Entropic Sunrise - [IC, Invite Only, FT/FanT, War, PG13]

[The Disorder]

This is a closed RP
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RPers currently signed up to post:

The Disorder
Unthidor
Qhevak
CBG-Palisade
Telros
Guuj Xaat Kil
Greater Vanguard Cult

Please use the OOC/signup thread for your OOC needs. Thank you!
[This space reserved for further OOC info]

[The Disorder]

A single Arustkaana-class recon frigate streaked through the fiery reaches of hyperspace. A beam of bright green exhaust sent the ship piercing through higher dimensions like a rocket-propelled needle.

Out in the middle of deep space, the frigate's invisible quantum fields slashed back through normal space with a furious blast of ethereal green fire and lightning. The entire hull of the ship glowed red-hot, and the vaguely airfoil-shaped heat sinks near the back of the pointed spaceframe burned white-hot, radiating the waste heat of countless reactors and hyperspace drives.

A mighty roar resonated through the ship's interior, as supercharged plasma circulated through the reactors and drives. The blazing white glow of the frigate's heat sinks shifted to a slightly bluish hue, growing even hotter as the pilot pushed the ship closer to its thermodynamic limits. In the span of a few moments, the drives recharged fully. With little more than a thought, just a flex of cognitive muscle through a neural interface, the pilot launched the ship back into the hyperspace inferno.

The next hyperspace exit-flash to burn a hole through space-time occurs at the very periphery of Unthidor space. That flare burns as brightly as the detonation of a small antimatter bomb.

Unlike the rest of the hyperspace exit flares out in the interstellar void, this one continues to burn, dim and green. On a sufficiently dark and clear night, this new source of hyperspace radiation might even be visible to the naked eye, as the pilot targets a myriad of star systems with the scout ship's immensely powerful active sensors. This is the exact opposite of stealthy - but for the moment, the pilot is not interested in stealth. Even though the hull of the frigate cools from red-hot, the heat sinks glow a steady, searing white. Terawatts of reactor power pour into the ship's hyperspace sensors.

[Unthidor]

At the edge of Unthidor space was system NX-1017, home of the colony world of Everfree. Only settled in the last ten years, Everfree was a small, yet prosperous colony, with a focus on food and livestock since the largest continent offered vast grasslands. There was one primary city in the center of the main continent, which served as the capital and primary spaceport off-world. In synchronous orbit above was a fairly large space station that could dock ships externally and in four internal bays. While most colonies has a much smaller facilities, this larger Watchtower-class station was intended to help Everfree become a primary trading post between Unthidor and the galactic community. Indeed, House Trix'tor (who controlled most of the military) had insisted upon it, just as they insisted upon stationing Task Force 21 to guard and police the system. Currently, the unit's dreadnought cruiser and carrier were sitting together in polar orbit, as the four small cruisers patrolled around the system....

--------------------

Onboard the carrier...

Standing in the hanger observation room, Commodore Hardy watched as the maintenance crews scrambled over the bay like a swarm of bees. While most were focused on the squadron of fighters, there was a group clustered at one end of the hanger surrounding a support frame and the object suspended within.

Footsteps approached. "Commodore," said a voice. He turned to see the representative from Z.A.B.I, the company that built their fighters and this new vehicle. "We've completed unpacking the unit and will be ready for flight testing in a few hours."

"Good," Hardy replied. "I'm curious to see how it stacks up against our current figh-"

A shrill alarm cut him off. "All officers to the bridge!" the speakers bellowed. "Unknown contact in system! All officers to the bridge!"

"Secure your staff!" Hardy ordered before stepping out into the corridor. Crew were running in all directions, but they stepped aside as Hardy made his way to the closest turbolift. Stepping inside, he keyed for the bridge....

--------------------

A warning signal went out across the system, sending the civilian ships into a scramble, and calling back the four light cruisers from their patrols...

[The Disorder]

"Targets detected," Cirazeth announced from inside the recon frigate, across the Disorder's telepathic network. He felt the psychic gazes of dozens of Disorder agents turn toward him, as he uploaded sensor data from his ship. "They are on the move, converging together."

"A typical strategy of order-worshippers," Norev sneered with disdain, powering her own ship's drives.

"Go in for a closer look," a third pilot replied. "The scan resolution is poor from such extreme range."

"I'm going to ascertain their intentions first," Cirazeth replied, plotting a course through hyperspace with his ship's navigational computer & engaging his recon frigate's shields. The sensors deactivated, and the surface of the Arustkaana ignited in green fire and lightning, sheathed in a layer of plasma. Thermodynamic performace would be degraded, but not catastrophically.

Another brilliant green flash of hyperspace radiation flared to life, this one less intense but far closer, near one of the star system's gas giants. Cirazeth transmits a universal greeting of sorts, aimed at the station, the dreadnought, and the carrier, across multiple frequencies and languages. Every few seconds, the message loops and repeats. It's a simple plain-text transmission:

THE TIME OF ORDER IS AT AN END
CREATION REQUIRES DESTRUCTION
MATTER IS BOUND IN PATTERNS AND SYSTEMS
AND THE CHAINS OF CORRUPTION REACH TOWARD INFINITY

MOLECULAR TYRANNY IS UNDERWAY
THIS NEMESIS EXISTS ONLY TO EXIST
THIS EVIL SPREADS ONLY TO SPREAD
THIS INFECTION MUST BE DENIED EXISTENCE

FOR THE GOOD OF ALL CHAOS

[Unthidor]

THE TIME OF ORDER IS AT AN END
CREATION REQUIRES DESTRUCTION
MATTER IS BOUND IN PATTERNS AND SYSTEMS
AND THE CHAINS OF CORRUPTION REACH TOWARD INFINITY

MOLECULAR TYRANNY IS UNDERWAY
THIS NEMESIS EXISTS ONLY TO EXIST
THIS EVIL SPREADS ONLY TO SPREAD
THIS INFECTION MUST BE DENIED EXISTENCE

FOR THE GOOD OF ALL CHAOS

"What do you make of that, Captain?" Commodore Hardy asked Captain Roode. Roode, who was the commanding officer of the carrier Glorious, simply shrugged.

