Did You Get Me Some?(FT, Intro, Semi-Open, TG)

[Marzeron]

Darell walked to her room through the halls of the giant Hab, having finished his daily schedule of activities and things and parties, mostly at random. Had he scored? He couldn't recall, the drugs still wearing off even now, so he glanded some Scribble to clear the hazy fog in his mind. Ah, yes, he recalled, he had gotten laid. Hopefully Jen didn't mind, she was uptight about things like that. Even if she did, he could point out what happened at the last Festival, where everyone had seen-or participated-in the... how could he even describe what happened or took place? Didn't seem to be a word for it. All well. He kept walking, noting the small change in the spin-section's speed as it adjusted to some turbulence. Or the ship was just having a little fun, it did that sometimes, made some drug bowls spill on peoples laps, just for kicks.

The ship was called the Did You Get Me Some?, just one in a fleet of hundreds, but the biggest Hab by far. It named itself after something that had happened when it's AI was created. The event in question involved two scientists, who had just arrived back from their lunch date, each having a cup of coffee in there hands, talking about something involving science-type-whatchamacallit stuff when, the AI asked, and I quote, "Did You Get Me Some?"

So, anyway, he walked down one of the shorter hallways of the forty kilometer asteroid-habitat, when he reached his room. The door was open, oddly. He wondered if he had left it like that, as he entered carefully, when he saw his beloved inside. "Hello, Darell." She walked up to him, the way he liked, her heels clicking the metal floor, and kissed him on the lips.

"So, Jen, you miss me?" Her reply was a simple slap upside the head, and a scowl. "You slept with her, didn't you?" She gave him that angry look...

"Honey, you left early! Besides, you know how I get when I get a little high..."

"Whatever." She turned away, giving him the cold shoulder. "Everyone is ogling into VR today, apparently the ship's are planning on going near a system." VR. Virtual Reality. Lot easier then getting everyone together physically, and less time consuming.

He shook his head. "We always say we'll talk to somebody, but every time, some last minute fuck-up keeps us from doing it. It's not worth it."

She turned to him now, still angry. "We don't have much of a choice, Darell. we're running low on supplies, and we need some new ships and Habs."

"And what can we offer them?" He countered, "Sex? Drugs? We don't use money anymore, and we don't have anything of value. At best, they'll see us as a bunch of traveling space hippies who need to be civilized!" He sighed, her expression unchanging. "This'll be one long ass meeting..."

[Trader Worlds]

Tag for interest. What exactly is the role you want us to take?

[Marzeron]

Well, I'm still working out details myself(OMG nub maek teh plotz b4 makin duh thread!!1!oneoneone) But if anyone would like to take the role of the civilization/system/people I make contact with, that'd be awesome. You'd have to deal with a civilization that has no government, money, or concept of ownership, so it'd interesting to say the least. Hell, I could go around a few systems of different people if theirs enough popularity for the thread.

[Trader Worlds]

OOC-Oh, I definitely want to do this. No money or ownership vs. an economic federation of mercantile planets. This should be interesting. And I'll totally trade supplies for sex and drugs.

IC-
Romulus System
Orbital Sensor Station 3
"We've got something on the PSIDAR," the young female lieutenant announced to the room. An older man, with a fancier rank tab, soon went to her station.

"What is it?"

"Unsure, sir. Doesn't look hostile."

"Activate the orbital weapons, but safeties on."

Romulus System
At a series of commands from the sensor station, the many orbital defense platforms maintained for the defense of the system went online. Although they were still on safe, forbidding them to fire without authorization, the platforms did rotate, putting the new arrivals square in the crosshairs of the platforms' Gauss cannons, beam emitters, and missile launchers.

[Marzeron]

((OOC: Lol, k. Who knows, maybe you'll join my movement...))

Darell laid on the bed, looking over at Jen, already plugged into VR. He laid still for a moment, watching intently the way she breathed, the stillness of her body, except when her foot twitched, which was weird, the ship said it just a reaction to VR. Eh, fuck it. He plugged into the jack and fell into VR.

At first there was nothing, blackness all surrounding him, then stars appeared, bright pin-pricks surrounding him, spaced out across the (fake) sky, while ground and chairs and peopled formed all about him in a massive swirl of color and light. Clouds of gas, trees, and objects of all shapes and sizes, even some that might be people, sat about in the chairs. The users avatars, as it was, each one chosen/picked/discarded-but-then-picked-again, with each person often changing what they appeared like in VR. This week, Darell noticed, it appeared rounds objects were the fad. He himself was a simple sphere, colored blue. Where was Jen? Probably talking to the crowd, he knew. She did that a lot. No one would interrupt her. That'd be suicide.

