Sun and Steel [FT, IC]

by **Olimpiada** » Sun Sep 03, 2017 8:49 pm

Muranis, Setsko
Bridge of the FWOS Colossus

The laser was getting hotter, and Ambrosius was getting frustrated. This was not a new thing, but it had recently gained a new intensity.

“The fuck do you mean that the rounds bounced?”

“That’s the reading we’re getting,” replied Akropolites, equally confused.

“Their armor is titanium. If Ireul is getting it right, which it tends to, each of our rounds has enough energy to vaporize… 45 quintillion grams of the stuff. That’s ten quintillion cubic centimeters of armor, each impact. Run the scans again, dammit! Shields don’t stop c-frac. That’s why we use obscenely fast projectiles.”

His rage at the lack of cooperation from his machine wasn’t helped by someone yelling about several hundred incoming fliers. “PD net can’t take this,” said someone else.

Ambrosius waved them off. “Take a page from our enemy’s book and blink to flank them with the fleet. That’ll get the missiles off of us, and maybe it will keep the damned laser away too.” While he said this, he sent commands to the other dreadnoughts to work on firing solutions for the enemy’s command vessel, just in case. He was likely just getting a bad sensor reading, but it never hurt to be safe.

When the blink happened, the twelve Longinus guns roared to life, spewing rounds across the void as the mighty vessels rumbled with the force of the recoil. Some rough guesses gave Ambrosius a rough idea of the force, coming in at rougly two gigatons each second concentrated on the command vessel. The gashes on the hull took a brief reprieve to slowly cool, the red light emanating from the melted plating fading as heat and light radiated into empty space.

Before he handled the inevitable second wave of missiles that the Constantinoples (and even the Hwach’as) were readying to defend against, Ambrosius took a minute to review the new losses. He noted a discrepancy with the charts. The names of many of the vessels he had sent into the point blank group did not appear, yet their IFF transponders weren’t registering either. Something strange was afoot.

Muranis, Setsko
Bridge of the FWOS Cosmic Surgery

Fortunately for Isidorus, his plan had worked. Sort of. His illusion of death had prevented the loss of his ship, and several other commanders had done the same after witnessing him. Only ten of the original twenty remained, and one was only half functional, the two halves drifting mostly dead after a plasma lance had cut open the ship, forcing the bulkheads to slam shut to save the atmosphere and those who breathed it. Every so often, one of the ships would fire off an attitude thruster to adjust its course, seeking to meet up with the Cosmic Surgery for whatever it was that Isidorus had planned. The process was arduous, to ensure the illusion of drifting debris, but eventually, the limping ships were there, clocking in at five Constantinoples, and another five Hwach’as. From where Isidorus was pointing his ship, the Admiral had just blinked his fleet in to a position 90 degrees off from him. Where he was below the fleet facing up, Admiral Diogenus was behind it facing at it.

Once again, the third dimension of space had seemingly been neglected, and Isidorus was presented with a clear target. He sent out a quantum encrypted message on one of their general use radio channels for fleet operations.

Charge of the light brigade, target their support battleships. Ave Hominum, gentlemen.

And with that, his pilot initiated another painful ten g burn as the Cosmic surgery belched forth yet another volley of missiles, and both grasers and nuclear warheads came to bear on the hostile battleships supporting the Shield of Hope.

by **Gebeta** » Mon Sep 04, 2017 9:09 am

Mining Rig 3

The drill stopped, grinding to a halt as it hit a solid rock. Or so it seemed.

The team went to work pulling it up, to create pilot holes. 100 feet down, the drill would take a few minutes to surface.
“What do you think we hit,” Janus said, one of the sweat drenched miners. Despite the suits cooling system, the heat from the drill radiated horridly.

“Not sure,” Freen said. All said, he was unsure of what was here. The systems had not found any of the elements of profitable deposits. Of course, the Survey rigs had better sensors. Able to pick up mines or tunnels. There were a few that proved useful.

HQ
“Combat reported in several areas. Reports of drop troops as well. Nothing in our immediate area. I am aware that we are in the process of drilling in one area. I recommend leaving the sites and regrouping the fleet” Kerensky said as he read out loud a message from the orbital ships.

He agreed. The fleet could better defend itself it there was a central point of convergence. His Timberwolf mechs, Madcats to others, would be his fast response, yet heavy hitters. His tanks would back up those.

He keyed a secured line with higher encryption than normal to the orbital ships.
“Are you in?” He asked. Two voices said yes.
“We need to open weapon stocks for the fleet. As well as start sending down crew. I don't want to risk losing either fleet. I doubt we will have to fight, but we need to be ready. The Pelicans can carry some weapons pods, plus we need the mechs and tanks extended fight magazines down here, where they can be ready for quick resupply.”

“Kerensky” Captain Uvalla said “I understand your decision, but I think we should evac. Take as much as we can. I know losing the carrier will be a big loss, but I'm sure the company will understand. Perhaps even sell it to the locals to make a profit, that will shut up management.” She finished.

Uvalla was right. The carrier would never make it to orbit. Too large.The rigs would be easier to get, counting on the fact that they could get the lifters needed from corporate. The carrier needed a dedicated landing ship.

Kerensky sighed as he thought. It didn't seem right. To run and leave this place. Most of the crew was made up of the people who lived here. What was he to do? Send them all off into the desert, no supplies but what they could get with the last of pay? It didn't seem right to do that. He couldn't allow them to stay in the carrier. No, if he did, who was to say that the locals could understand how to pilot it. Not that they were dumb, but it took months of training to pilot, operate and learn how to fight in a carrier.

Mean while back at the mining site, it was more apparent that they had discovered a more valuable thing that minerals.’

”Comm HQ, tell them we need a rig immediately. We found a top priority.

The message went out, Sadly, it went out on an open comm. It was standard op to use an open comm, but in the excitement, the miners forgot to encode it.

COMMS
INQUIRY
UNID OBJECT
Rig _ to HQ. We have an object needing special attention. Please dispatch Pelican and crew with Platform ASAP
End

All around there was war, yet this mining fleet had managed to stay free of it. The workers had thoughts of leaving but didn't want to lose pay, but the land they called home was under attack. What was one to do? Fight and win, only to come home to a pile of rubble, with no money to feed hungry mouths, and shelter them in the heat of the day?

by **Remnants of Exilvania** » Mon Sep 04, 2017 12:55 pm

Erzadmiral Elza von Hohenlohe
Osmium-Verschweiger Class "Leichentuch"
Muranis' Orbit above Kembra

"Milady, we have reached positions above Kembra. Enemy forces have so far not started any hostilities. The Titan Class Carrierdreadnoughts have formed a protective circle slightly below us so that we can aid in the defense. All units are simply awaiting your command to make landfall."

, the officer finished his report before returning to his post on the bridge. Everyone was quiet on the bridge, everyone was holding his breath in expectance of the order that was about to be given. Elza von Hohenlohe looked over the lifeless gas masks of her crew, no emotion visible behind the green glowing visors. Monsters, that was what they were. Monsters without empathy, without a heart, with nothing to drive them over than their urge to kill, to destroy, to utterly eradicate existence itself! And yet, despite how much they had sacrificed already for the glory of their godesses, despite how many systems, civilisations, races had burned on their sacrificial pyre, they still weren't at an end. Sein's creation seemed endless to her.

And yet, while reflecting on all she had done in the 346 years of her life, a short span for someone descended from one of the last remaining noble families, determination surged up inside her. It didn't matter how great the defensive forces of this planet were. It didn't matter how many Exilvanians would loose their lives in this war of eradication. All that counted was that she had received an order from ZZ Reichskommandant Haegler to utterly destroy the planet and it's people as well as to acquire the ancient technology recently found for evalution by the Exilvanian Scientific Research Department. She took the microphone into her hand and ordered the men on her bridge to establish a connection with the admirals of the other ships. Once establish she said:

"Meine Herren, please ensure that the following message will be broadcasted on your entire ships via the internal broadcasting network. Danke sehr."

She did not wait long before she continued speaking, this time with her voice sounding determined and ruthless, ready to decide the fate of millions without even batting an eye.

"Soldiers...Pilots...Men of Exilvania! Today is the day that marks the execution of an operation we have planned for a long time. It is time to feast upon the taste of battle once more, to enjoy the fruits of war!

I know how much you yearn for it. I have heard the longing in your words when I have spoken to you, I have felt your uncontrollable desire to kill and destroy when walking past you and now is the time for you to finally unleash all this built up frustration and hatred. It is time for you to show this world the might of our arms, no, our people! It is you who are the hands that bludgeon, the teeth that bite and tear at the enemy. You have always been the beating heart of our nation and you will forever be the vital organ keeping us alife for this is what we were created for! To wage war eternal against the vassals of creation!

We owe our predecessors a debt but we cannot let the ghosts of their defeats prevent us from doing what must be done. They lost where they had to and showed their limits, their weakness, their incompetence! It is where they failed that we will succeed! And with time and great patience, we will finally reach their vision of the future, a future devoid of life, devoid of anything that was created by Sein!

We are Exilvanians! A name that strikes fear into the hearts of all who hear it and still have a heart! And today we will prove once more, why we have earned this name!

By my orders, the orders of Elza von Hohenlohe, Erzadmiral of the III Terror Fleet and supreme commander of this operation, I command you o commence with operation Feuerregen!"

And already while she spoke, the large armour plates covering and protecting the Carrierdreadnoughts opened in the inside of the defensive ring, revealing dozens and more hangar bays, filled with ships. And with her finishing words, wave after wave of atmospheric bombers, fighters as well as large and heavily armoured Assault Landing Ships was launched from these. Within mere minutes, hundreds of small vessel were right above Kembra, forming up into squadrons before making their descent into the atmosphere of Muranis. They were headed for the arcology of Kembra and the smaller surrounding arcologies. They would pave the way for wave after wave of landing ships to land ground forces around the shallow sea. The Exilvanian Invasion of Muranis had begun.

by **Bakra** » Mon Sep 04, 2017 5:33 pm

ATTN: Remnants of Exilvania

Kembra Arcology
Muranis

It was fitting that the Bakran Marines were charged with the defense of Kembra and her arcologies. Naturally Army units and civil defense forces were assisting, but Field General Travis Murtaz found the poetry in war. Though their main purview of operations was usually as a voidborne force, there were frequent occasions that the Marines were petitioned to return to the battlefield of their predecessors: planets. The fact that they were fighting in the sea was icing on the cake, harkening back to the age of sailing ships. Ten thousand Marines, an entire division, were here to defend Kembra and its satellite arcologies in the ultra-urban environment of the underwater cities in addition to the tens of thousands of Army troopers.

For the last ten days I've has been over the statistics and reports of the thirty million inhabitants of Kembra and the other three arcologies of Triven, Umbal, and Vagum. How much food they had stockpiled, how many people would probably starve in a siege, how many civilian losses would be deemed acceptable, how many soldiers would have to be sacrificed against varying amounts of enemy combatants to ensure victory, how many would die of disease in the varying levels of the city, the amount of citizens who could make up an effective resistance should portions of the arcologies fall, the amount of damage the arcologies could take before they would succumb to water pressure and fall, and various other macabre numbers. It was all very cold and calculated, accepting of the circumstances. Typically Bakran.

Murtaz had ordered the hydroponic farms picked for all the food they had and then sealed them off when it became apparent that Kembra would be attacked. There would be no more food for anyone in the city, invader or defender, and the stockpiles had been rigged to burn if they were discovered. He expected the civilian government to be resistant to it, but he had forgotten their lineage could be traced to the hardy warriors of the Deltan worlds.

Murtaz himself was positioned in a command center, hidden in the thousands of Kembran streets. Around him were two dozen officers and operators, the command force of the city before he took charge of the defenses. A few of his Marines were around him, towering above the other soldiers. Nearly every part of them was in some way crafted, from their artificial organs to their discipline to their monstrous armor. The city wouldn't tolerate any vehicles larger than a civilian-grade truck in some of the largest streets, making his Marines walking tanks across the city and their mechs super weapons amongst the infantry.

"Field General, the Exilvanians are holding orbit over Kembra. It looks like they'll be hitting the arcologies sir." One of the operators said.

Of course they are. The fleet was supposed to give us two weeks of clear skies, but circumstances are rarely accepting of soldiers. I know better than to ask where the fleet is. From what I've seen heard ships are impossibly large, and they're going to want to gather forces to take them down. I don't know whether to feel disregarded or flattered that they believe me to hold the city.

Murtaz simply nodded, knowing that no amount of reassurance was going to help the situation. Besides, words only meant so much to these people when an enemy army is at their gates.

The defenses of Kembra were not as sophisticated as the other cities. They were mainly concentrated in the anti-submarine guns, large batteries of railguns that fired explosive-tipped rounds quickly and concisely at their targets. The rounds were small, but they didn't need to obliterate their target, merely poke holes in them so they would drown finding places to dock or drill into the thick canopy of the arcology.

He leaned forward, waiting for hundreds of guns to start firing tens of thousands of rounds per minute at whatever came at them. He knew some would get through, they always did in these situations, and he never wondered how many would survive. He only knew how many lived long enough for him to kill.

ATTN: CASM

Thath
Muranis

"This isn't entirely important, but if you can tell me, do you know whether or not the double a cannons mounted everywhere fire ballistics or lasers? For your own sake, I hope it's the latter. I do imagine that if all of the defenses above our heads falters for even a single moment, this place right here will be the first target on a list for dropping as many nuclear bombs as it takes to turn the ground into nothing but volcanic glass. I've seen innumerable images of large stretches of what must have been once a city in the distant past burned to the ground in a nuclear holocaust. It's a more common occurance than you'd like to think, you wouldn't believe how thorough some people are. Lasers would be better for shooting nukes down, but you've probably got some subterranean mini city, or a subway, or a series of bunkers that might be able to protect you."

The man looked back at Hermes and raised an eyebrow, "You seem awfully concerned with the state of our defenses. No matter, anyone could find out what their ammunition makeup is I suppose. They are nearly all computerized batteries, not networked together of course, but each computer greatly assists the gunner. If need be, such as if every soldier's suit was ruptured during a biological or radiological strike, they can all be automated, but this is highly discouraged in the minuscule case of a hack."

He then looked forward and continued pushing through the crowed, "To answer your query about ammunition, they are rapid-firing railguns, each explosive tipped. Sort of a Bakran standard. Missile silos exist, of course, some of them simply ballistic to rip apart nuclear weapons, others with nuclear tips themselves. Even if they did launch nuclear missiles or artillery here though, we have overlapping city-wide shields power by heat from the core. No, it would take infantry to storm this city." He sounded sure of this conclusion, but it wouldn't take a genius to realize it was because he heard it from someone in the military.

"Do forgive me for that, my thoughts went off on a tangent right there. Enough people have come here, all for the same reason, it would be most unwise to have tried to communicate through open broadcasts, that would only draw more attention than there already is. You may or may not know this, this might be on need to know bases for your government, but i know, this may be above your clearance but there is a single reason why so many nations have been drawn to a remote desert world. here let me just get a little closer, this stuff you don't want everyone hearing, unless you plan on starting a gold rush among civillians too. Somewhere beneath the sands, somewhere on your world, somewhere on this very world has been discovered advanced artifacts belonging to an advanced race, that is all my people know."

"Yes, the artifacts," the man chuckled a bit, "Yeah, everyone knows about that. Just that they are here, nothing else. Hell, half the people here think it was made up, the other half thinks the monks took all of it and just want to let them have it. These are a conservative people, those on Muranis." He said this with some disdain barely hidden in his voice, with no heed to the guards or others around him, "Concerned only with living through the day."

"The exact whereabouts is a mystery to my government, and so is what secrets the artifacts hold. That, my friend, is the Decillion Dollar question. I don't know what real allies your government has, and which nations fighting to 'defend you' that have come here really have plans to secretly cart off the single most valuable items in this part of the Galaxy off to their home world, once they know where they are. I have to say at least the invaders are honest about their intentions, and my government. Well, my government has sent me here because we'd very much like to politely ask to study any of the items of great scientific interest, that your government is willing to offer."

"I must confess I know very little about that. I honestly might have gone native, but I don't even believe they exist. Something made up by the information traders," the man's placid expression changed little, as if he was just talking about the weather, "Nevertheless, it may be something to discuss with the exarch. Ah, here we are now!"

