[FT|TG]The Enemy Unknown, A Reboot in One Take

[Galba Dea]

Solar Rig Power of Man
Low Stellar Orbit around Invictus

---

Solar rigs were old hat, as innovations of space-engineering went, but those in the know had to admit that Power of Man was an impressive vessel. It circled its star - the Main Sequence Invictus - in a relatively low orbit, radiator-arms practically steaming out into space, with the long, slender derrick pointed starward and the dense crew modules clustered on its shady side. She was Invictus's only rig - about twice the physical size and four times the impereo-annual productivity as anything in the Stella Terris system. The backbone of a burgeoning province was Coronium, and these were the only circumstances in which it could be produced.

Enter D.E.W. Winstrate, Esquire. Mr. Winstrate, a certified Grandmaster Engineer with the Royal Astronautical Society, was one of three Grandmasters employed by the station. He was fundamentally responsible, eight hours out of the day, for everything that happened aboard it. He could be raised at any point in the intervening 16 hours, natually. At the moment, Mr. Winstate was involved in supervising the delicate work of Process Collection, engaged with slide-rule and hand-cranked Ordinator in the difficult work of scheduling all the orbit adjustments the vessel was going to need to collect the various foundry-bouys that, today, would have returned from stellar freefall to rough orbits with their precious payload.

The ship's superstructure groaned, causing Mr. Winstrate to look up from his work. Straining an ear, he sipped his tea one more time before turning his attention to a tape printout on the far side of the control room.

Somewhere, deep below, a star belched. The Man was practically bisected by the Coronal Mass Ejection. Naturally, work was to come to a standstill.

---

It was difficult to say how much time had passed. Gloria Hewitt-Potter awoke bruised, battered, and slightly bloodied in the corner of her work compartment, where, prior to whatever the hell had happened, she had been engaged in the repair of a Phlogistonic Transducer. The small tools were vital to the performance of basically every engineering duty on the ship, and so finely crafted that in many cases they were worth a small tug into and of themselves. Some, such as this one, were Ship's Property. Some, such as the one strapped into a holster on her thigh, were Masterworks. The Guild required all Phlogistonic Engineers to construct a transducer as part of the qualifications for Master status.

She let her hair down just long enough to regather it, and, by the dim light of the emergency gaslamps, checked over her injuries. The blow to her head was relatively minor, the cut little more than a small abrasion that couldn't help but bleed profusely, given its extreme proximity to her temple.

Bloody brilliant.

With no easy way to do anything about the wound, and given that it was pretty damn minor, she glanced to the wall clock, frozen in place as it was. Her watch had advanced a few hours further, before it too had stopped when the springs had wound down. She stood, buckling on her gunbelt, checking the charge on her raygun and what capacity was left in her emergency breather, should she wind up needing it. The air was pressurized, but stale. Stepping into the corridor, she could tell the phogiston was still at least flowing through the glassy enclosures around the strips of matrix that brought its energy throughout the ship.

It took her the better part of an hour to make her way to the radio hut, which she found abandoned - it was not typically manned, and surely there were more than a few injuries aboard ship which were more serious than hers. She sighed, sitting down and examining the controls of the board, speaking out loud on the off chance the ship's recorder was still working.

"Switching broadcast to broadwave scan mode. Transmit to automatic. Set recieve channel 3. Activate distress recording."

SECURITE SECURITE SECURITE POWER OF MAN CALLING ALL STOP DECLARING STATE OF EMERGENCY STOP AUTOMATED MESSAGE STOP WILL REPEAT IN TWO MINUTES ALL STOP

Gloria waited a few long moments to verify everything was in working order, watching attentively as a ticker tape spooled down into its cubby with the printed output of the first transmission of the recording, before unhooking her transducer from her belt, adjusting her emergency breather, and heading on to the next, vital task.

Gategun Invictus Construction Zone
Fifth Lagrangian of Invictus Quintus
40 AU from Invictus Proper

---

The construction of a Gategun, not least because of their collossal size and considerable material cost, was a massive undertaking of the sort that could be brought about only by the Crown itself. The expenditures were enormous, far and beyond the point at which a colonial government would be bankrupted without the explicit support of the crown in its construction. Quantities of coronium that defined calculation needed to be refined and delivered to the construction site. Rare and specialized engineers needed to be flown in and compensations that would allow for the fact they would have no means of return to their origins before the gun was completed. A small navy of construction and support craft had to be aquired and crewed. As a rule, a squadron from the Away Fleet would have to be detailed and, if needed, wholly constructed and trained. A gategun was an undertaking of a generation, and Gategun Invictus was no exception.

Such an undertaking could only be the ultimate focus of activity in a young colony like this one. It made for a busy environment in the Systemwide Spacelane Control Centre that was part of the station, most of which was still under construction. She was crewed by radiomen borrowed from the 111th Squadron, Away Fleet, in anticipation of the station's later comissioning as an actual vessel in the Royal Star Navy. Such radiomen were usually quite busy during this phase of operations, but there was always an exception made for the poor bastard who would get lumped with the duty of watching the inner system, which, prior to the opening of the Gategun, was almost always devoid save for a few stellar rigs and the odd cargo hauler.

We now join Able Astronaut Richard Pinkman Upton, already in progress. Mr. Upton's job, such as it was, consisted of taking down the messages from inner-system ships and, twice per watch, walking them over to the Table of Orbits and updating their parameters. On very rare occasions, he would also have to step out and deliver messages to other parts of the station, but for the most part, his work (and, by extension, he himself) was the lowest available priority.

Today, as the message from Power of Man scrolled out of one of his tickers, and the colour drained from our Able Astronaut's face, that was about to change. He tore the message off, translating it quickly into the King's with deft, angular penmanship, before bolting out of his chair and down the corridor to Squadron Command, where he handed off the message card in breathless silence before bolting back to his proper workspace, pushing a junior enlisted out of his way at the Table of Orbits, and consulting his wrist chronometer on his way back to his table.

SYSTEM CONTROL CALLING POWER OF MAN STOP MESSAGE RECEIVED STOP 111TH SQDRN RESPONDING STOP AUTOMATED TRANSMITTER DEACTIVATION CODE FOLLOWS ALL STOP

SECURITE SECURITE SECURITE SYSTEM CONTROL CALLING ALL VESSELS ALONG SYSTEM INGRESS/EGRESS LANES NINE THROUGH FIFTEEN STOP PRIORITY SAFETY MESSAGE STOP DEVIATE FROM STANDARD ROUTE ACCORDING TO PLAN SAMSON IMMEDIATELY ALL STOP

Upton checked his chronometer again as someone handed him a message card, sipping from a magnet-bottomed cup of weak Tea, Standard, Navy as he scanned the card and picked up his telephone handset, keying in the appropriate authorization code. "Radioman Upton."
"Mr. Upton, this is Captain Landsdown. Report immediately to the Situation Handling Room."

[Zepplin Manufacturers]

Alpha Sector
Incorporated State
Gastins Star
Ranstadt Station

Ranstadt station was new enough to squeak and busy enough that the air did not quite taste clean. A little over a decade old, its double disc open hub port and central spindles were jammed with a mix of Gastins Star local government planetary rehabilitation and Colony Department offices. A huge swirling mass of ColDep logistics ships, mammoth colonial transporters being refurbished or loaded and sub light only in system constructor ships filling almost every birth as central continued the post occupation rehabilitation effort by the time honored goverment tradition of throwing money and bureaucracy at the problem. At the same time Col Dep pumped ships through the sector as fast as the mass lifters could load them, a half a dozen new public and private colonies being thrown together as fast as the planoforming ships could be dispatched, all hovering in a cloud of orbital bill boards.

From its untarnished walls and floors, to the scutters lacking the time worn marks of upgrades and the vast empty spaces in the free ports commerce zones it was however a little sterile, the void between the discs nearly empty of the usual tiers of commercial displays. The parks and schools too new, the restaurant strip too filled with franchisees. A city sprayed from a can rather than grown.

To say the Myres & Myres pod based bed and breakfast on Ranstadt still expanding civilian “in system” disc side was less than salubrious could be taken as gracious but it was cheap on a commander's pay. On a Long patrol Captains it was an odd choice for a final night but one of the few that allowed total privacy from the ship's crew that flooded Ranstadts more lively areas with a brand of madness that only spacers on leave before a six month long patrol could create. It was also relatively near the shape form and services of a ship borne officers cabin and for certain spacer born it felt more like home than the wood paneled monstrosities the planet bourne would consider luxury.

Captain of the peace Sylvester Rally was in a good light “lithe” but most would call him thin or even vulture like with a nose only a mother could love. He had awoken to the raucous alarm that was the only thing that would get him up even after all these years in service, made his way to the tiny en suite fresher, the dental servo doing its gyrations while a buzzing miasma of a pair of scutters removed his delapidory cream his eyes danced across the endless ZMSF and long patrol reports that hovered around him before the steaming water blasted him from a hundred needle jets.

Muttering as the scutters air dried him he pulled on his orange and grey chevroned ship suit and life support torcs with the autonomous like moves of long practice. Checking himself once through the scutters eyes to make sure his station jacket was free of detritus and wedging his orange beret under the left epaulette he left the pod B&Bs plastic environs with a faint spring in his step.