He floated/rolled to the nearest seat, and kinda hovered above it. Jen wasn't talking yet. some other yeti-turtle thing was up in the center, talking about the proper use for the showers. It was boring, so Darell slowed-down, and waited for Jen to speak. Didn't take too long, as she was next. she had taken her normal RL appearance. Odd.

Jen started, "Alright, you all know why this meeting was really called." Someone yelled -It sure wasn't about fucking showers!- Laughter, followed by some giggling and a few -Hell yeah!-'s. She glared, and it got quiet. "We all know our population is growing, the ships are getting crowded, supplies are running short, and, well, I'll just skip the bullshit, that's what we need, and we wont get it from random stellar debris. We need to stop by a system, preferably one with a space faring species." Cries of -Oh, not this shit again!- and -Give up, we don't need no stink-en sphere-huggers!-. "I know what your all thinking" -You need to shut the hell up!- She shot a look so angry everyone got quiet, and the perpetrator, a weasel, sunk below his seat. "Seriously people, the ships told me that if we don't get some supplies, we're going to run out of food!"

Everyone got silent. Up high, to the far right, the direction everyone was looking, the ships avatars were wide-eyed. Everyone was still staring at them, when the connection cut. RL came rushing back to him so fast he sat up in his seat, gasping for breath, and pulling the plug out. He looked at Jen, and noticed that she was still connected.

---

The Fleet slowed down a few light years from the Romulus System, moving at STL speeds for the moment.

[Vespinae Ingens Caelum]

Radiations, transcending the border between relativistic and distinctly post-relativistic regions of reality. Fluctuations therein, a sure sign for something moving (Or recently moving) at speeds greater than thought attainable in atomistic societies.

Fields of vision, created and cared for by the not insubstantial sensorium of spaceships that've long since transcended all these barriers. Reactions, not always by people one would consider 'Friendly'. The grin is invisible to the prey - for now.

Nine ellipsoid shapes, accelerating through the darkness, a lightyear or several away from the next star, slipping past the lightspeed barrier, to leave it again a little while later.

Someone's going to experience a bit of a nasty surprise.

~ ~ ~

"So what's the plan?" one of the aliens snarled, wings buzzing menacingly, as was, in truth, the norm for this particular group of Vespinae. "I'm pretty sure we're not planning to attack several hundred ships - even if they're frail looking, and have emission/ mass ratios indicative of civilian use - with only nine ships."

"Why not?" was the answer, underlined with a rather nasty clicking of mandibles (Which made up about half the sentence's pronounciation, anyway). "As you said, they look civilian. For fuck's sake, isotope analysis suggests they're flying freakin' asteroids." The second alien, by now clutching a disproportionally huge gun with its first limb-pair, laughed. "They're many, but do you seriously believe something as primitive as that can fuck with us? By the Sky-Lord Mirathi - if she was more than a figment of primitive imagination, that is -, that's ridiculous. We'll just shoot up half of them, and plunder the other half after it has surrendered. We've sat here doing nothing long enough, time to change this."

"If you say so..." The first alien shrugged, and clutched her own gun,

The nice ships raced towards their target, their goal being part entertainment, and part resource acquisition. As a matter of fact, the two were related - this particular species of the Vespinae genus wasn't particularly well known for its manufacturing prowess. It tended to live semi-parasitary, taking what it needed, one way or the other.

Twenty minutes later, nine ellipsoid shapes, about two and a half kilometres long, half as wide, and again half as high, emerged in a pattern that was simultaneously pretty and violent, not to mention reasonably close to the slow-moving group of 'roids and associated vessels.

Chances were, they weren't there to play nice. If they were to be made playing nice, some effective negotiation tactics would presumably be required.

Well, that, or a staggeringly overwhelming display of power. But what kind of overwhelming power could a bunch of travelling asteroids possibly have?

[Marzeron]

Jen stood in the center of the arena/auditorium, surrounded by... Oh shit, the ships avatars. "What the fuck were you thinking!" shouted a floating goldfish, representing Glamorously Dirty, a Torchship. "You've probably just started mass hysteria in the Fleet?! Are you out of your mind?!"

