scan.

"Position?" Ra'Thun asked as Rathena quickly pulled up the targeting computer and slid from her chair.

"It's setting down on the second planet Commander," she said, pulling up a large screen of the ship's location. Ra'Thun swivelled in her chair to stare at a screen behind her of the Nytex's components.

"Artain, enter the system - get Yez on the screen. Rathena, find a drop-point, I want front shields active and deploy the deck guns," she barked swivelling back around. Artain, who had been sitting quietly on the opposite side of the bridge quickly called for 'General Quarters' as she signalled for the side-bays to open. Across the cruiser, the bluish lights streamed down the neatly cut channels between the plating. The large bay doors flanking the sides began to slowly creak their way open as sirens inside the bays announced the 'General Quarters' sent by Artain.

"Preparing Jump," the computer announced as Ra'Thun slid from the chair and crossed her arms behind her back. From the bow, a violet sheen began to manifest in the form of a hex-grid of light that stretched across the bow. It grew brighter as energy was redirected from the reactors to the front shields.

"Jumping," the computer said as the engines behind the vessel flared in a brilliant blue before flashing. The ship jerked, and quickly jumped forwards speeding across space and towards the system. Within moments it had arrived near the belt, the engines powering down as Ra'Thun pulled up a live-feed of the system before them.

"Artain, swing us under this belt, bring us closer to that planet - Rathena, order the dropships to get ready," Ra'Thun ordered, swiping to a feed of the field bays. Inside, ships lined the bay from fighters to troop-carriers. Down on the floor, two platoons of grunts had quickly assembled themselves and were awaiting their orders - Ra'Thun's face appeared on a large holoscreen inside the bay as they shouldered their arms as was customary.

"Are the marines ready?" She asked, pulling up another screen of a few locations Rathena had found. She cycled through them rather quickly analysing them before looking back to the bay's feed. Rathena gave her the thumbs up as she nodded. "Good"

"Alright - we've detected an unidentified vessel landing on the second planet in the Itaash System," Ra'Thun said, talking through the intercom to the bay as she selected one of the drop-zones. "I've just sent you the geo-coordinates of a drop-zone that should come up on your visors. The Nytex will swing in closer to the planet and attempt to contact this ship, you'll be sent down on a dropship to the planet's surface and scout their position. Do not engage unless authorized by me or one of my subordinates - now move," she said, sliding the feed off her screen.

"Artain, see if you can pick up a signal from this vessel. If you can, I want a blackout if possible - if they are Betrican, last we need are a bunch of damned ships here," Ra'Thun growled and began to pace around the centre of the bridge.

"Yes, ma'am," Artain said - starting the scans. The Nytex dipped, and twisted clockwise as the RCS nudged her over before her twelve thrusters kicked on again and propelled her under the asteroid belt. She continued to rotate, a few small rocks gliding right by the sleek body of the ship as it moved closer to the planet. Once it had cleared the field, the engines began to glow much more brightly once more as it sped up to close the distance.

The bay doors had completely opened, and large platforms slid from inside - on them teams assembled around their deck guns. Plated shielding was raised from the platform and a series of droids filed out behind them. As the high energy cannons came alive, their operators were met with the view of the system's star as the ship continued to roll, their shadows stretching across the platform in several directions before dissipating as they were quickly on the 'dark side' of the ship.

The space between the belt, and the planet wasn't a short one - and a few minutes passed before the planet itself was close enough to be seen. The star's light cresting over its horizon in a neatly stretched crescent. The ship finally stopped rolling as the cannons adjusted themselves to their respective firing positions. Ra'Thun was carefully watching different screens as they arrived at their destination.

"Launch the shuttles," she ordered as Rathena nodded, and flipped a lever. Inside one of the field bays, the green light of the dropship flashed in the cockpit. The piloting droid quickly flipped it off, and started the engines. The large cylindrical thrusters at the rear and front shook to life as the fire inside flared outwards to lick the soot covered deck beneath it. As the flames died down, a low hum resonated from the vehicle - "Shuttle 14 lifting-off," the pilot's robotic voice announced.

"You're clear Shuttle 14," Rathena quickly replied as she pulled up a feed of the bay in the bridge. The droid pushed the throttle forwards as the engines jolted, the flames from the thrusters were nipping at the metal and turning it nearly red. The locked gear shifted, and air escaped from the large pistons and clamps holding it down to the deck. As they retracted the ship leapt upwards a few feet, inside the two Artemene platoons held onto the handles and their weapons.

As crews on the ground quickly moved from the ship, the thrusters began to turn backwards - pushing the ship forwards. Once they'd moved completely backwards the droid pulled the plastic cover over the jump switch. "Initiating deployment," it announced - flicking the switch as the engines screamed to life and a large purple flame rushed from the ships thrusters. It rushed from the bay, screeching over the platform guns and their crews before falling silent once it had left the ship's atmosphere. With a quick twist, it was streaming downwards towards the planet.

"Commander, the shuttle has departed," Rathena said, closing the bay's feed.

"Good," Ra'Thun nodded, walking over to Artain's chair and leaning in, "If you've got a signal - flood it," she said.

"Got it," Artain replied, flipping a few switches and pulling over a screen of the scan. A series of pods were quickly shot out from the Nytex, blasting signals at each other as their extendible dishes opened from their protective shielding. Once they were ready, they began to flood transmissions in all directions.

"Bring us in now," Ra'Thun said - stepping back as the Nytex began to roll once more, her RCS shooting compressed gasses to shift her flank towards the planet's surface. "Artain - pause the blackout and send a signal to this vessel, let's see if we can reach them."

"Roger that Commander, setting up now - almost there, alright, you're good to go."

Ra'Thun moved up to the centre of the bridge, having stopped her pacing as she spoke. Her metallic, crystal like voice turning more stern - "Unidentified Vessel, This is Admiral Ra'Thun of the Artemene Dominion. You've been picked up on our scans landing on the planet's surface below. Identify yourselves and your intentions immediately, or we will engage as we see fit. If you receive this transmission, fire a beacon," she said.

"Alright, Rathena - keep watch for that beacon, Artain - reenable the blackout"

Danaios
Landing Site Alpha, Dig Site Alpha

"This is shuttle A-12M-532, we have landed. One moment and the new dig team will be-"

The transmission cut as the shuttle landed, the Frigate transporting it had made the jump back into slip-space before it had even entered the atmosphere, it had other places to be, other dig sites, and a trade station to get back to. The shuttles doors opened, and the foreign correspondents that Orban had been expecting, actually weren't all that foreign. He had heard of them joining the U.T.S.D, but he had never seen them all. This wasn't a outreach to galactic powers, this was an attempt to bring the new species together, find common ground, and get to know each other a bit better.

Some members of his old team were even their, the head of security Dain, and two xenolinguists, twins, by the names of Aeon and Brilla. They were the first out. Inside of one of their little suits, a few Gorio, odd little creatures, came rolling out. Mostly there were the heavily armored Helliot, they seemed to mostly be members of the security team, though there were Humans, Blood-Folk, Noxa, and Fulonu mixed in. Finally two of the large Torrth came clambering out. The smaller of the two must weigh almost 1,000 pounds, the other was twice his size.

The Torrth set him on edge, he didn't know what they could do, but wherever they showed up, they were heavy muscle, and firepower. Finally the shuttles pilot, and co-pilot exited the the shuttle, one was one of the Helliot, a bit smaller then average, and no wearing armor, and the other, a big Fulonu, she used to be part of the crew that had found this place. Good to have her back.

"What was with the loss of transmission?"

"Feedback sir, like the channels got flood-"

She stopped as a transmisson came over the comms, or data-pads everyone had.

"Unidentified Vessel, This is Admiral Ra'Thun of the Artemene Dominion. You've been picked up on our scans landing on the planet's surface below. Identify yourselves and your intentions immediately, or we will engage as we see fit. If you receive this transmission, fire a beacon."

"Well, I guess that explains what happens to the transmission. Sorry Orban, you're a civilian, orders Lieutenant Dain?."

The big Fulonu thought for a moment, scratching at his neck as he did so. After a few moments he spoke up.

"Gear up everyone, Ariea, send up a plasma flare, tone it back so it doesn't look like an attempt to attack, and while you're at it, send out one of the slip-space probes, launch it with the flare. Tell the Major back at Trade Station Lillian that we have made first contact with an unknown, possibly hostile state. Have the second probe ready for a remote launch, we'll update them with it."