The docks were a brief tube and tram ride away, the hustle of the morning growing as he crossed the stations dividing lines spindles, trickles of spacers with the too bright eyes of people who had taken counter agents and stims to make up for too little sleep and too much alcohol or worse turning into a flood.

As the tram finally came to a halt he could already see her. The rakish long form of a warship, shrouded drive and visible weapons in rather stark contrast to the dumpy or overly massive transports or in system construction vehicles. Grey and orange like the uniform, the broadsword class destroyer was a quarter of a kilometer of turret studded collapsium armoured brick. ZMSF DD921 Justice Flows “Justice Jiffy” sat hovering over half a dozen umbilicals, her gravitics blades slicked back and her inertics already rumbling the dock floor, the last of the logistics packages visibly being loaded by grav lift into her port general bay, where a fleet variant would have packed a punishing broadside of energy weapons or missile tubes.

Nearby on a cleared section of the apron several files of parashocks were jogging in place, a half a dozen doing various overly contact filled items that made Rally wince. If there was one thing his physique did not support it was contact sports.

Scanned half a dozen times as he entered Jiffys secured berth, crew members already nodding as he passed. The Patrol did not salute, nods were given in respect in their place if there was time and never when a suspect or client was aboard. The aft boarding ramp was rammed with engineering staff and scutters handling spares, last minute looting from the local stores that Rally or any other captain due to go on six month patrol to the dark side of nowhere would turn a blind eye too.

Nodding to the ships scutters as he crossed the red hash marked line in the deck and felt the faint disturbance as he was now in Jiffys own familiar gravity well the overhead came to life as JFs central's speakers echoed outward. “Captain of the Peace arriving”.

As he started his first walk through of the day, and of launch day at that, while gently talking to Doctor Varns rather insistent Azure born assistant outside Jiffys sickbay (relatively austere without its sensory overlays running) about why one really should not accost the captain even if he was overdue for a physical he turned as warnings came up.

“It will have to wait Darrel, apparently were having ..visitors from sci dep causing some issue on the dock”

Marching through the onboarding spacers as only a captain could when he made his way to the now truly crowded rear boarding ramp he could see a line of three blue clad sci dep employees arguing with his ships engineer, an ever blossoming series of holography spreading from both, the bosun and Carla Weinz, his first officer looking on in somewhat depressed silence waiting it seems for him.

“And another thing, no one said anything about Solitech 50’s doctors! There just not going to pass security review and.. ”

He waited. The raptor like nose pointing downward as the engineer slid to a verbal halt and the sci dep reps stopped responding, holograms winking out rapidly.

“Carla why exactly are you letting this mess occur on my rear ramp, we have conference rooms for this sort of thing, Gentlemen I’m Jiffys captain, and unless i'm gravely mistaken you're the long range study and liaison group from Carlington, and no you can’t take the solitech 50’s... now if you could all be so kind as to clear the ramp. ”

Four hours later…

Jiffys command citadel wasn't exactly cramped but it was not the spacious monsters that commercial vessels or cruisers could boast. Cocoon chairs sat beside conventional holographic displays and back up hardwired readouts. While everyone could have shared displays of everything siloing worked, and even with expert systems and Jiffys not quite SI central first burn after dock was hardly a time lack of formality.

“All umbilicals withdraw, support divots removed, we are free of station structure, apron is clear and pumped down, station retention field is open spaceward”

“Conform to flight plan, maintain inertics only, aft ten meeps till alpha”

“Transit drive ring charge is holding”

“Take us to beta point then commence burn for the catapult, sixty kilo meeps.”

Behind them the forty kilometer diameter double discs and spindles of Ranstadt steadily disappeared, ahead the huge form of a rip drive catapult sat like a child's building block set thrown amongst the stars, exotic matter linkages the thickness of Jiffys hull glittering as around them battle fleet squadrons endlessly danced.

“Confirm catapult control. Emergence point Gamma four eight, stet. Jump in fifty.”

“All systems conform to catapult protocol”

“This is catapult control, good luck Jiffy, say hello to the other side of the galaxy for us”

Rally braced himself, his crew also visible tensing unlike the smooth instant of motion of transit drive, rip drive was ..less pleasant an experience.

“Three ..two ..one”

Discontinuity

[Galba Dea]

Situation Handling Room
Invictus Gategun No. 1 (Uncommissioned)

---

This situation handling room was, by both necessity and design, crowded. A Gategun was a large construct in its own right, but lessons of the past demanded separation between such a tempting target and any Royal Stellar Navy position. Thus, the chamber aboard the Invictus Gategun was temporary, and it showed. The hours since the declaration of Power Of Man's state of emergency had passed in great tension. A Broadside Frigate and two Highdrive Cutters had been detached from 111st's gategun escort and were now steaming wrong-way down the most direct shipping lines in order to reach the station quickly. Even with a fortnight's traverse awaiting them (owing to the plodding nature of the Broadside), there remained urgent work to do.

Able Radioman Upton considered this nervously as he stood at attention, achieving precisely nothing while attending Captain Lansdown's convenience. The senior officer, an under-promoted Squadron Officer-Commanding, lounged in his command chair, stroking a considerable beard while he read Upton's transcription of the latest report from the stricken solar rig: 130 souls aboard, 23 confirmed survivors, 29 critically injured, the balance dead or missing, back-up life support for 3 months, and no clear commanding officer.

"You have excellent penmanship, Mr. Upton."
Upton felt thoroughly deflated at the comment. It was not the reassuring series of orders and contingencies he had expected on his previous command; the very Broadside that was now moving into rescue position, TRHS Irascible. "Thank you, sir."
"Please ascertain whether or not the rig has orbital control. If it does, order them to elevate their orbit to the maximum circularizable extent and await further instructions."
"Aye sir."

Upton glanced at the young woman awaiting her own turn on the diais without much further thought, other than to register the Petty Officer's insignia on her sleeve as she stepped past him. "Captain, the interstellar set has a priority transmission from Terra. Instantaneous Telephone with His Royal Highness."

The captain's eyebrows rose considerably as he left his seat. Whatever the Crown Prince could possibly want now could only contribute to Landsdown's receding hairline.

Office of the Lord First Admiral
Admiralty Headquarters Complex
Geostationary Orbit, Dean Terra

---

Rare was the household with an Interstellar Set of its own; all but the Dukes and Royals must traffic their messages with carriers like Appollon Telegraph. For Valerian, Crown Prince of Galba Dea, the essentiality of the device and its rarity inspired his loathing of the conglomerated nature of the Dean economy and fanned the flames of he who would break up the monopolies.

That, as with all his other prejudices and opinions, would feed into the actions to unfold. Invictus' latest disaster was precisely the opportunity he needed. The remote nature of the system, owing to its incomplete Gategun, meant that further expeditions there would come at great expense and be years-long undertakings. If either of the companies involved in the rig made a move toward it, it would be obvious, and furthermore, telling.

"Captain Landsdowne," he said, cradling the handset gently as he balanced the earpiece near the appropriate organ. "Am I correct in assessing you Officer Commanding of the 111st squadron?"
"Yes, your majesty."
"I am hereby ordering you to evacuate the civilians from the stricken station at once. You are to remove nothing else from the station, and dedicate a vessel to blockading it."
"Aye sir."

The Prince hung up, turning his gaze to his long-suffering ally, the First Star Lord. "I expect a full and complete report within the hour of the disposition of groups which may act as independent investigators. Begin with any foreign agencies."

Central Control
Stricken Solar Rig Power of Man

---

Aboard the stricken rig, the mood was surprisingly light. The selection process for solar rig engineers was rigorous, and tended to produce an equally taciturn and staid population aboard the craft. Dean eccentrism was no misplaced stereotype, but it tended to be eschewed for raw practicality for career spacers of all kinds, and the men and women who fuelled the empire in its quest for Coronium were no exception.

Grandmaster Winstrate was no exception to this rule, calculating potential orbits with slide-rule and pen while the Babbage was reserved for more important analysis matters. He still intended to select a new orbit for the rig and recover the outflight of coronium bouys before their rough and unstable orbits decayed and resulted in the loss of both the bouys and their precious cargo.

The bell beside his station's handset rang, and he lifted it up. "Control."
"Control, communications calling. We've received a message from the Fleet. They want us to enter our highest circularizable orbit and hold for the rescue team."
"Call them back. We stand to lose twenty tons of coronium if we do so. Let the gategun engineers figure out what kind of loss that is."

[Zepplin Manufacturers]

Gamma Sector
Callende
Incorporated State Sovereign System
Callende IV, Dasik station

The Dip-Sec office on Callende IV was one quite small step away from a prefabricated shack as was most of what would one day be the colony. There was no great local artwork to dot it, no carefully constructed calming meeting rooms, no civilian culinary staff and no private secure launch aprons at what was Dasik stations excuse for a landing field. Infact there were no civilian citizen shareholders in the entire Callende IV system and not a single other Dip-Sec officer.

Alf Jørnson had always thought it was also just far away enough from what he considered Dip-Sec central's clown colony of administration in Alpha Sector and other actual polities that he just may have a chance at a quiet career to retirement monitoring the boonies that Callende IV was designated to service.