The man led them to the steps of the Governor's Palace, although no governor in name occupied it. It stood in the center of the city looking like a massive stone slab, its doors, windows, and arches carved into it to resemble a sort of obelisk to bureaucracy. Sandbags filled with reinforced cement were stacked then "zapped", hardening in mere seconds to create extra walls for soldiers to hide behind and fight in. All the entrances into the Palace except the grand entrance leading into the wide central boulevard of the city's northern sector were blockaded off to make them almost part of the wall. Razorwire and electric fences covered the balconies of the capital building to keep dropship troops from using them easily. The Sëudar were stationed in seemingly every crevice with a handheld missile launcher or heavy machine gun, itching for a target. It was apparent the exarch was willing to make this place his glorious last stand if it would every come to this.

Exarch Tev Xurn stood on the steps of the grand entrance, ordering soldiers this way and that, assessing the defenses of the city. Much of his military prowess came from his brief stint in the Bakran Army and from his advisor Colonel Guthna, but he was doing at least an adequate job in preparing the capital for invasion. He at least had enough zeal for all of them.

Xurn spotted his aide, his face contorting into a completely emotionless smile, as if he was just putting a lot of effort into acknowledging the dignitary but nothing else. His face was middle aged and he was at least physically fit if not the tallest man on Muranis, though his bulky and highly ceremonial armor made up for it. He wore the white skull, denoting the rank of exarch as a civilian-military leader, proudly in the center of his chest plate.

"Mr. Hermes," His voice was course from both political campaigning and his interest in giving orders to soldiers, "I was waiting for you. I regret I can't resort to diplomatic niceties at the moment. What is it you've come for?"

ATTN: Dimoniqud

Bridge of Loltha
Gargaz Battlegroup

Immediately upon the heavy destroyers moved through the cloud and Jaygo received their confirmation signals, he launched a volley from the fleet, this time concentrated entirely on the Dimoniqud fleet. The decoys annoyed him greatly, and initially caused him to think the Dimonicist had less ships thank they actually did, but he felt better knowing that he got the decoys out of the way once open battle hit.

The Bakrans hadn't launched any fighters yet, though they had been waiting in the bays waiting to be launched from their tubes. One of the advantages of using a launching system was that you could disgorge your fighters and bombers relatively quickly, although the setup was a timely endeavor that had to happen prior to battle. This was what the Dynasty-class and Dragon-class carriers were meant for, launching literally thousands of single ships and pulling away from the battle. With the Dimoniqud fleet within sight, they launched nearly 1500 Sundevil and Hammer fighters, slowly forming rings of single-ships around the Bakran forces, little parasites seeking to take a bit each out of the Dimonicist hide.

Of course being the ones charing out of the cloud, the Dimoniqud had the advantage in terms of first strike, something Jaygo bitterly accounted for. Their volley wasn't as concentrated on the smaller ships this time, as the Bakran fleet was divided into subparts in an effort to finally hunt down and trap the much smaller fleet. The cruisers and battleships were equally hit now, but the battleships could shrug off a volley or two on their own.

The destroyer Significant and the frigates Beyrn, Samuel's Shadow, and Sun were not so fortunate. Most of them had already endured much more damage before, but this last volley utterly obliterated them. The cruisers Elephant and Harmonious Battle were hit hard, but their battle-ready capacity was at 60%, making them able to hit and be hit in Jaygo's book.

The responding Bakran volley was much more concentrated than their previous attempts to silence the Dimonicist fleet. Quite literally a hundred of S.T.A.R.C. railrounds fired from the Bakran fleet, having been charging their spinals rather than exchange volleys during the Dimonicist trek through the cloud. Jaygo wanted to make sure they could see the Dimoniqud this time, not guesswork through a nuclear cloud. The Bakrans were just waiting for them to come out and charge; may not have been the most effective at saving their ships, but Admiral Jaygo's caution wasn't always the best course of action. He waited on launching missile batteries however until the single ships entered the fray. Best wait to see how the Dimoniqud took this volley.

ATTN: Gebeta

Mining Rig Three
Muranis

When the drill was removed, the crew would have found an object resembling both a sphere and a cube. It had etchings that weren't quite written communication but didn't seem artistic either, as if they served some ancient utilitarian purpose. The cube's corners jutted out from the sphere portion of the object, as if a sphere had started growing inside the cube and had it's edges peek out. If handled either purposefully or accidentally, the object would occasionally jut out long thin tendrils of metal than had the consistency of wet noodles, then retreat back inside the object as if it was just feeling out its surroundings.

by **Universal Union of Panhumanity** » Mon Sep 04, 2017 5:48 pm

UCV Red October
Setsko System
Approximately 500,000km from Muranis

The 7th Fleet suddenly popped into existence, having successfully completed the superluminal jump. Almost immediately, the six clusters began to fall apart, the vessels activating their drive systems and moving to their assigned positions. The Red October examined the projected map of Muranis, noting the positions of major settlements and defensive emplacements. The Great Reach was mostly uninhabited, and considering the environmental conditions and the biological nature of the planet's inhabitants, it was easy to see why.

"The city of Selneasis is defended by a large battlegroup, based around an orbital fortress." It began, once again addressing the avatars. "It is our plan to engage this fortress from long range with our heavy kinetics, we should be able to pound it into submission without much difficulty. Once the accompanying fleet has been neutralised, we can land our ground forces and take the city."

The avatars nodded in agreement, the plan was clear. In real-space, the Kinetistars, HCVs, and SCVs targeted the fortress, unleashing a hail of heavy osmium projectiles. Although the enemy was far too small to be seen with the naked eye at this distance, the advanced sensors and hyperprocessors of the warships allowed them to target the orbital fortress with deadly accuracy. Hundreds of megatons hurtled through the void, the vessels continuing to launch volley after volley, intent on reducing the fortress to scrap metal.

The vast distance between the 7th fleet and the Bakran battlegroup allowed them to fire upon the immobile fortress with impunity: any attempted retaliation could easily be avoided or intercepted by the agile vessels of the fleet. To ensure protection from enemy projectiles, the interceptors were dispatched to the edge of the fleet, roaming beyond the warships proper. It was their task to bring down enemy missiles and kinetic rounds, and their defensive envelope would make it very difficult for the Bakrans to even land a hit upon the warships proper. This was the first strike against the enemy, an undeclared attack of devastating power, designed to swiftly cripple the fortress before they could even react. The Red October hoped it would be successful.

by **Paddy O Fernature** » Mon Sep 04, 2017 6:59 pm

Unnamed Cantina | City Of Haven

Deep within the confines of the nameless dive bar that had clearly seen better days, a man could almost escape the ever pressing heat of the relentless sun flying high overhead. Cold drinks, air conditioning, and even the pleasure of someones company were all readily available to help ease the desert pains that one often encountered this far out into the wastes.

That is, if one had the credits to spend...

Sitting slumped over a half empty glass of lukewarm beer, a rough man with grey just starting to appear in both his hair and unshaven face was sitting on a dried out leather stool, staring deeply into the glass as he ran a finger around the glasses rim. He was wearing a set of clothing that at one point in the past, would have been a premium set of industrial clothing. However, upon closer inspection, it didn't take a keen eye to notice that the colors had more then just faded from his khaki pants and loose fitting shirt, or notice the age lines that cracked across the surface of his leather belt and holster lying low across his hip. Shifting his weight in the chair, the man scratched his chin for a moment before lifting the beer to his face and taking a sip of the lukewarm liquid within.

Sitting the glass down onto the counter top and wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeved hand, Edward Cole risked a glance around the room at his surroundings and was almost startled by the slender brunette with shoulder length naturally curly hair that had appeared next to him, as if out of thin air. She was wearing her traditional earth tone synthetic outfit that was slightly more form fitting then anything Edward would have dared to wear. She smiled to him, revealing a moth full of near perfect pearly white teeth, before sitting down next to him and settling in. As she smiled, she glanced down at the glass sitting before Edward and couldn't help but chuckle.

"Still living the high life I see?" She mused as she glanced over to the glass.

"Maybe I like it that way Melinda, ever think about that?" He growled as he eyed her sideways.

Both of them stared at each other for a moment, before breaking into smiles.

"Asshole." Mel mouthed as she flicked her wrist back and held her palm facing the base of the glass. After a brief moment, a faint electronic chirp was heard as the embedded chip linked to her personal account was accepted.

"Whiskey, chilled." She said aloud. Almost instantly, the warm cheap beer disappeared from the glass and was replaced with a hearty brown liquid as frost started to appear on the rim before quickly spreading down the rest of the glass and covering it.

Edward smiled and reached out, taking hold of the misting glass in his hand and lifted it towards Mel, pausing for a moment to salute his friend before tilting his head back and shooting the whiskey.

Or, that's what was supposed to happen...

Mel couldn't help but laugh as Edward paused mid shot with his head tilted up towards the ceiling and completely missed his mouth with the whiskey, sending it carelessly splashing across the mans face and down across his shoulders.

"Gee, you sure do know how to impress the ladies..." Mused Mel, slightly annoyed at the waste of hard earned credits.

"Fucking hell......" mutter Edward, slamming down the now mostly empty glass and turning almost violently around in his stool, grabbing his duster styled jacket off the back of it as he practically lept across the bar and out the front door. Mel looked around in confusion for a second, before quickly getting to her feet and running after the man out into the hot desert sun. She caught up to the man a short distance away, as he was moving with a purpose through the Haven district towards the platform where their ship currently was moored at undergoing repairs.

"You know.. most men I know don't ditch me at the bar until after I've bought them dinner..." She playfully mused before suddenly having her concentration shattered by a thunderous series of explosions that seemed to come from the very heavens themselves. Looking up high into the sky, she finally saw what Edward had seen through the skylight overhead inside the bar, and left her mouth slack jawed with both equal parts bewilderment and horror. Even from the ground, the light show from the battle taking place in orbit high above the planet was clearly visible with the naked eye. However, it wasn't the fact that the planet clearly under attack that frightened both of them.

It's what might fall out of orbit that scared both the experienced spacers down to the very fiber of their being.

Gathering her senses, Mel turned her attention back to the situation and hand and quickly caught up with Edward who didn't stop moving even for a second, almost shoving his way through the ever growing crowds of people who were starting to amass in the streets to watch the light show, not knowing the danger they were in. Turning a corner around a cream colored building and finding themselves in a slightly less congested avenue, Edward quickly slipped an earpiece that he retrieved from his jacket pocket into his ear and waited for it to connect to the other line impatiently. With a pleasant tone that seemed to be received in the center of his brain, the link was established.

"Torch, Hammer, please tell me that you're still with the ship..."

There was a momentary pause on the line, before the electronic cackle faded and let the unmistakable gruff voice of Torch, the ships lead salvage expert, come through.

"Aye Capt'n, that we are. Stitch is here as well, praise be. She came back early from her market run not twenty minutes ago, looking like a kid in a candy store with all her new toys."

"Fantastic." Replied Edward, relieved that he wouldn't have to be forced with possibly abandoning his latest addition to manifest if they had to make a run for it. "Prep the ship for immediate dust off, we need to be airborne yesterday."

"This wouldn't happen to have anything to do with the firework display overhead....." Started Torch, before being abruptly cut off.

"I don't pay you for you're conversation Torch, get the goddamn ship ready."

"Aye Capt'n, Torch out." Was the final reply before the line went dead.

"That was a little harsh.." Started Mel from behind. Edward spun on his heel instantly and looked her square in the face with an expression chiseled from the very bedrock itself.

"You should know better then anyone else the goddamn danger were in" He stated in a very no nonsense tone. "I don't have the luxury of having an abundance of time nor energy to deal with their inexperience, when the very ground that we stand on at any moment could be turned to glass when someones oversized compensation suddenly decides that it want's to become a new permanent landmark on upon the surface of this inhospitable rock."

Mel paused for a moment, starting ever intently into the mans almost icy blue eyes, as if trying to peer deep into the mans very soul. However, as always and much to her disappointment, all she found was the icy and uncaring depths of a distant and frozen plane of existence. She blinked a few times, breaking the trance, before nodding her head in agreement. Edward once again turned and started moving down the street, with Mel close in tow practically nipping at his heels as they went. A few minutes later, they set eyes upon their destination.

Sitting defiantly upon the sun baked berth of the spaceport, sat the distinguished hull of the Redd Foxx. The Foxx's black exterior paint was fading in places, almost to the point of being more a dark grey then true black, and spots of rust and pitting dotted it's recesses giving away it's true age, indicating that the ship had likely seen better days. However, despite all this, the Foxx was a tried and true workhorse that had seen it's crew safely through some seriously intense situations and come out no worse for the wear. Hopefully, this would be another of those situations.

Reaching the metallic stairs leading up to the boarding ramp area of their ship and started to ascend them to the next platform, the pair suddenly found their way blocked by a massive brute of a man wearing a sweaty and stained pair of coveralls.

"Going somewhere?" The man asked, wiping a pair of greasy hands on his leggings as moved out from the shadows and into the daylight, physically blocking their path to the ship.

"Marcus, good to see you again." Lied Edward directly to the overworked mechanics grizzly face. "Actually, I was just heading back to my ship to retrieve the portable short wave and see what all the commotion overheads about."

"Heh, I bet you were." Said Marcus, as he moved closer towards to where Edward and Mel stood motionless. "Funny thing though is, is that it almost looks like you and you're gal pal here were trying to sneak past and leave my fine facility without paying us again."

As he said this, two more mechanics of equal deplorable stature appeared on either side of them, as if they were made from the stuff of shadows.

"Now, I could have sworn last time we met, that I made it perfectly clear what would happen to your face if I caught you trying to skip town on that piece of shit rust bucket that you call a ship without paying me what you owe."

Edward smirked to the man, and passively placed his hands on his hips.

"Marcus, Marcus." He mused through his sly smile. "I promise you, from one con man to the next, that I'm not trying to skip town on you."

Suddenly, the roar of the ships main turbine coming online could be heard across the berth of the port as it gained power and momentum within the confines of the engine compartment. With a blinding flash of blue and white light, the exterior engines ignited and roared to life, bathing the surrounding area in the light blue light of plasma fire. Mel and Edward both relaxed their postures in pure stunned disbelief.

"You gotta hand it to your crew sir, our timing is impeccable."

Edward shot a sarcastic frown towards Mel over his shoulder, before suddenly launching a throat punch square into Marcus's unsuspecting throat with his right hand. The man recoiled from the sudden strike, going down on one knee even as he let out a gurgled cough from his now injured windpipe. At the same moment, Mel grabbed a wrench from a nearby workstation and swung it expertly at first the closest mechanic standing next to her and then throwing it at the next, hitting him upside the head with a satisfying meaty thud and rendering both men out of the fight. Shaking the hand that delivered the strike again Marcus, Edward strode boldly forward toward the injured man before leaning down close to his face.

"Say what you want about me all you want asshole, but I don't take kindly to ANY man speaking so ill tempered about my lady." He said as he gestured toward the ship. Reaching down and grasping the mans wrist, Edward linked their two implants before transferring to the man every credit owed to him for services rendered.

"I think our business here is concluded, don't you agree Mel?" Asked Edward as he released the mans wrist and let him fully collapse to the floor, wheezing in pain. Mel nodded in agreement and quickly moved up the walkway, disappearing into the interior of the ship out of sight.

Edward stood and started to follow in Mels footsteps, when he happened to glance down at the discarded wrench used in the fight as he stepped over it and noticed Hammers initials hastily scratched onto it's surface.

"You thieving sonofa..." Muttered Edward as he quickly bent down and retrieved the tool before quickly walking back and kicking Marcus once square in the gut, causing the man to cry out in even more pain.

Edwards moment was interrupted as another audible sonic boom echoed across the landscape from the battle overhead. Glancing up, he could already see several contrails streaking across the sky as derbies of ships entered atmo and started to descend towards the planets surface, indicating that time was running out and quickly. Turning once again, Edward practically ran up the walkway leading to his ships airlock and quickly made his was into the interior of his ship. As he passed the airlock, he quickly depressed the auto-lock button which started closing the heavyset exterior door, sealing the ship off from the rest of the world around it.

"Captain, please tell me that's you closing the airlock and not our muscly friend outside." Came the voice of Hammer over the ships intercom system. Edward moved over to a little grey box nestled against the far wall and depressed the single illuminated button protruding from it's front exterior.

"Hate to disappoint you, but it looks like you're going to be stuck we me for the foreseeable future."

"Yeah about that.... how soon can you be on the bridge? Aviva's starting to worry me with all her usual doom and gloom talk again. I swear, she's more like you every day."

Edward rolled his eyes at the statement, wondering who would kill the other one first if left alone to their own devices, Hammer or the ships AI.