Turning, he climbed back into the shuttle and grabbed his trusty pulse rifle, Ariea moving past him, and after tapping a few buttons in the shuttle, there were two back to back cracks. one of a bright orange plasma flare, which climbed up to the upper atmosphere, before bursting, indicating a signal received. As it burst, it covered the intense burst of heat of the probe entering slip-space, also hiding the small entrance vortex.

While they did that Orban placed a small black box on the ground and activated it, streaming out in a infrared pulse.

Message received. U.T.S.D archaeological dig A-3. Any hostilities will result in violent response from local fleet stationed at Trade Station Lillian. We have a ruin that has survived 100,000 years almost untouched by time. Attack us, and expect a tough fight on your hands. Cease hostility, and blocking of standard transmission arrays.

"Alright Dain, I followed protocol, lets get to the ruin, if it comes down to it, we can hunker down inside. Best as we can tell, it was a military installation anyway, might be able to take serious bombardment."

"Don't order me Orban."

Dain said teasingly as he handed the smaller Blood-Folk a simple laser pistol.

"I know you were trained with a gun, but it's all we have to spare, active soldiers receive priority. Bring the beacon, keep it pulsing."

---

Nytex Battlecruiser under the command of Admiral Ra'Thun Anshaar
Crux Observation Field 12, Itaash System, Alpha Quadrant

Rathena was staring at the screen as a flare was detected on board the ship's targeting computer. "Commander, signal received from the unidentified vessel," she said - sliding the image to one of the main holoscreens of the bridge. The ship was now nestled above the planet in stasis, her weapons armed and waiting for any moment to unleash their payload.

"Hmm," Ra'Thun said - swiping her hand as the image enlarged and zoomed. There was a quick distortion near the flare that disturbed the light, "Rathena, what was that?" she asked, looking over to the weapons operator. Rathena was already pulling up several scans and searching through them, she shook her head however.

"It was too quick, perhaps a glitch?" she said, turning to look at the two hundred year veteran.

Ra'Thun shook her head this time, "Maybe - Artain, roll us 30 degrees clockwise; Rathena, direct power to the peripheral shields on the port-side. Alert Yez, I need her ass in that Mech and ready, tell her to get the engineering team ready as well," she hissed before walking back to her seat. The Nytex's RCS system carefully began to roll her as the shields on the left-side of the ship powered up.


Planet Surface, Drop-Zone Eraat, 4.5 kilometres from Unidentified

Streaking across the sky was the dropship, a trail of white as the shuttle plunged into the planet's atmosphere made the ride bumpy and grit worthy inside for the two platoons. The heat of entry radiated across the ship's nose and body in a brilliant sheen of red and yellow light, the piloting droid had rolled the craft upside down for entry, giving the Artemene Marines an easy view of the fast approaching ground.

As the ship came careening through the cloud layer, the droid rolled it back over - the water vapour in the atmosphere turning to steam around the super-heated shell of the shuttle as it dive-bombed. "Touchdown in 40 seconds," the droid announced. The screeching of the engines trailed behind it as the droid engaged the shuttle's gyros, its body turning back to increase its surface area.

"30 seconds"

The ship descended through the lower clouds and was quickly in view from the ground, its anterior thrusters underneath the belly of the vessel began to move and pulse periodically to slow its descent. With each drop in speed, they would pulse more frequently - avoiding a sudden stop, that too often killed the occupants of any vehicle. The droid pulled a lever, as the flaps engaged with the air-brakes, the shuttle's reactor began to hum more as its engines shut down, turned and began to shake alive once more.

"15 seconds"

The thrusters opened in a pulsing throttle with the anterior thrusters as the air-brakes engaged, the ships speed dropped until it was hundreds of metres from the ground and came over the canopy of the alien world's jungle. The plant life below twisted and bent under the immense wind from the thrusters as it manoeuvred to the ground. "Touchdown," the droid announced.

The shuttle's rear opened as the platoons filed out and quickly sat up security around the craft. One signalled the droid as the shuttle's rear-door shut, and it again roared to life, slipping up into the canopy and then out across the sky. "Vector 1, Vector 2 - Check In," one of the leads said - the Marines quickly checked themselves in one by one. "All here then, all units - 120 metres to the East, staggered columns"

The platoons quickly filed out from the drop-zone and headed into the diverse jungle of the planet towards their rendezvous. The Artemene weren't use to this degree of exposure to light, and wore shielded helmets to allow them to see better. They were quiet and spread out as they cautiously traversed the distance through the dense brush. "Rendezvous coming up, set-up field security," one of the troops at the front stated, using a signal to display the rendezvous on the others' visors.

As the team came up on the rally point, they quickly fanned out and sat up positions around the point in all directions. Two however, met in the middle of this formation, "A jungle - what do you think Menta?," the one asked, shouldering her rifle.

Menta looked around for a moment before nodding, "Good place for the Betricans I'd say," she said, pulling up a holoscreen from her helmet so that it would display to the other platoon leader. "Hive said there was one unidentified vessel here," she said - pointing to the position of the scanned map. "That puts us about 4.5 kilometres west - the thick jungle however, prevented us from reading much of the terrain beneath in some points; and this planet's biosphere is completely unknown to us," she said.

The other nodded, "Right - so tread carefully then would be sound advice. The Commander also said to not engage - so let's make sure we switch the weapons off then, yeah?" Menta nodded as she pulled a holoscreen over of the weapons and other data for her platoon, deactivating their weapons for the time being.

"Hmm," she said - taking a moment to look at the map again. "I'll move my platoon up the ridge here, and approach them from the North - may be able to get a sniper up there, and we'll have the high-ground as well, what do you think Illa?"

Illa scratched her chin for a moment before enlarging the map - "I can swing down low, follow this river-bed here, if we stay beneath the canopy I can hit them from the south-west. You may want to move a detail to the east, a sniper and auxiliary most likely - they can cover the retreat and scout in case things do get hot." Menta nodded, throwing the map off as she stepped back and cycled her weapon.

"Alright then - Vector 2, new mission has been updated, move out," she said over the comms, giving a small finger salute to Illa as she backed away.

Illa shook her head and looked out towards the thick jungle, "Vector 1 - on me," she ordered.

Nytex Battlecruiser under the command of Admiral Ra'Thun Anshaar
Crux Observation Field 12, Itaash System, Alpha Quadrant

Up above - the Nytex was being patient as the crews remained under General Quarters. Ra'Thun had gone to get an energy cube and was returning when Rathena greeted her at the door. "Commander!"

Ra'Thun reacted quicker than Rathena could get her next sentence out as the Commander flat-out decked the subordinate. "Dammit Rathena, the hell is wrong with you? What is it?" she beamed at the weapons operator who was climbing from the floor.

"The shuttle landed," she said - "Orders?"

Ra'Thun moved her aside - "Artain, disable the blackout"

"Roger that Commander," Artain said - sliding her chair over to another panel and pulling a lever. The beacons that the Nytex had launched earlier disengaged and powered down as the blackout ended.

Ra'Thun pulled up the vessel's signal once more - "This is Admiral Ra'Thun - We've received your flare. Identify yourselves," she said turning to Artain, "Monitor their traffic - last I need is some high knit trick."

Planet Surface, Drop-Zone Eraat, 2 kilometres from Unidentified

As the blackout was lifted above - a sound was emitted inside the visors of the ground troops to alert them that the Nytex's uplink had been restored. "This is Vector 1, Checking in with Hive," Illa stated as she trained her rifle in front of her. She was quickly received by Artain who was now accessing the teams' feeds and locations on the map.

"Lima Charlie, Vector 1 - you're currently 2 kilometres South-West of your destination. Status report," Artain said.

Illa signalled for one of the grunts behind her to take point as she fell back, "Vector 1 is moving to secure a position south-west of the destination - Vector 2 is moving to approach from the North, and will be dispatching a scout detail to cover the eastward flank of the destination. All are present and accounted for so far, with zero contact - Everything's pretty quiet," she said.

The thick vegetation was hard to manoeuvre through - and much of it as bizarre and foreign to them, as they were to it. They avoided the water all together, and carefully watched their surroundings - last thing they wanted was a creature thinking they were lunch. In periods of darkness where the canopy cut off the majority of the sunlight, the Artmene were able to see better - relying on their natural infrared vision to see.

Inside of their visors - several bits of information were displayed, of their comrades, scanned up-to-date maps from the Nytex, mission, among other useful data. At any time, they were able to patch in to each other and see what they saw, allowing a higher degree of battlefield awareness. When one detected an entity, it was immediately marked on everyone's visors.