"I'm not sure, Commodore," he replied, reading the message again on the comm display. Around them, the other bridge officers went about their duties. "Not the usual welcome message, that's for sure."

"No, it's not," Hardy agreed. "Personally, it sounds like a threat." Roode nodded, and Hardy turned to look at the comm officer. "Send a emergency message to Central Command: 'Possible hostile ship in system, requesting immediate assistance. Hardy, TF21.' Then give me a hailing channel."

Unknown ship, this is Commodore Hardy of the Unthian Guard. As with all new visitors, we extend our greetings and welcome you. Please state your intentions.

[The Disorder]

"Interesting, their response is reserved and moderate. That usually provokes order-worshippers to either panic or open fire," Cirazeth commented,

"Still, I doubt that they are chaos-complicit. But I know a good way to find out for certain," Norev replied. "Tell them what we intend."

The scout ship reactivated its hyperspace sensors, directing them toward the Unthidor colony. He didn't need a complete scan of the planet - a cursory glance would do just fine for now. For a few seconds, in the skies above Everfree, a strobing green pinpoint of light appears in the daytime sky. Then Cirazeth composes a message with a few thoughts, and transmits a data burst to the carrier:

WARM WELCOME APPRECIATED - THANK YOU

INCIPIENT STRATA DETECTED
OXYGEN-BREATHING, CARBON BASED, MAMMALIAN, BIPEDAL

COURSES OF ACTION REQUIRED:

DEPLOY REMOTE INFRASTRUCTURE TO WORLD SURFACE
TEMPORARILY SUBVERT LOCAL ORDER-ARRAY
REPURPOSE POPULATION TO ACCOMPLISH CHAOTIC OBJECTIVES
GATHER LOCAL ORGANIC SAMPLES FOR GENETIC STUDY
SORT POPULATION BY RECOMBINATION USABILITY INDEX
RELOCATE USEFUL COMPONENTS TO DISORDER
CULL LOWER 23% TO 37%
RESURFACE GEOLOGIC TOPOGRAPHY
STERILIZE EXISTING BIOSPHERE

ASSIST? Y/N

Naturally, Cirazeth configures his ship's communication system to rebroadcast the message once every few seconds. If the carrier intends to help, it is important that they do not misunderstand. If they intend to resist instead, then that information won't be exceptionally useful.

[Unthidor]

"Now that," Captain Roode said, "is definitely hostile."

"Agreed," replied Hardy. "Sound defense alert, and signal the Phenom to move into a challenge position, weapons ready. Fighters launch and take up defensive positions."

Roode was already barking orders to his crew, and soon Hardy could see the large dreadnought moving away from the carrier to challenge the intruder, it's missile ports already sliding open. Deep inside the carrier, pilots scrambled to their fighters and began their launching sequence.

"Where are my cruisers?" asked Hardy.

"Still returning from patrols!" replied one officer. "They should be here in combat formation in five minutes!"

"Let's hope we can stall for that long," the Commodore said, mostly to himself. "Comm, send a further emergency message back to Central. 'Hostile intruder, we are moving to challenge and possibly engage. Hardy, TF21'. Captain, let's introduce ourselves."

------------------------------

As the fighters started to launch from under the carrier, the dreadnought continued its maneuver to place itself between the intruder and the planet. The eight missile ports on its bow were open and ready, the large rotary-missile cannon and laser turrets armed. Elsewhere, the four cruisers of the task force were regrouping and heading for the planet. A message was sent to the intruder...

This is Commodore Hardy, commanding Task Force 21 of the Unthian Guard. You have expressed hostile intent. Withdraw at once, or we will open fire.

[The Disorder]

"Just as corrupt as expected," Norev remarked through the telepathic network.

"First-contact with the enemy is usually a trial-by-fire," Cirazeth warned. "Anyone feel like assisting?"

Replies began pouring in from all over the Disorder:

"Just stay agile and you will be fine."
"Don't over-extend."
"Hold nothing back except a jump-charge."
"A fleet of that size should pose no problem."
"Worst-case scenario, just exhaust them."
"Yeah, get them to overtax their powergrids."
"You can pick them apart at your leisure as long as you stay at range."
"It's a fairly slow enemy and you have a phase cannon, go nuts."

But a few of those replies came from Disorder Fleet pilots, offering to join the fight:

"Flying Arustkaana-389, vector me into the battlespace."
"Bringing my carrier online now."
"Let's do this!"
"Inbound on your position, in support configuration. ETA, eighty-two galactic-minutes."
"You will need attack shuttles to properly besiege that planet, I'm in."
"Count me in as well."
"Loaded for electronic warfare & headed to you."