In around six hundred years time. Callende IV was a mostly lifeless ball of rock at the moment and the system while with some quite heavy base ferrous metal infrastructure had been installed it was effectively mostly mothballed contingency equipment and sealed low albedo orbital warehouses.

As he stretched out on his desk and looked up through the skylight no huge plano-forming ship flotilla filled the ruddy sky or was due out here. Given the expansion sphere rating (and last time Alf had checked it was number sixteen) they were doing it the old slow old terraforming way with a mega freighter turning up every few years to dump a dozen more megatons of equipment to the project staff or to increase Dasik stations orbital component.

That, which for the most part consisted of a huge ansible and monitoring array, a half dozen defence platforms and a few excuses for orbital berths did cause him his head aches as it was through that that he both received the odd local request and the endless updates from DipSec itself and the government in general and the rare visit from a local grandee as far as Callende had been chosen to be from absolutely anyone.

An odd attitude to have for a sector senior ambassador but then people are contrary and Alfs sojourn out here to clear his mind as his peers in service thought and as Alf thought to be a nice slide to retirement was about to end as his vision was obscured by an incoming message.

He read it. Then he read it again. Someone had actually responded to a Long Patrol advertisement. Then he sighed, consulted several dozen documents, procedures and then approved it for sending back to central.

Oh well. At least it would not impact him even if they were sector locals and it wasn't as if one of the patrols widely spaced troubleshooting ships was going to turn up soon...





Sol
Earth
The City
Zone 1


Henry Phillips was to the outside world a minor government functionary wearing a somewhat cheap lower meg logo suit that was four seasons out of fashion in a basic cut and display definition like millions of other office workers. He had no particular defining marks, was not visibly well built, of notable bone structure, pleasing symmetry, augmentation or with any visible particulars at all, with the faintly latin look of someone from an urban cultural milieu.

After greeting his neighbours as they too left for work he downed a happy happy foods instant self deep frying breakfast cabbage bar (remember its not food if not happy!) from his floors concession stand. His navigation out of his hab block was not notable as he passed groups of school children being led in friendly holo logo halos by scutters and parents to the school levels in the blocks atriums.

He did not barge nor did he brake lines as he made his way from the blocks atrium to the local conventional mag lev transit feeder, through the vast rush hour crowded market beside the city sector transit hub, onto the express vac network, through the two mile high sector wall then to sector ones massive defence walls.

Those walls were only rivaled by the cities endless curtain walls and blast deflection damns a thousand miles away at the city border between metropolitan earth and recovery were a far more notable event to get through. Ever increasing security checks now were visible, the dull visible studds of weapons nodes, Int-Sec, Parashocks and ZMDF personnel replacing M1PD drones and officers that had been merely a background accent elsewhere. Finally on emerging from those walls rather than towering hab blocks and zone structures the quaint old towers and domes of the old city could be seen.

All these he passed through with the wave of his pass through a secure point reader when required, the crowd now notably mostly gov service. Routing onto gov line sector transport (that for all its increase in security was just another mag-lev mass transit feeder) underneath the preserved streets of the Old City and the reclaimed docklands, the whole transit line car passing through half a dozen full scanning hoops before entering the hallowed gov sector ground of the Ziggurat itself. Of course rather than the hollowed surface, much less a windowed office in one of the department towers or in the vast mass of the Ziggurat itself his car had instead routed to a station several hundred levels below that.

This station's security was tighter still. Individual spot checks by armed scutters and true drones tied to the facilities SIs were given before he passed through the glittering mass of defence and active scanning fields.

Now as he entered into his section his suit gently swept from exterior logo mimicking to simple Office of Frontier Circumstances grey, his pass clipping to his suit pocket nodding to coworkers and giving the odd greeting.

His office was relatively normal save for the secure terminals and standalone readers separate to the standard gov grade data net interfaces.

Bringing up his important morning circulars and messages (the true insecure ones had already been read and or disposed of while he was en route, there was after all no escape from being always on call) and calendars for a moment before gently throwing back what appeared to be a pair of stim eye drops like any other worker would from his shirt pocket.

They weren't. OFC had to deal with the sort of thing that could give one true culture shock and the dissociative pharmacopeia that Philips dosed himself with was not only legal but advised in his job. Aliens could in some cases be truly alien and some of the reports included not just writing but full sensory immersion.

He spent the next few hours reviewing reports that the SIs and field groups had forwarded for action. At a filling of a check box a fleet missile barrage, an Int-Sec hit team or a single bullet could be made some beings terminal reality. This was rare. His job mostly just consisted of approving updating statuses for modeling or requesting more data.

The majority of the OFCs work was not advocating interference (as that did disturb the models and nuke forbid anyone disturb the SI’s precious models) but rather simply keeping an eye outside the Incorporated States tidy little sphere of influence in Alpha Sector. Those poor bastards in the Long Patrol offices now they had to try and actually operate out ..there.

Philips actually blinked as he read the report from Dip-Secs inbox, countersigned it and then sent it up after repeatedly underlining a passage and adding the words probable exotic matter use.



The City
Zone 1
The Zigguraut
The Concilium Committees Admiral Alexander Drexel Annex

This room was in the great cloud parting stepped Ziggurat proper, austere with the implication of authority, with age and decor in a distinctly art deco style of marble and carefully maintained woods of what was still called the "new" annex even if it was now coming up on its sixth century of operation. Concilium members and their entourages of aides passing like legislative ships in the night in the passages from the main chambers to the hundreds of hearing rooms and private offices surrounding it. Here citizen shareholder representatives who may hold billions of citizens voting rights in trust on certain issues (and some skillful orators and politicians did on far more than one) made deals and discussion.

Though real time virtual weighted democracy was implemented throughout the Incorporated State most people did trust issue based votes and decisions to their rep. After all who had time to review the tax code on cheese sales in a star system sixty light years away when you were trying to beat the downtown traffic. And the Gestalt could always be trusted to over ride any truly stupid decision.

Chairman of the frontier committee Edmund Sothwithe was one such man. A mover and shaker in his youth now a stern custodian of the state. Or so he thought. His ..robust frame could be seen on any given day hanging around the retro progressive front, the colonial transport association and the powerful city plumbers union which had first given him a seat in the concilium. He was also about as politically threatening as thrown soap bubble and so most of the parties and factions were quite happy for him to chairman half a dozen semi unimportant (at least to them though the man had at least by accident decided the fates of whole star systems) committees to keep him out of there way.

“Calling into session the four thousand eight hundred and eighty sixth meeting of the frontier committee to point forty six, yes yes just three more issues august citizen shareholders before we break for lunch”

“Contract to be determined for the assistance of the polity known as the .. ah yes here it is ..no no I dont want any coffee Pierre. No ..well maybe if Karl is bringing the sandwiches from Birches with the little dancing edible marionettes from the Sonk System I do find those .. oh yes right ehem ..the kingdom of Gal ..no the Terran Orange juice not the Fram fruit, I had that yesterday oh ..ehem.. The kingdom of Galba Dea”

“Long Patrol investigation request, applied for standard rates and rules package no less.. Right ..in Gamma sector. Anyone know why this is on top of my pile as urgent?”

“OFC has concerns in this issue that this ah service be provided mister chairman.”

“OFC? ..ah .. mm right ..ookay. Okay approved ..moving onto more important matters, the Rothrum Crop on Javra IV, hows our little commercial intervention going there Charles?



8.7 light years from Sol ...
Long Patrol HQ
Luytens System
Perdition City


The high definition display pit blinked like a mad witches brew at the heart of the tiers of offices in op-planning, a sparkling eighty meter wide mass of display dust, glittering markers that encompassed the whole galaxy. It was also mostly for show, being about as much use for actual dispatch work as a hand cranked telephone at interstellar distances but oh boy the civies loved the thing and anything they lived brought in funding.

Or at least that's what Admiral of the Peace Aiden Ranstead thought as he idly pushed the next report into his outbox as approved before moving on to a file he had been dreading all morning. The squat file size sat like an undigested grease ball in his inbox,its tags screaming of officialdom reaching out to make his life and the lives of his officer complicated.

Muttering behind a beard he gently ran the acceptance through the possibles before gently bringing up an icon and smiling.

“Hah! And in time too! That will show those bloody bureaucrats how the Patrol operates!”

He cut the orders with a well practiced hand, had them checked by standard operating procedure and threat level, then had them countersigned by his aides and then dispatched.



Justice Flows

The first few days had turned into a week of plodding by transit drive from the emergence point towards there single loop to Callende when the ansible had spat out orders.

Which rather came to the situation in the conference room just off the bridge.

“So after we stop off at Dasik for rather shorter than originally planned to pick up Ambassador Jørnson to act as liaison sometime this afternoon and it's only a day or so to the Invictus system at normal speeds and I do not intend to do normal speeds, its in a pretty good spot on match for CST-499As magnitude for a transit jump.”

Sylvester turned from pointing at the displays and projections to face the rest of the rooms occupants, and in particular his ships engineer.

“Eddie I want a full work up team from engineering if this thing is industrial sabotage rather than a lovers spat. A solar platform doesn't exactly sound like a whole heap of fun and safety much less one using exotic matter. Break out your hard suits and the hard remotes for this and prep them for use.”