Illa, who had retaken point - quickly threw a hand up as the troops fanned out from side to side and took cover. Avoiding speaking directly, she relied on their usual method of communicating. "Heat," she announced - signalling forwards. Less than a few hundred meters away was a clearing - and inside of it, a large heat-source, "Vector 1 - fan out, flank left and right," she said pushing up.

The platoon quickly moved and encircled the clearing, hiding in the thick brush in wait as Illa scanned the vicinity. "Vector 2, we've found the ship - no sign of anyone here," she said, signalling for the group to move in. She readied her rifle, cycling everyone's on as the group of Marines came rushing out of the brush and into the clearing - they were met with no-one as they approached the ship.

"Damn," she said, staring at it. "Vector 2 - There's no-one here, ship doesn't look to be Betrican," she sighed.

Menta cracked over the comms moments later, "Illa - you need to see this... sending you the coords now." Illa flagged the platoon as they rallied and began their move to Menta's coords, the Ruins.

Danaios
Dig Site Alpha, Checkpoint #1

"Alright, that's the last of the above ground supplies. Xix, Yin, go see Orban, he'll know where you're armors got put, get suited up, there's a good chance of hostilities if things don't go well."

Dain said as the two big Torrth moved the last of the supplied into the entrance chamber of the dig site, before his HUD beeped. Proximity sensors on the shuttle had triggered, he grinned.

"Perfect. Alright, Ariea, send the second probe. You know the message, and then activate the ships loudspeaker."

"Sir yes sir, give me one moment, the walls are interfering with my signal."

Turning away, he nodded.

"Let me know when it's done. ALRIGHT PEOPLE, LISTEN UP, I WANT FIRE-TEAM A-1 COVERING THE ENTRANCE, GET BEHIND THOSE HARD LIGHT BARRIERS, AND BE READY. DO NOT OPEN FIRE UNLESS FIRED UPON. EVERYONE ELSE, GET INTO THE SECOND CHAMBER, THAT'S WHERE WE'LL BE STAYING UNTIL THIS IS ALL SORTED OUT."

"Sir, ready, speak when you need to."

_________

Landing Site Alpha

The shuttles lights flare to life, and as a second probe launches at high speeds, once it was a kilometer above the ship, it ripped upon another jump portal. This time, it carried a different message. It carried a request for Naval assistance.

As it launched, the loudspeakers on the ship activated, and a slightly distorted Orban came through.

"Attention trespassers, you have interfered with a government installation, and threatened military, and civilian personnel. If you do not cease hostilities, we will retaliate, with deadly force. The probe you just saw move through a rift is on it's way to the nearest naval fleet, a larger military force will be here within two days at the most. You have been warned."

The speech became electronic as he shifted through the huge database of languages known to the U.T.S.D, including several different dialects of the galactic trade language, or at least, the ones the U.T.S.D were familiar with. Once it returns to his message, it becomes his proper voice again.

_____

Dig Site Alpha, Checkpoint #3, "Mess Hall"

"Okay, okay, okay Yin. I know, I've never put Torrth combat armor on before, cut me a little slack. I left the military over a decade ago.....There, at least the back is done, now we can get the plasma cannon fitted, hopefully we won't need it. DAIN, I NEED HELP ARMORING THESE GUYS UP."

Orban called out as he finally locked the last of the interlocking plated onto Yin's back, the bigger of the two Torth.

"Whhhhy has he trusted you with thhhhhis, it is not you're job to interferrrrre in military operatiiooons."

Said the Torrth, it's voice coming out slightly ghostly, or dreamily, it seemed to have a better mastery of the Durmainian Common then most Torrth, most of them came out click-clacky because they used their mandibles to much, this one was a bit easier to understand then most of the recordings Orban had seen.

"He ik not one of usk Yin, he ik Blood-Folk. They notk known for their undersktandingk of usk. Be careful, I do notk truskt him."

---

Nytex Battlecruiser under the command of Admiral Ra'Thun Anshaar
Crux Observation Field 12, Itaash System, Alpha Quadrant

"Object Detected," the Nytex's computer declared as Rathena was quickly mashing away at her workstation. The Nytex had positioned itself with her shields on one side, protecting her from open space - and using the planet as additional cover on the other. Ra'Thun stood up and stared at the large screen near the front of the bridge before stepping away from her seat.

The object quickly disappeared, "Rathena - report!" Ra'Thun barked as she stared at the weapons operator. Rathena slid a screen over quickly and swivelled from her chair.

"It was a beacon - most likely a distress one," she said looking back to the Commander as she shifted a bit to look back at the screens on her workstation. "Looks like they've sent it through a hole."

Ra'Thun shook her head and moved over to her chair, quickly sliding up a screen of the boots on the ground.


Planet Surface, Drop-Zone Eraat

"Get down!" Illa yelled as the group hit the soil, the ship had gone active as a beacon was fired off. "Set up security!" she ordered, looking back to the ship as the others quickly rushed and grabbed whatever cover they could find. "I want 360 degrees! Do you hear me!?" she yelled. She pulled up the screen and cycled their weapons to active, "Vector 1 to Hive - we've a situation down here," she said.

Ra'Thun looked at Artain and then Rathena, "We're going to have company most likely," she said. "Vector 1, this is Admiral Ra'Thun - advance on the position given to you by Vector 2. You're now in ground-zero, you have 3 minutes," the commander said. "Rathena, bring the ICMB online - target that vessel. Artain, send word to Admiral Jaan - tell them we may have hostiles. Let's see who we're dealing with here," she mumbled.

On the ground, Illa's eyes widened as the intercom on the vessel relayed the message from Orban. She yelled at her platoon, "Hive's gonna level this place! Move, move, move!" Everyone quickly jumped from their positions and started to push their way into the jungle. "C'mon! Double-time it you hunks of trash!" They had their weapons trained as they moved in a column, dodging and twisting through the trees.

On the Nytex, another large hangar door opened - as the yellow lights turned signalling crews to stand clear, the ship's missile system was exposed. A siren blared as an electronic voice came over the intercom. "Warning, Warning, Warning: Individual Control Missile Systems Online, Loading Planetary High Energy Thermobarics," it announced. Behind the large block of pods, a group of machines moved up against the end - loading the armaments before pulling back.

"Vector 2, are you in position?" Illa said as she quickly ducked to dodge a branch. They were rushing through the jungle now as the Nytex came on-line and alerted them to the launch. "Keep moving, watch your corners!" she called out.

"Ground-Zero has been targeted Commander," Rathena said.

"Fire," Ra'Thun ordered as everyone moved to stare at the large holoscreen before them. A blast of lights flashed across the missile block as a small group of torpedoes departed the ship and ran for the planet's atmosphere.

"Torpedoes away Commander," Rathena said.

On the ground, Illa and her troops had slowed down now - they were out of the blast-zone and took up a more combat paced posture. "Keep your eyes pealed," she ordered - switching her visor on as they came through a clearing with sunlight. In the sky above were the trails of the warheads as they plummeted towards the site, they carefully adjusted as they dove through the clouds. The water vapour around them turning to steam as they deployed their fins and began to spin. Exiting the clouds, the clearing came into view - it'd take a few seconds for them to close this last bit of distance.

"Impact Imminent," the computer stated.

As the torpedoes came just meters over the clearing - panels rocketed off of the siding exposing metal balls inside a large series of canisters. In the last few seconds, these shot out in a neat web, spread much like the blast of a shotgun's pellets - detonation occurred just meters from the ground. The air around the clearing was quickly, and violently sucked into the implosion as the fireballs quickly spread out. The intense heat and pressure sat the vegetation ablaze long before the initial fireball hit, the shock wave reflected back from the implosion, and dirt and rocks were scooped from the grounds and thrown into the air. Trees were snapped like twigs, and boulders tossed like toys as a large plume of smoke rose around the now burning jungle.

"Excellent work," Ra'Thun said, "Hopefully that took care of that"

"Vector 1"

"Go ahead Menta," Illa replied, her unit had stopped now as they carefully scanned the local jungle.

"You're almost to the location I marked - we just got word of a group moving into a large structure. We have overwatch established in the East, from the reports - it looks like they're expecting a fight," Menta said. Illa pulled up the map in her visor and looked over it for a moment.

"Maybe - any recognition on the bioscans?" she asked.

"None - not even anything remotely Betrican"

Illa took a moment to think, her gaze slipping between the others and the trees - "Alright, we're going to move in - Menta, have your overwatch set-up; Shoot anything that tries to flee Eastward, we'll give them a golden bridge of retreat and throw them in a net if they take it. We're going to move form the same direction and approach this structure, I need Vector 2 set up as well"

"Roger that," Menta said.