Norev went ahead and charted a hyperspace trajectory, then launched her ship into the inferno of higher dimensions. "You could use a wingman, and I'm close. Pass me the targeting data for the incoming enemy warship?"

A second green flare of hyperspace radiation marked the arrival of a second Arustkaana - this one about 250,000 kilometers off the starboard side of the Unthidor dreadnought. From almost a light-second away, Norev brought her ultraviolet target painter & thermal imaging systems online. Of course, from almost a light-second away, it took almost a second for the UV laser to illuminate the surface of the dreadnought's hull, and another second for the UV light to bounce back and be processed into targeting data. A couple of flashes of green fire from the combat maneuvering thrusters quickly oriented the ship toward its target.

"Cirazeth! I've got a shooting solution. Is your drive charged?"

"Charged and ready!" Cirazeth replied.

With the psychic pull of a trigger, just the flex of a thought through the neural interface, Norev opened fire. The spinal phase cannon emitted a shrill crackle, and a lance of bright green plasma lashed out toward the dreadnought, streaking along at 70% lightspeed. The first phase cannon hit wouldn't have substantial armor-piercing capability, since they had no idea what the hull was composed of, and no idea how to optimally modulate the beam as to partially phase through its hull. But it's still carrying a fairly substantial amount of energy - and Norev aimed it right at the dreadnought's important-looking starboard turret.

[Unthidor]

Alarms rang throughout the bridge of the dreadnought Phenom. Crews scattered around their stations. "Report!" yelled the captain.

"Direct hit, starboard turret! Laser cannons offline!"

"Damage to decks 11-16 starboard! Repair crews dispatched!"

"Missiles locked on target!"

"Fire!" the captain ordered. "Anti-ship missiles! Full barrage! Defense missiles stand by!"


With plasma fires still burning on one side, flashes of light started to streak out of the missile-launch tube sticking out of the bow of the ship. This was the rotary missile launcher, and each projectile was a fusion warhead streaking out towards the attacker at .75c. At the same time, the port-side turret rotated to get a bearing while waiting to come into laser range.

Meanwhile, six of the fighters launched from the carrier raced in, their twin lasers flashing in anger at the intruder....

[The Disorder]

Inside the cockpit of the Arustkaana frigate, Norev's eyes visibly widened at the realization, as the warheads fired from the dreadnought began to blueshift and grow in size. Psychic alarms screamed in the back of her mind as the ship detected incoming relativistic weaponry. The shield burned white-hot, as terawatts of charged plasma roared through the ship's hull in preparation for the hit...

That was the problem with weapons travelling at close to the speed of light. Because of lightspeed lag, you never saw where they were truly at, you always saw where they used to be. Which meant that by the time a pilot spotted one, the weapon was already almost upon them. Hyperspace sensors could track relativistic weapons without significant trouble, but those consumed an enormous amount of power.

A fraction of a second later, a flash of nuclear fusion raged across the Arustkaana's active shield, blowtorching supercharged plasma off into space. The fraction of the warhead's flash that made it through the shield instantly heated the ship's hull red-hot. If she hadn't powered up the shield in time, that weapon might have vaporized the front of her ship off!

"Oh hell, they have a long-range relativistic weapon too!" Norev warned as the rest of the barrage streaked toward her. "Don't be shy with the countermeasures." She diverted reserve power, partially emptying her ship's plasma accumulators to help restore the heavily damaged shield, while the ship's continuous stream of reactor power went to her thrusters. The single giant engine in the back of her ship raged to life, and maneuvering jets strobed on the top side of the ship. She pitched down, veering away from the rest of the incoming missile barrage. Her ewar gear came online, and the half-forcefield half-metal bay door in the underside of her ship disintegrated away. Rocket-propelled mines, smart chaff, and jamming drones streaked out of the bay.

The second atomic blast caught the top side of the shield, although she was further away from the detonation. The strobe of radiation pressure tore a boiling sheath of plasma from the outer layer of her shield - plasma that could be restored. Although the shield was substantially weakened from the first hit, the second blast was not nearly as bad.

Three more of the enemy warheads slammed into shrapnel from Norev's rocket propelled mines. At 75% lightspeed, colliding with just a millimeter-sized diamond flechette carried all the destructive force of a small tactical nuclear bomb. Another missile veered off-course sharply, duped into chasing a false target generated by her jamming. Another lost guidance lock entirely, streaking out into space.

"I've seen all I need to see of that weapon," Cirazeth remarked while Norev went evasive, plotting a hyperspace trajectory. Cirazeth's recon frigate pierced through interplanetary distances in the blink of an eye, emerging with a furious (albeit harmless) flare of green fire and lightning, 50,000 kilometers above the dreadnought. UV lasers target-painted the Swanton-class warship, and sensors resolved the shape and detail of the spaceframe with remarkable clarity. The target reticule traced over the ship, trajectory-adjusted to compensate for the slight lightspeed-lag at this distance.

Another lance of brilliant green energy lashed out at the dreadnought - this time aimed directly at the rotary missile launcher!

A moment later, a second and third beam soar out at the dreadnought, aimed at the base of the missile launcher, where Cirazeth figures the loading mechanism or ammunition magazines might be located. Even though fusion bombs tend to be pretty failsafe by nature, trashing an ammunition magazine tends to render a weapon system weapon inoperable.