"I'm on my way now, get us airborne and put some distance between us and that battle overhead."

With that, Edward started to maneuver himself through the crammed interior of the industrial vessel. As he made his way from the airlock up to the bridge, he did his best to eyeball the equipment and repairs that had been done while in port, hoping that everything was in order and stored properly despite the interruption, as even one unsecured item could spell disaster if the ship suddenly had to perform maneuvers while still inside atmo.

A short time later, Edward found himself ascending the short stairwell leading up to the bridge area of the ship. While built more for purpose then pleasure, the bridge was still spacious enough to hold all five of the crew when needed, if only barely. Sitting at the helm in a rather new looking chair, sat a rather average looking man with a heavy shadow spreading across his tanned face. His shoulder length hair was currently tied back in a knot at the back of his head to keep it out of his face as he worked, however he normally let it free fall down around the sides of his head when off duty. Mark "Hammer" Sheppard was the ships default navigator, as well as the designated salvage arm/boom operator, a talent which the man seemed to be born with and took a unnatural adaption to it since being hired on a few years ago.

Leaning against the far wall was a thin man who had a burn scar spreading across a portion of his face, the result of a horrible refining explosion, courtesy of his former employer and his cost cutting measures. Craig "Torch" Payne was a brilliant salvage expert who took his technical engineering degree to whole new levels when he switched from building up ships to tearing them down when he was forced into the deep black after his former employer met a sudden and mysterious end at the hand of an explainable accident when the safety lockout system of the industrial forge failed and trapped the man inside during a heating cycle.

Lastly, nestled in the corner of the room, shyly stood the newest edition to the Redd Foxx's manifest. After a nearly botched orbital salvage op where Torch was seriously wounded when his atmo suit was punctured by a piece of debris, it became painfully aware to the crew that they were severely lacking in the medical department. It was then that Mal suggested that along with installing a auto-doc into one of the ships smaller storage areas, that a qualified person was also hired that could properly operate the machine as well as attend to various injuries should the situation arise. Thus, Christina "Stitch" Ashcraft was hired when she was discovered by Edward in a small no name township wasting her talent in a free clinic.

The crew of the Redd Foxx soared through the air, ever gaining speed and altitude as they raced to put as much distance between them and the city of Haven as they could, for unbeknown to all those around them, hell was about to descend upon the world around them.

End Part One, To Be Continued.....

by **Eclius** » Mon Sep 04, 2017 8:02 pm

Battle Station Tchinomy, Eclisian Domain

Inside a large pyramidal-shaped and planetary-sized battlestation, Consul Libertus and Consul Fredisius have received a message from General Kunis. "It appears that they are willing to negotiate" Consul Libertus said, "what shall we do?", "have him send a diplomat" Fredisius responded, while looking through the files about General Kunis,"he is......an interesting man. Above all, the Imperium's reputation is not to settle for a mere holographic meeting. If he would rather have an underling negotiating with us, it's fine."
"But it ought to stay secretive"
"And take place in a third-party planetary state"
"Consul Fredisius, how about Aquarius 5-c, t'is an independent planetary state, not under the control of any factions, and is approximately the midway point between Imperius Prime and Muranis"
"agreed, I shall notify Caesar and Consul Salviana"
"and I will notify Department of Foreign Affairs"

Few minutes after...

Code: Select all: To: General Kunis From: Eclisian Department of Foreign Affairs Encryption: TOP SECRET 5X, deletion of file within minutes General Kunis: The Senate and People of Eclius wish to speak with Bakran representatives in a formal meeting on Aquarius 5-c, an independent planetary state located midway between Imperius Prime and Muranis. Please make arrangements.

Meanwhile on Athens...
Inside a hospital room, a group of zeta reticulan doctors and droid nurses rushed to an operations room, and inside it, a lady lies almost lifelessly on the operations table
"Dr. Kol, her homeostatic systems are failing"
"For goodness sake! Administer 50.00mg of Kerosporin"
"But......Kerosporin isn't designed for sapients"
"I said, administer Kerosporin!!"
"Kerosporin administered"
Few minutes later...
"Kerosporin not working!"
"Muscle system functionality at 15%"
"D....Dr. Kol?"
"Terminate her life support system......this is pointless. Transfer her consciousness into a neurolink core. I'll notify her children."
All a sudden, Dr. Kol and his team freezed, almost life a motion picture, stopped. Minutes after, a machine hummed for a few minutes, its echo surged abroad, and the image of the hospital, the operation room, it all faded into none, there was an 18 year-old-looking girl, Consul Salviana, who stared lifelessly at the holographics chamber in her personal residence. Few minutes after, a man, knocked gently on doors of the holongraphic chamber. Having being granted permission, he walked gently in, and under the lights of the holographics room, the man appears to be 30 years of age, he looked tall, medium body size, having short hairs and a beard in light brownish color. Having saw him, Salviana greeted, "Gaius, how wonderful! You're back from Imperius Prime I see!" Gaius walked over to Consul Salviana, he embraced her, then responded, "yes honey, but not for long, much needs to be taken care of", Gaius noticed a bit of sorrow in Consul Salviana's eyes, he waited a few minutes, then asked, "f......f...flash backs?","yes, I was just......looking at old memories." Consul Salviana responded, "old memories, I had to clear them from my memory drive. The messes........had there not been the technologies, I........" Gaius gently kissed her on the forehead, he responded in a soft, and soothing voice, "but you're not, unlike the inferiors who refuses the gift of cybernetics. Honey, I died, three years prior to that, and the cybernetic technologies worked fine on me, I knew I couldn't live on without you, so, I signed the agreement for your memories to thrive on, in another body", "and that was a right decision," Consul Salviana smiled, "and there I am, looking forever like me at 18 years old, the year we met, and the year I entered University of Athens. It is hard to imagine sometimes, that, there are soo many unfortunate souls out there, those living under Kunis' regime, for instance, suppressed from denouncing the regime's filthy vision", "and they shall pay", Gaius interrupted, "shall the negotiation fail, Kunis and his regime will fall, all who lives on Muranis shall be liberated from pains, uncertainty, and entropy, for transhumanism is the sole path to eternity. My legionnaires and I will fight till the last unbroken soldier for the emancipation, of all sentient beings abroad!"

Few hours later, Battle Station Tchinomy, Eclisian domain
A secretarial droid rushed hurriedly into Consul Fredisius and Consul Libertus. Consul Libertus smiled, then asked, "General Kunis agreed to send diplomats?", "no" the secretary said, "intel from Bakra division, Olimpiada and Pan-Humanity have both initiated assaults against Bakrans, my data suggests that this could interrupt our plans for Bakrans", "Is Hermes and the sentient cyborgs aware of this?" Consul Fredisius responded, "anything from their public news network?" "unsure" the secretary replied, "we are currently unsure what stance they have on this", "send encrypted message to both, tell them to avoid civilian casualty, or else, we will intervene", Consul Libertus was enraged, he failed to recognize their invasion of Bakra as somewhat of a noble cause, "notify them now, oh, and send a message to Hermes' people.

Code: Select all: To: Olimpiada/Pan-Humanity From: Senate and People of Eclius Encryption: Medium 3-b To the government of Olimpiada/Pan-Humanity, it appears to the Senate and People of Eclius that military actions were used against General Kunis' regime by your rightfully respectable leader. However, the Senate and People of Eclius would like to urge your government to take necessary humanitarian measures in order to prevent loss of civilian lives. Sincerely Marius 2.00.145.02G, Press Secretary of the Senate and People of Eclius

Code: Select all: To: Hermes, Head of Sentient Cyborgs and Machines From: Caesar Augustus of Eclisian Empire Encryption: TOP SECRET 5XX Honorable friend, it came to our attention that Bakra under General Kunis' forces is not particularly welcoming to artificial intelligence and other form of cybernetic organisms. I would like to request, on behalf of the Senate and People of Eclius for a joint-effort program in aim to potentially liberate cybernetic organisms living both under Kunis' regime and dangers imposed by invading and defending factions. Please note, the program in which I envision is a humanitarian-based program, with very little or not involvement of military forces from both Imperium and Sentient Cyborgs and Machines Sincerely Augustus 1.00.120.54C.14vx

by **The Interstellar Federation** » Tue Sep 05, 2017 2:48 am

Trade Expansions

Captain Hu Ming
A Deck
IFS Fire and Brimstone

Captain Hu Ming walked down one of the outer aisles of A Deck, the uppermost deck on his flagship, the Fire and Brimstone, a Hastings-class assault carrier. It was one of the older classes in the Federation fleet, but it was built as tough as nails to lead planetary assaults and be the tip of the spear in a fleet engagement. Evidently, the interiors of the ship lacked the material comforts common in the newer classes, but in their place were heavily reinforced bulkheads, spall liners on the interior pressure hull and double layered internal compartments. This was a vessel designed to take as many hits as possible and keep on fighting and moving. Entire sections of the ship could be destroyed without any effect on the ship's combat capabilities. Ming looked out a window and saw the nearby star shining through, causing the scars on his face to light up. Ming had seen years of action and bore the wounds to prove it. Having served on hundreds of different vessels, Ming definitley called the Fire and Brimstone his home.

Before Ming could take another step, the AI politely informed him that Interstellar High Command (HIGHCOM) wanted to speak to him. Ming headed immediately to the personal quantum communicator in his quarters. Sure enough the display was flashing with an incoming call from Fleet Admiral Quando R'uthula, one of the advisors to the expansion committee that discusses matters on the expansion of the IF's influence and territory. Ming adjusted his uniform and cleared his throat before connecting into the call.

"Ah Ming, good to see you." R'uthula said with a rather emotionless expression on his face.

"As to you admiral. Do you need anything?" Ming replied, apathetic as well.

"We've gotten reports that multiple xeno fleets have entered the orbit of the planet Muranis in the Setsko system. This system borders one of our new proposed trade routes and this has HIGHCOM concerned. We don't want foreign interference with vital trade coming in from the outer territories."

"So, what do you want me to do about it?" Ming grumbled, slightly annoyed that his recent break from service had been cut short.

"HIGHCOM has ordered your squadron to deploy immediately to the Setsko system and clear the system of all xenos. It would be preferable that the planet is kept intact as we have been advised that enemy ground forces are present, so try not to become too trigger happy on orbital strikes."

"Right. Break cut short. Again. Ming off."

The holographic projection fizzled away and Ming breathed out slowly. "Back to work," he thought to himself as he walked out of his quarters and headed for the intra-ship shuttle. A few seconds later, Ming walked out and onto the bridge of the Fire and Brimstone. The sunlight shone through the large observational windows and basked the bridge in a constant wave of light. In battle these would have protective shutters deployed over them and virtual windows using high resolution camera feeds replace them. The crew were in a casual state; a few were sitting at their stations, monitoring LIDAR, communications and other important ship functions. Others were simply off-duty and casually chatting to each other, fraternizing and discussing the day. It seemed far from military standard, yet in an instant, the crew could snap into action upon the blaring sirens of a "General quarters, general quarters, all men to your battlestations!" Needless to say, the AI could man the entire ship if need be, although it would be disadvantaged without organic ingenuity and creative battle tactics.

The grizzled captain of a hundred wars walked over to his CO chair and sat down, bringing up the PA software and announced to the ship and the squadron their orders.

"Warriors of the Fire and Brimstone and to all those of other fighting ships in our squadron. We have been ordered to deploy to the Setsko system,
specifically the planet Muranis. Our orders are to purge the system of all xenos present and clear it for the establishment of a new galactic trade route. We have been warned to refrain from inciting significant damage on the planet if possible, but be prepared for a large number of hostile warships in the area. I want all ships to seal non-important bulkheads and prep their weapons for action. All protective armour shutters should be deployed and reactor output be accelerated to combat levels.
Captain Hu Ming. Out."

The orders were belayed immediately to all ships present within the squadron and soon enough, the ships readied themselves for combat. Reactors of the vessels began to increase energy output and fighters and assault craft readied in the hundreds of hangars present within the ships of the squadron. The engine nacelles of the squadron's ships glowed immensely at temperatures well over several million degrees Celsius, a result of the antimatter subluminal drives every ship was equipped with. The fierce auras of light intensified harmoniously like a well synchronised chorus of power and energy.

"All ships, plot coordinates for warpspace jump. Sync jumps in T-minus 30 seconds" Ming announced over the comm network.

As the navigators of the various cruisers, frigates, corvettes and assault carriers of the squadron plotted a course to Setsko, the ships' warp drives began to spin up, releasing a blue glow as they sliced open portals from the confines of realspace into the terrifying dark void of the warp, an interdimensional space that allowed for massive shortcuts in interstellar travel. The portals' circumferences blended the background of stars and planets in realspace with a never ending blackness, diluting visually like the round edge of a glass. A fierce halo of blue cherenkov radiation surrounded each portal as ships disappeared through, vanishing from realspace and having the portals close up as fast as they appeared.

by **Bakra** » Tue Sep 05, 2017 9:56 am

ATTN: Universal Union of Panhuamnity

Fiery Thunder Battlegroup

Though not as powerful as the Ascension-class fortresses above the Bakran capital of Ilencia, the Nauspin-class was not something to shrug off. Though one would get a headache counting the amount of missile silos, close engagement batteries, deck guns, and lance turrets, the dreadnought-grade stationary weapons systems would be the heavy hitters of the fortresses. Ten Stationary (non-Turret) Accelerator Rail Cannons (S.T.A.R.C.) were fitted on the side of the station next to three Gravity Assisted Projectile (G.A.P.) weapons, all spinal-type weapons on warships but can be easily aimed using predictive algorithms and powerful maneuvering thrusters.

The initial Panhuman volley wasn't quite shrugged off, but rather was absorbed by the Fiery Thunder as it was designed to. The "siege" tactics used to pound orbital fortresses into dust were effective under concentrated bombardment, but took a great while with the massive shield reserves the station possessed.

The Fiery Thunder responded with a volley of its own, ten massive nuclear-tipped projectiles hit sizeable fraction of light speed towards the Panhuman fleet. The Panhumans were a sizeable distance away however, and the commander of the station was well aware of this. Though the railrounds may or may not hit them, their truly destructive weapons fired.

The G.A.P. system was essentially a rail gun powered by a faster-than-light drive, accelerating their projectiles to light speed using sciences discovered during the aftermath of the Hamblisk incident. Though the technology was hardly understood by the Bakrans, who used a type of "drop-in drop-out" FTL, its effects were: a projectile no longer required infinitely increasing amounts of power to pass light speed. Though the kinetic energy would be incredibly powerful on impact, gravitic distortions from the FTL effects were also said to be catastrophic. Of course it took a long time for them to charge, each gun holding its own FTL device, they usually made up for it in sheer stopping power.

In what would seem instantaneous three G.A.P. rounds moving faster than lightspeed were targeted at the three Laserstar warships. The Fiery Thunder continued to take the damage from the Panhuamnity vessels as the fleet around the orbital fortress moved to engage the newcoming fleet. The Bakran fleet, for its part, saved its power and ammunition until they could have some semblance of accuracy by closing the distance.

ATTN: Eclius

Moonlight Bridge
Orbit over Aquarius 5C

"You don't like this assignment captain?" Dignitary Cerra Sovni enquired. She brushed back her dark brown hair, her dark blue eyes boring into him. It made Captain Vennis Lurac uncomfortable, her being so beautiful. If she was in the military it would be easy, she was just a subordinate or comrade, their relationship defined by rank. Instead she was a civilian, beauty something he could appreciate but with no defined boundaries that the military or government provided.

"We were on our way to Sanguerth, Dignitary," the captain replied. The frigate was part of the next wave of reinforcements for the ongoing orbital battle against the Tnemeden.

"Call me Cerra," the woman replied, though this made Lurac even more uncomfortable with the situation, "Yes, I imagine you would feel much better fighting then during a diplomatic meeting, especially with mechanocratics."

The captain only grunted, looking down at his tablet, "We'll be landing shortly. Per your request the meeting location will be out in the wilderness rather than in the cities. There is a forest in the southern hemisphere of the planet that looks prime for the meeting. We'll be providing a table and chairs, but otherwise there is nothing around but the planet's flora and fauna."

"Good. Escort me down, will you captain? I know I'll have guards, but having the commander of this vessel with me would be an added comfort." There was no sign of flirtation in her voice, but it still made Lurac nervous.

"Yes, ma'am." He replied, standing up to go to their shuttle.