"Vector 1 - we're splitting up, first squad on me!" Illa yelled, signalling with her hand as the team quickly split into three groups. "Check your visors - hold your fire unless fired upon! Now move!" she yelled. They bounded off into the planet's thick vegetation again, this time at a quickened pace.

Up on the ridge, Menta signalled for her team to split as well - she contacted their overwatch as they moved into position with a sniper. "Alright - any of you fuck up, and I'm turning you into a fucking trash can!" Several deployed themselves a bit back from the edge, and trained their scopes down to the ruins. "We've got you covered Vector 1 - move in now" Menta said over the radio.

"Copy that"

"Alright, squad three - move in now," Illa ordered. A group of troops quickly ran out into the clearing, their weapons up and ready as they checked their side.

"Approaching ruins Commander," the squad lead announced. Illa signalled for the second squad as they were next, approaching from another side.

"First squad, follow me," she said - flipping her safety off as she moved her squad through the brush - avoiding the clearing. The first two squads were nearly to the ruins, several structures dotted the small cut-out. The native plant life had overrun much of it, though some places it had been cleared.

"Move from building to building, Menta - keep an eye out," Illa said.

Her unit continued to lurk along the edge of the jungle, she was going to move in from the other side and flank the ruins as a result. The sound of their footsteps was all that disturbed the silence in the jungle, from stepping in water puddles - to brushing through the oddly red coloured vegetation. Radio chatter had completely dropped - in manoeuvres like this, they merely communicated with their cyber-nodes, displaying things and messages one each other's visors automatically.

For many of them - having ended the 1,500 year Long War - they were veterans of several centuries. Oiled, and organized - Ra'Thun was credited with finally ending the Long War and defeating the Betrican Federation. It put the Crux in Gamma and Alpha, and gave them new trade lanes - now they were left dealing with Betrican pirates. With a mere light on the visors of Illa's squad - they all moved out from the cover of the jungle and approached the complex from the west.

They had nearly encircled the area, leaving the east-side intentionally unguarded. Buildings littered the area, as they came into the narrow streets of this small settlement. They all stacked up and began to move from building to building, their bioscans and infrared vision scanning the structures and streets for life. Nothing. The place was dark, even though there were fresh tracks. Food bowls, and clothes - gear and resources, whoever this group was had been living here for some time.

Illa dove into a corner, and peered around the side and down the street. It looked empty as nothing showed up on any of her scans - she signalled with the cyber-nodes as the team behind her quickly moved across the clearing to the next building. It was like playing leap-frog, cover to cover - shuffling about in an organized column.

"South-side clear"

"South-west clear"

Illa stopped her squad and pulled up the scan of the ruins. On it were the locations of the squads, they were about to converse on the larger structure in the North. Was it a trap? She ordered the platoon's detachments to stop moving as she contacted the Nytex. "Admiral, we've got a large structure to the North here - ruins seem clear. Worried it might be a trap," she said.

Ra'Thun was still in the bridge watching the situation unfold. She thought for a moment, "I could send two drones down - use your surveillance spheres to scout ahead - Rathena, get two fighters down there. Have them fly low and fast over the ruins, let's see if we can get whatever's down there to show its face."

Inside the hangar bay, two droids quickly piled into their fighters. These were small, fast ships often used in the Artemene swarm tactic during ship combat - but were capable of reentry. They closed their canopies, and began to flip a series of switches as the large engines on the back throttled up. The clamps dislodged, and they were quickly zipping out of the bay and diving towards the planet.

Illa had found herself a small lull in a wall to rest herself in as she moved things around inside her visor. The platoon had small spheres at their disposal, not much larger than a fist - they were equipped with scanners and lights. She threw one up into the air as it turned on and began to hover, rapidly shifting up and down, left and right like a hummingbird.

"Alright, go look," she told it as the sphere zipped up and over the building she was at and towards the main structure. She watched the screen in her visor carefully as it moved across the next block, "Doors on it have been stripped away it looks lie," she said. The sphere flipped its light on and quickly dove inside the structure's door. As it did, the two drones from the Nytex had entered the area - following behind the other, the triangle shaped ships with their white sleek bodies sped across the terrain like bullets. The ear-piercing screech of their engines sounded like a banshee as they passed extremely close over the ruins.

They were so quick, that they were gone moments after - the pressure behind them stirring up dust as the shock wave broke the sound barrier and reverberated off of the metal buildings. "Move in now," Illa said as the squads quickly raised their weapons and rushed towards the front door of the structure. Inside, the small sphere was quickly buzzing around and searching for occupants as the drones flew over again, their engines sending buckets and other items off the roofs and into the street.

Illa's platoon was quick - they moved across the block as the drones passed overhead again, and stirred the plant life and dust across the ruins. "This is Leftenant Illa of the Crux, We have you surrounded - come out now or we will be forced to engage," she said - talking through the speakers of the Sphere as it continued to zip about inside still looking for the inhabitants.

Danaios
Checkpoint #1, fire-team A-1

"Well, that settles it. Activate hard light barriers, seal the entrance, they'll have to fight their way in. Dain, I'm going to need fire-team A-2 down here to, from the sound of things it's at least one squad, though given their confidence I'd bet that there's more then one."

Corporal Litt sent through the suit comms, thankfully the building was keeping the interference down enough that their suit comms were working again, if a little garbled. As he spoke, his team activated the power for the hard-light barriers, a bright glowing red barrier appeared, blocking the main entrance, it's projectors hidden behind the metal walls of the run. Further in, in front of the stairs, different sized, cooler blue ones flickered to life. Some stood tall enough for the tall Fulonu to take full cover behind, but most were designed as waist high. The fire-team, five people, Two Fulonu, one Noxa, and two Helliot took positions, guns at the ready.

"Engage all you want, just remember that you started these hostilities, anything that happens is on your head."

Called out the experienced Noxa. She had only ever engaged pirates, and was used to tight ship-to-ship conditions. The ruins weren't quite the same in here, but they did play to her expertise. She had the Helliot train their heavy ballistic LMGs on the entrance barrier. They weren't the harder hitting energy weapons she preferred, but the constant hail of fire meant a death zone that the slower firing, harder hitting energy weapons could shot through.

She herself used a laser rifle, fairly standard Green-UV thing, the green was created on purpose so that a visible beam was available for squad mates to track, and know where she was focusing her fire. The two big fulonu had plasma rifles, red she believed, and those fuckers packed a punch. Their tendency to disperse and let the super hot 'gas' flow upward over their impact zone, after burrowing in for a few milliseconds, made them quite effective at creating large, painful wounds, and melting armor onto their victims.

The Helliot's tentacles were wrapped tightly around their weapons, and trigger, waiting for the first sign of a hostile to open fire. Their beaked mouths, and eyes were like hunters, focused on the kill, ready to defend their team mates, friends in the ruins, and the mission. This exercise was important to show that the Helliot, Gorio, and Torrth could be fully integrated into already existing projects without a full redesign.

As they waited, the sounds of...well, wet sloshing was heard, and a little armored Gorio dropped down next to her from the ceiling. Their armor only ever fight as tightly as they wanted, she had to admit, their control over their bodies was damn useful. Embedded in the goo ball was a little automatic pulse pistol, when the time came, the Gorio could exude it with ease from anywhere, and shoot it. Those seven eyes of their's gave them nearly 360 vision, and this slightly bigger then average (62 pounds) one was a deep blue, and if it wasn't for the armor, she couldn't even see where the shield ended, and this one began. If this one was here, so were the other two, the smaller of the two Torrth, and a Blood-Folk, she didn't know any of their names. They had been lumped together when they were told of the assignment.

Turning, she watched as the 1 meter tall, 1.5 meter long, thousand pound Torrth came up the stairs, surprisingly quietly, with the laser projector on it's back, and the faint shimmer of a arc shield on being generated from the projector embedded in it's armor. The projector was a nasty little weapon usually put on scouting and support vehicles. The laser would pulse, and lance at the enemy, and was semi-hard light based, and would have force added to knock enemies of their feet. Good, a weapon like that could push back anything trying to breach the door.

__

Orban growled and slammed his fist into the still shut door, behind him Yin clicked, and then moved in front of him, and began applying subtle, honed force to the cut sections of the door, and began slowly, forcefully pealing back the door, one layer of metal at a time. It wasn't perfect, but they needed access to more of the facility if a fight was to break out, including the actual power generator.

"Just...be careful, we don't know what's behind there, and if you can separate it into the individual layers, we might be able to use them to pad any cover inside."

Yin clacked, acknowledging him, but was concentrating to much to really force itself to use the Blood-Folk's language.