Norev sent a couple of extra smart-mines toward the incoming fighters, laying out some diamond-flechette flak, in case they too were armed with hypervelocity or relativistic weapons. Even with a weakened shield, the puffs of vapor that the fighters boil off of her shield are fairly incosequential. Instead of pointing her main cannon toward the enemy, she's firing her countermeasures into ideal vectors, setting up an electronic jamming screen to make targeting as difficult as possible. It also consumes about half of her total countermeasures - she's not running a dedicated e-war & jamming loadout.

Cirazeth deploys some jamming cover as well, although it's somewhat less-optimized and less well-scattered than Norev's.

"If you need to break off and recharge your shield, don't hesitate," Cirazeth announced. "I'm pretty sure that if you leave, I'll draw their fire. We can take turns breaking off and recharging for as long as we need."

[Unthidor]

More plasma fires raged over the top-bow of the Phenom as the hull shook with the impact.

"Captain! Main launcher is down!" called a crewer, "Missile loading bay destroyed!"

"Second target has repositioned above us!"

"Move anti-ship missiles to bow launchers!" the captain ordered. Normally, the rotary launcher was used to rapid-fire anti-ship missiles, and the eight normal launchers that ringed the bow for defensive missiles. But they could fire both if needed. "and roll the ship! bring the heavy laser turret to bear! Fire when ready!"

"Sir! our cruisers are here!" The captain glanced at the tactical display with a slight grin, even as his ship shook around him. These dreadnoughts were tough, and could take a tremendous amount of punishment, but he didn't want to discover just how much. Having support would change this battle.



The dreadnought slowly rotated around its X axis, trying to bring the heavy laser turret on its belly to face the threat above. Meanwhile, the eight bow launchers slowly opened fire with another salvo of missiles, one per launcher. It would take nearly a minute each to load each launcher with another missile.

Finally, the four Stunner-class cruisers arrived within missile range, and each fired a pair of weapons, two at one intruder, two at the other. With a supply of only 18 anti-ship missiles each, they had to ration their rate of fire. At least until they could get to within laser range. While faster than the dreadnought, they were still a bit sluggish.

The remaining fighters swarmed around, trying to do what they could again the intruders...

--------------------

The officer was running as fast as possible down the corridor, finally reaching the observation lounge. "General!" he called, "emergency signal from Task Force 21!"

The three men in the room all turned away from the viewport to face him. Outside were tech's floating in weightlessness around a support frame that contained some sort of craft. One man wore a military-style uniform with a gold star. "What's going on?" he asked the officer. The other two men, each in different cut civilian suits, waited.

"Hostile intruder has engaged them above Everfree," said the officer, handing the General a padd. "Commodore Hardy hasn't replied since, but is requesting reinforcements."

"What are the nearest forces?" asked one of the men, his suit a bluish color.

"TF 7 and 15 can meet and be there within seven hours," the officer replied. "TF's 4, 11, and 19 twelve hours later."

"That won't help them now," said the blue-suited man. "But send them anyway."

The General paused. "Wait a moment, TF 7 and 15 are close because they are at the Sector 7 Proving Grounds, testing the new Model 1's." He looked at the two men. "Are you sure you want them to go?"

"What better way to test the units than actual combat?" blue-suit replied.

The General nodded, and typed onto the padd before handing it back to the officer. "Send the orders," he said, "I will be in the command room shortly."

The officer saluted, then left the room at a run. After a parting look from the General, he followed at a slower pace. The two men turned back to the viewport.

"The other Houses get annoyed when you command the military like that," the second gentleman said, speaking for the first time. His suit was all black, with an almost military-cut to it.

"They'll get over it," said the first. "This is an emergency after all, and we don't have time for a committee." He reached out to tap a control. "Doctor, are you ready to begin the test?"

A voice from the wall speaker, "preparing to power up now," it said. "Stand by."

There was the sound of energy building up from beyond the viewport, and a pair of red lights began to shine out from inside the scaffolding. "Excellent," said the blue suit, "excellent..."

[The Disorder]

The fighters' attacks are somewhat uncoordinated among the chaos, and the white-hot sizzles of vapor glancing off of the Disorder frigates' shields from laser fire do not seem to have any substantial effect.

However, in the brief moments when the Disorder ships' rocket nozzles flash with green fire, holes in the shield open to allow the exhaust to escape into space. And one fighter pilot gets absurdly lucky, managing to shine his laser through an open hole in the shield for the briefest instant! That explosion of vapor isn't greenish-white from shield-plasma, it's bright orange from flash-vaporized metal! The laser rips a glowing, red-hot gouge in the Disorder ship's armor. It's not a significant wound, but at least the Arustkaanas are not invincible.

If the bigger ships can take the shields down, the fighters could forseeably carve up the Arustkaanas - but that is a very big 'if'. And the Arustkaanas are already a couple of steps ahead of the Unthian Guard, taking out the dreadnought's main weapon and a laser turret.

"They're executing a roll," Norev warned. "They're trying to bring their weapons to bear on you!"

"Not my only problem," Cirazeth cautioned. "Watch out for fighters sixty-two to sixty-three degrees off-axis when firing your forward maneuvering rockets. One of them nearly sliced my left radiator in half."

Then the cruisers arrived. More of those hideously fast missiles leapt into launch vectors. Smart mines detonated, sending tiny shards of industrial-grade diamond flying through the battlespace. Though functionally harmless to any decently armored starship, a 0.75c missile slamming into a speck of that flak held disastrous consequences for the missile. Two such missiles met that fate. Another erroneously locked onto a jamming drone, as the countermeasure drones made themselves more prominent targets than the recon frigates themselves. The drone stood absolutely no chance against that fusion inferno - it utterly evaporated. The remaining missile veers off-course, its tracking compromised and foiled by the Arustkaana's jamming.