She leveled a look at him, "It's not 'ma'am', it's Cerra."

by **Remnants of Exilvania** » Tue Sep 05, 2017 12:35 pm

Lázlo Ungern
Exilvanian ZZ Contingent
Around the Shallow Sea

The entry into the planets atmosphere had been rough, with the Eisen class Assault Landing ship shaking like crazy when they descended. The difference to the landing itself couldn't have been more drastic. There were no enemy fighters, no AA batteries, no ground forces, nothing that prohibited his Eisen class from landing softly like a feather on Bakran ground. And when the landing ramp lowered itself and the Exilvanian stormtroopers were storming out into the vast emptiness of Muranis, there was no MG fire that greeted them, no mines they walked onto, no barbed wire to get stuck in, no enemy entrenched positions to overcome.

No, when Truppenkommandant Lázlo Ungern stepped out of one of the first Assault Landing Ships to touch the ground, he could not hear the sound of battle. All he heard was the march of deployment, which did atleast somewhat manage to vanquish his sadness about the lack of battle. Looking up into the air he saw countless fiery asteroids coming down upon his position and a smile grew on his face. The invasion force was here. All around him there were already soldiers disembarking their ships and setting up a safe perimeter. If the Bakrans really wouldn't put up any resistance at all to his landings, then he would probably easily be able to land the heavy equipment of his forces. Ah, he couldn't wait to have the sound of the engines of the Landing Ships and the hushing troops replaced by the sound of heavy siege engines and the march of hundreds of jackboots.

And while he looked up into the skies, he could see the bomber squadrons heading towards their targets, no, already beginning the very first hostilities. He could see the countless of torpedoes being launched into the water, all of them guided and set for targets deep underground. They would hit the arcologies deep down there and soften them up for the main assault.

Just thinking of the main assault darkened Lázlo's mood again though. He would have to wait for the SSLSALs to launch the proper attack. These massive walkers towering at around 280 meters height would lead the assault and take out enemy key installations and defensive batteries during the assault. Their experimental Nerocyte Artillery should be more than capable of doing so. But untill these could be landed, the whole area arpund the shallow sea had to be secured, which was why the it was the ZZ forces which were landing first with their highly mobile light motorized forces. The men in the landing ship group who had landed with him were actually the only ones who from the XI Army and they were mainly here to set up a command post and coordinate the ZZ forces. If Lázlo felt insecure about being all alone with only a small force? Well no, he was the attacker afterall and he could already imagine the enemy commander to have shut himself in completely when getting the first reports about the size of the invasion force. Besides, he had incredible aerial cover in the area so if someone was to try and snatch him and his command, then fighter support would decimate them and probably lead to the first prisoners to interrogate.

A soft humming behind him alerted him of the fact that the generators for his makeshift command post had been started and when he turned around, his staff had already set up. All kinds of radioes and other communications equipment as well as maps, miniatures and large dossiers with data about both his own troops and the enemy forces greeted him. A whole squad of stenotypists and cryptographers were already bringing the first informations from his forces to paper and secretaries were hurrying from one dest to the next and attaching the freshly made reports into the right dossiers. But Lázlo was more interested in the map, onto which his aides were hectically placing miniatures to represent real forces and installations. Currently the map consisted of nothing more than the Shallow Sea and a 2000 km wide land strip around it. And on this map there were small arcology miniatures placed in the Sea while small Exilvanian Trucks were placed at the landing positions. They were representing the landed ZZ Sondereinsatzkommandos. And there, on a point just 50 km east of the eastern coast of the shallow sea, a silver miniature of himself signaled where he had set down his headquarters.

a radioman came over when he waved and he quickly made use of the comm link he provided with the rest of his units:

"To all hikers, this is ExZig X1. We have set up a nice holiday lodge at the spot recommended by the tourist guide. Food rations for all hungry hikers will be distributed from here. The surrounding alps seem very beautiful and I recommend making long hikes to see if they are safe for official marketing in our tourist magazines to be started. Be advised that there is a marmot infestation as well as a few possible cases of wild lynxes. To not scare any tourists, we recommend you take care against the infestation with drastic means."

He then switched the channel and radioed up to the fleet:

"ExZig X1 to airballoon. We got through spaceport security without any trouble and have now started our holidays in a selfmade holiday lodge at the designated spot. Hikers have been sent out to evaluate the local environmental beauty for our tourism magazine and to take care of the local marmot and lynx infestation."

"Understood. Send your evaluation once finished so we can send you your skis."

And with this he ended the connection. So, the ZZ Sondereinsatzkommandos now had their orders to spread out and start searching the area as well as to engage local gysuik tribes and Locep beasts and kill them to secure the landing zone.

by **Bakra** » Tue Sep 05, 2017 3:14 pm

ATTN: Remnants of Exilvania

Kembra
Muranis

I have thousands of kilometers of coastline to defend with ten thousand Marines and a few divisions worth of the Army. I will not play that hand, my focus is on the arcologies and only them. The enemy has me outnumbered, outgunned, and surrounded, even if I have enough food to last me years. But I have three advantages. I have the desert, the sea, and Havva Thespold.

Murtaz smiled at his last thought, but pushed that to the back of his head. Thespold's time will come soon, even if he was begging Murtaz for battle. No, his time would came later, once their backs were turned.

The desert. The sun of Setsko was not just hot, it was burning. The warmest day on record was nearly 160º F in the Great Reach, but temperatures regularly went to 120º F without fanfare from anyone but visitors, and they were right on the edge of that great salt flat. Even in this day and age sand got into places it shouldn't and cooling units could only do so much. What's more is the only food within thousands of kilometers was in this city; even the ocean was eerily devoid of life. It wouldn't kill them, not outright, but it would make a battle of attrition in Kembra's favor.

The sea. They were at the bottom of a small ocean, over a kilometer of water was between them and the surface. Anything bombarding them would be drastically slowed, enough for them to pick off anything not meant to obliterate the arcologies from the planet. The enemy had to extend their supply lines, furthering their advantage of attraction, and had to close in on the incredibly flat bottom of the Shallow Sea.

The sea had helped them in this regard, forcing the enemy to use torpedos to try at chip at or break the defenses around the arcologies rather than the mass bombings that even the largest of CIWS systems couldn't resist. Murtaz at first found it odd that these torpedos ran the great risk of destroying the domes and the cities themselves, leading him to believe the enemy was content with simply destroying the cities. It didn't enrage him as much as it would a less experienced soldier; he had seen the disgust many xenos had to other species.

Many of the torpedos would impact the shields, a staple of Bakran cities even underwater, but many more were broken up by railgun batteries as they got closer to the cities. Much of the damage was psychological rather than physical: the sea itself would shake around the civilians as torpedos blew up on the shields or when they were intercepted by the railgun batteries. Most of the soldiers who lived through defending or storming cities knew everything was fine for now, but the average citizen was more than a little unnerved.

by **United Islands of Polis** » Tue Sep 05, 2017 7:49 pm

Muranis, Orbit
92nd Defensive Operations Fleet [Currently Engaged]
UIPNS Shield of Hope, Zenith Class Battlemaster Command Vessel, Bridge

A lookout was pointing his binoculars at an enemy ship that infiltrated their ranks, the husks driffted about as lifless as possible, she was about to look at the fight in front when she saw a blue light from the enemy ship, looking at it again she saw the blue light and knew it was a manuvering thruster, grabbing her radio she keyed it in.

"Admiral! Those infiltrator ships aren't dead!" a video recording followed and Admiral Kyoto saw the manuvering thruster "Fire broadside weapons on the against, even the one split in half." As the guns fired again it didn't stop what happened next, the enemy copied their tactic and preformed an in-system jump to flank them.

"Our drives aren't charged yet, re-organize to a defensive formation until our drives are charged again, I want the secondary reactor working on the Slipspace drives, I want us out of here as soon as possible." Admiral Kyoto gave the orders and the assigned ships manuvered to their positions.

"Rounds incoming, shields can hold but it's coming in multiple directions." an ensing said until another report came in "Missile barrage incoming! Target is the command group!" Admiral Kyoto began to think, time seemed to have slowed down and then it came to him of the amount of EMP warheads he had in stock. "Central Formation fire Katana warheads in waves, Formation F. Midsection Formation gain as much distance as you can from the command ring."

The missiles left their batteries and silos as they raced to meet the missiles head on, right before exploding, anything caught in the blast would have been disabled, while this happened CIWS systems still shot down as many missiles as possible.

"Solid munitions incoming!" the same ensing yelled "Fire nuclear warheads, Formation F!" the batteries and silos roared to life again as CIWS tried their best to do something to destroy the round or knock it of course, the nukes meet the rounds almost head on before exploding, releasing both a minor EMP and a massive explosion in hopes of melting the rounds or knocking it off course from the minor shickwave caused (nerfed because of the lack of an atmosphere).

"Bomber wings take down the flanking units, ships engaging flanking element, load ASNR, I want this done fast, use any methods possible to make it fast." Admiral Kyoto said as he looked at the Holo map again.

Muranis, Surface
81st "Elementary" Constitutional Marines Batallion, 1st & 2nd Squad
Following Unidentified IFV [Currently Engaged]

"Hunters, Hot Box this is Reclemation, we have identified hsotile fliers in your AO, we're sending Helsing squad to support, fire missions are go." the operations overseer came on the radio.

"Roger Reclemation, ETA on Helsing sir?" Hunter 2-1 asked as he fired another EMP armed Titan directly at the IFV. "They just hit Mach Five, two minutes."

Hot Box 6-2 began to fire its M65 Valance Plasma cannon at the IFV once more, Sergeant Harris was hesitant to put his men on the ground but did so anyway, the backdoor opened and the Constitutional Marines dropped out in their Combat Armor System,nthey aimed their M84 Assault rifles at the IFV and constantly throwing EMP grenades at the vehicle until their Power Armor Corps member came out and aimed his M923 Rotary Plasma Cannon set on the Anti Armor setting.

"Stand down and we'll guarantee your safety, if not we will be forced to open fire!" came through the loudspeakers again.

by **Olimpiada** » Tue Sep 05, 2017 9:48 pm

Muranis, Setsko
Bridge of the FWOS Colossus

The seven hundred and ninth round to be fired from the longinus guns that battle sailed through the empty night at incredible speed. It sped past the slow reactions of the hard light and plasma point defense nets, past the clouds of radioactive plasma. Ahead of it, a wall of blue light briefly flickered, and it slipped through. It tore through layers of hardened titanium, finally breaching past the metallic layer and slamming into a wall of air, the kinetic energy being enough to trigger fusion with the nitrogen and oxygen not two centimeters away from the unaware face of a passing ensign.

The whole process took roughly a hundredth of a second.

Back in the confines of atmosphere, heat, and the other useless trappings of civilization, a cheer erupted among the crew of the Colossus, similarly mimicked across the fleet. A round had hit home, lighting up the side of the Shield of Hope. The initial flash of hull vaporizing from the inside out was followed by more like it, though not at the rate that it should if all three capitals were hitting it. Ambrosius supposed their desperate shield of atomic fire and point defense was doing something after all. However, his hard earned view of the Shield of Hope ironically becoming unable to shield itself so effectively was interrupted as his viewscreen went white again.

“Ypsilanti, who’s interrupting the greatest fireworks show in the galaxy?” His earlier voice had been tempered by tension, and some of the cold steel had given away to his usual sense of humor.

“The Cosmic Surgery, sir. And nine- no, eight other vessels.”

“Aren’t they supposed to be dead? I could have sworn I threw those poor bastards to the enemy.”

“You did, sir.”

Muranis, Setsko
Bridge of the FWOS Cosmic Surgery

Mom, I’m going to be a firefly.

The opening phrase of a letter from an Old Terran kamikaze pilot had been something that Isidorus had once read in a book, and it had always stuck with him to some extent. The simple poetry of it held a value that more complex shows of bravado simply failed to.

The Animus Vox came apart at the seams in its hull, its grasers ceasing to fire forever.

Isidorus had never really planned to go out this way. He had known it was a possibility as a part of the Olimpiadan Federal Navy’s usual way of constantly fighting someone, somewhere, but he had never really thought about it. Blazes of atomic glory were something that always happened to other people. Certainly not him.

August Moon shattered as a hostile missile pierced its antimatter storage units, briefly shining as bright as a star while the atmosphere burned as an incandescent plasma.

A distant voice screamed something about incoming fliers, and point defense cover. Isidorus responded with something to the affirmative. The fact that he could actually speak registered somewhere in his brain as a damaged engine slowing them from their earlier ten g burn.

The Mearcstapa was rendered unarmed and unsafe when an enemy plasma lance hit one of the loaded missile tubes, detonating the rest of the arsenal. While the crew was mostly unharmed by this, the ship was bleeding air fast, and hundreds of emergency spacesuit clad individuals floated out. Most were killed by stray point defense slugs.

Isidorus queued up a favorite song of his, set it to play on every frequency he could, and laid back into his command chair as his ship rumbled gently with another volley of missiles. A calm came over him. The satisfaction of a battle well fought, a sense of honor in death.

The Cosmic Surgery exploded, sending fragments of graphene hull plating on a myriad of trajectories into the emptiness of space.

Muranis, Setsko
Bridge of the FWOS Colossus

“Was that music?” Ambrosius’s statement exited his mouth at about the same time as the ship rumbled uncomfortably.

“That was the enemy hitting us with high velocity nukes. We’re missing a lot of armor on the bow. Even if that is where we have the most, that laser from earlier took a lot out of it, and these nukes aren’t helping,” replied Akropolites. Another rumble. “We’re down a few meters from where we were before. Graphene keeps boiling off when it takes hits from their shaped charges.”

“Can we be sure that the Shield of Hope is down?”

“Probably. At least that it’s crippled as hell.”

“Excellent! Ypsilanti, get the other dreadnoughts on their dreadnoughts, I want those nuke launchers down ASAP. One of ours on each of theirs. Akropolites, fire at full auto, maximum reactor rate. We’re running low on energy in the capacitors, and I’d like to eke whatever I can out of them.” They had already cut engines to avoid more drain from thrust, but relativistic machine guns were not cheap, even with antimatter reactors. At best, they had a few more seconds left of these repeated assaults upon the enemy’s shields before they would have to fall back and recharge for a few minutes.

Outside, EMPs popped with little harm, the pulse being kept from doing damage as a result of the thick conductive graphene hulls acting as faraday cages. However, the missiles were less well protected, and their guidance systems and reactors quickly ceased to fire, leaving them as dumb kinetic slugs with an explosive payload which made their now predictable trajectories a breeze for enemy PD networks.

Friendly PD networks had an easier time of it in a similar manner. The bombers were not as fast as the missiles, and although they carried more ordinance than them, that made them necessarily larger as well. The grasers from the Constantinoples tracked them as kinetic PD guns followed along, predicting their locations and firing trails of slugs into the inky night in an effort to strike down the (relatively) small craft.

by **Universal Union of Panhumanity** » Wed Sep 06, 2017 2:32 am

UCV Red October
Setsko System
Approximately 500,000km from Muranis

The Red October, or rather its avatar, frowned in annoyance, it had clearly underestimated its foes. Such a brutal kinetic bombardment would have been enough to force even a Great Patriotic War-pattern SCV to retreat, lest it be obliterated. The shielding and power systems of the Fortress must be truly immpressive. Still, there was no cause for alarm, even if the enemy should attempt to retaliate, they should be able to handle any such effort without great difficulty.

As if in response to this thought, its sensors picked up ten incoming kinetic projectiles, launched from the fortress. It smiled, these should be of no issue, their large seize and utterly predictable linear trajectory made them easy prey for the heavy laser projectors and other defensive mechanisms. Even if one of them did somehow manage to get past the wide array of point defence, it would likely have been reduced to a much smaller object, minimising the damage it could deal. The archailect allowed itself to relax, if this was the best the natives could come up with, this would be a simple operation, although somewhat lengthier than anticipated.

Suddenly, the sensors picked up three more projectiles, noticeably smaller than the first, but much, much faster. Impossibly fast. The Red October experienced a rare moment of shock, that sort of velocity shouldn't be possible, not within the Union's understanding of the universe. Even for its ultra-advanced mind and phenomenal processing speeds, that thing was fast. Immediately, the archailect dispatched a warning to its compatriots, and targeted one of the projectiles with a fusion howitzer, aiming into its projected course and setting critical density at the intercept point, the megaton detonation should be more than enough to vaporise the weapon, reducing it to a dilute plasma that would swiftly disperse. One down.