Giving the rather intimidating arthropod a thankful pat, Orban drew his laser pistol and took a seat, watching the hall. If he got even one shot off before an attacker forcing their way down this far, it might mean the difference between life and death.

---

Nytex Battlecruiser under the command of Admiral Ra'Thun Anshaar
Crux Observation Field 12, Itaash System, Alpha Quadrant


"Drones are doing their fly-overs now Commander," Rathena said, leaning in towards her screen as the faint blue light reflected off of her metallic face. She continued to mash at her workstation, pulling up and moving different screens around - watching the situation.

Ra'Thun was standing in the middle of the bridge yet again, resting her hands on her hips - "Good, Artain - any word from Jaan's fleet yet?" she asked - looking over to the communications officer.

"Negative Commander," Artain said - sliding a screen over to the large one. "I'll keep trying, y'know how Admiral Jaan is however" - Ra'Thun nodded, Jaan was typically the 'hot head', who had a tendency to rush into things and wing it along the way. However, Ra'Thun needed those extra ships just in case.


Planet Surface, Drop-Zone Eraat

On the ground near the entrance to the larger structure inside of the ruins, Illa and her platoon had bunkered down - hiding behind cover with their weapons trained on the door. The sphere hadn't found anything yet, though they were surprised by the appearance of the hard light shields. "Menta - you get this?," Illa said over the radio. Up on the ridge, Menta was scanning the ruins as she nodded.

"Yep - we've got nobody on sights however," she sighed, carefully pulling the bolt on her plasma rifle to put a round in the chamber. "Only one thing is going to take down that barrier"

Illa shook her head, "I need a rocketeer!" - she pulled up the sphere's feed again. "Looks like a large room, got a hallway as well - definitely not something I want," she said in her typical growl. Another unit quickly ran up from cover to where Illa was, "Punch a dispersion shell into that barrier - Hive, we're going to need a PATV down here," she said over the uplink. The soldier quickly pulled off the rectangular shaped missile launcher, it had four barrels - and a cord that they pulled from the side and connected to their visor.

"Arm it up," Illa said, moving to the side - the soldier lifted it up on her shoulder and armed one of the pods as her targeting activated and she selected single-fire. There was a rapid beeping sound as she gripped the handle, turning to make sure Illa had moved back a good distance. She pulled the trigger as a stream of smoke and flame came out the rear, and a rocket fired from the other. It pushed across the clearing to the structure's door and drove itself into the hardlight barrier. An explosion as the dirt kicked up, and the barrier began to flicker and dissipate.

"Nobody move!" Illa yelled over their cyber-nodes. The barrier slowly began to regenerate as she growled, "Dammit - alright, put another one in. Menta! You there?"

"Where else would I be?" Menta replied with a chuckle.

"Not the time - I need you and your overwatch to put some thermobaric rounds into the doorway when we pop the barrier with another rocket - got it?" Illa said, looking towards the ridge off in the distance. Menta had temporarily trained her vision to the other platoon lead before moving back to the shielded doorway.

"We can do that - stand-by," she said, pulling the bolt as she removed the old round and magazine, replacing them with the new rounds. She then radioed over to overwatch before giving Illa the ready signal. "Don't get yourself killed now," she mumbled - zooming the sights in on the doorway.

Nytex Battlecruiser under the command of Admiral Ra'Thun Anshaar
Crux Observation Field 12, Itaash System, Alpha Quadrant


Rathena was already setting up the PATV drop, "Any idea what Illa's planning?" she asked - looking back to Ra'Thun as she deployed the pod. Ra'Thun was busy observing the screens, giving Rathena a cursory glance before finally speaking.

"Most likely, she's going to surprise us per usual," she said. "Wouldn't put it past her to do so - she did get platoon lead after all."

Rathena shrugged and turned back to her screens - the pod was fired and now speeding downwards towards the planet. Inside was the small, roughly 2.5 foot tall PATV - a vehicle that moved and walked like a spider. On-board, it had a plasma rifle, and a high velocity cannon that could fire several different types of shells in bursts - they were often used alongside trained Artemene troops.

Planet Surface, Drop-Zone Eraat


''Alright - Vector 1, ready your energy shields," Illa commanded - patting the rocketeer's back. She fumbled with the bracer on her left arm, and charged the shield as it made a high-pitched noise. "Fire!" she yelled - the rocketeer pulled the trigger as the rocket streamed across the open space again and ploughed into the barrier. As it dissipated, the two snipers on either side fired off - the recoil pushing Menta back slightly as the round speared through the air towards the doorway.

Within seconds, Menta's round - then her overwatch hit the sides of the door, short explosions went off as the emitters powering the barrier were damaged or destroyed. The pod from the Nytex appeared over the horizon as it flew over - "Move! Move! Move! - arm your stun rounds!" Illa ordered, leaping from her cover towards the doorway. The platoon filed out with her, their weapons up and ready, the barrels were being stabilized on their fore-arms as their shields turned on. The energy shields were powered from the fore-arm and shielded the user - they had to be charged, and could only take so much before they turned off again.

As they advanced on the doorway, the pod above opened and dropped the PATV - It extended its legs and screamed out, "Weeee!" before touching down on the soil behind them. It was about half as tall as they were, and spun its turret around for a moment before tallying up behind them. "Arm your smokes and freeze-gel PATV" Illa ordered as it hopped about for a moment.

"You got it!"

They filed into the doorway in a tight phalanx, with their shields overlapping as the PATV stayed behind them. The large entry room was room was empty, though the hallway's entrance was off to the side. They shuffled to the hallway, staying close together - "Open fire!" The dark room was lit up by the flashing from their rifles as the rounds fired off between their shields - they continued to advance towards the hallways entrance as the PATV came up behind them. Once they were ready, Illa signalled the platoon their next command silently through their cyber-nodes.

The shield-wall split as they shuffled back against the wall of the doorway, leaving the PATV that was behind them exposed as it opened fire with gas canisters and gel-shells in rapid bursts. Illa didn't want to kill them, but they'd gotten off on the wrong foot already - hopefully the gas and gel would immobilize them long enough for a lesson in diplomacy they'd all failed.

"Gas, activate suit respirators, now!"

Litt shouted in Durmainian Common.

"Xix, you don't breathe at all, get your lance into that hall way, use as much force as possible, not heat, push the hostiles back into the entryway. Everyone else, keep down behind the shields, I want the Gorio to form a telepathic relay, I'll signal when to attack."

She said as she used her careful aim to take the lights down in the room, making the only light the dim glow of the hard light barriers they were using as cover, the flashes as hostile rounds battered against them, and the light coming in from the hall lights themselves. Suddenly, a beam of cool blue energy, almost a meter wide, fired from the back of the big spider. It was basically just a stream of cool hardlight right now, it would bruise, batter, and could kill if lucky, but it was designed to simply take enemies off their feet, and push them backwards. It was a lot like a beam of force, just shoving things back. Being hardlight, it also knocked aside any projectiles it found in mid air along it's path.

FIRE!

The heavy thumping of the LMGs filled the air, the stun rounds, Litt wanted to capture these hostiles for use as leverage, flying down into the choke point they were forcing the hostiles through. Brief flashes of green light accompanied them as she used her laser rifle, and a stream of light blue energy followed not long behind from the Gorio. With the small size of these hostiles, comparatively, most of the troops were being forced to aim downward. Not the small Gorio, they were even shorter, and were going for the legs.

Lieutenant, using telepathy so the enemy doesn't know what we're up to. They outnumber us heavily. we'll hold them off for awhile, get those tesla-mines ready, they are going to push us back eventually. Thankfully, we seem to have the heavier firepower, hostiles seem to be small.

Got it, three clips then get everyone down stairs, we'll arm the mines behind you and get into the mess hall, gonna barricade it and force our way deeper into the facility. Yin is almost done with that door that was keeping Orban's last time stuck.

Alright everyone, once you've used three clips, go down the stairs, stay low behind cover.

---

Nytex Battlecruiser under the command of Admiral Ra'Thun Anshaar
Crux Observation Field 12, Itaash System, Alpha Quadrant

The bridge was rather silent, all eyes were glued to the holoscreen that took up the front of the room. The firefight was lighting up the darkness of the room, and the sound of gunfire as the two sides exchanged their greetings was interesting to watch.

"Well, well, well - if it isn't Admiral Ra'Thun," a voice said over the comms. Ra'Thun shook her head,

"Admiral Jaan - pleasure to see you," she said with a grimace. Behind the Nytex, two more of the battlecruiser's class, came out of 'jump-space' and halted. Jaan's face came up on a side screen as Ra'Thun slid it over and enlarged it.