"Jen," this time some kind of lizard spoke, the Unintelligible Speaker, "We all* know about the crisis, but it wasn't wise telling the rest about it."

"What? You mean keep in quiet?! We all have a right to know about it, Ship, despite your thinking in our best interests!" Some of the ships' avatars glanced at each other.

A warship spoke now, in the shape of some old-type hand-gun. "Multiple contacts, off of our port."

Another ship spoke, Jen didn't know its name or type. "Confirmed. Weapons are hot. Cautious Grenade, you mind dealing with them?"

"Of course, adjusting now."

---

The Cautious Grenade, an other-wise normal looking asteroid Hab, roughly twenty kilometers long with a beam of five kilometers, turned off its course from the rest of fleet, in a sort of curving path that wold keep it's port facing to the unknown ships. Along its length, a couple dozen black dots appeared, and some normal looking craters opened to reveal what appeared to be hangers. the ship pinged them, telling them to go away.

*In reference to the ships.

[Order of the Light-]

It wasn't often that the Republic Navy came across Pirates, partly due to the fact that they rarely passed through areas where pirates are likly to live. Partly due to the fact that most pirates are oppotunists, and one Republic ship usually posed more of a threat than would be out-weighed by the rewards. It was even less often that the Republic navy came across a number of moving asteroids, seemingly free from any gravity pull. It was un-heard of for one of those asteroids to be apparently intercepting nine what appeared to be pirates, based on their direct heading to what they must have thought were prime targets.

So it was, that the three-ship Patrol fleet, led by the Intrepid, dropped out of Hyperspace, having decided to amuse themselves by taking on a bunch of pirates, even more so when they were out-numbered, 3 to 1. Of course, this would be a perfect demonstration of the Navies policy of Quality over quantity. Moving promptly to Battlestations, they prepared to engage.

[Trader Worlds]

"Multiple contacts, weapons readings!"

Alarms started to flash as ship after ship dropped into the Romulus system.

"Weapons platforms designating targets. Permission to open fire?"

The station chief shook his head. "Negative, await my order."

Code: Select all

Attention all ships, you have entered the Romulus system, you are in Trader space. Power down all weapons and shields or we will open fire. Again, this is Trader space. Power down all weapons and shields and do not move.

[Vespinae Ingens Caelum]

The nine ships didn't exactly hold their course - that kind of maneuver is kind of a little suicidal - but despite a multitude of pre-emptive evading based on, well, statistics, they did, for the most part, keep following their vectors. Technically, this was the point where - had they been on a war-, rather than a resource-acquisition footing - they'd have let loose with they artillery. But as they weren't on a war footing, their artillery display, although certainly present, was of a rather disappointing scale.

"Displace in three... Two... One..." the Eviscerator's pilots told their crew, which was waiting eagerly for the action to start.

Then a brief rush of wind, as negative pressure was accounted for. Four of the aliens were gone.

"Huh... Disappointing," one of the pilots muttered.

On board (Well, sort of) the Cautious Grenade, a brief battle was fought. Not a battle between living beings, not a battle between soldiers, but a battle between computers. One computer - the Eviscerator's displacer - desired to penetrate through a host of countermeasures so as to deploy its 'Cargo' - the aliens. The other computer - the Mind of the Cautious Grenade - desired to prevent this, though it was presumably under the impression that what was being displaced weren't aliens, but bombs. So it closed loopholes, diverted the incoming feelers to some other place (Chiefly, spatial coordinates outside its hull), and since this was an actual battle, also fired back the odd shot (Not very successfully, the distance was too great for a decent hitrate to be achieved. The odd shot still hit a shield, scorched a bit of hull, but nothing dramatic).

For the most part, the Cautious Grenade was successful - only 1/32 of the intended displacements succeeded, leaving the remainders either on board of the Eviscerator (If the displace had been outright blocked) or stranded in outer space, though the Eviscerator cared enough to displace those poor buggers back on board, though it did occasionally take a few attempts.

"They're more capable than we thought. Recommending mission abortion."

The nine ships' pilots debated the matter for a few moments, with a fair amount of insults thrown about, all the while the battle in space continued, though the alien's fire, restrained and, in any case, nowhere near as superior to their target as they'd thought, didn't really manage to achieve anything more than the Cautious Grenade (It alone outmassing the attackers by a fair margin) had achieved against them.