Searching for a way to deal with the other two, it seized control of one of the Spearhead-pattern Interceptors a few meters from the trajectory of another projectile, its far superior computational power giving it the reaction speeds that the interceptor's brain lacked. The small vessel found itself in the firing line, being hit by the G.A.P round a few microseconds later, fulfilling its duties of interception even in its final moments. Its mind-state was swiftly relayed back to Union space via ansible, where it would be reassigned to a new interceptor. This was common practice, the minds of destroyed vessels were reused so as not to waste their combat experience, and to learn from their mistakes.

Alas, there was no time to deal with the final projectile, which slammed into one of the Laserstar-pattern HFSPs, punching a giant hole through the kilometre-across monopolium-coated gamma-ray focussing mirror of the platform. The Red October winced, that was going to be horribly expensive to repair, for even in the nigh-post scarcity society of the Union, large quantities of monopolium were difficult to produce. Thankfully, the ten slower projectiles had been dealt with more or less as it had predicted, with nine of them having been obliterated and the tenth reduced to a globule of molten metal that slammed into the shield of an MCV, inducing a white flash but leaving the vessel unscathed.

This was unacceptable. Should the enemy continue to display this sort of resilience while meting out such losses to the 7th Fleet, they would either win the war of attrition or reduce the fleet to the point where it could not hope to deal with the other defenders. The archailect firstly used its displacer to teleport a few long-range sensor drones equipped with ansibles in the general direction of the enemy, before relaying a new command to its fellow Great Patriotic War-pattern vessels, before turning to its own gigantic form. The vast bulk of the spherical vessel shifted slightly as it brought a new weapon to bear, and the massive shutters that covered one of the hundred metre-across gravitic lenses dilated open. These cataclysmic weapons would serve as the Red October's answer to the faster-than-light assault, firing coherent gravitational waves powered by the warship's Eigenreactor. These waves traveled at luminal velocity, and would (hopefully) either greatly drain the shields of the Fortress or obliterate them entirely, plunging into the armour and turning it into a hypervelocity spear of superheated plasma that would punch through whatever remained.

To complement the trio of gravitic lasers unleashed by the three SCVs, the HCVs and Kinetistars continued to fire yet more kinetic kill vehicles at the Fiery Thunder. If even this proved insufficient, the archailect would be forced to use one of the nine RKKVs in the possession of the 7th fleet, and it would rather not expend such precious resources so early in the invasion.

by **Remnants of Exilvania** » Wed Sep 06, 2017 1:00 pm

Lázlo Ungern
Exilvanian ZZ Contingent
Around the Shallow Sea

Lázlo was surprised that his enemy had not undertaken any effort at all to stop him from constantly reinforcing his grip around the Shallow Sea. Nothing at all. By now he had landed already 30.000 ZZ soldiers with thir vehicles and they were turning around every single grain of sand, making sure that the Landing zone was clear. And with each passing hour, with each wave of ZZ troops landing, their deep network of motorized patrols becoming denser with every hour, making it more and more improbable for the enemy to still strike him unless using considerable forces.

The reports he received from the Sondereinsatzkommandos also were very good. They sometimes came upon the nomadic gysuik tribes and immediately carried out extermination protocols. But the ZZ were rarely the ones to engage the gysuik first. They usually were the ones coming under fire by them and having to fight hard to advance against their positions. It was here that the Air Superiority of the Exilvanians paid off. There was rarely a firefight without the fighters closeby whose strafing runs then quickly changed the tides of battle in the favour of the advancing Exilvanian Infantry. And often the fighters would just shoot at the camps or columns of gysuik travelling the deserts, shooting indiscriminately into the crowds.

The advancing ZZ Sonderkommandos were no less brutal, executing and torturing those left behind. There would be no survivors, the dead bodies left to rot in the desert, often mutilated or prepared in gruesome ways to frighten those who'd find them.

But there was yet another enemy for the Exilvanians. An enemy they could do nothing against. And that was the heat of Muranis. The accompanying sand was actually not even that bad. Exilvania, the nation they had once come from, was largely a wasteland, with lots of dirt and dust which would also get into nearly everything. But the heat was something else entirely. If these were the ancestors of the Exilvanians, the Iron Legionnaires, they'd simply shrug off the heat. During their time Exilvania had been hot but due to the aftereffects of the use of an orbital superweapon on Exilvania, the country had cooled down considerably and future Exilvanians had soon grown accustomed to their new climate.

Which was why they were now struggling even more with this weather. Sure, they had been deployed on multiple worlds already, with arid desert worlds being part of those but that didn't mean that they had grown accustomed to it. Not to mention that the Exilvanians didn't take too well to the sun. Sure they wore their uniforms and masks to protect from the sun but what use were they when you would be boiled inside the uniforms? But well, they were lucky that their prime combat capabilities were not needed for the moment. Simple clean up duties, that was all they had to do.

by **Dimoniquid** » Wed Sep 06, 2017 3:57 pm

Commandant Vera - DINV Sceptre of Urah
Heavy Destroyer - Designated DINV-2293-5B9
Currently impaled

The Bakran heavy destroyer had finally seemed to stop firing, but she was unsure. "Someone turn those fucking alerts off, please." She ordered, slicking back her hair. "Chief, damage report." She called, staring a small screen to her left that was showing a video of the chief engineer in the engine bay.

"Well, hull plating at the front of our ship non-existent thanks to those, guns structural integrity has be severely altered thanks to the 403 gun being shoved back a few feet, weapons array is offline, radiation and coolant leaks are all over the place, and main engines are offline, but manoeuvring thrusters and impulse engines are on minimal efficiency if that makes things any better." The chief replied, someone bandaging his hand up from sort of coolant burn. "I've also got too many engineers in the infirmary, if that's even still up and running." He continued. "I can get the fuel from leaking and powerplant stable, but the sensors need to be manually re calibrated from the outside, and the shock drive is out of the question."

"Get us to the battle. If this ship is as tough as it is, then I have one hell of an idea." She ordered. "Take it slow, and get those sensors back online; I don't want to be walking into another squadron of destroyers."

Commandant Howell - DINV Say My Name
Heavy Destroyer - Designated DINV-2293-5A3
Docked to the DINV Shield of Unah

Vero looked at the ensign, cocking his head slightly. As Hanz stood with his hands up, he would see a bald man, with pale skin and stubble forming around his face, along with sharp tribal tattoos. He was just as tall as the others, standing just shy over six feet tall, but wasn't as built and imposing as the marines flanking him; all the desk sitting he had been doing for the past few years had probably wasted away a large amount if muscle mass he had accumulated over his career. He was wearing a standard duty uniform; it was fitted with a large paldron, a holographic interface attached to his arm, and a baldric draping over his right shoulder with a dark leather belt keeping attached. The baldric was a fair linen blue, with a silver silk and gold embroidery trim, holding plenty of medals, badges, pendants, and stitching of the accomplishments of his life. "My name is General Vero Malneu. I'm currently in charge of the marines and security contingents of the Dimonicist forces. You're currently aboard the DINV Say My Name. I would have had you destroyed in that escape pod, but the Words of Engagements, the laws of war, if you will, of my people prohibit me from executing prisoners of war without a good reason."

High Ship-Lord Corde Lowsyk - DINV Flame of Kale
Heavy Cruiser Battle Group HCBG JX3-A56G - Fleet of Disciplined Ferocity and Gambit
Approaching Godspear

The volley from the Bakran's was a lot more accurate, and had been tearing off hull plating armour and creating breaches from all of the ships in the Dimonicist fleet; even though Cordes' fleet was facing forward, making them a much smaller target, their defence array couldn't catch all of the incoming rounds with the small amount of weapons it had at the bow of their ships. Corde rallied her options. Another volley like that and we're going to start losing ships. Outgunned, outnumbered. Maybe the other light cruiser and her ships can flank from the rear; but I need that space tether protected with the kind of troops and supplies that I've got on the equator. She thought to herself. She pushed her fringe aside, and examined the holotable. A frontal assault is going to have us surrounded; concentrated fire on the smaller ships will leave the larger ships to attack us, and a concentrated attack on the capital ships is going to have us over whelmed by the smaller ships. She continued. "Communications; get me an ansible connection to the High Command."

Within a few short minutes, Corde was holding a telephone and speaking to one of the Wardens of the High Command, the most senior officers of the organisation. "This is High Ship Lord Corde Lowsyk, speaking from the Setsko system."

"High Ship Lord Lowsyk, may I remind you that I order you to communicate with me only once you achieved your operational objectives. Have you succeeded?" A voice called back.

"We have... come to an impasse. We have... underestimated the enemy." She informed, a shiver falling down her spine. "We require assistance." She hated having to call for help; it was one of her many flaws. Her mentors had always told her that she was going to take on challenges far bigger than her own, even it she did become enormously creative in trying to solve them. "Preferable a dreadnought group."

"We have seventeen dreadnought groups, all currently engaged, bar three in the defence of the Gallos System, in other matters of importance. What makes you believe that I'd send one of our valued dreadnoughts to your position?"

"Because our information and findings dictate there may be a temple here. If it's the lost temple of the Philosopher, then we will need more than just eight battlegroups to secure it. We'll need an entire guardian fleet." She pleaded. Corde could hear some whispering over the channel, but couldn't quite make out what it was.

"I will consider your request. I suggest to hang on for the moment." The voice commanded, cutting the channel link. Corde bowed her head and sighed. She placed the phone back down, and looked over to the holotable. Instantaneous travel in Dimonicist ships was impossible, however key ships and shock-gate systems allowed near-instantaneous travel by a few minutes depending on where you were going; it took a lot of energy, and the gate systems were a closely guarded secret as they were spread throughout the Dimonicist systems. The only real problem they were going to have was that mobilising such a force was going to take time; mobilising this fleet of ships took days, even if they had been deployed elsewhere, and mobilising an entire dreadnought group wasn't going to be an easy feat either.

"Why haven't they done anything yet?" She asked. You have superior numbers, superior firepower; and you're just sitting there. You won't fall for another decoy ship, and that nuclear cloud has almost gone; so why haven't you done anything? She thought to herself. "We need to stall them; pull up a communications channel with their fleet." She commanded. "Audio and visual."

Herren Knight Onhan Tane - DINV One From Me
Light Cruiser Battle Group LCBG JX4-A297 - Gracious Success
Pod deployed in unknown location

"Stand down and we'll guarantee your safety, if not we will be forced to open fire!"

"Yeah, big fucking lie that is." Ecker spoke, the hard reset failing as the troops hit them with another set of EMPs. "Fuckers!" She growled, pulling a lever situated just above her station. The manual mechanism to lock the hatches clunked into place,
leaving the IFV firmly stranded. "How many?"

"At least fifteen, plus a large fucker with a big gun, possibly plasma based." Lowsyk replied, peeking from a periscope at the troops outside of the vehicle. Dalle, Das, and the heavy drone were firmly away from the area, waiting on their orders.

"That must have been some sort of EMP; they're not responding to our radios." Das concluded, peeking from behind the drones' shield and examining the scene with her railguns' scope. "Those interceptors need to get here soon." Dalle was keeping security on their rear, just as the interceptors came into view, soaring down from the sky.

"This is Vigilante 4-4, requesting a designation on targets, confirm."

"Confirmed, Vigilante." Das radioed back, switching on a small IR laser from her railguns' scope. She pointing it towards the general area that the infantry were standing. The interceptors had two pilots; one flying and another for weapons, countermeasures, and observation. They were fast, manoeuvrable, but had very limited weaponry from all the countermeasures that they had to pack in. Flares, smoke screens, electronic scramblers and target falsifiers, along with stealth technology to keep them off of the sensors. In weaponry terms, they could be equipped with a menagerie of missiles, a chin mount railgun, autocannons on wing hardpoints and a large nuclear warhead. All of these couldn't be equipped at the same time, but certain weapons were delegated to each interceptor.

"Vigilante 4-2, infantry targets have been designated, go black for a gun run; other Vigilante follow me for fighter interception." Vigilante 4-4 ordered. Going black was a term for employing sensor countermeasures, such as scrambling radars and spectrometers, along with using a modular refraction shield to blend in with their environment. Vigilante 4-2 had loaded its explosive 30mm rounds and readied its guns, the secondary pilot checking their sensors before firing off long blasts along the length of the infantry. The other Vigilante interceptors had also employed the same countermeasures, firing off a ten round burst of their chin mounted railguns.

by **Eclius** » Wed Sep 06, 2017 6:08 pm

Aquarius 5-c Southern Hemisphere

Senator Aelius 7.12.478c was dressed in expensive business casual, and sat on a fancy chair inside the Sapphirius Hotel's vacation resort in the southern coniferous forests. The resort was huge, and looks Eclisian-styled, it had the traditional Roman pillars, with floors made of pure marble. In the center of the grand hall was a nice, large fountain, 40m or so in height, with botanical treasures planted in the outer circumference. The resort itself was constructed by the Sappirius Hotels and Resorts, however, with the lack in tourism on Aquarius 5c, it was sold for several million Denarii to a local business owner. Aelius grew inpatient, he continuously tapped on his forearm to check the time and the latest news from Bakran representatives. At one point, he called over one of his assistants, and asked, "where on this entire planet is the Bakran representative team? They didn't think we'd have a FORMAL discussion in the woods, did they?", "no status yet sir, " an assistant said, "we will notify General Quintus, and have him resend the meeting info to the Bakran team." Aelius waited a few seconds, he stared at the beauties of Aquarius 5c's ecosystem, then turned to his team of Eclisian diplomats, "ladies and gentlemen, you're lucky enough to be born in a nation that has the access to technology and funding that some nations may not have even dreamed about before. Unlike Bakran representatives, who confirmed that they will arrive through battleship at some point today, you all traveled, instead, on private ships provided by the Senate and People of Eclius and escorted by General Quintus personally. Therefore, with the perks and conveniences provided, I would expect a parallel result, otherwise, consider yourselves fired", "yes, professor" one of the members of diplomatic team responded, "we will not fail the Senate and People of Eclius", "good" Aelius responded, "considering many nations nowadays would rather perceive us as incapable individuals, who knows nothing side from wasting money generated through tech industry. Vesorians, for instance, calls us the filthy rich Roman scientists or capitalists."

Battle Station Tchinomy, Eclisian Domain
Reports came in recently to Consul Fredisius and Consul Libertus, indicating the recent negligence to Imperium's diplomatic message sent to Olimpiada and Panhumanity. They both were shocked by the event, and having had a meeting with Caesar Augustus and Consul Salviana, a decision was made to have protective measures, in order to prevent a potential disruption to Imperium's agenda. Later that day, Caesar Augustus notified the fleets in outer orbit of Muranis, indicating that, gravitational rift weapons are authorized against Olimpiada and Panhumanity forces, in case of large humanitarian crisis in Bakra.

(OOC: gravitational rift weapon is an extremely high-tech weapon developed by Imperium's top scientists, it can generate a small gravitational singularity vortex that lasts for maximum of 15 minutes, and can potentially suck-in any objects within 10km radius, then rift them apart violently or at least causing collateral damage. Due to time required for production and its minimal energy requirement, each fleet's commandship will have to take a cool down time of 12 hours before next launch. )

by **Gagium** » Thu Sep 07, 2017 1:53 pm

Gagium 1st Fleet
Muranis Orbit

It's been 1 day since the GSS Gagium met up with the 1st Fleet. During that time, Grand Fleet Admiral Otto von Freidrich, to everyone's surprise, did not relieve Admiral Bismarck of command of the fleet. However, Otto von Freidrich did put in place an order to stand down unless fired upon, or unless asked for assistance. The spy satellites launched from the GSS Gagium did confirm that a hostile fleet was attempting to destroy Kembra, but no action was taken.

On the bridge of the GSS Gagium, Otto von Freidrich looked out at the fleet under Admiral Bismarck's command. Otto von Freidrich commended Admiral Bismarck for his century-long duty to the Gagium space fleet and to how he managed to only lose one dreadnought in the last battle. Only a few frigates were lost, as well.

DINV Say My Name
Muranis Orbit

Ensign Hanz Meyer stood still, arms still raised, as he listened to the General. When the translation was complete, he carefully asked, "Are they still looking for me?" (referring to the Gagium fleet).

Gagium Forward Operating Base, Muranis

After a few hours of carrying supplies from the GSS Gagium to the forward operating base, an extra 40k soldiers and 700 IFVs now occupied the base. Construction drones from the transportation vessels were busy constructing a central stronghold building in the center of the base, about 150 x 150 meters and 23 meters tall.