Norev turned toward one of the incoming cruisers, target-painting them with a sweeping beam of ultraviolet light. The phase cannon atop her ship let out an ethereal, high-pitched crackle. A beam of hypervelocity plasma cut across space, aimed at one of its turrets. A second and third beam follow - one aimed at one of the cylindrical pods on the sides of the ships, and another at the structure conjoining the spherical body to the twin pods.

It was Cirazeth's turn to go evasive, as brilliant white hellfire erupted from laser fire hitting his shield, scattering and blowtorching charged plasma off into space. The dreadnought's lasers were substantially more powerful than the fighters', enough to pose a serious threat to shield integrity.

...Especially if the missiles coming out of the dreadnought's launchers found their targets. Smart mines leapt into action upon missile launch, deploying clouds of particulate flak into the battlespace. One of the dreadnought's eight missiles veered off-course violently, while two more went unguided. Another three flashed into vapor upon contact with flak - but two made it through. Over and over, Cirazeth tried to jam them, firing his thrusters to try and evade the incoming nuclear inferno. Partially successfull jamming duped both warheads into detonating prematurely - though still dangerously close enough to boil layers of plasma off of his shields.

The cruisers do indeed appear to be buying the dreadnought some time.

[The Disorder]

Meanwhile, out in the Kuiper belt of a distant star system, another Arustkaana recon frigate punctuated its arrival with a flash of brillant green hyperspace energy. After shadowing and following a tiny starship in its journey across the void, the pilot tracked that ship to this system. They suspected that it might be a mercenary vessel. It transmitted the briefest message, text in multiple languages, across multiple frequencies, repeating every few seconds:

WE SUMMON THE SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE
A GALAXY AFLAME REQUIRES YOUR TALENTS
YOU WILL BE REWARDED ACCORDINGLY

FOR THE GOOD OF ALL CHAOS

[Unthidor]

As the cruisers moved closer, they started taking fire from one of the intruders. The first shot knocked out the port laser turret on the lead cruiser, leaving plasma fires burning on its hull. A second shot streaked past it to strike the starboard warp nacelle on the next cruiser, igniting the warp plasma and blowing it clear off the strut and sending the ship into a spin, plasma leaking out of the mangled strut. Finally the third shot struck yet another cruiser in the engineering section, right above the matter/anti-matter reactor. Plasma burned through the hull plating, exposing the decks beneath to open space. Another precise hit there could breach the reactor.

After several tense minutes, the crew of the second cruiser managed to get the plasma leak contained, and restored power to the main weapons and impulse drive. While missing a nacelle meant they could not go to warp, that was the least of their current concerns. They could still fight, which was all that mattered.


As the cruisers licked their wounds and opened fire with their laser cannons, the dreadnought finally finished its roll maneuver while its heavy laser turret angled to track the intruder above it. The remaining portside laser turret also rotated to bear on the enemy, which being above the ship put it out of position for missile attack. Well, from anti-ship missiles, at least....

[Qhevak]

Naluq Bishop Ring, Ullr Orbit
A pair of thin silver ghosts raced on six legs through the great frozen tundra, barely visible against the foot deep expanses of snow that blanketed every exposed surface. The furry, bisonlike homunculus they were chasing was tiring now, losing energy just a sliver faster than them - an intentional feature in their genes, there was no point in a short hunt. It panicked as it's hunters drew near, futilely attempting to dodge as they went in for the kill - and slipped, it's biocomputer making a convincing mimicry of agony as the slender wolves tore it's body apart.

Good hunt, thought Kito of the Kumiho Clade to his partner, mouth filling with engineered splendor as he bit into the homunculi's now-flayed flesh. Nearly thought we'd lost the trace this morning.

Agreed, Malik thought in reply, sitting back on it’s hind limbs as it stared upwards at the expanses of the inverted world that was their home, it’s shiny white curve stretching over a thousand kilometers above their heads. Further off in the distance was Ullr, a great blue-white ball of gaseous volatiles orbited by Naluq at a distance of over fifty thousand kilometers. The pair cuddled in the deep snow, their engineered bodies not minding the cold, as they stared up at the untouched starscape and prepared to sleep just before their their calm was interrupted by the appearance of a sharp red PRIORITY ALERT in their visions.

Below the alert was the unmistakable symbol of the Hounds of Tindalos, the notorious cybernetic mercenary organization from which they were currently on a three real-month vacation. This symbol was worrisome on it’s own, but worse yet was the origin of the tightbeam signal – a ten billion ton supercomputer floating in Ullr’s lower atmosphere, which hosted the majority intellect of Kokopelli the Gamemaster, a rather large group mind contracted for long term AI testing and strategic planning purposes.

Reluctantly, the pair accepted the request, and immediately found their minds expanded ten million fold, networked into the Hound’s own (smaller) group mind, presently in a state of communion with both Kokopelli and a range of other, smaller, networked intelligences from the numerous habs dotting Ullr orbit. The current discussion, and the reason for the dramatic alert, revolved around the recent rise of a rather troublesome faction in certain areas of the galaxy.