“Comments?, Carla go.”

Carla, his first officer was well built. Too well built though Sylvester would never say it to her that he had always thought she looked like what a parashock in a recruitment poster would look like. Her Mars borne accent cutting through the air a bit.

“The investigation team is ready to roll cap, Marco and the twins are good to flit. The only thing I would like to rise is well if it really is exotic matter there refining we might want to sheathe the blades when we get close, don’t want our lenses interacting with all of that.”

“Professor you want to say something?”

“It is unlikely they are operating on the same ah bandwidth paradigm we utilize so the chances of ah outright interference are low but ah better safe than sorry”

“Noted, sheathe the grav blades on emergence. Doctor. Go.”

“No noted medical threat, but I have full stasis pod and trauma ready just in case.”

“Good. Major?”

Numerous things could be said about Samuel Barelli. That he actually was a decorated veteran parashock and an officer would come as a surprise to most people who saw him in his baggy civilian gear when on leave who presumed him to be a low level criminal enforcer. Right now though in uniform he looked like had fallen out of the backdrop of the “evil corrupt parashok officer oppressing the natives” comic book. That he was one of the most charitable and forgiving men Sylvester had known thus came as something of a contrast.

Samuel didn't stand more as he unfolded from his chair.

“Sir. The cadre is ready to roll, all vac checks are good on Frogs one through twelve save for number six, blown the left inertics cell again and Santiago is still down with a bad case of Murchison's bug.”

As he spoke the displays gently flipped past ready reports from personnel. Finally the Frontline Ground System mk. XIV “Frog” was displayed. A two person combat pod. The visual showing it intricately opening to show the damaged drive system and a spray of estimates and performance charts.

Supported by clouds of drones that they powered and spotted for the Frogs were a Parashocks best friend in boarding for sheer intimidation factor if nothing else. Their own slim modern form fitting powered armour or just a combat suit and a clamshell just wouldn't accomplish that anymore without equipping sets of war grade angular ablatives.

The Frogs were four meters long, one and a half high and one wide. An angular brick with a pair of folding grav rocket engines and a half dozen unfolding weapons racks built around a single TIW Savage “blockbuster” hellbore that enfolded its duo of operators just as tightly as the infantries suits. It was designed to just about fit down a standard human rated passage.

They were ugly as sin without their own aerodynamic ..ish ablatives and even with them they still looked like a flying utility room had hit a stack of styrofoam through an ice cream cone dispenser at speed.

Smugglers and even slavers generally didn't like to argue with small arms against a tiny hovering gunship, with the words heavily on gun. The Frogs integrated inertics meant that no sane amount of counter boarding gravity or environmental shenanigans would stop them with ease. The Parashocks loved them. Financial despised the cost. Parashock command had quietly informed them that they would despise the cost of losing entire cadres more.

“Fifty hours to fac up a replacement cap, no way to get around that. Drone compliments are good and without number six we will have more than adequate spares. Beverly and Beatrice are both good to fly and Humphrey and Herod are good to roll if needed.”

“I don’t think we will be needing main battle tanks on an orbital station Sam though I appreciate the thought. Have the AFV group stand down but keep the frogs hot, you never know. I want Beverly prepped with the SAR module initially, keep Beatrice in ops”

“Right that about wraps this up. Gentlepersons when we get back to the bridge I want us ready to to full cruising speed. Time to burn those full fuel tanks. We have requisition forms for Callende and were on the mission clock now. I want to be on mission site within sixteen standard hours. Time to fly”.

[Galba Dea]

TRHS Irrascible
Proximity of the Power of Man

---

The Broadside-class Frigate had been designed, before the first pen-stroke hit paper, to be a weapon of intimidation. That it arrived at the station nearly four days behind the Highdrives was no issue. That had simply given four days for the cutters to offload the surviving crew and remains from the stricken Solar Rig, and even collect eight of the outstanding bouys from orbit, thus reducing the loss represented by the accident even further. No, if you sent a Broadside anywhere, it was to make a powerful statement. For the Crew of Man, the statement was that the mighty fist of the Empire stood beside you. For whatever, if anything, had compounded the natural disaster, it was a condemnation.

As the Broadside maneuvered herself into position, coronium bow gleaming, eponymous banks of missile tubes on either side exposed to vacuum (though slowly re-sealing themselves), her captain, the young and talented Commander Vanessa Coultier, was pleased to have finally entered telepresence range, and have visual contact with the captains of the two, smaller cutters.

"Gentlemen, I'll take it from here. Both of you have done excellent work. We'll be seeing you in the outer system real soon."
"Take care, ma'am. Try and play nice with the Long Patrol."

Vanessa smirked, watching the two cutters swiftly move off onto the shipping lines, headed back to the outer system with their valuable cargos. She adjusted her position only slightly, in order to better reach the tumbler that contained her daily ration of Navy Issue gin. Whistle thus whetted, she quickly and authoritatively barked a series of orders that would see the matching of velocities with the station, establishment of wartime-level readiness watches, and a reversion to "station mode" operations with the subsequent adjustment of duties.

All that remained now was to await the arrival of the independent investigators. She had ordered - and received by facsimile service - a report on this "Long Patrol", which she now tucked under her arm, rising from her seat. "Mr. Lewis, you have the bridge."
Her Executive Officer turned in order to salute, returning shortly afterward to his duties.

[Zepplin Manufacturers]

Justice Flows

Alf stood quietly as his assigned aide from Jiffys crew, a charming lieutenant Williamson went through her legal requirements. After his bleary eyed wakening and shuffling to the waiting shuttle at something like three in the morning, his travel bag held like a drowning man would hold a life preserver, his beard bedraggled rather than its well-groomed usual form he felt in no condition to do more thank blink. The trip to orbit and Jiffys had been a blur.
Jiffys corridors were relatively at least in the personnel section narrow, as it was all crammed inside the citadel rather than the copious ships standard bulkheads. At least rather than a fleet ship the long patrol vessel had extra space, her lack of strategic missile magazine allowing an impressive and entirely necessary rec area given the length of patrol missions.

The cabin door slid open silently at their approach; it was reasonably spacious and well appointed, screaming more diplomatic staff or “executive” than normal crew space complete with a recliner.

Wiliamson then took a familiar pose to those who had ever gone on any sort of commercial interstellar though her words were somewhat less formal and her tone much smoother and the list somewhat more detailed.

“Now the leg reqs, sorry ambassador there a must, then we can get you to bed again” she pronounced it LegWreck in one mushed word.

“Survival torc in the drawer, always put it on first if the hazards are running or you hear something out of the ordinary, it will self-apply if things get dangerous. Resyk rating for sixteen days, goes straight to the blood stream, and can feel a little odd. It has meds in it to get around that, shock, coagulation, some rads, nausea and a basic audio interface for guidance in case of flash blindness, limited film spray for vacuum.”

She flipped open the neat sink out of the side of the mirror to show a decidedly more military medical package than he was used to seeing on slick Di-Sec yachts or commercial liners.

“Put the main pack to the chest and again just hit the button. It will do the rest but don’t be surprised if it does an old fashioned quick infusion for most nasties. If you need to reload neurological shock weapon counter material pack is the blue one don’t take it until you’re really sure, it has some hellish come downs in around forty eight hours, the big red one is trauma and the local medic or your cabins scutters will probably be applying it for you. Pink is exotics, let the pack self-apply that. Yellow is the hard radiation purge. This bright green lovely is the biological and chemical threat counter, the pips on the top are to put into your torc.“

Strapped underneath the sink a large can was pointed out.

“Counter self reps, multi vector parity checker included, if Jiffy doesn’t dump them from the main tankage you or the scutters will cover everything and anything or stars forbid them if you see them, them. Warning will be pretty clear.”

A small package pointed out on the sink, cheap almost card boxing around it.

“If you don’t already have them anti flash lenses here”

She moved over to a neat sliding door beside the shower unit and the closet hissed open. It was already quite full and of surprisingly large size, a clothing fabber present.

“Big ship suit is hazard rated, hard suit powered overlays are in the huddle room as is the local pop gun storage, let the scutters help you into it if it’s called for, the thin one is standard ship wear under suit, clothing fabber is rigged to let you apply whatever you want over it or the combat suit at least cosmetically.”

Her hands danced pulling each object out and in an infomercial like tone growing.

“Self-applying survival flash suit is the one in the silver package. Just hold it at chest and press the stud and your good up to 1500 C variance for a half hour and 49 Sieverts indefinitely, med ports right over the heart, put the tox pack there or a med unit. Just don’t expect it to be as sturdy as a real suit it’s not combat rated at all. Maneuvering belt here, if you're not trained for it just let its system do the flying.”

The suits legs drawn back now to reveal the bottom of the closet.

“If your gek ware won’t grip, three spare spare sets of ah ..military grade gek shoes in the closet too.”

“Diplomatic drinks cabinet here, ah with your hold-out.“

She flipped a hidden stud while pointing it out.

Something bulky and box like was in the back of the cabinet now, a clear and simple palm print scanner on top of it. “Just for you ambassador, if your entertaining and things get um ..Interesting. Standard TIW 2mm PPD, Twist left to go lethal, defaults to non.”