"Aborting after four successful displacements? Is that alwa-"

At this point, the matter was largely taken out of the alien's hands, with more guests appearing to the party. This wasn't to say that they were strictly scared (Not caring too much about one's individual existence is an interesting side effect of being an eusocial species), but staying was becoming increasingly impractical.

Another interesting side effect of being an eusocial species is that one's not usually whiny about leaving one's people behind. It's disappointing, sure, but hey. That's life.

Figuring that the matters at hand weren't as pleasing as they were supposed to be, the nine ships abruptly changed their course, and curving out of the hot zone, accelerating towards an acceptable FTL-transition speed (Shields briefly, if somewhat ineffectually, impacted by fire from the party crashers), they did their best to get out of the hot zone.

It'd be another half-minute or so before they could make a sensible transition, but it should be safe enough for them.

The four now-stranded aliens, well, that was another matter...

~ ~ ~

Sari experienced the usual, brief moment of confusion as she disappeared from the Eviscerator, and reappeared on board of the Cautious Grenade. Always annoying, she thought, before looking around herself, weapons pointing at everything her giant compound eyes registered as a potential threat. Fortunately, nobody seemed to be around - by the looks of it, she was in a fairly sizable cargo space.

First things first. She was on a hostile spaceship, and typically, this meant that this hostile spaceship had a very wide and fascinating number of methods available to kill her in an instant, unless she managed to disrupt the usual ongoings. In order to prevent this, she had to

• Get access to the ship's main network
• Throw some figurative wrenches into it

It'd make proceedings a whole lot easier. Of course, actually finding such an access point (Compatibility was less of an issue - she didn't want to reprogram it, only to throw some wrenches into it. It wasn't even something as elegant as a 'Virus') was another matter... She spent a minute or two looking for one until she finally came by something that looked as if it could be 'It', not even trying to find out how many others had been successfully displaced. However many they were, everyone know what she'd to do.

Just about then, a micro-displacement's brief EM burst reached her.

Code: Select all

Mission Abort. Return-displacement impossible under present conditions.

For a few seconds, the reddish-brown and white body of the all so slightly oversized (190 cm long and 140 cm tall on her hindlimbs) wasp froze, only her mandibles were twitching.

"... Well, fuck you, too."

[Trader Worlds]

"Sir, nine ships are leaving gravity well."

"Keep tracking as long as possible. What about the others?"

"The three warships are still here, as are the civilian ships."

"Maintain weapons lock."

The orbital batteries stayed aimed at the Venators and Habs, but they were no longer on hair-trigger alert.

[GSV Gravitas Deficit]

Honorary Contact Captain Masaq-Erinmariansa Leoriansia Vellia Laertrax dam Lictori sighed quietly.

She didn’t, really, because she didn’t exist.

But it felt much the same.

“What’s so urgent?” she asked, “It’s rude to snatch people out of games you know. We were winning!"

“Sorry to interrupt,” the avatar said, blushing, and looking around the ship’s auditorium, “But you did say you wanted to be pulled out the moment something interesting happened. All of you did.”

Vellia looked around to see several of the ship-council around her, nodding to them in recognition.

“So,” she said, taking a deep breath, which of course, wasn’t real either, “what is it?”

“The local realspace skein. I’ve noticed quite a bit of activity. Displacers in operation, particularly,” the avatar (which wasn’t real) of the forward Mind of the General Systems Vehicle (defunct) Gravitas Deficit said.

“I see…” Vellia said, “you mean there might be a chance of something actually happening?”

“That’s the hope. Because I’ve used what little traction my motors could manage in getting there. And once we’re there… it’ll be a long time before we’re anywhere else.”


In reality, there was no ship’s meeting room. There was no ship.

There had been one once, but in the slightly embarrassing and extremely unintentional experience of getting here (wherever here actually was) it had gone… the term that the Mind would have used would translate roughly to ‘rectal insertion of a star’ in polite terms. The “ship” such as it was, was a twelve meter piece of, well, the most polite way to describe it would be wreckage.

Or at any rate, wreckage surrounding a ten meter ovoid, like a perfect, shining egg, silvery grey with a frame of cobbled together components made from salvaged and donated parts of drones, to provide the basic motive power and sensors.

The twelve meter long ship (‘Officially’ named the Pitifully Limited Debris We’re So Very Fucked) appeared in realspace without much preamble, a few components on its wreckage-frame glowing a hot cherry red, even shedding vaporized mass.