General Heinz watched as a fighter landed on the short unpaved runway from which the stationed fighters operated from. The stellar-class fighter landed perfectly. After watching the air traffic for five more minutes, he walked back to the construction site, marveling at the precision of the construction drones. Walking up to one, he asked, "When will the construction be finished?"

"Approximately 3 more days." the drone's AI responded.

"Alright, thanks." General Heinz said.

by **Cyborgs and Sentient Machines** » Sat Sep 09, 2017 3:36 pm

Thath, Muranis

Hermes continued following his escort stealing glances at the prolific gun emplacements and the numerous stoic uninformed soldiers, still regretting his absent minded detour into questioning the strength of the city he was standing in.

Bakra wrote:The man looked back at Hermes and raised an eyebrow, "You seem awfully concerned with the state of our defenses. No matter, anyone could find out what their ammunition makeup is I suppose. They are nearly all computerized batteries, not networked together of course, but each computer greatly assists the gunner. If need be, such as if every soldier's suit was ruptured during a biological or radiological strike, they can all be automated, but this is highly discouraged in the minuscule case of a hack."

He then looked forward and continued pushing through the crowed, "To answer your query about ammunition, they are rapid-firing railguns, each explosive tipped. Sort of a Bakran standard. Missile silos exist, of course, some of them simply ballistic to rip apart nuclear weapons, others with nuclear tips themselves. Even if they did launch nuclear missiles or artillery here though, we have overlapping city-wide shields power by heat from the core. No, it would take infantry to storm this city." He sounded sure of this conclusion, but it wouldn't take a genius to realize it was because he heard it from someone in the military.

Hermes flinched apprehensively, slightly tilting his head to the right while looking downwards at the barrel he was wheeling, staring into it the large cylinder while almost closing his right eye, feeling embarrassment from his faux pas, "Yes, railguns are good," said Herme slightly nervously "it shouldn't matter if a hostile weapons system is fried by an AA laser cannon of torn to pieces by an AA railgun cannon, I do apologize for rudely questioning the ability of this city to defend itself."

Bakra wrote:Ah, here we are now!"

Upon the utterance of this sentence that he had arrived at his destination, Hermes imeaditely straightened up reflexively, like a soldier standing to attention, his leg movements looked almost robotic straight strides up to close the ditance between himself and the Exarch with a brisk pace, the type of fast walking one would commit if they desperately needed to empty their bladder and refused to allow anyone else have the knowledge they were doing so keeping a straight face as possible.

Bakra wrote:"Mr. Hermes," His voice was course from both political campaigning and his interest in giving orders to soldiers, "I was waiting for you. I regret I can't resort to diplomatic niceties at the moment. What is it you've come for?"

Slightly chuckling Hermes began to speak "It is very kind of you to apologise, but I don't need any nicities, infact I prefer it when people are 'forward', it cuts the crap.. so to speak. Anyway, I. I havee come for permission." stated Hermes blankly, his green eyes locked on the Exarch, hands still firmly locked around the handles of the cart that tightly hugged its cargo. "Permission, and knowledge." Slowly taking his left hand off of where it was for the past few minutes, he lifted it off the handle, opening it up so that all 4 fingers and one thumb were erect, the cyborg with one fluid motion of his arm, commanded his hand to point at the canister he had been transporting around. "I also bear a gift".

"If you are capable of this, my government would like to be able to study any of the 'artefacts' that have been all the news lately, you could have them given and my people would borrow them, quickly giving them back, it would be as if they were never gone, or, you could simply tell me sited of where they are and the same would happen, they would be given to your people once analyses are completed.
It is my understanding and that of my government that there are numerous hostile invasion fleets, ". Gesturing towards the nuclear lit sky with his left hand, without looking starwards, right hand still securely grasping the dark handle of the black sled at an angle.
"That too can we would wish to help with, at least two dozen warships, and 20 000 combat droids, although to my current understanding is that you have the situation handled at this moment, I am sure extra help is always good, yes?"

Gently setting the sled on to the ground, now on its four wheels rather than two, Hermes' right hand dropped to his side as he moved to stand to the right of his gift. "Now, my gift to you is inside of here" patting the cylinder with his right hand's knuckles, making a metallic noise. "I seriously doubt that you will be able to make use of it much for a while, but what is inside of this barrel, if you do not have this technology, would be very, very useful. What lies inside is many liters of nano-machine. Nano-bots. Nanites. Call it what you want, this stuff is impressive, right now I don't have a lot of it, but if you fed it, you could easily create multiple swimming pools of this stuff."

"Injecting them into your bloodstream, or simply drinking it, which I can tell you from experience doesn't taste quite pleasant, would allow you to become almost immune to all ailments, imagine miniature tanks in your bloodstream, removing cancers with amazing precision, they can also aid in removing toxins, but they are made to ignore alcohol unless your life is in danger - at popular request. Although if you do put them in you, these are the side effects, you may find yourself excreting less waste as they use what your body does not use to replenish themselves, side note is, your stools will go a blackish color aswell, I don't think these are bad drawbacks.
Although this is not what is impressive, if they have the right materials, they can assemble almost anything, a pocket sized factory and truly what I find is the most impressive use of nanites, is their military applications.
You would need to give them IFF of course, otherwise, they would devour your own. Imagine army ants, intelligent, metallic, ruthless, robotic army ants. Capable of eating through basically anything, you would not want to be on the receiving end of it.
You could have a vial of these nanites, it would look like a vial of viscous oil, if you threw it at the bad guys, the vial would off course break open, and the oil would transform into robotic ants and entire squads of invaders would simply be eaten, with each one being consumed the volume of ants would grow, leaving but a puddle of oil once the deed was done.
This could then act as a mine that would only harm invaders if you wish, and if you are done with them, the nanomachines, you can turn them off with a click of a button on the controller, oh I almost forgot."
Reaching into his large suit pocket he produced a device, that he folded open to show a large touch screen, most likely what was used to control the nanobots, which he held in front of him with his arm completely rigid in front of him. "This is yours now, as well as the barrel." motioning with his head with an exaggerated movement towards the black canister "store it, study it, destroy it, do what you want with it, also, the nanites can create more controllers, all you have to do is tell them what to do, and give them the resources, and it will be done."

by **Gebeta** » Wed Sep 13, 2017 5:30 pm

The Pelican took longer than wanted, slowly advancing to stay hidden. When it arrived it had been hours since the find was called. It moved in the distance, seen as a small dot that evolved into a large craft, that stopped suddenly over the dig hole. The Rig had been moved, its failed attempt to lift the artifact apparent as its crane was smoking white smoke, an electrical issue.

The Pelican lowered its cargo, a large mining plaform akin to the prefab bases used by the military. It had a higher rate drill, with more electrical power behind it to help it. The pad was lowered slowly.

Below it in a neatly drilled hole was a strange object.
“I hear its from the gods” One of the miners said. Some few were relgious. Others like his friend, more grounded in facts.
“It has to be from a precursor civ. I mean it was in a bunker like structure. Mind you, we havent even explored the bunker.

Again the object moved, as it had done since it was found. Moved, as in the way a sea creature would dart its tendrils out, as if searching for prey, sensing. Then as fast as it moved, they retreated.

The object, what looked like a rounded cube to the miners, was important. It meant a possible pay day that would help them rebuild the homes they were soon to leave and fight for. In the hours since the find, they had recived a comms from Kerensky that he was reliving them of all dealings with full pay. Those that returned would recive a retention pay.

“Pull the switch and set the anchors.” One of the platform operators said. He said it over a mic system that patched into the miners on the ground. One by one the miners did so on each pillar. On the inside a drill wen into action. It drilled down 20 feet, then forced itself open creating a anchor.
It added stablity to the whole thing.

The grinding of gears started as the miners watched the grappling arm lower. Once it was down far enough, they donned rigs to allow them to hang from hook and tracks. They moved towards the grappling hook.
“Wait, we cant use it like this” On of them said. Miner takar as he was called. Takar noted that the grappling claw was bare metal.
“It may damage the object.”
The object, seemed to now pay attention to the claw above it. Reaching with its tendrils, though this may just be a trick of the eye, as it could be the randomness its displayed.

“We need to attache a pad dampener on it.” Takar said.

So up the drill went. Mumbling akin to what a ass could be heard, as well as he is right you know.

The Pelican in the mean time had landed ontop of the rig. It was busy being unloaded with sentry guns. Not much of a killer, but would ward off any hostile intentions.

4 hours later

It was night now, the lift about to happen. Again the grappling hook had decended and was ready. Large pads made of rubber and a Gel layer were in place. Due to how the grappling hook would grip the object, it would lift it rather than grab and pull.

It lowered, a few quiet murmors as it sat over the object.

“Procede to clamp”
Well, here is to adventure.

by **Bakra** » Thu Sep 14, 2017 12:09 am

ATTN: Everyone

Mining Rig

The device the miners unearthed immediately reached to the stimuli of the padding, the tendrils suddenly shooting out and latching onto the grappling hook. Rather than let it be handled by the hook, the device somehow slipped its grasp and fell to the floor of the cavern.

After a pregnant pause, the device warmed up, glowing a curious shade of blue in an almost benign manner. Before long the device began to spin on like a top without a surface, in limbo but still moving with a purpose. It nearly tore a whole new spot for it in the ground it was spinning so fast and soon the light shade of blue became darker and darker until it seemed, in an almost perverse way, to glow darkness.

A hole appeared out of the device, no larger than fifteen centimeters in circumference, entirely black. Out shot a bright beam of blue light similar to the initial color of the device. This "light" would seem to be a heatless substance that would drill a hole into anything, and at the particular angle of the hole it screwed right through the crust and mantle of Muranis. It appeared at an awkward angle, coming out towards the northern hemisphere, towards the battlefield above Sandhearth where the Bakran and Dimioniqud forces were doing battle.

Admiral Jaygo was about to finish off his plague of indecision. He had the Dimionicist fleet right where he wanted them, in between his heavy destroyer squadron and his fleet. To many his caution had caused them many lives, but in his mind it had bought them enough time to lay a trap that would finally finish off the Dimionicist. Lining up their prow weapons, the battleship group at the center of the Bakran fleet was preparing to finish off the enemy fleet, even if it would take several more volleys and grit than the slow-paced admiral was prepared for. The feeling of imminent victory over the Dimionicist was the last he would feel.

The mysterious blue light bore a hole in the Loltha's hull and two of its minor reactors. This lucky shot was so sudden and unexpected that engineering or even the automatic safety protocols couldn't engage to contain the damage. The reactors explosively leaked with enough force to overload the main cores. The monstrous power cores used by the Bakran prow weapons and engines overloaded, utterly destroying the ship before Jaygo's console could light up. The resulting explosion utterly decimated three of the battleships in the group and nearly destroyed the Sullen Heart. In the wake of this explosion the second in command of the fleet had the presence of mind to reverse their course back to the Gargaz. Though they still very much outnumbered and outgunned the Dimionicist fleet, the Bakrans had no way of discerning who possessed the power that destroyed some of their most powerful ships. Their retreat to the Gargaz was guarded against the Dimionicist, and any attempts to follow even the damaged Sullen Heart would be met with a fury.

The beam could be traced, of course, as it simply was concentrated nothing to sensors. The brief hole in the air of the planet or the atmosphere above could be traced down to the surface and pinpointed to the miners near the Spine of the Gods. It would require some detective work, sure, but for the moment the fleets in orbit were in a state of confusion in the wake of the odd device.

Just like the device was slowly turning dark in the cavern, so was the beam of light on the device. Though it was very bright blue even as it skewered the Bakran fleet in orbit, it steadily became darker and darker until it was a black beam that was almost featureless across the void. None of the forces on Muranis would know what would end up happening to this beam, and the path it would travel, and doubtless they would care considering how they would most likely be concerned with the origin of this monstrously powerful beam. Though the technology was highly advanced, it was still simply light and restricted to light speed and would seem to continue until the edge of existence at this almost ludicrously slow pace in the era of faster-than-light travel.

It would be nearly five billion years and five billion light years before the beam would strike anyone other than unfortunate space dust and some millennia-old radio signals across the void. A star that had not yet formed at the time of the war for Muranis, a red dwarf with a habitable planet orbiting it, would be the next destination for the light. The sun would be nearly bisected by this beam of light, hitting the sweet spot that would briefly interfere with its process of nuclear fission and in what could only described as a fluke the star simply exploded. The stone age cultures on the sole habitable planet barely knew that the sky was falling before they were no more.

ATTN: CASM

Thath, Muranis

Exarch Xurn stroked his chin reflexively, having shaved his decades old beard in the last election. His campaign thought it would give him a new look after his highly controversial second administration, which (moderately) worked. He still twiddled with it in thought, even two years since his facial hair was massacred.

"Slavis, leave us." Xurn spoke curtly to the aide, who bowed out and retreated from hearing range. The guards. However, did not move. The exarch eyed Hermes's gift, trying to hide his longing glance. If he could obtain this technology for Bakra, he could be elevated to no march, a personal administrator of the Imerpial Family.

"Hermes, I can't promise you much, but you may be able to study some of the artifacts, provided you do so in the confines of our facilities. General Kunius is being... difficult about them. In regards to the extra forces, more help would greatly be appreciated."

ATTN: Eclius

Aquarius 5-C

Dignitary Sovni checkered her datapd, "The Eclians have given us directions to the meeting point," she gave a sidelong glance to Captain Lurac, asking the rhetorical question, "Shall we answer the call?"

Sovni and her party strode through the woods, accompanied by four Bakran MAriens in full armor. They were a menacing sight, standing eight feet tall, their armor making them walking tanks to the unarmored naval officer and diplomatic envoy. She wasn't expecting to utilize them, but they were a useful show of force for a delicate situation.

Soon they were at the resort. She left he MArines in full view of the Eclians and with the captain went to meet the other diplomats.

ATTN: Remnants of Exilvania

Gavpa Lodge, Muranis

"They killed the entire tribe!" Lana Elthol screamed with a fury. She was young, possibly the youngest one in the lodge. The guysik were not ones prone to emotion or rash behavior, but she was barely old enough to remember arriving on Muranis, and not the horrors the older folk were used to seeing.

"They've killed several, sister Elthol," one of the brothers replied, though he did not chide her. She had seen her entire family killed, barely making it out herself. Being the last of her tribe, she was elevated to chief, having a seat in the tribal councils across the planet.

"When will it stop? Until all our kin are killed? Is that what Kunius wants?" Her fury was unabated by this, although she did lower her voice of her now-peers.

"I sympathize with your plight, but we have been ordered to wait," the brother-chief was patient, but unwavering, as were the others in the lodge.

"I disagree, Brother Yinsow. We are guysik, we all remember the days when we had to defend what was left of the hive from interlopers, what are we to do about the Exilvanians?" Brother Gesha dissented. One of the older chiefs, he was one of the champions of colonizing Muranis to save them from sectarian conflicts on Hollow. His name carried a great deal of influence even in the individualistic minded guysik.

"Nothing." The lone outsider in the cave-lodge spoke, harsher than many would with these elders. He was one of the only ones welcome to the nomads, "We don't have air superiority, we don't have armor, about the only thing we do have is time."

"Thespold, while we appreciate what you have done for us, it is hardly your place." Gesha growled. Though he respected the outsider, he still couldn't stand him being around for their councils.

"You know the plan, we have to stick to it if we are going to save your families and Kembra. Leave your warriors behind for night raids, but evacuate the tribes deeper into the Great Reach." The outsider eyed every chief in the room, "We all know you have your hiding places. Go there, and let the warriors stay. I will make use of them."

The room slowly relented at this. They were never content with running, but they knew they needed to do this in order to keep them from being massacred.

ATTN: Remnants of Exilvania

The Shallow Sea

Though the Bakrans didn't thinly spread their troops around the Shallow Sea nor did they possess the capability in that region to maintain even a semblance of aerial superiority, they did leave a few surprises for the Exilvanians. Hundreds of meters under the surface around the Shallow Sea were seismic devices, designed to pulse and shift the sands under the Exilvanian lines. The pulses were short, but powerful.

Sinkholes formed on the surface under the Exilvanians feet, some of them only a few meters across, others upwards of a hundred meters as the sand seemed to fly into the air land in an entirely different position than before. It wouldn't be a stretch to think that soldiers, vehicles, and even buildings would be buried underneath what would look like a very powerful and concentrated series of earthquakes under the Exilvanian lines. The water wasn't unaffected, though most of it was on the surface and in the vicinity of the coasts, not near the Kembra metropolis. Tsunami and corresponding rogue waves formed around the coastlines on a scale that would be expected of a series of major earthquakes.