As she released it a hissing thin chromed disc hummed out and pirouetted a neat almost art deco arm before slotting itself away.

“Cabin scutters, you have six dedicated, heavy emwar rating”.

The then indicated a large painting at the rear.

“Big breach patch kit is behind it . if the local damage controls quad and the local dumb ship node is dead too hit the big clasp and it will self-deploy but only after you’ve put on the torc.”

She almost pirouetted as lights and screens filled the cabin until it appeared they were standing outside on the hull, the flashing lights of transit drive visible before it vanished.

“Full audio visual display for your use”

“..Right its ..very nice lieutenant but I really would like to take at least a short nap before we arrive”.

“oh of course sir, have a good night”

“right I ..”

She had already left.

Alf gently glared at the drinks cabinet, thought better of it, dropped his bag in the cabinet and buried his head in the too stiff freshly adapting pillow as the scutters gently began unpacking.


The bridge was near silent, most of the exterior monitoring displays dark as the sensors they served were blinded by transit drive, the crew tending there stations with murmers and neat practiced movements when any were called for.

Sylvester sat back in his cocoon seat, gently nursing a hot patrol forget me not special loaded with enough caffeine to cause his torc to bring up medical warnings then gently nodded towards Carla as a timer gently ran down on one of this displays, the intership control was depressed for a moment.

“This is the XO, ten minutes till turn over and emergence, ten minutes, transit stations for class I, I repeat class I.”

When her voice had ceased reverberating around the ship Sylvester rose, flipped down a feed of himself to check his beret had not slipped into something less than command like and spoke calmly.

“Eddie retract the blades on emergence, Sorvell I want us on the plot, keep us in the solid fifties at most, Norman with the blades in, I want the halo out at the ten kilo line, we just won’t be able to dodge at full rate and I want it kept within thirty, I don’t want any of our remotes to go ..Wandering. Jiffy”

Jiffys ship mind was not quite an SI, and fairly far from it to maintain legal guidelines, though an SI could have easily applied for a long patrol slot few did for anything smaller than a cruiser. Her voice however was liquidly smooth. Too smooth to indicate her non sentient status.

“Yes captain?”

“Full flashers on emergence, I want the external display out.”

“Williamson go wake the Liaison if he’s not already up and bring him up here.”
“Stet”

Sylvester sat down again, humming to himself as he okayed checks in his displays and felt the cocoons systems test themselves in its base.
Jiffys voice now came from the overhead.

“All personnel standby for transit drive emergence. In Three. Two. One.”

Discontinuity.

Invictus

A piece of starlight twists and turns into a violent warped rainbow before sparks of raw elsewhere stutter out and a quarter kilometer of collapsium armored, be turreted grey and orange tiger striped something begin occupying what had been empty space. External holographic displays flickered to life, warning strobes and simple almost civilian grade navigational ladar and optics unshrouding like a Christmas tree lights set gone mad as Justice flows was suddenly covered in display.

To her rear the two massive grav blades that would ordinarily let her dance slid closed, there exotic matter lenses arrays now firmly behind armor even as her sensor masts extended. The hull shrouded cone of her intertics drive the only thing propelling her gently toward Power of Mans general area.
From a half dozen smaller drone cradles her halo of sensor remotes steadily ejects in dinner plate sized fashion before being carefully moved to position by their own inertics as they exit the influence of the ships field, beamed power relays crackling for a moment as they tested.

Then in the most definitely clear and across most bands commonly used. It was Jiffys clearly artificial voice and it was in several tens of hundreds of languages along with standards, data bursts, clear text documents and lighting displays from Jiffy’s own holographics.

“This is Long Patrol DD921 Justice Flows, to all in system, you are hereby notified that under auspices of contract signed by Sovereign parties that investigation regarding to events on the Power of man are now under way under and in accordance with the legal code of stated Sovereign parties. If you have any intent or requirement of legal succor or pertinent information please contact one of our officers in person or by private coms frequencies available after this transmission.”

“The following individuals are wanted for crimes under terms where rendition or extradition will be called for or actions may be required. “

Databurst

“Please be aware as this system is under case investigation that unregistered or uninspected non sovereign military notified system exits will at this time be pursued, boarded and inspected and if not in local sovereign space you will face the full rigor of Incorporated State Deep Space Law and the possibility of fines, full mental imaging and incarceration. If you or a vessel carrying you are found to be knowingly carrying registered galactic class f and above criminals, your ship may be impounded and you will be found liable for resisting there capture and you will have waived the right to refuse mental scan.
Warning if you are carrying a class delta and above your vessel will be fired upon to disable it on site as a threat to the civilized galaxy. If you are carrying a class beta and above your vessel will be engaged with lethal intent without warning.”

“The following Alpha level threats are at large. Yorlack, ex world count of the Severed Empires eastern quadrant, destroyer of the YanAdat ringworld, Sarian Prince Nurn Hasta burner of Velis prime, Solat Akron Parik commonly known as the mad moon slayer, Ranci ha’La, ex grand bishop of the Soralian confederacy also known as the disembowler and known carrier and spreader of the barodite adaptable gene slave plague, Norlak Sung lord master of the cult known as the mind reaver ascendancy and the elevated local instrumentality previously known as professor of music Sasha Wilmington Wade of the Azure University faculty. If any of these individuals are in system we advise immediate expedited evacuation.”

Then there was a dull jingle.

“The Long Patrol, here to help you maintain sovereignty, sanity, law and order in the wider galaxy”

[Galba Dea]

TRHS Irrascible
Stellar Orbit, Invictus
Proximal to the Power of Man Solar Rig

---

There was little in a controlled system - even on a frontier world - that could cause a flurry of activity on the bridge which would be sufficient to alarm the vessel's commander, and yet alarmed Cdr. Coultier was, at the sudden increase in local volume. She spit a mouthful of tea back into its cup, frowning sharply as she turned her back on the large forward viewport, rims of brass-tinted goggles spinning as they dynamically lowered the level of tint they applied to her vision to protect against the very nearby sun.

A sudden hive of activity on the sensor stations was to be expected, but the sudden engagement of all three bridge communications technicians was a surprise. On any ship of frigate scale or larger, a dedicated radiohouse existed. That all three of these extremely junior officers were suddenly engaged in what was essentially simply relaying message digests back and forth from opposite ends of the ship was of extreme irregularity.

Coulter swept back to her command chair, depositing the cup and saucer with an orderly as her plump frame settled into the seat. "Is there anything anyone wants to share with me?"

By 'wants', a deathly hush had fallen over the bridge. Cdr. Coultier had a special kind of majesty, a noble's backing that carried along down a very long history of military service in her family. When nobody spoke out first, she took it as a sign she had the ship back under her control, and took the reigns.

"Sensors first."
"New vessel in system, destroyer class, emerging from warp-drive."

She nodded slowly, and turned to the comms officer. "And?"
"That dovetails with what we've received. Vessel is a destroyer, registered to the Long Patrol, hull number DD921, christened Justice Flows. And they have had an awful lot to say."
Coultier rolled her eyes. Corporate types from the far side of the galaxy were like that. The briefings she'd had transmitted from Terra had warned her as much. "Give me the digest of the digest of the digest."

The officer pursed his lips slightly, gathering his thoughts beneath a youth's underwhelming moustache before speaking. "They have identified themselves as the independent investigators we were told to expect and declared their intent to sail to our position. The radiohouse is still processing the rest of their transmission through the Babbage."

Vanessa considered that. "They'll be wanted criminal lists, we can ignore them. I am dictating a message."

IRRASCIBLE FOR JUSTICE FLOWS. PROCEED APACE ALONG CURRENT VECTOR AND MATCH OUR ORBIT. POWER OF MAN UNDER MILITARY GUARD UNTIL YOUR ARRIVAL. UNDISTURBED PER FORMAL INSTRUCTION. STELLARINES TO BE DEPLOYED FROM THIS VESSEL TO THE STATION IN ORDER TO ASSIST YOUR BOARDING AND INVESTIGATION.

[Zepplin Manufacturers]

Justice Flows

Muttering from the coms section made its way to Sylvester's ears as he gently tapped out a message.

"Talk about low bit rate, nothing to work on here"

"What was that coms?"

"ah bit rate sir, as in single bits?"

"Hmm nothing to grasp extra in that, a denial strategy."

"Ah ..yes sir but I think it was manually broadcast"

"Our ..contractees representatives are certainly paranoid enough.. speaking of Sensors, prep the halo elements for wider dispersion, I want to see this things makers marks. Prep probe kappa through delta to give me system shadow coverage. ”

Justice Flows actual, en route, small craft prepping, will launch when within 1.4 LS.

General bay 2, aft.

The two massive general purpose bays of a Broadsword were her primary class feature, in fleet variants it would have been packed to its considerable bulkheads with weapons systems, the huge bay doors deleted and armored wedges put in there place with internal bracing and a broadside supporting mass of armament, as it was a long patrol variant Justice flows was an almost strictly head on /aft on combatant, her screens as powerful as her fleet counterparts as was her center line structural keel but her armor at least here was just "enough” and far from the optimized wedges of mass that the fleet would carry. This was not to say she couldn’t be converted after a few days at a primary ship yard.