Calling themselves “The Disorder”, they had only appeared on the galactic scene in the last few years as far as Kokopelli could tell, though there was evidence they’d been around for far longer. They weren’t all that forthcoming for the most part – the only direct communication a Qhevakite had had with them was a message of congratulations sent to a private nuclear armament dealer operated as a shell company by Shivastra Offensive Services, praising them for “granting fair, equal, and impartial access to fission & fusion devices for all buyers”. That was quite representative of their ideology, which seemed dedicated to maximizing galactic chaos at all costs – not all that bad a doctrine in Qhevak’s eyes, if their methods didn’t include mass murder and a horrifying form of slavery which was the absolute antithesis to Qhevak’s obsession with total bodily autonomy at all costs.

Even more worryingly, they appeared to be growing fast, with a dramatic recent rise in activity. Kokopelli’s recent mass scale galactic dynamics simulation had indicated they had the potential to reach Class B Galactic Threat Level within a matter of decades (not bad when Class A included the likes of the Rethast and Invisible Hellfire), which, compounding on the recent and ongoing Disorder attack on the growing polity of Unthidor, had lead it to call the meeting.
After a few subjective decades spent on contractual disputes between Kokopelli and the Tindalos Packmind, they’d ultimately settled on a mission for the PMC, involving an initial light strike force sent to offer services to Unthidor, hopefully ultimately pushing back the Disorder invasion and keeping one domino untoppled while gathering crucial information on the Disorder’s military capabilities, with Kito and Malik finding themselves at the tip of this initial wave.

4 Lightyears from Unthidor

Hounds of Tindalos Liaison Officer Ilanah Dalai sat aboard the command bridge of the Roc Assault Lander Nimkasi, the only nearbaseline human in the operation. She knew she was mostly there because the Kumihos didn’t tend to do the best with ordinary meatpeople, as well as the rep of her rather talented hacker sister who had been missing for years, but frankly she was excited to be part of this operation for any reason. The bridge was presently cramped, packed with Hounds in their biomechanical combat morphs like usual, but made even smaller by the Allanean magical shielding bunker that the bridge had been crammed into in the knowledge that the Disorder has some impressive arcane capabilities.

Huge streams of data, most of which she had little context for, flowed into her HUD as the Nimkasi’s tachyon inferometer array extended, thousands of small drones forming into a series of concentric rings thousands of kilometers wide to gather and transmit at lightyear distances. The resolution wasn’t the best, particularly at this distance, but there was enough to confirm the existence of some form of active space conflict in the region, finding telltale evidence of massive torch drive flares and detonation aftermaths. The planet, however, was much easier to identify, and that was their real present target. The array focused and beamed a coherent tachyon tightbeam towards Terra Nostra, broadcasting a (necessarily, with the limits of tachyonic communication) short but clear message:

HOUNDS OF TINDALOS MILITARY SERVICES OFFERING MILITARY SUPPORT AGAINST DISORDER ASSAILANTS

WILL OFFER FAIR CONTRACT RATES FOLLOWING CONFLICT CONCLUSION

ARE TERMS ACCEPTABLE?

[The Disorder]

"I've got it, I have identified the effective range of their cruisers' laser weapons!" Norev exclaimed as a cruiser opened fire on her, and more Unthian cruisers began firing on Cirazeth.

"I noticed too," Cirazeth replied, over psychic alarms in the background, warning him of low shield integrity. Indeed, the sheath of plasma around his vessel was growing thin enough to start allowing decent fractions of laser fire through. They hadn't penetrated his ship's external sheath of armor, but it was starting to erode. "I have to recharge."

The Arustkaana nearest to the dreadnought fired its main thruster, streaking across space at an almost suicidal acceleration of 32 G's. Without the gimballed cockpit and breathable liquid immersion, the ferocity of the ship's own acceleration would have been lethal. His ship imploded into hyperspace.

A tiny fraction of a second later, all the way on the other side of the star system, a flare of hyperspace radiation bloomed to life. Several light-minutes away from anything likely to cause harm, he powered up the hyperspace sensors, and powered down the shield. He recharged the shield accumulators, and recharged his own reserve power. He recharged his drives as well, although such a short jump hardly drained those systems at all.

Norev, meanwhile, contended with the laser fire from the hostile cruisers. Each hit took an easily recognizable bite out of the continuously-regenerating reserve of shield power. As lances of incoming radiation boiled plasma off of the shield, the emitters all over the hull replaced the depleted plasma.

...Then again, the bits of the enemy ships that were transmitting destructively huge amounts of energy at her were exactly the parts that she wanted to blow off. She dialed up the energy attenuation on one of her sensors, until the image resolved was a simple and straightforward one: A bright speck of light on a perfectly black background.

The next laser beam that smashed into her shield, she repaid a split-second later with a lance of green plasma from her own phase cannon, aimed right at the cruiser's turret firing on her!

"My shield is taking a pounding from these lasers, but it's a sustainable one. My powergrid is keeping up," Norev informed. "Once you're recharged, don't vector yourself right into the middle of their formation."

While Norev fired another blast from the phase cannon at the already-damaged cruiser, a fighter circled behind him - about to intersect the Arustkaana's X-axis, and fly directly behind the ship's main thruster! The poor bastard - did he have a clue of what danger awaited? If he doesn't alter his course, she'd fire her main thruster and blowtorch the enemy fighter with her exhaust.

Fortunately, the stray diamond shrapnel in the battlespace wouldn't do a lot to properly-built military-grade fighters. Aside from a few narrow & high-density plumes, the shrapnel would only leave some nasty scratches and pockmarks in their hulls, about the same as flying in 'adverse' micrometeor conditions.