And, apparently, into the back end of a battle, given the bodies floating around not so far away.

Crap it thought.

A microsecond later, it thought that again, emphatically, and began sending a standard package of lingual basics, followed by a five word message.

x Pitifully Limited Debris We’re So Very Screwed
o All ships in range
radio broadcast, clear, tra. @ unknown date.

Don’t shoot us. We’re pitiful.

[Marzeron]

(@All Invovled: I am SO SORRY I was never able to reply to this, but my main comp crashed and I can't get to anything on it... Took me awhile to get most of my links back... Anyway, enjoy. Again apologies.)

The nine ships didn't exactly hold their course - that kind of maneuver is kind of a little suicidal - but despite a multitude of pre-emptive evading based on, well, statistics, they did, for the most part, keep following their vectors. Technically, this was the point where - had they been on a war-, rather than a resource-acquisition footing - they'd have let loose with they artillery. But as they weren't on a war footing, their artillery display, although certainly present, was of a rather disappointing scale.

"Displace in three... Two... One..." the Eviscerator's pilots told their crew, which was waiting eagerly for the action to start.

Then a brief rush of wind, as negative pressure was accounted for. Four of the aliens were gone.

"Huh... Disappointing," one of the pilots muttered.

On board (Well, sort of) the Cautious Grenade, a brief battle was fought. Not a battle between living beings, not a battle between soldiers, but a battle between computers. One computer - the Eviscerator's displacer - desired to penetrate through a host of countermeasures so as to deploy its 'Cargo' - the aliens. The other computer - the Mind of the Cautious Grenade - desired to prevent this, though it was presumably under the impression that what was being displaced weren't aliens, but bombs. So it closed loopholes, diverted the incoming feelers to some other place (Chiefly, spatial coordinates outside its hull), and since this was an actual battle, also fired back the odd shot (Not very successfully, the distance was too great for a decent hitrate to be achieved. The odd shot still hit a shield, scorched a bit of hull, but nothing dramatic).

For the most part, the Cautious Grenade was successful - only 1/32 of the intended displacements succeeded, leaving the remainders either on board of the Eviscerator (If the displace had been outright blocked) or stranded in outer space, though the Eviscerator cared enough to displace those poor buggers back on board, though it did occasionally take a few attempts.

"They're more capable than we thought. Recommending mission abortion."

The nine ships' pilots debated the matter for a few moments, with a fair amount of insults thrown about, all the while the battle in space continued, though the alien's fire, restrained and, in any case, nowhere near as superior to their target as they'd thought, didn't really manage to achieve anything more than the Cautious Grenade (It alone outmassing the attackers by a fair margin) had achieved against them.

"Aborting after four successful displacements? Is that alwa-"

At this point, the matter was largely taken out of the alien's hands, with more guests appearing to the party. This wasn't to say that they were strictly scared (Not caring too much about one's individual existence is an interesting side effect of being an eusocial species), but staying was becoming increasingly impractical.

Another interesting side effect of being an eusocial species is that one's not usually whiny about leaving one's people behind. It's disappointing, sure, but hey. That's life.

Figuring that the matters at hand weren't as pleasing as they were supposed to be, the nine ships abruptly changed their course, and curving out of the hot zone, accelerating towards an acceptable FTL-transition speed (Shields briefly, if somewhat ineffectually, impacted by fire from the party crashers), they did their best to get out of the hot zone.

It'd be another half-minute or so before they could make a sensible transition, but it should be safe enough for them.

The four now-stranded aliens, well, that was another matter...

~ ~ ~

Sari experienced the usual, brief moment of confusion as she disappeared from the Eviscerator, and reappeared on board of the Cautious Grenade. Always annoying, she thought, before looking around herself, weapons pointing at everything her giant compound eyes registered as a potential threat. Fortunately, nobody seemed to be around - by the looks of it, she was in a fairly sizable cargo space.

First things first. She was on a hostile spaceship, and typically, this meant that this hostile spaceship had a very wide and fascinating number of methods available to kill her in an instant, unless she managed to disrupt the usual ongoings. In order to prevent this, she had to

• Get access to the ship's main network
• Throw some figurative wrenches into it

It'd make proceedings a whole lot easier. Of course, actually finding such an access point (Compatibility was less of an issue - she didn't want to reprogram it, only to throw some wrenches into it. It wasn't even something as elegant as a 'Virus') was another matter... She spent a minute or two looking for one until she finally came by something that looked as if it could be 'It', not even trying to find out how many others had been successfully displaced. However many they were, everyone know what she'd to do.