All of this meant that the huge echoing metal box that was what served as her port hanger was not entirely ideal as with all “multi role” or “modular” affairs. A utility port studded box with clear “do not” markings over areas that you would think were perfectly fine to park two and a half a thousand tons of Hussar class pinnace until it suddenly wasn’t. Overhead in a gantry covered in grapnel field generators a single LP38 sat, its weapons muffled, the transfer door to bay ones hanger firmly closed behind it.

The hussar was an ugly snubnosed beast, the parashocks best friend in ship service when they didn’t have a huge Corvus assault lander at their disposal, but one of those would have been half the size of Justice flows. The Hussar had a set of huge atmosphere capable grav ram jets atop swept delta wings with countless system ports, hatches and weapon mount points (notably absent). Its nose was studded with sensor protrusions and the cyclopean eye of an underslung turreted infinite repeater in a white plastic looking micro meteorite shroud below. It was here notably the name Beverly was clearly inscribed, to make it slightly more garish rather than the simple grey and orange tiger stripe normally associated with the patrol a huge wide painted module held her centerline, clear rescue markings and a universal docking collar on it.

The bay was apparently empty, the displays clearly warning of vacuum and pre-launch bay door warnings.
Inside Beverly on the other hand …

Carla sat staring at the com board, the SAR modules rescue ops center perfectly suitable for supporting investigation (and indeed for Patrol purposes designed as such) at Samuels disgruntled face from his far more ..military packed background view from inside Beatrice.

“The captain was quite clear Sam, hold in bay but hot at least for the first few hours, were expecting an industrial accident for creators sake, not another Hasik station! it’s there platform we will let there ..Stellarines handle it, I have Margo and Trask here with me anyway.”

She nodded to the two brooding parashocks of her protection detail sitting in the too small chairs, supported in reality by their suits in one corner of the med bay/command center / forensics lab system packed thing that was the SAR module.

“I don’t like it Carla, why would they need to send over their own military to board the damn thing”

“Would we let people board Luytens alpha?”

“bah”

Another voice cut in, this far more in line with operations.


“XO we are go for launch, switching to internal inertics”

There was the dull shudder through everything as Beverly fought for an instant with Justices inertia control before the orange and grey, long patrol marking covered, complete with light bars Hussar powered out of Justice flows area and began spiraling towards Power of Man as behind her Justice Flows aft probe bays spat out a series of devices.

“Expect docking in 40 XO”

Carla consulted with her displays for a moment before almost absently replying.
“Stet.”

[Galba Dea]

Power of Man

---

Keeping track of the Stellarines would be a halfway decent test of Jiffy's sensor resolution, as they did not depart aboard a shuttle. The abandoned Power of Man had no real facility to dock such a vessel as an orbital transom, let alone the launch the visiting officials had taken. Instead, the squad of a dozen or so stellarines launched in short order, bouyed between the synchronized orbits of Man and HMS Irrascible by rocketry packs upon their backs.

Fortunately, the vessel was designed for this kind of boarding, and the Stellarines trained in this heavily. By the time the Far Patrol shuttle arrived at the station, the alignment lamps were lit, the docking gangway pressurized, and the minimal crew aboard the station had activated the stationkeeping system, keeping it more steady for the shuttle to dock against.

At the far end of the gangway, the Sergeant at Arms in charge of the boarding party waited nervously. A subject of Dean Imperialism, he wasn't entirely pleased with the idea of a solar rig in foreign hands... or the idea that he was expected to answer directly to some foreign bureaucrats.

"Sarge, orbit's getting a little cluttered. Incoming Launch is scattering probes."
"I guess it's their orbit today," he barked back at the wall-mounted intercom.

[Zepplin Manufacturers]

Pinnace Beverly

Carla Weinz was a citizen shareholder of the Incorporated State, a lieutenant commander, first officer of an independently commanded starship of the Long Patrol with over twenty years of experience in service, had earned her way through numerous degrees in astronavigation, law and military theory. She also didn’t look it, a rigorous service exercise regime, mostly balanced diet and a solid inheritance of Martian colonial gene modifications had left her with the somewhat harsh hewn features that still looked fresh until you saw the eyes.

Those were the driven brown garnets of someone who lived a vocation rather than a mere job.

“This is Weinz, report”

“Flight, station keeping is steady, environmental are good XO, scan is green, pressure equalized, and releases are with you.”

Even with automated reports and status available and visible as she looked over her little cadre, the solid networking in the neat confines of the module some things were still best said.

“Final suit check”

A murmured chorus of “all green” spread throughout the room.

“Start the record, Lieutenant commander of the peace Carla Wienz commanding, I am accompanied by Corporals Margo Philips and Jornson Trask of the parashocks, Lieutenant Moreu, first spacer specialists Nilsson and Esposito of the patrol . Initial contact and investigation into the damage done to the station known as Power of man as of this date and time, all recorders and sensors synch and go”

This time the chorus was loud. Her next “request” a single name.

“Margo “

Margo clunked forward, the sleek long, light drinking black patrol powered suit still sounding heavy, and making her an even more androgynous angular mass than she looked like in a ship suit. She passed around the u bend in the docking tube extended from the aft of Beverlys SAR module and depressed the outer release and intercom, her voice smooth as glass belying her frame as the white safety light covered hatch recessed.

“Make Way the hatch!”

She stood aside in the tube in one of the two heavy recesses that seemed just about the right size for someone wearing what she was.

Carla stood, the restraints falling back into the seat as did the rest of the investigation team, in one hand a hard copy of the writ and contract, in the other a clunky grey briefcase like object covered in mounting points filled with objects the size of cigars, with a clear monochrome label marked “DEEP SCANNER”. Her ship suit was neat, labeled and like her colleagues in grey and orange and clearly covered in somewhat heavily burdened equipment webbing, the devices within again all clearly labeled with things like “metal stress” “chemical residue” and “Data jack”, her life support torcs helmet neatly folded away into invisibility and her orange cap firmly in place.

As the hatches opened she spoke, it was echoed through the ships speakers.

“Station party, Pinnace Beverly of the Long Patrol arriving, requesting permission to board.”

In a normal voice she continued as the group greeting them came into view, her eyes playing over them, the write shoved under one arm as her

“Lieutenant Commander of the peace, Carla Wienz, ..Sergeant?“

Justice Flows

Probes could achieve vastly higher inertics rates than a ship, and unlike a ship without a kinetic mirror (a module that would have needed another reactor pair and have consumed the entire central general purpose bays of the ship) could really throw those inertics around at full material limited tilt. In this case however they simply arced outward. Unlike the powered by ship beamed power halo array they were little independent craft, not quite missiles and not quite platforms as they slipped away. As there inertics really started to burn they began to red shift as they race to expand the Broadswords relatively singular (if phased with the halo array) point of view.

In the twentieth century a radio telescope could have picked up a mobile phone sending a text message on Jupiter from the surface of the Earth. However it could have only done so by being positioned in a very particular way and processing only one particular section of the sky.

Justice Flows halo elements, a mixture of relatively disposable ship beamed power operated drones that were picking across the electromagnetic spectrum from long wave to gamma ray, platforms of neutron collector canisters to gravitic light senses to the odd blades of exotic matter systems all in a cloud of single purpose light and radio absorbing smart dust who’s relative positions could be used to give considerable passive gravity scanning.. That array when not contested and at full spread could have in relatively normal conditions found that phones position, read the reflected light on the clouds from the monocolor display and signal processed it to a readable message as a passive function.

All of this was not just so that not only could her baseline be increased but that the vast majority of the Broadswords own sensors could remain dark and safely behind firmly closed armored slats, bubbles and slabs. Killing sections of the halo array would be easy, killing its ready to roll replacement elements equally so but killing Justice Flows own integrated masked systems was supposed to be much harder.

“Beverly flight reports good for station keeping, boarding is commencing”

“Probe delta is achieving c fractional, turn over in forty for first position, system coverage at 44”

Sylvester sat wrapped in the voices and read outs and then glanced up from the system scans at the coms section and then at time display before speaking.

“Send to Irrascible, “Justice flows actual, you are cordially invited to supper and to discuss the days findings in eight gal stan hours”

He then pivoted back to his display before gently talking to jiffy in the way the crew often quietly addressed the not quite sentient system.

"Notify the Ambassador, the doctors and chief Park to organize the supper appropriately Jiffy"

[Galba Dea]

Power of Man
Dock 1 Staging Area

---

The Sergeant - and subsequently, the marine standing behind him, snapped to attention. He was in his spacer leathers, suited for vacuum but for the mask and hood assembly being tucked under the strap of his left epaulette. Not at all regulation, but common practice among stellarines in the Away Fleet, who often had to conduct actual EVA, rather than relying on boarding-shells. When the hatch rose completely, he snapped off a sharp salute. "Permission to come aboard granted, Lieutenant Commander. Sergeant-at-Arms Stanton, Invictus Regiment, Royal Stellarines."