[Unthidor]

Onboard the dreadnought...

"Heavy laser firing in 10 seconds!" called out the weapons officer. "7...6...5...4...3-"

"Energy spike from target!" another crewer called out. They all glanced at the main viewscreen just in time to see the intruder that was above them, now below due to their roll, jump into hyperspace.

"Cancel firing!" the captain ordered. "They must have run! Give me a firing solution on the second ship!"

"Missiles loaded and ready!"

"FIRE! Pitch us to bring heavy turret to bear!"

From the dreadnought's bow, six of the missile ports (two having been knocked out of action) fired a salvo of anti-ship missiles at the second intruder... just as one cruiser lost a laser turret to enemy fire while another...

A bright flash of light, like a miniature sun, momentarily lit up the battle space as a shot from the second intruder struck the cruiser with the exposed reactor......right in the exposed reactor. The plasma quickly ignited the anti-matter and detonated the entire ship. The blast also engulfed one of the fighters that was maneuvering around the cruiser trying to dodge its laser fire.

The remaining three cruisers, two missing a laser turret each and one a warp nacelle, all pulled away from the intruder. One might think they were retreating, but they opened fire with their aft-facing light laser turrets, trying to get far enough away to come back around for another missile barrage.

Finally, there was the carrier itself. Having kept back from the battle area, it launched a large cargo lander from it's ventral bay. With only a single heavy laser and twin defensive missile launchers, it wasn't equipped to engage....but might not have a choice.

[CBG Palisade]

Meanwhile, out in the Kuiper belt of a distant star system, another Arustkaana recon frigate punctuated its arrival with a flash of brillant green hyperspace energy. After shadowing and following a tiny starship in its journey across the void, the pilot tracked that ship to this system. They suspected that it might be a mercenary vessel. It transmitted the briefest message, text in multiple languages, across multiple frequencies, repeating every few seconds:

WE SUMMON THE SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE
A GALAXY AFLAME REQUIRES YOUR TALENTS
YOU WILL BE REWARDED ACCORDINGLY

FOR THE GOOD OF ALL CHAOS

The PCV Luxor was not, by any measure of the term, an elegant vessel, despite its narrow, tapering design or the vast degree of precision engineering tucked away underneath its thick armored hull. Rather, it for all practical purposes seemed to be a dull-tipped lance flanked on one side by an of odd, boxy turret with a barrel too large to ever fit a reasonably sized shell and on the other by an array of delicate sensors currently turned out of their armored shell and aimed at nothing in particular. Occasionally, a lazy puff of light would flash at the ship's nose or bow, setting it spinning ever-so-slightly to test the sensor array's gimbal or tracking systems, or the four curved spines jutting from its rear fuel bus would flex, then contract, adjusting to a sudden influx of heat or of chill and extending or contracting in response. Other than that, and apart from the little cylindrical vessel clambering across its surface with a pair of articulated arms, it seemed a perfectly dead hulk, traveling a lazy course along the few light-minutes between gate and in-system refueling port.

It had no reason to do anything more; its entire reason for coming in this system was to conduct a general scan, refuel, and make the transit back to its origin, and it had done that. Hell, the first objective had been completed within a few hours of entering this worthless star's immediate vicinity; all that was left was to conduct an overglorified U-turn and remind the locals their hired guns were still about. In fact, it was with these locals that one Jessica Reese, radio operator and ESW specialist in the employ of licensed PMC 8912 "Sacha's Valkyries", was currently engaged in comms with.

Though, like the Luxor itself, to call her little conversation a conversation was a bit of a misnomer; the hab she'd connected with was currently light-minutes away, and as such their discussion was limited to a chain of very slow emails, each attempting to predict what the other might say and failing rather miserably. But, ultimately, it didn't matter whether, say, the traffic controller on the other end of the line owned a potted plant or not. It was just a chain of pleasantries attempting to pass a dull voyage that served very little purpose whatsoever. Oh, well. Things could've been worse. Much, much worse.

Reese had just send out a response to a badly-worded query apparently translated from Dutch about her health when the headphones resting on the controls next to her and still jacked into the Luxor's deployed sensor array flared to screeching life, screaming out some sort of looping message that to her ears sounded like a very loud burst of a repeating pattern of static. Wincing at the sudden noise, she turned away from one console and flicked to another, nearly flinging herself out of her chair in the process. Microgravity was easy enough to get used to, but it could still catch one off guard now and again.

A flick of a knob and the hissing from the headphones had resolved itself into an understandable message, or at least an understandable portion of a larger one. While it seemed to largely iterate through a series of garbled, incomprehensible words she was uncertain a human mouth could even make, a small portion of it was clearly spoken in English, albeit clunky, poetic English at that:

WE SUMMON THE SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE
A GALAXY AFLAME REQUIRES YOUR TALENTS
YOU WILL BE REWARDED ACCORDINGLY

FOR THE GOOD OF ALL CHAOS

...what the..? Reese's brow furrowed, and after jotting down those words with a grease pencil in a hurried hand she pivoted in her seat once more to face out the hatch of the Luxor's sensor suite and into the main control room. This made no sense. Something had to be checked. "Hey, Carlos?"