Ra'Thun was sure that if the subordinate Admiral had a mouth, she'd be grinning widely. "What's the current situation Commander?" Jaan asked - looking off screen at something in her command-station.

Ra'Thun folded her arms behind her, and began to pace - "Unidentified ship was found, we've boots on the ground and they're currently engaged in a fire-fight. They did manage to send out what we think was a distress beacon before we took out their vessel. I need a good perimeter up here - expect some company," Ra'Thun said. Jaan saluted and nodded as she cut out the transmission.

The two other Nytex-vessels moved around Ra'Thun's ship and began their preparations for a defensive line. "Rathena, deploy the fighters now - and bring us back to the ground feed," the admiral ordered.

The field bays were alive with activity as droids sortied into their fighters and began to leave the ships, they were going to set up a line across the top and bottom of the battlecruisers.


Planet Surface, Drop-Zone Eraat

The fire-fight inside of the corridor continued, though Illa and her platoon remained in cover around the corners of the doorway. She wasn't going to risk moving through it, the hard light beam came careening down the hallway as the lights went out - giving them a sudden and new advantage. "Gah!" the PATV squealed as the beam hit it and shoved it backwards, it shifted to the side and joined the walled platoon.

"Well - that lasted long enough," Illa remarked, hugging the wall as her and her unit watched the fire piling out through the doorway. "Hive - we're in the facility, however they've got a hold on a corridor at the moment," she said over the uplink. "Stay in cover, no point in getting yourselves killed," she said to her unit, wondering how long it'd take the enemy to realise there wasn't any return fire.

"Charge it," she said over the teams cyber-nodes, pulling a hexagonal shaped instrument with what looked like legs around the edges. A few others around her pulled some as well as she stuck it to the wall next to her head. The other followed suite,"Alright - inch back," she commanded as the two sides began to file backwards. "Fire!" she said as a high-pitched ringing was heard - they immediately switched off their audio, the sounds of the gunfire flying out of the hallway went silent.

"Stay back," she said over cyber-comms as the high-pitched sounds climbed higher until they were well beyond ear-piercing levels, the metal walls would hopefully amplify this effect. Nothing like a bit of audio-warfare to ruin someone's day.

Yin tore away the last piece of the metal door, and peered inside. Big room, lots of hallways, what looked like an elevator, and a stairwell. Pausing, he turns back around to Orban.

"I haaaave openeeed the waaaaaay. This plaaaace is bigger thaaaaan anythiiiiing we were waaaarned abouuuut, dig leeeader."

"How much bigger?"

"Five haaalways, possible elevatooooor, and anotheeeeer set of staaaairs. All intaaaact."

"Damn it, alright. Contact Dain, I'll gather up the rest of the dig team and get them moving stuff deeper in, we're outnumbered here, and it's probably a maze down there, confuse our hunters."

"Yes siiiir."

The big Torrth turned and walked away, it's sharp lags clicking on the metal tile.

____

Litt reloaded her rifle, two spent cells were already on the ground next to her, still steaming from the heat.

Alright pe-

She gasped as a high pitched screech filled the air, reverberating off the red metal, and pounding in her ears.

SOUND DAMPENERS, UP, NOW

She yelled through the telepathy relay, gritting her teeth. The sound dampeners in her suit went from twenty to fifty percent before the sound became tolerable.

Alright, ordering the retreat early. Everyone down the stairs. Xix, cover us, you're the toughest of us. Get that lance of your's set to it's highest damage setting, and superheat the exit of the hallway. They've got cover to far from us, let's slow them down with some red-hot, or even melted metal.

The blue beam he'd been firing from time to time ceased, and after a moment, a clicking can be heard, then a brilliant purple beam shot from the cannon, and slammed into the floor at the hallway exit, rapidly heating the metal, and filling the air with the smell of ozone.

As the lance covered them, Litt and the rest of the fireteam barreled downstairs, only after the last of the slower Helliot had made their way down did Litt order Xix to retreat. Xix obeyed, but backed up slowly, maintaining the beam as long as possible, before scuttling down the stairs, leaving a patch of white hot metal, and a few molten shells from rounds that had fallen there, probably from ricochet.

___

Dain waited for the big Torrth to trundle past him before he scattered a few handfuls of small, red-painted nodes that adhered to the walls, and floor of the stairwell. Non-lethal tesla-mines, gave a rather nasty shock that could incapacitate almost anything, they'd been designed when pirates started using androids to get past normal countermeasures in ships, they should stun almost anything given how many there were.

Waving everyone into the mess hall, he slammed the doors shut, and the rest of the squad that the two fire-teams belonged to began piling everything they could move up against the doors, and then retreated further into the complex, shutting or sealing every door they could, even down the halls they didn't move through.

Keep them guessing, don't let them know where we went.

---

Nytex Battlecruiser under the command of Admiral Ra'Thun Anshaar
Crux Observation Field 12, Itaash System, Alpha Quadrant

"Commander, with Vector 1 inside the complex - we've got the ruins secured for the moment," Rathena said, turning to look at her superior. Ra'Thun glanced over to her, tilting her head a bit.

"What are you suggesting?" the Admiral asked curiously.

"Well - we could set up a small camp inside the ruins, from the looks of it - the sunlight may be numbered now," she said. Ra'Thuna brushed her chin for a moment as she thought.

"Alright, get a hold of Admiral Jaan - let them know that we're going to deploy more boots, I also want Yez down there with some engineers. Have some fighters cover the drops, if anything changes - let me know," she said turning to leave the bridge.

"Commander?" Rathena called after, causing the Admiral to stop.

"Hmm? What is it?" Ra'Thun asked.

"What about Vector 1?"

"Illa has it handled," Ra'Thun said, taking a moment to look around the bridge. It was a large room, nearly pitch black with screens all over the place. On the main, central platform was Rathena, Ra'Thun, and Artain - down a level were many others, drone operators and the like. She nodded to Rathena before turning back around and moving through the door.

As her boots clacked across the metal grated floor in the thin hallway, she reflected on the Long War. 1,500 years since the Genocide of Hardan - Ra'Thun's home. She stepped into the lift at the end of the hallway, and ascended a few decks in the ship as the lights glimmered across her metallic and crystalline body. The Artemene were typically known for their emotional restraint - a stratocratic empire of sorts with a strong devotion to the military. Ra'Thun was the prime 'soldier' for the Crux, reserved - tactical, but even emotions for a race of sentient machines was both a curse and a blessing.

The lift came to a stop as the seasoned Admiral stepped out into the empty corridor. Her steps were all that disturbed the silence of the long and twisting hallway, she had folded her hands behind her again as she quietly strode towards the middle. There, a door with Artemene, "Dimaal Oraat" carved into a plaque opened for the Admiral - her room. The door closed behind her as she looked around the small living space - it had a bed, and a screen - and a small chest for items.

She carefully began to undo her bracers, tossing them on the bed as she stared at the wall. Hardan was an outpost colony of the Dominion, Ra'Thun served on the planet as a mere conscript, a grunt. As per law, she was only referred to by her ID Tag - "Hu-34051" - conscripts didn't have names, they were expendable. The Betrican Federation was expanding into Gamma when Hardan was invaded, thanks to what the Sagittarium called her 'exemplary actions' - she saved 6,800 by taking command of the last surviving ship of the Artemene Dominion's fleet, a heavily damaged Nytex-class battlecruiser.

Under heavy fire from the overwhelming Betrican Armada, Ra'Thun - Hu-34051, organized the evacuation and eventual defense of the Nytex. The Betrican Armada quickly destroyed the other ships, leaving hers the sole survivor as it limped away, with 6,800 refugees and crew. Hardan was destroyed, and the beginning of the Long War had begun.

'War Hero', the Sagittarium praised - 'An Inspiration to the Artmene Dominion of the Crux' they said. She received the highest possible honours, and was given command of her own ship - the very same Nytex that she had commandeered in the Genocide of Hardan, that she was standing in now. The 'Elaan fil Rea' - the 'Last Light'.

The Admiral's arms dropped to her sides as she stared at the wall, her bracers and armour was tossed chaotically on the bed. Behind her, the dents and scrapes of a badly battered wall - she clenched her fist and swiftly twisted around, driving her fist into the wall as she growled. Several times she punched it, the wall bending and creaking in agony as the plating struggled to stay bolted in the panel. She finally fell back on the bed, and rested her hands on her knees - her light purple eyes, with their faint incandescent glow shifting from side to side.