He stepped aside, allowing the party to actually access the staging area. The small bay was staging for this docking tube, one of four such gangway-gantries the rig supported. As the best suited for bringing crew on and off the station, it was also the most spacious, simply by the virtue of not being filled with crates and drums. It was, however, somewhat cluttered with wrappers, empty aid parcels, and whatever other "non-essential" goods the crew had been forced to leave behind when debarking.

"Per our orders, ma'am, the station was disembarked of its crew and left sealed until your arrival. Since the crew disembarked, only my boarding party has been aboard. My men and I have orders to insist your investigation in any way we can. In my experience, most foreigners have some trouble with Dean technology."

The sergeant sniffed indifferently, glancing aside to his attendant. The two were a sharp contrast - the Sergeant an aged veteran campaigner, the private likely fresh out of the academy, with only this one posting under his belt. "Be a lad and away up to the radiohouse. Inform Irrascable that the Long Patrol have arrived aboard as scheduled."
"Aye guv."

Irrascible

---

Even in the hidebound Royal Stellar Navy, there were some contraventions of protocol that bordered on being the Order of the Day in their commonality. One such example was the practice that Commander Coultier was now engaged in. She disconnected the automatic refresh timer from the Table of Orbits, and actively engaged in modeling the new orbits she wanted on the surface of the table, marking against the polished glass with a chinagraph pencil. Her free hand gripped a mechanical calculator, allowing her to check and adjust her numbers quickly, so that the Table of Orbits would not have to remain static for any longer than necessary.

She was just telling her Executive Officer to pass these new orbits to the navigation section when a stack of transmission note-cards was left on the edge of the table for her by a passing subaltern, and she glanced them over to the tune of the XO's staccato oratorical patterns.

She marked her responses on the various cards in the same red grease-pen, and handed them back off to another orbiting subaltern to be taken to the appropriate people. Dinner, or interrogation, she wondered.

"Mr. Lews, see to it my dress uniform is brought up from storage, pressed, and made presentable."
"Aye ma'am."

[Zepplin Manufacturers]

Dock 1

Carla took in the bay for a moment before staring at a wrist read out delicately pointing out atmospheric content then gently unfolding the folded writ, silver logo covered stylus extending like flowing water.

“Okay Sergeant, the legalities first, if you’re the sovereign state person of scene responsibility you can take this writ and formally accept it. Just sign on lines three and four to state you witnessed our boarding and actions and will act “as best you can” as an “agent impartial to judgment”, and that you attest this is how you found the scene and that you are acting in “good faith”, there’s a second red lined copy for you to retain, if you want to have someone else read through the writ such as your ships legal officer we can wait but I do formally attest as an officer of the peace of the Long Patrol that it is non prejudicial to you or yours given the common standards of good conduct and military discipline and law within the parameters of an agreement reached in good faith.”

Carla sniffed the air again and grimaced.

“After that I suggest were going to micro scan and record this room and then I’m going to ask you and mine to clean this .. less than ship shape space then remove you and your men’s signatures and trails for parity, then scan and map this whole place down to her molecules.”

She stared at Esposito who was apparently engrossed by something on one of the tatters of paper by his feet and tapped the writ who feeling the glare snapped back to position.

“After we have done that and gotten a run down from you and yours on the whys and how’s of this platforms normal operations and run them against what we can see now we will probably ask the Justice flows to fire a recon drone out to whatever distance out system to match the time all of this fell apart at and actually watch it and map it against the projections.”

Carla offered the stylus and the writ.

[Galba Dea]

Dock 1

---

Sgt Stanton was more than a little floored that this writ should land in his wheelhouse, as it were. He was under the impression, as had been most of the marines, that Long Patrol involvement had been down to some extant international agreement or other, well out of the range of thought of your usual Royal Stellarine, especially those in the so-called Away Corps.

As far as authority went, however, he was the effective commander of the vessel at present, and under Dean jurisprudence, it was his to dispense with as he saw fit. Given that he had his orders, and his orders had been to facilitate the Long Patrol's inspection, he was prepared to play along.

He stared at the stylus for a moment, realized belatedly it was a pen-analogue, and scribed his signature in the appropriate positions before handing it back as though it was some radioactive quantity, his copy vanishing into one of his outfit's convenient pockets to be dealt with later. Stellarines loved procedure, as a rule, but paperwork was for the brass. "Right."

He unhooked a line from a utility on his belt, plugging it into a socket on the wall, as he nudged one earpiece of his headset back into place using a practiced motion of his shoulder and neck. "Ops, Sata Calling. I'm going to need a turnout party to dock 1 stet."

After a pause, presumably listening to a response, he unplugged the line and plugged it back into what was probably his personal radio outfit. "This scanning process... does it take long? I'm only asking because my party's just about the size needed for one watch on this rig and if I need a second or third party Irrascable will need to be informed."

Irrascible
Captain's Quarters

---

In keeping with the grand navy tradition of setting a procedure and then promptly and universally ignoring it, even Commander Coultier's uniform had become such a violation. It was practice so common that the tailors who served the officer class didn't need to be told to make it happen, but every officer aboard an actual vessel in the Stellar Navy had two dress uniforms, and they were issued in two sizes so that, in contravention of sixteen standing orders (she'd checked), spacer's leathers could be worn under the larger. It was a valuable practice - the leathers even provided some protection against small arms and even light ray fire, in addition to, by virtue of being worn, being relatively easy to don in the event of a shipboard loss-of-pressure event. For female officers, this was an even easier problem to solve, since the shorter-at-waist nature of the jacket allowed a space in the small of the back for the reserve air and mask pack to be worn, without looking wholly incongruous, strapped to the thigh as she had seen many male officers do it.

She wore a saber at her side, the long-antiquated weapon having absolutely no technological qualities, in violation of a few other ordinances that required officers to be effectively armed at all times. The saber was a family allowance, a special rule written into military law before the Stellar Navy had even been organized.

"Say that again?"
The functionary behind her, watching her try and adjust her pants with pins so that her spacer's boots would fit over them - another violation - shifted uncomfortably. "I said the First Sea Lord's flagship has been ordered to prepare to depart from Luna at once for interstellar cruise."
She turned to glare at the officer, given this uncomfortable news. "Ensign, I've got a shiny fiver that says you and I might wind up finding ourselves in the same system as His Royal Highness the Crown Prince well before the gate-gun is completed."

[Zepplin Manufacturers]

Dock 1

Carla flipped a holo dust display outward with one simple motion of a finger from an indent on her left wrist, it soon flashing through a rainbow as it booted before appearing as a 1:350th model of the full real time exterior view of the platform between them. It was complete with eye catching white points indicating external scan sources from Justice Flows halo, which now engulfed local volume to a few light seconds, and the dark green moving points of the independent probes as they raced outward to cover the entire system. Pie charts, displays, graphs, estimates of material composition and there limits all spinning outward in ever greater detail before another brief motion halted the ever expanding morass of data and estimates along with half a dozen corporate logos as various annalist gear began spitting out results.

"Timeline estimate is around two hours plus minus 30 with what we have got on hand Sergeant. Now if you would ask your personnel in this room to hold still as if for a photo.. Esposito, full scan when there ready this room, full detail"

"Aff and stet First." Espositos thick accent barked out before he started pulling various small metallic cigar shaped probes, which as he placed them in mid air hovered in silence for a moment before darting into the corners of the Dock.

Carla turned back to the rest of the team, the display going dark and siphoning back into her wrist as she did.

"Break down and deploy for full scan. Metal stress pattern priority, I want a solid rec and time index!"

[Galba Dea]

Dock 1

---

The probes honestly impressed the Stellarines, who had to move out of the way, and, eventually, through an open airlock into the station proper. Such technology was known, sure, but rarely used. Miniaturization on this scale went beyond what was possible with standard electromechanics and Babbage Quantization. Aetheric Oscillation Difference Engineering might have had promise, but if there were such machines in vivo, they were classified military hardware like nothing the Stellarines relegated to an Away Fleet would have had access to. They watched only a short time, before someone conveyed a message to Stanton in a palm-shielded whisper and they vanished back down the gangway, presumably to deal with whatever incident or minor crisis had required the man's attention.

The Dock had been placed under significant stress recently, though this was consistent with having been re-pressurized and entered from vacuum. Of most significance, however, the whole room had been slightly magnetized, as the power of the supposed CME washed over it, aligning the atomic structure as magnets were wont to do. Too, there were signs of Embrittling. A few seemingly-redundant systems, fitted for electrical rather than phlogistonic power, had burned out completely.

That this alignment was not orbit-down was of some strangeness, but given the rig's extensive orbital control measures, it was possible its orbital inclination and attitude had changed since the event.

Antient Hall of Parliament
City of Galba Roy, Dean Terra, Dea Stellis
Court of the Crown in Council

---

Debate had dragged on for nearly an hour by the time Prince Valerian stood from his seat beside the vacant throne, which slowly, but very thoroughly, shocked the ministers and members of this ancient house of law and order into silence. Even the most vociferous of common politician knew full well when to stow it, and, to his sister's view, Valerian's stern visage was an over-use of his gravitas. The room would have fallen silent without it, and he would have given no press-bait by revealing his frustration at the matter. She could read the republican headlines already - Prince Interrupts Parliament Unilaterally.