There were quakes and tremors in Kembra, though the city was prepared for this eventuality. Brace shields the Murtaz had specially requisitioned for this had kept the city from being bent unto itself and the domes were meant to take this kind of pressure. The hard ocean floor did not take kindly to these intrusions, and seeing how the city was practically embedded in it this would normally be cause for alarm, but the populace had been hard at work fortifying the city. The extra ferrocrete pylons, steel bars, and Murtaz's brace shields held the city's buildings in place during both the man-made disaster and hopefully against the coming assault.

ATTN: Universal Union of Panhumanity

Fiery Thunder Battlegroup

The battle station buckled under the assault by the gravitic lens weapons, unaccustomed to the exotic alien weaponry. It may be an orbital fortress, capable of withstanding veritable sieges as the term implies, but not everything could always be accounted for. The design was best used against the railguns and lasers that were standard fare of the galaxies fleets, but the Bakrans obsessiveness with making stuff as tough as can be held firm.

The shields briefly dropped to 72%, an unexpected development for the battle station commander and one that greatly worried him. He requisitioned power to be siphoned from Selneasis to the station, but he learned he would have to wait a few more precious minutes for the MERGED to power up its transfer array. The kinetic projectiles impacted the shields and while incredibly powerful devices were more expected, lowering the shields only a minuscule amount compared to the devastation of the granitic lenses. In an effort to regain shield capacity, the commander of the fortress diverted power to just the GAP arrays and generators rather than the kinetic batteries.

The fleet that was originally around the Fiery Thunder were spreading out now so to avoid being taking out wholesale by these new weapons. Though this reduced their speed, they continued their slow march to the enemy fleet more than a moon's orbit away. Dozens of ships lined up their prow weapons during their course, and the fleet fired seventy railroads at this new threat. Most of them were nuclear tipped, designed to reinforce the kinetic energy of the railrounds. To reinforce the point that Muranis was a Bakran world, the commander activated three GAP systems on the battleship Effort of Mortals and the pocket battleships Severance and Morose Innocent. Though the enemy fleet would most likely see them coming at this distance and have time to react, the fleet commander was counting on the sheer volume and variance of the spread to damage the outnumbered, though may not outgunned, enemy fleet as well as the railrounds to distract them from the GAP prow weapons.

by **Dimoniquid** » Sat Sep 16, 2017 7:24 pm

High Ship-Lord Corde Lowsyk - DINV Flame of Kale
Heavy Cruiser Battle Group HCBG JX3-A56G - Fleet of Disciplined Ferocity and Gambit
Approaching Godspear

Corde couldn't quite discern what had happened in the past few minutes. First, they were about to be obliterated by the enemy fleet and the next moment the fleet was retreating. "Was that us?" Corde asked.

"We don't have any kind of weaponry that would register with what we just saw." The tactical officer replied. "We can't read any other ships that would be able to emit that kind of damage either." He continued.

Corde was relieved, frustrated, and confused all in one big ball. She was relieved that they wouldn't have to fight a superior force, frustrated that they won through sheer cosmic luck, and confused as to what that luck even was. "Set a rally point for the carriers, we'll regroup with General Melnau for the siege." She ordered, pushing her fringe aside. "What of Commandant Vera?"

"From the scanning reports, they're in one piece; but they're going to need a tow with that massive destroyer on their bow." The tactical officer announced. "That could be a nice bounty if we can scrap it and find some new tech while we're at it." He added.

"Keep us on course. I need to look over the fleet reports; you have the bridge." She ordered, taking her leave.

Commandant Howell - DINV Say My Name
Heavy Destroyer - Designated DINV-2293-5A3
Docked to the DINV Shield of Unah

"Are they looking for me?"

"There's no Gagium ships around, if that's what you're asking." Vero replied. "We blew most of them up, if I recall." He continued. "I'm pretty sure we're still picking up escape pods from them. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with you; I was thinking of have you shipped back to Gallos under the Slavery Pretenses of our Words of Engagement, but I don't think High Lord Lowsyk would approve." He teased. It was common for more metropolitan in the Dimonicist Empire to hold slaves, but it was frowned upon in more industrialized areas. "You should start by telling me your name, and then we'll debrief you on the situation."

Meanwhile, up on the catwalk, Commandant Howell had just finished the last of his drink, and was now devouring the second packet of his MRE. A crewmember, one of his from the SMN, had walked up to him with a datapad. "Sorry to interrupt you, sir, but the fleet is on the move with a rally point on the carriers. From the reports, some kind of energy weapon had cut through the Bakran fleet and forced their retreat; you've been requested to the carriers ready room." They informed Howell. Howell was pleasantly surprised. He had thought it was going to take a lot more to get rid of the Bakrans, but it seemed the Elders were smiling on them today.

Howell cleaned himself up before entering his ready room, polishing off his second pouch and entering the room. He took his place at the table along with the carriers commanding officer, pressed a clear button on his chair, and watched the holograms flicker into life. "My Lords, I hear you bring great news from the battle."

"As do you, Commandant. I hear you fended off an entire Gagium fleet." Corde responded, changed from her battleskin.

"As the saying goes; a lion does not need courage to chase away desert mice." He countered. A true Dimonicist sentiment. Howell watched as a holographic display of Godspear arose from the table, taken from long range multi spectrometer scans. They had managed gather a trove of intelligence, from the mines buried under the flats, to the walls and shielding, to the massive citadel in the center. Anything underground, which was probably the majority of the complex, wasn't detailed as the spectrometers were struggling to map out what was under it for an unknown reason. "I assume we're looking at Godspear, my Lords."

"The very same. Our intelligence only holds part of what we need; unfortunately the bulk of the complex under the ground has not been mapped, so we will need to approach this siege carefully. Our first priority is creating a staging ground on the planets surface. The flats provide a tactical advantage for our enemies, and mines will provide a tough foe to combat." She began, manipulating the map to the flat grounds outside of Godspear. "Our minesweepers may be able to provide some kind of EMP pulse to render them inactive, but we will need to obtain one to examine it."

"Why can't we just through a few long range, deep penetrating missiles at them? Cause a chain reaction, churn up the ground. Its what the Bakrans did to our mine field, and we provided useful cover for us." A Ship Lord chimed.

"Because we may need them later when we occupy the place." Corde replied. With such a high level of protection, Corde was sure they were not going to take it very easily, and she was certainly sure that the Bakrans were going to try and get it back. "Perhaps a small series of strike teams with teams of engineers will be able to acquire them. We send them under the cover of darkness, scrambling any long range sensors or spectrometers the base may have for scanning the flats with the EW ship, along with one of the fast and maneuverable frigates waiting just outside to run interference and provide cover in case the strike teams are caught." She suggested. It was a ballsy plan; they had already lost two ships, three were in the repair bays, and they had at least a thousand casualties, with a few hundred fatalities.

"Sounds entirely possible; I'm more worried about the anti aircraft and orbital defences though. We won't be here for long if they're everything they've got at us, and that frigate won't be much use on the ground either if they've got artillery." Another Lord proposed. [i]"Do we know anything of their ground forces?"

"We don't doubt that they're going to be tough; chances are they've got more than just regular troops holding their positions on those walls." Howell interjected. "We have plenty of troops that can be put behind their walls, but those shields are a real problem. The one protecting the citadel is extremely peculiar, but extremely powerful. I doubt anything we have will get through it."

"What about that energy weapon that crippled the Bakrans? Surely that can make a nice sized hole for us." Corde asked her colleagues. She turned to her right, staring at a stout, strong, and stocky Ship Lord by the name of Yuk Dunn-Yar pale skinned and face covered in some self-scarification; something his people saw as war-like and used to scare the enemy. Yuk nodded, rubbed the back of his neck, and turned to Corde.

"I drop troops for elevator base. Troops see weapon from mountain range, scans show energy come from same place. I spare few hundred for weapon recovery. We use engineers for weapon test, yes?" He spoke, roughly in Dimonicist Basic. His people were rather new to the Empire, and few people that had been given command of a ship from his people were limited in the most common and basic of Dimonicist languages. "We crush Bakrans." He continued. Corde smiled; as much as Yuks' people were completely mental, they were one hell of a fearsome race. They practised cannibalism of their enemies, scarred themselves, and committed atrocities that some of the most hardened Dimonicist leaders not dare talk about.

"Ship Lord Yuk will send for the energy weapon at the Spine of the Gods while we recover a mine for study. After that General Melnau and I will begin the siege battle plan." Corde announced, Yuk abruptly cutting the holographic transmission in the midst of her sentence.

"They are truly insane." A Ship Lord muttered, concerned at the lack of respect from Yuk.

"You'll be grateful for the insane things he's willing to do when his people end up winning this war." Corde responded.

by **Remnants of Exilvania** » Sun Sep 17, 2017 5:07 am

Lázlo Ungern
Exilvanian XI Army Siege Contingent
Around the Shallow Sea

Another series of explosions shook the earth, causing Truppenkommandant Ungern to stumble a few feet backwards. From his fortified command centre he could see another wave being torn apart by the explosions of the bombs thrown by his bombers, reducing it to nothing but a harmless high tide. For so long had the Bakrans simply passively stood by and passively watched the Exilvanians land one wave after another. The Truppenkommandant of the XI Army could not say wether he should be relieved that they finally ended this eerie inactivity of theirs or if he should be annoyed. For the Bakrans did not fight back the way he had hoped to. Instead of fighters challenging his Air Supremacy, instead of amphibious tanks and diver forces, instead of massed mobile assaults he was faced with attacks he could do nothing against. They were using the very ground against him, using sand and the sea to thwart his efforts of taking the city.

They had definitely been more successful than they could ever imagine. After the first Tsunamis, Lázlo had been forced to withdraw the bomber squadrons from bombing the city and use it to protect his troops from the waves. They were terrible and deadly and there was nothing around to stop them if they were to reach the coast. It was only flat desert everywhere, no mountains to hide upon, nothing really. And although the he had managed to limit his losses with breaking the waves, the constant floods still made it impossible to build a real frontline with heavy equipment around the shallow sea. And the Bakran attacks were not limited to just to giant waves, no, earthquakes and rising sandmasses made his life terrible as well. It was mainly these which had prevented him from building a complete air field and fortifications to further cement his grip of the area

And yet, uncaring of their losses, the Exilvanians continued with their efforts. The lack of heavy equipment meant that the attack against Kembra itself had to be postponed but the Invasions was still ongoing. Reports were coming in from all around the Shallow Sea in a great radius, from the countles Sondereinsatzkommandos that had been deployed. What he heard from them was mostly good news. Their company sized forces roamed the countryside, battling native tribal forces whenever they came upon them. But the resistance they were facing stiffened. Were it not for the highly mobile and flexible warfare in the desert with small groups, the front would slowly come to a standstill but the nature of this kind of war and the terrain let the Exilvanians still advance further and further. But things were not good enough for Lázlo.

After establishing a comm link with the fleet, Lázlo asked the fleet to start the Terror War Operational Pattern 193. What this basically meant was, that Exilvanian landing ships would descend above Kembra and from there, low above the ground, start flying to much farther locations on the planet to drop their forces. The aim was to avoid detection and drop small Sondereinsatzkommandos everywhere inbetween and behind the enemy lines, their task to destroy supply lines, jam communications, ambush natives who were sure that their forces were still far away with the front. And although the forces were small and easily dispatched, they were also highly mobile, hard to catch and quite hard hitting. They were like ticks upon the Bakrans, small, hard to find and parasitic, living of the loot they found. And all of them had the potential to be lethal by stumbling across something behind the frontlines that could be most important to the Bakrans.

by **Communist Xomaniax** » Sun Sep 17, 2017 6:16 am

On the edge of the Setsko System

The vacuum of space was dark, illuminated only by insignificant and infrequent points of light. The cosmos was harsh, too, every inch of its infinity unfathomably hostile to life. It took most races thousands of years of development to even begin to conceive the impossible, formless thing above the skies of their small worlds, thousands more to dream of stepping out into its depths Even beyond that, to develop the globe spanning, complex civilizations necessary to pool resources and technology together to construct something even capable of reaching up and out into its vastness. To walk amongst the stars was a race's greatest pinnacle of achievement. This, to the learned, was law.

But there were, from time to time in the span of cosmic time and space, races that did not so naturally develop complex civilizations and means of production. They, through one means or another, had developed or acquired the capacity for flight some other way, rocketing an otherwise primitive race into the cosmos. Inevitably however they would be made thralls or destroyed by other races of more sophisticated means. Perhaps even more uncommon were those few races who avoided such fates, finding ways to consolidate themselves and their territories, to eke out a common living or even thrive. These races remain primitive in the face of unyielding challenges and cosmic horror, becoming cast iron and savage. Their technology reflects this: all primitive kinetic weapons and atom bombs, with a sprinkling of stronger stuff if it could be acquired through force of arms or guile.

The ships that tread past the very out most edge of the Setsko system exemplified this. Each one, layered in dozens or even hundreds of feet of reinforced graphene plating and jutting out in all manner of queer angles and designs, had an almost handcrafted feel about them. As if crude hands cobbled them together wouthout much forethought or planning, the hodgepodge of guns and mounds of engines guving credence to the idea that the only real goal had been to make them as deadly and fast as possible. This impression was true. Each of the ragged, jagged wedges was incredibly, impossibly fast, and each one packed more guns than a dozen opposing ships of its size. They gave off energy signatures suggesting engines vastly more powerful and energy intensive than even remotely necessary to move such craft, tens of thousands of pistols and turbines whirring all at once, and each craft giving off enough of an energy signature to suggest a ship of considerably larger size and more intensive purpose.

Such was the assembled war fleet of the Thrall Breakers, a particularly odious and unpleasant tribe of the Ozlukar, themselves an already foul and barbarous race of ill reputation and worse intent. The Ozlukar's presence was dreaded, and it was popularly and truly believed they made their dirty corners of the galaxy worse for having existed in it. Standing tall and fearsome amongst the ramshackle craft was the capitol ship Black Shackle. Massive even by liberal standards, it was both the most ramshackle looking craft of the fleet and also the most imposing. Cobbled together from the cannibalized remains of other dreadnoughts, super dreadnoughts, and even capitol ships, it seemed to jut in every direction at once, a horrid and lurching thing. Vaguely shaped like a fat pyramid, every inch seemed to bristle with guns and other devices of ill intent, or otherwise covered in thrusters or engine parts, as if it was capable of firing off in any direction, or being flown in any direction at a moment's notice. The shape also allowed it to deliver obscene broadsides, or should it line up correctly, strike with not only its single gigantic main armament, but with all the assembled weapons on each face at a target in front. It was important, then, to note that Ozlukar ships were not standardized affairs. Each one was completely unique in its own respect. They might be vaguely sorted into this or that category based on size and purpose. Not that categorizing and cataloguing them all was even possible. All Ozlukar scarcely spoke the same dialect, let alone the same language, and there simply was no written tongue at all. Only the clumsy jargon script of the mech-mongers, all crude pictographs and logographs, glyphs and hieroglyphics.

Gorbag rose suddenly, startled by the sudden wailing of a klaxon. It signified that they had revved the engines down and had ceased faster-than-light travel. That meant that they had entered the Setsko system. Good, good. Thought Gorbag. He had pushed the fleet hard, pushed the galley slaves harder. They had shovered fuel ore into the atomizer boilers for days now, with only a scant few moments of rest here and there. They would be tired. Some of the slaves had even died of the exhaustion. Some, but not many, though enough to make the bean counter in him to wince. So be it though, it just meant extra food for the other slaves, and a treat for the crew if need be. Still, the crew's spirits would be low. He made a note to tell his constituent warchiefs to dole out extra grog and food rations as a reward.

The chief rose from his spot in his personal chambers just as another crewman, not a slave but another Ozlukar like him entered, offering up a grunting pant as a sign of submission and lowering his head. He didn't speak until Gorbag grunted in acknowledgement of his presence. The charade embarrassed and annoyed the chieftain, he found the baser and more animalistic actions of his race to be distasteful. The crewman informed him of the journey's end, and Gorbag grunted once more in appreciation for the message.

"Get the boys to battle stations and keep them there, but keep weapons lowered and powered down for the moment. Keep the engines running at a low roar as well, don't want anyone getting the wrong idea or guessing our intentions." He ordered. It was important to keep his hounds leashed, it wouldn't help matters at all to jump the gun and start a fight where presently there wasn't one.