One million seven hundred eighty-three thousand nine hundred forty-one perished at Hardan. Under Ra'Thun's command, the Artemene Dominion pushed the Betrican forces out of Gamma, and at the battle of 'The Twins' - the Betrican Armada was destroyed - leaving the world of Betrica, the pillow that Betrican power had rested its head - defenseless. The planet burned along with its several billion inhabitants - ending the 1,500 year long conflict. Ra'Thun's greatest victory - as the stories will long tell, but there are no saints in a war, and no-one leaves unscathed.

The Admiral slowly raised her hands, turning them and quietly looking at them - metallic, crystal, inorganic - yet just as susceptible to emotion as anything else.


Planet Surface, Drop-Zone Eraat

As the ultrasonic emitters died down, Illa rested up against the wall still gripping her rifle. The sphere she'd been using to scout had been hit, its body laying in the open as the occasional spark lit up the area of the floor. The enemy's fire had died down - "Everyone ready?" she asked over the cyber-nodes, looking to each side of the walls. Several nodded, "Good - Cloak," she ordered.

She activated her thermo-optics as the others followed suit and they rounded the corner. To their surprise, they were forced to stop just a few meters in - "Damn," Illa growled, "Move back!" she yelled as they fumbled back out. "Menta - you there?" Illa asked, hoping Vector 2 was still on the ridge.

"Right here," Menta replied.

"They've super-heated the floor, we can't get through," Illa said, staring at the heated metal before them.

"Freeze-gel?" Menta suggested.

"Negative, it'll just fall apart - going to have to set up shop here until it cools, keep watch up there alright?"

"Roger that," Menta replied.

There wasn't a point in the cloaking now as Illa turned it off - the enemy was gone now. "Vector 1!" Menta cracked over the nodes again.

"Go ahead Menta," Illa said - cycling her rifle as she stepped back out of the hall.

"Hive's bringing more down - Yez is coming too!"

Illa furrowed a brow, interesting - "Alright, switch audio back on - set up a barrier here with a guard," Illa commanded, "I'll be outside if anyone needs me," she said heading out the front door of the structure to look up towards the sky. Far off in the distance the faint silhouettes of three Nytex-class ships could be seen, "Menta - who's with the Admiral?" Illa asked, looking towards the ridge.

Menta peered upwards at the same tiny shapes, "Admiral Jaan - Ra'Thun got some help," she said. Illa looked back towards the sky of the ships, this was great - Illa had a shorter patience for Jaan then Ra'Thun did. The sky began to fill with white lines, almost like a meteor shower - "Here come the reinforcements," Menta said over the nodes.

Several pods and shuttles were now being deployed, having just hit the atmosphere as their entry was clearly visible to the ground. Most likely they'd land in the jungle not too far away from the ruins and move up from there. "Alright Menta - we're going to bunker down, we're losing light it looks like, keep watch until we figure out what's going on down here," Illa said.

"Copy that," Menta replied, resting her head on her arm for a moment to flip her visor off. Bright light bothered the Artemene as they weren't adapted to it, though with the night fast approaching, they'd be able to see as bright as day. As the pods and shuttles arrived, several more platoons had entered the ruins - along with Yez and a few engineer mechs. Energy-walls, dispersion barriers were set up with metal rods around the ruins - and the units began to set up security, with them several hover-bikes, PATVs, and light vehicles.

It seemed to Illa, that the Hive was just as curious about the ruins then, as survey equipment strangely showed up in some of the drops. It was, as far as they knew - an uncolonised world, perhaps this was an opportunistic chance to claim another planet. She was bothered however, who was the group they'd engaged and chased into the ruins? None of them appeared to be Betrican - perhaps the Betricans had resorted to not only piracy, but mercenary work as well.

"It looks like this used to be an armory, similar to how the second floor was recreation, and living."

Orban commented to the returning Yin, who was trailed by a very tired looking Dain.

"None of the weapons work, maybe they're locked to a single solider using gene scanning, but they're all fairly intact. It's a treasure trove, if we can get these out of here, the secrets we could learn. Based on their designs, and the other evidence elsewhere in these ruins, the soldiers here must have been important. A lot of the equipment is engraved, and has ornamental additions. The only common denominator is this symbol."

Orban said, as he traced the symbol on the combat knife he was holding in his hands. It fit perfectly in his hands, whatever species made this, it was very similar, at least in the hands, to the Blood-Folk. He replaced it in it's sheathe, which was made out of some kind of dark-grey leather, very tough for leather to.

"There's at least one more level, the stairwell goes down for several flights with no breaks. We think it leads to the generator powering this place, but the doors are locked, and even thicker then the ones up here. We also spotted what looked like auto-turret mounts, and don't want to trigger the generators defenses, if they're still working. Judging by the fact that the air down here is clean, there's little dust, and the power is on, I'd say it's intact. Anyway, how goes things upstairs?"

Dain held out his hand, gesturing to the knife. Handing it over, Orban gave the larger Fulonu a puzzled look.

"It's alright, for now. We lost the first floor, set tesla-mines on the stairs leading down, and barricaded the mess hall so they'll need a breach charge to get in. Also got a bunch of the metal barriers that were in one of the storage rooms and set them up. The entire squad is hunkered down, even got the cots set up on the floor, and rations up there with them. The area gets breached, they'll be ready. Till then, we're stuck till Commander Nordan gets here. We think it'll be another twelve hours, at least, before he arrives, more if he waits for the second probe before sending whatever he can."

"Any clue as to why they're attacking us? This is going to be a major incident, technically the U.T.S.D has a claim on this world, we were set up here, and no one else has been. They attacked us, and with more then they really should have."

"Nope, we think they can't understand us, and just assume we're hostile. We still have that infrared beacon repeating it's message, "Message received. U.T.S.D archaeological dig A-3. Any hostilities will result in violent response from local fleet stationed at Trade Station Lillian. We have a ruin that has survived 100,000 years almost untouched by time. Attack us, and expect a tough fight on your hands. Cease hostility, and blocking of standard transmission arrays.", but there's been no response. It didn't have a fuel cell put in it, it's running purely on solar power. Will probably stop transmitting in another hour, maybe a little more, until the sun comes back up."

Orban frowned, and rubbed his chin.

"Alright, well, while we wait, why don't we see if we can get the elevator working?"

Orban turned, and took a few steps, and pressed the first button on the elevator. For a moment, nothing happened, then the lights flickered, and he heard a faint whirring as something in the shaft started to move. Little did he know, he had just tripped a low level security system. Everything above the second floor was cut from the power, and a silent beacon activated, shooting from the tallest tower.

A transmission to nothing, it's FTL relay was long gone, buried in one of the oceans form losing orbit, but the high powered beam of infrared energy kept shooting straight up, a beacon of light to anyone that could see in infrared. A smaller, second pulse appeared near it every thirty seconds as the U.T.S.D beacon pulsed it's message out, the power of the tiny beacon was dwarfed by the mighty one behind it.

---

Nytex Battlecruiser under the command of Admiral Ra'Thun Anshaar
Crux Observation Field 12, Itaash System, Alpha Quadrant

As Ra'Thun stepped into the bridge, her gaze shifted across the room of workers - but most notably Artain and Rathena. "Status?" she asked, stepping up to her command station and slipping into the chair.

"Jaan's been helping us with our deployment on the surface - we've set up a base camp inside the ruins." Rathena answered quickly.

"And Illa?" Ra'Thun asked, lacing the fingers of her hands together as her light purple eyes rested on the weapons operator.

"She was halted for a bit, apparently they superheated the floor - had to wait for it to cool, she's waiting on your orders now," Rathena responded.

Ra'Thun leaned back in the chair and reclined, thinking for a moment. "And we haven't identified this group yet?"

"Negative - nothing from the bioscans matches our database, we've teams on the ground collecting scraps from their ship and equipment inside the ruins to be analysed." Artain answered this time as Ra'Thun turned her chair towards her. Could they be Betrican mercenaries?

"Get a hold of Illa for me, Rathena," Ra'Thun said - turning back.

"Yes, Commander," she replied - pulling up a feed of Illa's visor.

"Leftenant Illa, it's time to end this - try to see if they'll negotiate, if not - a corpse talks just as much as a live being," Ra'Thun said.


Planet Surface, Drop-Zone Eraat

Illa was resting on a metal crate, she nodded - "Roger that," she said, standing up and tossing the piece of melted metal she was toying with as she stepped away from the box and looked towards her group. "Menta - come down, we're moving in now," she said over the nodes.