He probably would have said that was his job. "I am very pleased," he said, more pleasantly than he looked, "That my good friends in this hallowed chamber have plenty to say on the subject of the Invictus Accident, a matter which we are in no position to know much anything about."
Laurel continued to enjoy herself, listening in polite blankness. If the Prime Minister or a Colonial Governor had said that in this chamber, there would be an uproar. Universal Censure. Instead, the Prince had said it, and the frustrated had to bite their tongue. The might of the crown was no longer absolute, but there was a reason, over thousands of years of history, it had not been abandoned. The politicians needn't obey, but they must acquiesce.

The Prince continued, "It has been the pleasure of House Sussex to ask the right honourable Minister for Justice to appoint a Special Investigator into the events at our colony of Invictus, and I have been informed that our Investigator has elected to contract the investigation to the Long Patrol-"

This, to the surprise of both Royals, actually did cause an uproar. The Prince rolled his eyes, stooping over a rail to confer with the house speaker, who had risen from his seat to consult with him, while Princess Laurel looked on in very visible shock. Eventually, the speaker himself turned, his voice booming as though from the very walls by the nature of his vocal enhancements. "We will have order!"

The thunderous command lead to a period of ringing silence, during which the Prince straightened, adjusting the jacket of his admiralty uniform. "Accordingly, this house is asked to pass a resolution by the close of its business today, allowing the use of Coronium Bow vessels in Invictus, to allow the Stellar Navy to deploy an observer squadron and military police to the system, in order to enforce compliance of our agreement with the Long Patrol, and, if necessary, return any criminal element from the colony to the Home System, in the event this disaster was in fact an act of malice."

That one of the said ships was his flagship seemed to have slipped his mind.

[Zepplin Manufacturers]

Luytens star, Perdition City, Falkin building

This is the inhabited galaxy. The Milky way in the Virgo cluster. Four hundred and sixty five thousand constantly interfacing sentient species across one cubic zetametre a bare tenth of a percentage of which can be claimed to be bound by anything we would recognize as jurisprudence and a bare tenth of that which we patrol. The inhabitants of this vast lens represent every possible race, ideology and chemical make up that the creator no matter what his form sought to deposit here. Alpha sector, this cultural nexus that makes up our collective home. Trillions work and play here. Most strive to achieve something better and like any other place anywhere there are those that have it and those that want it, those that have it enjoy it no matter how they got it, those who want it can get it with the support of civilized upstanding species and sympathetic neighbors.

Some however seek the easy way, for even in a galaxy of wonder to see there are always those who are blind. That's where I come in, doing my job to the best of my ability on a daily basis. I work here, the Falkin building headquarters of the Long Patrol, the long range multi system law enforcement arm of the Incorporated State. I carry a badge. My name is Thursday. Admiral of the peace Wenclease Thursday. The boss is high justice Mcnamara. Our job is to enforce the laws and preserve the safety of decent sentients.

The dull white rock half a mile overhead was lost in a haze of flashing advertisements and baby blue fake sky illumination panels. All of that was crisscrossed with tube car paths, utility gantries, lifts to the surface ports and infrastructure piping making it almost feel as if the sky was a slightly blue circuit board. To the long patrol tech and admin staff spread out in the grass covered security field surrounded park space in the building's rear, serviced by half a dozen food kiosks, it was, however, just another lunch break.

To Admiral of the peace Wenclease Thursday it was barely visible beyond the bulk of the Happy Happy foods deep fried battered hyperdog. Banished for a time were the intruding messages, the reports, and the endless priority authorizations of the central operations pit. Now only the rising aroma of processed, spiced meat and grease like refined chon reached him over the smell of freshly cut grass and the feeling of the perfectly mimicked artificial sunlight of the ever present pleasant summer's day as the wooden benchs light warmed surface gently pressed into his back.

Just as he had filled his first bite of the morass however...

"Really Wen if Anna could see you now, I mean honestly a hyperdog? What is that four thousand cals? "

If his mouth was not full his teeth would have ground together.

Sykes. Richard Sykes, formally an OF-4 office of fleet intel puke, now a something something something of Int-Secs office of frontier circumstances.

Wenclease swallowed and slow turned his head giving the smiling man in the captains uniform and snorted.

"If you must know ..."captain" is it now? its my brake day and why you persist on finding me here rather than going through Nora?"

"well you know must keep in practice and all that."

With that Sykes sat onto the bench.

"So I hear the vulture is out in Gamma Wenn, and well you know we hear things from time to time and well it looks like he may just get to meet an executive of our clients .. quite a good prospective for the area really"

"Sylvester is perfectly capable Sykes no matter your ..organisations little tiff with him on Rajat IV. In any case theirs a Dip-Sec ambassador along, Sylvester will be fine, unlike you if you do not make yourself scarce and let me have my lunch in peace"

"Oh Wenn after all I do for you... I do not mind Rajat IV at all ..after all that is why I got OF-5, Sergei was always a little ..heavy handed no Wenn that is not what I'm hear for ..have you read Jørnsons portfolio? it makes ..interesting bedtime fair, you may just want to warn Vulture boy"

Wenclease stared at Sykes hard.

"Fine I will give it a look"

"thanks Wenn I always know just when you will"

"..Sykes.. Go away."

[Galba Dea]

Power of Man Central Operations Room

---

The Stellarines had not done a very good job of minimizing their disturbance of the scene. Their shipboard operations training had emphasized a certain cleanliness which was passively current - a clean-as-you-go mentality that had restored Central Operations into proper working order. This much was clear to the Sergeant at Arms when he arrived on the scene, to a customary, though somewhat inaccurate, call of "Officer on Deck."

Strictly speaking, he was the vessel's captain, until it was turned back over to its operators. "What's the trouble?"
A specialist corporal - perched over the newly-operational Table of Orbits as it chit-chatted its way through an update, enamel-coated disks rotating into place to display the latest data on the station's orbit and the orbits of nearby craft - gestured to the offending device. "We're low. We didn't look low when we boarded, but we're low. About 100 statue low."

Stanton growled in the back of his throat, prematurely releasing the magnetic grasp of his heels and toes to hover in momentary weightlessness. "Alright. Get the latest solar weather from Irrascible. If we're above 0.4, move the ship."
"We were told not to move the ship."
"I'm not dying for a crime scene," Stanton barked, letting his feet cling to the floor again, and turned to leave the way he came.

As the Long Patrol continued their scan, they would find something odd - the misaligned magnetic field damage from the supposed CME-event was misaligned differently from different points around the radius of the vessel. As their pattern was drawn over more and more of the ship's structure, it became evident that the source of the magnetic pulse had been internal.

[Zepplin Manufacturers]

Dock 1

Carla sat on a folding chair, surrounding her a half dozen smart dust displays haloed around her in the docking bays cavernous space. Of interest was the live feed from Moreu which took center view.

"Condition two, condition two, set personal inertics and check seals, we are about to reach the triangulation point, confirm Beverlys SAR drones are prepped."

Carla waited till she had all the responses before following it with

"Proceed Moreu"

"This is Moreu, proceeding to the point of origin probes are 23 standard meters ahead of me contact in fifteen"

"Esposito here, platform is altering position, possible due to increase of solar activity"

"Confirmed, Ops, please confirm sitrip platform movement"

Moreus voice's strain was hidden in an almost pilot like monotone "Five seconds to probe point contact"

"Ops confirms, platform is performing a station keeping burn"

"Contact"

Moreus visual was haloed by the readings from the probes racing ahead of him. "Passives show no ARAD triggers"

"Give me high detail on that point! full spectrum!"

[Galba Dea]

Power of Man

---

"Irascible reporting solar weather factor zero mark fife two," a technical Stellarine barked, from his repeater-terminal for the communications system. Their small number had forced him to place the radio hut into automated mode, sending all recieved messages on ticker-tape to his station.
Sergeant-at-Arms Stanton nodded. "Right. Pilot - stationkeeping maneuver, orbital correction 300-by-420 statute, timing at your discretion. Baker and Blackwell, leave your station to me, get your asses down to drive engineering, and make her ready on the double! Move it!"

Within five minutes, the station's considerable Aetheric Tractor had spun up, torquing against the luminiferous aether to accelerate the station and move its orbit by the prescribed amount, terms of engagement be damned. Stanton was pleased to hear the small enameled disks of the Table of Orbit's display face cycle over and over, showing the updated orbit with up-to-the-minute accuracy.

"Ah, good. That's ideal."

Irascible

---

Commander Coultier, girded for the less-ordinary travel of a ship's tender, and the less-trustworthy systems of a foreign vessel, reliant as they would undoubtedly be on electromechanical technologies, sprang up the gangplank and through the cramped, closet-like airlock of the tender. She had made it clear down the vessel to its cockpit by the time the mechanical cricket in the console had begun to chirp, indicating a pending wireless telephony call. Well, likely not wireless, as the tender was still connected to its umbilical. "Tender."
"Ma'am, astrogation reports an orbit shift for Power of Man. They've activated their Tractor."
"They were sitting low anyway. If the Stellarines need someone to take responsibility, I'll do it. Retroactively log that order."
"Should I log your retroactive order to log the order?"
"Don't be absurd. Tender out."