Just about then, a micro-displacement's brief EM burst reached her.

Code: Select all

Mission Abort. Return-displacement impossible under present conditions.

For a few seconds, the reddish-brown and white body of the all so slightly oversized (190 cm long and 140 cm tall on her hindlimbs) wasp froze, only her mandibles were twitching.

"... Well, fuck you, too."

Now, some might think the Cautious Grenade, like so many other captains or AI's, might have been angry or furious or even enraged. But no, it was rather... Sad. It sent out a transmission to the fleeing vessels.

x 'Special Habitat' Cautious Grenade
o The Raiders(You never even introduced yourself! Quite rude, if you ask me. I'll call you the Rude Raiders)
EM broadcast, clear, tra.

That was the best fun I've had in YEARS! So sad you guys left so early, I didn't even get to use my main guns! Maybe we can play another time? Well, at least you left some friends to sleep over for a little bit. I hope they like popcorn.

---

Despite being one of the largest war vessels in the fleet, the Cautious Grenade was very cramped. The ship itself had dedicated most of its volume to weapons, armour, and engines, but it had enough room left over to allow its rather small crew(mostly drones, a few people) to move about. Average sized humans would find the halls cramped, roughly 4 meters in diameter, along with its 8 by 6 meters rooms, one wonders why people even bothered trying to live in it. Fortunately for Sari, she had been displaced in one of the more 'roomy' cargo rooms, which would normally hold items of hazardous material(such as radiative metals, plasma, even bits of AM held in a vacuum). The ship itself didn't 'feel' like dealing with her, so it asked one of the drones to do it. Aksi-Zemhar-Dorq complied, eventually, and flew into the cargo room via a drone chute(A smaller hallway for drones). "Excuse me," the drone said in what he thought was Basic, "but I was in a rather rousing match of Zero-G Extreme Frisbee when you attacked and boarded us. Now, do you want to live or should I save us both time and vaporize you?" the tiny disk-like drone hovered, waiting.

Honorary Contact Captain Masaq-Erinmariansa Leoriansia Vellia Laertrax dam Lictori sighed quietly.

She didn’t, really, because she didn’t exist.

But it felt much the same.

“What’s so urgent?” she asked, “It’s rude to snatch people out of games you know. We were winning!"

“Sorry to interrupt,” the avatar said, blushing, and looking around the ship’s auditorium, “But you did say you wanted to be pulled out the moment something interesting happened. All of you did.”

Vellia looked around to see several of the ship-council around her, nodding to them in recognition.

“So,” she said, taking a deep breath, which of course, wasn’t real either, “what is it?”

“The local realspace skein. I’ve noticed quite a bit of activity. Displacers in operation, particularly,” the avatar (which wasn’t real) of the forward Mind of the General Systems Vehicle (defunct) Gravitas Deficit said.

“I see…” Vellia said, “you mean there might be a chance of something actually happening?”

“That’s the hope. Because I’ve used what little traction my motors could manage in getting there. And once we’re there… it’ll be a long time before we’re anywhere else.”


In reality, there was no ship’s meeting room. There was no ship.

There had been one once, but in the slightly embarrassing and extremely unintentional experience of getting here (wherever here actually was) it had gone… the term that the Mind would have used would translate roughly to ‘rectal insertion of a star’ in polite terms. The “ship” such as it was, was a twelve meter piece of, well, the most polite way to describe it would be wreckage.

Or at any rate, wreckage surrounding a ten meter ovoid, like a perfect, shining egg, silvery grey with a frame of cobbled together components made from salvaged and donated parts of drones, to provide the basic motive power and sensors.

The twelve meter long ship (‘Officially’ named the Pitifully Limited Debris We’re So Very Fucked) appeared in realspace without much preamble, a few components on its wreckage-frame glowing a hot cherry red, even shedding vaporized mass.

And, apparently, into the back end of a battle, given the bodies floating around not so far away.

Crap it thought.

A microsecond later, it thought that again, emphatically, and began sending a standard package of lingual basics, followed by a five word message.

x Pitifully Limited Debris We’re So Very Screwed
o All ships in range
radio broadcast, clear, tra. @ unknown date.