"Ready the comm screens as well I want my warchiefs on the horn, and in full view. We need to discuss things before we make our next move." The crewman bowed deeply and took off. Gorbag readied himself, gathering up his papers and neatly filing them away before leaving. Those papers were important to him, his true magnum opus. Not his empire of slavery, not the prestige his tribe held in the royal court on Ozun, not even the wealth and power it had accrued over the years of his chieftainship. All of it paled in comparison to the tome he had begun to write, an epic saga in an alien tongue, for his people had no written language. He looked down on his papers and felt a joy welling in his heart, as if a few hundred scraps of parchment would suddenly spring to life and all at once bring civilization to his wayward people. Big Chief Gorbag exited his chambers as his thoughts drifted away from the situation at hand, and onward to more esoteric things.

The old chief considered himself a learned man, far more so than any other of his species. They were content with their ignorant lot, the learned amongst them only playing at knowledge. Tasting it, but not truly taking it in. How little had changed since his people had first reached the stars. Oh, there were more of them now. More worlds, too. But they remained slaves to their baser nature, wallowing in filth and muck and mire as superstitious troglodytes, squatting over a fire they barely comprehended amidst a vast and unforgiving abyss.

The miasmal stink of the ship jarred Gorbag from his ruminations once more, causing him to scowl as his train of thought was broken. Industrial stench, the coalesced milieu of a million bodies crammed together, even the ever present exhaust fumes of kak, that wondrous super fuel that powered the Ozlukar civilization. The poor filtration and chemical haze made his head hurt, left him fuzzy and dark around the corners. But those were the limits of Ozlukar engineering. Most of his kind grew accustomed to it, and he supposed that other species without so hardy a constitution would die outright, but still it rankled him. This made him an odd duck, the average Ozlukar more than happy to huff exhaust fumes and drink grog to excessively drunkenness. His people had grown hedonistic since alcohol and drug use were introduced. Yes, his kin reveled in the haze, but he considered it a weakness, a tacit admission of the obvious: his people were not adept builders, they were the inferiors of most engineers in the galaxy. That thought enraged him. But the steam blew out of him, he knew such things were to be expected. His people had traveled through space not yet two centuries. The Ozlukar had been true troglodytes back then.

Ozun, his people's homeworld, had been icy and barren then, and small. Small as some other worlds' moons. His people had numbered less than a hundred thousand, scattered as they were here and there in Ozun's icy marshes and frozen jungles, grouped together in loosely affiliated clans and tribes. They had lived in a perpetual stone age, their planet barren of metals Only a few tribes used metals, harvested from the wreckage of long dead fleets that occasionally fell from the heavens. In the old days the shamans taught that these we gifts from the gods.

Gorbag peered down and watched as a galley slave buckled and fell from exhaustion, only to meet the lash of another task master, who was also a slave. These memories brought him back. Having gotten the idea of chattel slavery from his travels abroad, Gorbag ended his long journey by captaining the bare bones ancestor of the Black Shackle. Laden down with all manner of treasures and tomes of knowledge, its true prize was in the holding cells. Fifty thousand human slaves. Humans. Thought Gorbag with a wry grin. They were his favorite race for thralldom. Smaller and weaker than even a very young Ozlukar, they were easy to train and easier to subdue. Not like the Ozlukar, who were not much inclined towards slavery, nor in being laborers, miners, or farmers of any sort. He became Chieftain shortly after, and his tribe became immensely prosperous.

Gorbag believed it was slavery that would drive his people forward, and he had been correct. His people settled onto their worlds, carving up static territories and living in luxury on vast communal, tribal estates. Slaves both captured and bred did nearly all labor. The Ozlukar focused on being warriors, building greater and more complex and absurd things, and even governance. That other chief, biggest of the Big Chiefs who was called Dozer Colossus, bult the strongest of all the tribes, and he warred with tribe after tribe until they bent the knee. Oh, some chose instead to flee into the void of space beyond his grasp, but most knelt in submission. Now there was peace, now there was stability under the Dozer's iron fist.

But that was where the progress had stopped. With the advent of sedentary life, the Ozlukar population exploded. Forty years ago, there were maybe a billion of his kind, but now that number had increased exponentially. No one had any clue how many of them there now were. Instead of only the most alpha of males breeding, all the males bred, and with big harems and bigger litters of pups. Families extended to the hundreds and to the thousands, extended clans to the tens and hundreds of thousands, and tribes millions and even billions beyond that for the largest of them. With every newborn tribe came expansion to house them, and greater did become the demand for slaves. Fighting was becoming endemic once more, as surplus males struggled for supremacy in the clans and tribes.

Gorbag believed that his people would succeed themselves to death. That they would reach critical mass and break apart once more, and be swept up by the more established races. So he did not believe his luck when, during a slave gathering journey, he had by chance heard a broadcast from a not so distant planet about artifacts of considerable power. His imagination had begun to run wild, his every wild theory seemingly confirmed after fleet after fleet arrived to stake a claim. The planet in question was Muranis, in the Setsko system. Nominally Bakran, it was small enough and remote enough not to normally draw much attention from its overlords. On paper, this made it the perfect target for a raid. The chaos of the present war only sweetened the potential for bounty. Surely some of the attackers would desire extra muscle, and thus it hadn't taken much to convince his warchiefs that this would be a gold mine for them.

The chief moved past the boiler chamber, finding an elevator up to the correct floor.Gorbag strode through the labyrinthine, crooked halls at a pace only a bit less than a full job, seeking out the bridge, Collared slaves and his fellow tribesmen skittering and scattering out of his path. Quickly he found a detour through the atomizer-boiler chambers. They were two massive rooms, combined equaling about half the ship's mass. Half a million slaves called these chambers home during journeys, plus a few thousand Ozlukar task masters to keep them in line. Gorbag smiled grimly to himself, a measure of pride finding itself displayed. Slavery like this did not occur naturally in Ozlukar society, a fundamentally hunter-gatherer-raider people not needing for vast seas of chattel But Gorbag, whose blood title was the Slaver, was a learned man. A learned man who had seen much in his travels across the stars before ascending to chieftainship.

The Ozlukar did not develop space travel naturally, contrary to what the shamans taught. They knew not that, nor industry, or even agriculture. The first Ozlukar to explore space had been, as the shamans taught, chosen by the gods to board a flying temple to heaven, or as Gorbag knew were picked up by a stray cargo ship crew as a curiosity. Those few Ozlukar who survived returned as conquerors, as champions. In ramshacle craft, bearing treasures and weapons and knowledge, they changed the whole species overnight. Vast wars were fought as old tribes gave way to new, Ozun laid to waste and poisoned by weapons whose bearers did not fully comprehend them. More ships were bult out of space scrap, and all at once a race of cavemen colonized their system, fought more wars and laid waste to more planets, populations exploding and whole worlds burned and picked clean. Those great tribal empires fought even more wars in their early expansions, until they made contact with other races too. The Ozlukar learned of mining and farming, and even industry and trade. They learned to covet shiny things like jewels and gold, which they even beat into exotic shapes as a kind of money.

What knowledge they appreciated most was the space raid, however. It was far easier to take things than to make them, and thus raiding became a favored pastime. This led to wars with other races, wars the Ozlukar lost Gorbag felt a tingle the stump where an arm had been, and where a crude robotic one now was. It was a trophy from one such war. What Gorbag learned from his travels was the necessity of civilization, that his people would die out if they continued to live solely off of ill gotten gains, and if they did not reach some kind of unity. Before long he found himself in another winding series of corridors, flanked by weapons bays, crew quarters, and all manner of other things. Soon enough he had found the bridge in question. He checked his watch. Thirty minutes. He cursed under his breath, bawling a hapless slave out of the way and lumbering over to the command chair. Scarcely a moment passed before one of his communications officers spoke up.

"I have your warchiefs on standby waiting for orders, boss."

"Bring them up on screen. Need to make this quick, no room for miscommunication. All at once their similarly ugly visages appeared onscreen, clearly agitated from the prolonged wait. He considered them, all scars and deformities and mutations. He was sure that, to the other races of the galaxy, his people were quite ugly. Each of them stood anywhere from seven to ten feet tall, with the smallest weighing some eighty-five stone and the heaviest around three hundred. Their backs were terribly hunched, an ever present and massive hump giving them a perpetual slope to their shoulders. Their arms too were long and heavy, nearly reaching the ground, and their legs were strangle short, giving them an almost apish appearance. Their bodies were also covered in a short layer of rough, greasy fur. Beneath their skin were thick layers of protective blubber, and below that an almost beastly kind of muscle. With the blubber came their almost swollen looking torsos, all their vital organs located in center mass, wrapped in thick, protective cords of muscle and walls of blubber. Their arms ended in large, webbed hands, their legs in almost elephantine feet. Their limbs, head, and back hump were covered in bulbous, hard, stone-like growths similar to horns. Their heads were perhaps the most strange. They possessed small, holed lumps where another creature's ears might be, and big, wet eyes of pure blackness. Their heads grew no distinctive hair. Their mouths were massive and gaping, capable of taking in a man's head and shoulders, mouth filled with molars and thick fangs. Tusks protruded from the mouths of their males, and from their top lip grew thick sensory whiskers, and from their males grew around their face thick beards. But their most noticeable trait amongst the males were their trunks. Huge, fleshy things, the largest ones extending inches outwards and nearly past their chins.

Gorbag's vain musings were broken by the loud clearing of throats. He focused on his warchiefs' faces, huge black eyes flicking from one to the other. He stroked his beard as if in deep thought before speaking.

"Boys," he began, as much out of dominance as out of camaraderie, "I want the fleet proper to hang back for the moment. We need to survey the situation before we proceed any farther. What little scanning we've done so far suggests that the conflict is well under way, which is all real good for us. Let them grind each other down, weaken the planet's defenses and blunt their own attacks." He hesitated how to explain his orders. None of the assembled chiefs knew about the artifacts. As far as they were aware, this was strictly a mission for slaves and loot.

"Goroth," he said, addressing his chief skirmisher. He did not use his subordinate's blood title, Gobsplitter. This one was new, untested to him. That meant he did not deserve to be considered blooded. "I want you to send out a few longships. Keep their weapons down but rev up the engines to full blast, I want those things whipping around the planet quick as they can. Send them with a few squadrons of fighters as escorts. I want a full scan of the planet done, map out the villages and where the people are. Probe them, too, see about finding what kind of weapons they've got stored down there. But don't linger, I don't want to lose anything I don't absolutely need to.

"The rest of you, gather your fleets and bundle up close to the Black Shackle. Our combined overlapping shields will be more than enough to keep our squishy bits where they're supposed to be, for the time being. Keep your weapons manned and ready to go off at my signal, and watch out for anything approaching us no matter how small. I'm going to have a message sent out to the attacking parties, try to find someone interested in hiring some kind extra muscle.

"If not, we'll move on to the planet, try to skirt around the other fleets as best we can. If we are to engage, we'll do so all at once. Smash them up in one blow. But the important thing is that we get on that planet immediately. I don't want the locals digging in too deep before we start carting them and their shiny bits off. This should be a quick smash and grab if we have any say in it."

He let a moment of silence fall before he dropped the bomb on them.

"Make sure your boys keep me well informed of the looting, too. If they find anything unusual, something they can't immediately identity, I want to know that goddamned second. Let me find out one of you lot kept something from me, I'll gut you myself and fry up your gonads for lunch. Dismissed."

He saw their faces briefly before the screens faded to black. They were suspicious about that last order, but none felt brave enough to challenge him on it. He was old, but he was still the Big Chief. He wasn't the biggest amongst them, or the strongest, but they knew he knew how to hurt them. They thought him touched in the head for his obsession with alien scrawlings, and he had needed to beat a few into submission more than once. But they learned, they bent the knee.

The old Slaver drew up a message to send to the attacking fleets. The message sent out was deceptively crude, the product of Gorbag's keen mind and playing up the not so unfounded stereotypes of Ozlukar as dumb, savage brutes. Ozlukar had no written language, there simply had not been enough time to develop one. Not even three hundred years had passed since they still lived in caves. Instead the message was "written" in a series of crude pictographs and logographs that served as the tech-mongers' jargon counterpart to the grunting, gutteral spoken tongues of the Ozlukar.

OOC: attention all hostile attacking parties

Code: Select all
I am Big Chief Gorbag the Slaver, the Tyrant of the Thrall Breakers tribe of the mighty and unbreakable Ozlukar. We seek no quarrel with those who receive this message. The Thrall Breakers seek only god given rights to slaves and plunder, to be plucked from the shores of Muranis and the weak, sniveling Bakrans. We'll pledge our muscle as sellswords to anyone with enough coin or good things to pay us. But Ozlukar are made for fighting and winning, and we'll take what we want from this planet regardless. -Big Chief Gorbag the Slaver, Boss and Master of All You Ever Saw

The message was sent via heavy, albeit crude encryption to the various attacking parties surrounding Muranis. The intent was clear: The Thrall Breakers were mercenaries for hire, interested in slaves and loot. Willing to fight to protect their supposed right, they were just as willing to work with others, or ignore each other if need be.

Meanwhile, five Ozlukar longships, backed by fifteen fighters, zipped off away from the protection of the fleet and towards Muranis, doing their best to needle through a path the least clogged with alien craft. Their orders were simple: a quick survey of the planet, then back to the fleet. They were to only engage if it meant life or death, and to flee under all other circumstances. They made no attempt to move stealthily, not that Ozlukar ships were particularly stealthy in the first place. They relied on their monstrous engines to keep them safe instead, kak-gas powered, giga charged turbo engines allowing them a cruising travel just north of half the speed of life, with pulse thrusters allowing them to accelerate so immediately to so great of speeds they could effectively blink from spot to the other. The fighters were even faster, though this came at a price of being much more fragile.

They would approach the planet quickly, doing their best to avoid other fleets and doing their scans as quickly as possible before scooting off to the next area. They would only blink if they were bushwacked, too many blinks would fry the engines.

by **Eclius** » Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:45 pm

ATTN: Eclius

Aquarius 5-C

Dignitary Sovni checkered her datapd, "The Eclians have given us directions to the meeting point," she gave a sidelong glance to Captain Lurac, asking the rhetorical question, "Shall we answer the call?"

Sovni and her party strode through the woods, accompanied by four Bakran MAriens in full armor. They were a menacing sight, standing eight feet tall, their armor making them walking tanks to the unarmored naval officer and diplomatic envoy. She wasn't expecting to utilize them, but they were a useful show of force for a delicate situation.

Soon they were at the resort. She left he MArines in full view of the Eclisians and with the captain went to meet the other diplomats.

A group of diplomats, rather young-looking, stared, while Sovni and her escorts approached the resort, one of them, Lydia, asked in laughter, “so this is their dignitary Sovni, that we received a diplomatic report on?”, “apparently” Eord said, while revealed a bit questioning face, “although I cannot seem to understand the military escort, even the former dictator of Zeta Reticuli system never had this many escorts…….all in stupid-looking 2m tall armors of some sort”, “Lydia, Eord, we should get going” said Mauritimus, “is Intelligence Bureau ready?”, “with certainty” Lydia responded, “The most recent message indicates that they have taken all necessary measures to ensure this meeting continues in secret, and the others, they are also prepared”, “what about assassination and sabotage prevention?”, “I don’t know” Lydia responded, “I would to assume they have taken necessary measures as well”. As Sovni’s crew got closer, Senator Aelius walked over with his crew members, and he greeted Sovni with a rather confident smile on his face, “salve, madam, I am Senator Aelius”. After a short greeting, Senator Aelius and dignitary Sovni went to the inner meeting chamber, while Captain Lurac left with Eord to meet other Eclisian diplomats waiting at another room. “salve, Captain” greeted Eord, “I am Eord 1.00.569.10, such pleasure meeting you”.

Meanwhile, Bureau of Foreign Intelligence Bakra Division.
Cornelius 4.100.201 gathered his top covert crew members around several metal containers, and in a charming, soft voice, he said, “ladies and gentlemen, inside these containers are supplies made in Imperium, and it comes in packages. Now, inside the packages” he opened one of them as demonstration, “are food, common pharmaceutical product for biological beings, clothing and various other utilities. Tomorrow morning, we are to represent Eclisian Good Wills Foundation and distribute them in a refugee camp nearby. And along with that a reporter from Eclisian Herald will video tape all that stuff, please make sure to demonstrate high degrees of optimism and kindness, as such will represent Imperium’s humanitarian tradition amongst media.”

OOC: I should make it clear that, the supply packages are not laced with poisonous compound, since killing Bakrans isn't our objective

Sun and Steel [FT, IC]

Sun and Steel [FT, IC]

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