"Roger that," Menta replied - she'd still been up on the ridge watching the camp. She ordered her team to pack up as she hurriedly undid her rifle - when they were ready, she outstretched her wings and leapt from the edge. The group of Artemene glided straight down until catching the air and zipping across the tree line towards the camp. Illa called out for her unit to assemble, "Alright! We're moving in! Your weapons are to be loaded with lethal - enough playing this game of chase! Get some PATVs and extra rocketeers - we're out in five!" she barked, her voice low and gravel-like.

The night had descended on them, enveloping the world around them in the thickness of complete shade. Their home-world of Artemis was in perpetual night, and their infrared vision was keen on this new advantage. Illa along with the others shut down their visors, no longer needing to shield their eyes from the sunlight. The platoon scrambled to grab their things, dress, and load. As Menta swooped in, Illa motioned her over - "Alright, the hallway should be good and cool now - we're going to split into squads of three, you're going to be in first squad and on point," she said.

"Time to move!" Illa yelled, cycling her rifle as she pulled the bolt and a round chambered. "Get two buddies! We'll move out in squads of three, do not fuck up!" she shouted, "Now move!"

The large group quickly fumbled out of the camp and bolted for the structure's door. As they flowed inside, they deactivated the barrier and stared down at the hallway - it had indeed cooled finally. "Alright - go!" Illa commanded as Menta and her squad rushed up the hallway, then the second, third and so on. The group piled into the hallway, keeping their spacing - one watching left, one watching right, and one up the middle.

The PATVs followed up behind all of them, there were several as their legs clamped over the metal. They reached the end of the hall in their dead run within seconds as the tesla-mines kicked on, a large bright field of electricity surged into Menta and her squad. "Gah!" she screamed as they dropped, the second squad quickly popped the mines, they weren't stopping.

"Do not stop! Do you fucking hear me you hunks of scrap!" Illa barked loudly, her voice resonating off the walls.

"Illa!" Menta yelled, as the group trampled over her and her downed squad, quickly crushing them as her outreached hand dropped to the ground. Her body was quickly smashed under their weight as the lights in her eyes quickly died. They rushed down the stairwell - taking no time as they hit the end, they fanned out - the left twisted left, the right twisted right. "Clear!"

"Clear!"

"Clear!"

Like a single machine - they were extremely methodical about their approach, and swift. "HRV!" Illa yelled as she switched hers on, for the few seconds that it ran - an ultrasonic map of the local fifteen meters was created in her visor. They all used it, as they fanned out in their squads, sticking to groups of threes and spearheading their advance. They were met with a mesh of hallways and rooms, doors and tight turns. Their only pauses were at the corners - where they covered each other, and moved forward. Loud bangs echoed into the dim corridor, the power having been cut off left many doors closed and dead. They blasted rooms with their breaches - finding many empty.

Some had cloaked, others resorted to using their wings to cover short distances where the width allotted. The PATVs ran along the ceiling, their bodies and legs clacking about across the metal as they remained cloaked - their dainty eyes searching and running scans. Through-out the hallways, the scout spheres zipped around like a swarm of bees, actively searching about and keeping their used updated with a live-feed.

"Over here!" One shouted, as Illa rushed over - "What is it?" she asked. The grunt pointed down the long hallway - the Mess door was at the end.

"Move in over here!" she ordered over the nodes as the group quickly rushed across the grid-work.

"Rocketeer!" Illa yelled, "Get your asses down and find some cover!" she added as several in the hallway quickly lied down, others lingered around the corners and the PATVs remained on the ceiling, shifting to either side to give each other a shot at the door.

The rocketeer quickly loaded and yelled back, "Back blast clear!" as the large light from the plume and flare behind her fired off - and the rocket clawed itself out of the pod and raced across the hallway. It rammed into the doorway, and exploded into a ball of superheated plasma, blasting and melting the doors and part of the barricade's contents behind it.

"They barricaded it," Illa said, beaming at the blockade. "Give me a sphere," she yelled back as one of her subordinates handed her control of a scout sphere. She quickly buzzed it over, "This is Leftenant Illa Sif of the Artemene Dominion. Your window for negotiation is running short," it said on the other side of the thick barricade. "It is only a matter of time before we get through this, and I can assure you that it won't be long at all. Surrender yourselves, and stand-down - let's take the more diplomatic route here. If you do this, no harm will come to you - if you're found to be associated with the Betrican Federation, you'll be given a trial," she said pausing for a moment, "Refuse this - and we will massacre you, we will string your lifeless corpses up outside in the sun to rot, and whatever creatures on this godforsaken planet can peck out what's left of your entrails," Illa growled, falling silent to let that last part slowly sink in.

"So here's your golden opportunity to open a dialogue with your aggressors and find a more, less fatal solution," Illa said, waving her hand to stop the rocketeer from firing another shot as they lowered their launcher.

"Right, let me patch Orban through, he's the closest thing to a diplomat we have."

Dain said as Litt updated him through the suits comms.

"Orban, Litt think's you should address what our attackers have said to us."

"Alright, lets just get this elevator moving. Patch me through."

"Wait, listen to what they said first."

'"If you're sure."

Orban listened quietly to a muffled recording of the last few events, he even heard dull thumps before the mess doors were blown, that was loud. Must have been breaching charges elsewhere. As the elevator lurched and began its descent into the unknown facility below, he sighed, and frowned.

"Alright, Litt, set me up on loud speaker, and have one of the Gorio, Hibb I believe, relay me as well. I want my point to through to these stubborn fools."

Clearing his throat, he waited for a dull beep in his ear-comm, a go ahead indicator. Hibb would take what he said and beam it straight to any minds it could, or at least, it would try.

"Listen to me you self righteous, pompous morons. You attacked a small camp that didn't even have ground to space weapons. You've destroyed government equipment, and from the sounds of things, used breaching charges, no doubt destroying countless artifacts we were trying to study. You've set back over a year of research, damaged the ruins, threatened our lives, and this is despite several messages from us you've ignored trying to get you to stand down so we could talk. First we answered you're request for an explanation with our beacon, or did you not notice the constant infrared pulse coded with our message that's been signaling above this ruin since you first showed your faces here. Second, the shuttle itself, through every language our translators have access to, repeated a similar message, and warned you that this could become a major diplomatic incident. Now you threaten the lives of scientists, archaeologists, guard-soldiers, retired soldiers, and a large investment from our government, without any consideration? What sort of thoughts must be going through your head to think that a RESEARCH base that has been set up for over a year is such a major threat to you that you have to threaten all of our lives. This is your last chance, get the hell out of my ruins, and open a peaceful dialog, or in all likelihood there will be a war on your hands. Within the next twelve hours, probably less, reinforcements will be arriving from our emergency pods we sent out, if you don't want to be opened fire on, you'd best back off. Final chance."

Dain listened quietly and sighed.

"You don't ever just talk do you? These ruins mus mean a lot to you if your willing to risk a battle over them."

"They've destroyed priceless artifacts, and set back our surface dig by weeks, maybe months. All the new digging equipment, and maintenance equipment was taken down with the shuttle, and it takes a week to get the forms through, and another week at least for everything to be shipped back here. Most importantly, they've threatened the lives of my team, and soldiers I probably would have fought with if I hadn't retired. If they wanted to talk, they shouldn't have threatened us from the start, or sent down, what did the shuttle see, at least two platoons? For a squad, and a dozen or so research staff? Thankfully these ruins are advanced, and military, or we'd likely have just been overrun."

"Alright, well, I'll get Yin into position, his shield should finally be fixed."

____

"Yin, I want you in full view through what they've damaged from the barricade, shield battle ready, and make sure your big chain gun is set for the stun rounds, if they attack, we want them to go down stunned, not dead, if we drive off the first wave, we'll have more leverage with the prisoners."

The big, two thousand pound Torrth, standing at 1.6 meters tall, and 2.8 meters long (Five feet, two inches tall, nine feet one inch long) moved into position, his glistening green exoskeleton came into full view of the hallway from behind what remained of the barricade, the large chain gun on his back didn't move, but he braced himself in case of an assault. His four eyes narrowed at the enemies down the hall, and he began growling, lowly in infrasound. Only Xix would be able to hear it, though if the enemy got close enough they'd feel it. The smaller Torrth braced itself behind it's barricade, laser lance ready. The rest of the squad, twenty five members in total, not counting Dain, we're all hunkered behind cover, weapons loaded, and ready. After the first wave, when they joined the fight, if they joined the fight, there would be no more stun settings, or rounds, or just low energy minor burns, it'd be set for a proper battle, and they had the entrenched position, while the enemy had to come through a long choke point. If either of the Torrth went down, their shields could probably be recovered and set to block the door, forcing them to waste ammo pounding on it before the U.T.S.D forces in the hall returned fire.