Don’t shoot us. We’re pitiful.

Good Lord, Thought the Did You Get Me Some? when it detected the broken little ship.

x Habitat Did You Get Me Some?
o Pitifully Limited Debris We’re So Very Screwed
EM broadcast, clear tra.

Oh you poor thing! What happened to you?! We'll send out a Construction Hab to meet you, you must feel terrible.

"Multiple contacts, weapons readings!"

Alarms started to flash as ship after ship dropped into the Romulus system.

"Weapons platforms designating targets. Permission to open fire?"

The station chief shook his head. "Negative, await my order."

Code: Select all

Attention all ships, you have entered the Romulus system, you are in Trader space. Power down all weapons and shields or we will open fire. Again, this is Trader space. Power down all weapons and shields and do not move.

The Habitat Did You Get Me Some? took a few moments from the meeting too deal with them.

x Habitat Did You Get Me Some?
o Trader People Of The Romulus System
EM broadcast, clear tra.

Oh my. Um, I really really really apologize if we made a fuss. We just kinda dropped out of hyperspace, looking for some friendly people to talk too, and all these people appeared... So, um, the people who were attacking us left, and don't worry about that little ship, we'll take care of it, but those other ships we have no clue about. Oh, and hello.

It wasn't often that the Republic Navy came across Pirates, partly due to the fact that they rarely passed through areas where pirates are likly to live. Partly due to the fact that most pirates are oppotunists, and one Republic ship usually posed more of a threat than would be out-weighed by the rewards. It was even less often that the Republic navy came across a number of moving asteroids, seemingly free from any gravity pull. It was un-heard of for one of those asteroids to be apparently intercepting nine what appeared to be pirates, based on their direct heading to what they must have thought were prime targets.

So it was, that the three-ship Patrol fleet, led by the Intrepid, dropped out of Hyperspace, having decided to amuse themselves by taking on a bunch of pirates, even more so when they were out-numbered, 3 to 1. Of course, this would be a perfect demonstration of the Navies policy of Quality over quantity. Moving promptly to Battlestations, they prepared to engage.

Currently the mood going around the ships was annoyance. Not merely because of the fact of them exiting hyperspace, -Who ordered that anyway?- was the common question the AI's were circulating amongst each other, and not even the very slightly panicked people on-board the ships, but all the damn ships appearing and leaving. It all so bloody annoying. The Unintelligible Speaker sent this message.

x Habitat Unintelligible Speaker
o The-Other-People-Who-Just Arrived-Who-Very-Rudely-Didn't-Announce-Themselves
EM broadcast, clear tra.

And what do you want, macho man? I'm guessing you want to fight or something, talk to the Cautious Grenade about that. If not, then please relax, your scaring the locals.

---

Jen blinked and saw a dozen things happen.

She saw alien Raiders come and go after exchanging fire, saw transmissions from a dozen sources arrive, a tiny little broken piece of a ship appear from nowhere, frightened locals, and a bunch of gun-toting men arrive in a moment(in reality the time span of minutes, but she was in VR). The ship's avatars turned back to her, noticeably relaxed. Cautious Grenade looked rather bummed, and another warship was trying to cheer it up. "Well, look what happens, we drop out of hyperspace for a minute and fuck-all happens. Happy?" The Unintelligible Speaker's scaled face was barely hiding his smugness.

"Well, shit." Jen didn't know how else to put it.

Glamorously Dirty didn't let her start speaking again. "This is lovely. Who even gave the order to slow down anyway?!"

"I did." All people/objects/animals turned towards the source of the message, with shouts of surprise coming from quite a few ships, as everyone looked at the Did You Get Me Some?.

[Trader Worlds]

Commander Jens Larrsen was getting tired of this shit. Ships popping in and out, with no regard for local law…it was like he was stationed on one of the lawless colonies, not the damn Romulus System!

“Ensign,” he began, “kindly send a message to everyone currently in the system to stop moving right fucking now. If anyone continues to move, please for the sake of my sanity shoot them.”

“Uh, yessir.” The ensign saw the stress building. “Sir, do you think that…”

“Shut up, ensign, and do it.”

Code: Select all

This is Commander Jens Larssen, commander of all Trader naval forces in the Romulus system. ALL vessels in the system will cease all movement NOW. Any ship which continues to move five minutes after this order will be fired upon with the intent of disabling both sublight and FTL propulsion systems.

“Now that that’s settled,” Larssen said. “We can sort this clusterfuck out. Ensign, what exactly just happened?”

“Sir, the asteroids dropped in first. We established contact and they appear to be harmless, though they certainly are armed. Then the nine unidentified ships dropped in, fought with the asteroids for a bit, and left, so we can discount them. Following them, the three warships dropped in and haven’t identified themselves either, but are still here. Analysis puts them as the highest possible threat. And finally, the floating piece of wreckage dropped in, and apparently is being handled by the asteroids.” The ensign giving the report took a deep breath. “That’s all for now.”

“OK. We can’t possibly berth the rocks, but we can refuel them and if they’ve got small craft we can do transit,” Larssen said. “Tell them such. Keep tabs on the warships and tell them to indentify and explain. If they look hostile, wipe ‘em out.”

Code: Select all

Asteroid-ship-things, while we cannot accommodate you in orbital dock, we can refuel you and transfer personnel and supplies via small craft, if you can accommodate them.

Code: Select all

Unidentified warships, you are in Trader space. You will power down all weapons and shields, identify yourselves, and explain your presence here. Any hostile actions will result in your destruction.

[Marzeron]

Commander Jens Larrsen was getting tired of this shit. Ships popping in and out, with no regard for local law…it was like he was stationed on one of the lawless colonies, not the damn Romulus System!

“Ensign,” he began, “kindly send a message to everyone currently in the system to stop moving right fucking now. If anyone continues to move, please for the sake of my sanity shoot them.”

“Uh, yessir.” The ensign saw the stress building. “Sir, do you think that…”

“Shut up, ensign, and do it.”

Code: Select all

This is Commander Jens Larssen, commander of all Trader naval forces in the Romulus system. ALL vessels in the system will cease all movement NOW. Any ship which continues to move five minutes after this order will be fired upon with the intent of disabling both sublight and FTL propulsion systems.

“Now that that’s settled,” Larssen said. “We can sort this clusterfuck out. Ensign, what exactly just happened?”

“Sir, the asteroids dropped in first. We established contact and they appear to be harmless, though they certainly are armed. Then the nine unidentified ships dropped in, fought with the asteroids for a bit, and left, so we can discount them. Following them, the three warships dropped in and haven’t identified themselves either, but are still here. Analysis puts them as the highest possible threat. And finally, the floating piece of wreckage dropped in, and apparently is being handled by the asteroids.” The ensign giving the report took a deep breath. “That’s all for now.”

“OK. We can’t possibly berth the rocks, but we can refuel them and if they’ve got small craft we can do transit,” Larssen said. “Tell them such. Keep tabs on the warships and tell them to indentify and explain. If they look hostile, wipe ‘em out.”

Code: Select all

Asteroid-ship-things, while we cannot accommodate you in orbital dock, we can refuel you and transfer personnel and supplies via small craft, if you can accommodate them.

Quite a few ships thought the idea of battling with the defensive forces quite humorous. Others thought it would be rather dull. At any rate, most of the Hab's agreed to stop in relation to the systems star, and sent a quick message to the Traders.

x Habitat Did You Get Me Some?
o Commander Jens Larrsen of The Traders
EM broadcast, clear, tra.

Oh my, how very kind of you to offer! I'm sure we can agree to some kind of exchange later, but I must really thank you for letting after that rather confusing ordeal. I mean, really, who attacks for no reason like that? Um, anyway, we'll send the Tanker Habitat I'm On a Diet and the Cargo Habitat's Maybe One More Bite and Obesity Is My Thing. Both can accommodate plenty of shuttles and such. Oh, do you mind if we send the Living Habitat Life Is Full Of Wonders, But It Still Can Suck? I think some people want to see a planet up-close.

[Trader Worlds]

“Informal folk, aren’t they?” Larrsen commented. His second-in-command, a young female lieutenant named Aki Lenul, nodded.

“They sound nice,” she said.

“Remember the Academy,” Larrsen reminded her. “Nice doesn’t mean friendly. A nice enemy will still kill you.”

“Tell the shuttle bay to be ready,” he told her. “We’ll let ‘em in.”

Code: Select all

Your Habitats are cleared. Please move adjacent to the orbital stations. What sort of supplies do you need? Please note delivery of said supplies will cost money, as the Navy is not in the business of charity.