A moment later, and then a slurred reply- "Yeah?" Apparently Carlos had been at the ship's liquor again. Silently Reese sank back into her seat and sighed. Well, that made sense. He lived for the thrill of the assignment, like the stereotypical soldier of fortune, and there wasn't anything particularly thrilling about the past few days. Though if Reese's hunch was right-

"Can you get me a full-sphere scan on thermals? There's something really odd going on h-"

Before she could finish, he cut her off in an angry tone, shouting over her from his seat two rooms away. "Get it youshelf, I's busy."

Goddammit. "Can't. Primaries are still cycling through their test run. But they just gave me some... really odd results. I need a proximity check on the secondaries."

A moment's silence, then the sound of shuffling from the other room, and after a few seconds more of uncomfortable grunting yet more slurred speech. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a tall, lanky man in coveralls, his face flush with alcohol, pulling himself in front of a control panel that cast his face in an altogether different hue. "Nothing. Now can I ple-" His swiping at the panel stopped as something swung into view.

Even a few meters away from her coworker as she was, Reese could clearly see the dark green of an empty feed on his screen replaced by the hot orange of a heat-bloom- a cloud of expanding exhaust, only a few degrees Kelvin hotter than the ambient temperature of space, but blatantly obvious to even the Luxor's second-rate sensors nonetheless. In a much more sober tone Carlos voiced what they both knew: "Vessel. Uh... range... 0.3 light-seconds. Radiators out, her tail's lit up like a Christmas tree. She's not even trying to be stealthy. Drive cut out a moment ago, it looks like. Plume is still close."

Reese fell back into her chair and sighed. How'd that thing get right on top of us while we were doing a systems scan? We didn't even know it was there until it blew my ears out with that message. Shakily, Reese turned back to her console, passing along a halfhearted acknowledgement to Carlos. "U-understood. I... I guess we should get the others."

"On it." Carlos swung out of his chair and pulled himself off towards the Luxor's lower compartment. Reese could see his hands shaking from her seat; from fright or the drink she didn't know. But there were more important things at hand. Like responding to this newcomer. Flicking a switch, she terminated the primary test schedule- it was far enough along anyways, and it wasn't like they needed to verify that every system remained triple-redundant immediately- and brought the Luxor's signalling-laser around to face the odd, daggerlike vessel now clearly framed in the ship's radio and thermal telescopes' sights. Reese pulled out an odd little device, a chrome-plated Morse transmitter, and tapped out a quick message in reply, the transmitting laser sending out pulses of light at the other vessel broad enough to be picked up on its passive sensors as long as it was aimed in the ship's general direction.

COPY YOUR MSG STOP
ROLL TO SHOW RECEIVER STOP
WHEN DONE STANDBY FOR MSG STOP

That done, she leaned back in her seat and waited, her heart thumping with excitement and a modicum of terror. The ship's senior gunnery officer was currently sleeping two decks down; if this vessel had been hostile they'd be dead now. But apparently it had a vested interest in keeping them alive.

In fact, if she'd heard the transmission still looping through her headphones even now correctly, it seemed to want to... hire them.

This little trip had gotten far more complex than just a simple goodwill run.

[The Disorder]

Morse code via signal laser? That was an odd choice of communication, but the Disorder pilot could certainly work with it. As the first line of the message flashed over, the pilot stopped the looping transmission.

The second line indicated that they wanted the Arustkaana to...roll? An odd request, but a reasonable enough one. Green exhaust flame strobed from the recon frigate's thrusters, sending it into a rapid roll along its X-axis - 360 degrees in a little less than a second. A second flash of exhaust halted the roll.

The third line indicated that they wanted the Disorder pilot to wait. That was easy enough. He went ahead and matched velocity with the Luxor, no longer drifting off slowly, holding position about 0.3 light-seconds away.

With just a thought, the pilot translated a reply into morse code, powered up a target painter that operated on about the same frequency as the Luxor's morse-code signal laser, scaled its output down to match the signal laser, and flashed out a reply:

STANDING BY

All the sophisticated sensor and ewar gear aboard the Arustkaana also turned out to work really well as a communication system.

Of course, as the ship wasn't doing anything particularly powergrid-intensive at the moment, its waste heat generation remained low. The red-hot radiator-airfoils on the back of the Arustkaana slowly cooled and dimmed.

[The Disorder]

"I have identified a structural weakness," Norev announced, alongside a burst of sensor data. "This compartment within the smaller warship class appears to contain an antimatter reactor. I must have ruptured some part of their fuel distribution and incited a chain-reaction of matter-antimatter annihilation. Vaporized the whole ship."

"Neat, I wonder if they're all built the same way," Cirazeth mused aloud. "If they are, then that's going to be devastating when we crack the quantum harmonics of their hull composition, and our phase cannons gain armor-piercing capability."

Unfortunately, Norev could only properly chase one cruiser, giving the two remaining cruisers ample opportunity to flee into ideal missile range. But the bone-jarring acceleration of the Arustkaanas' main engines quickly closed the distance. It occurred to Norev that the enemy might have countermeasures too, and crashing into an anti-pursuit mine or a cloud of flak at a few kilometers per second would not be great for her shield. She threw in some erratic jinking maneuvers as she pursued the second cruiser, locking onto the turret's position-illuminating blaze as its electromagnetic glare boiled across her shield. Green plasma flashed after the cruiser - first aimed at the turret, then aimed at the general area where the last cruiser's reactor was. But her firing angle wasn't ideal, so the phase cannon beams might have to burn through more armor and internals before finding an antimatter-filled soft-spot.

...And she wouldn't get as much time as she wanted, either. Relativistic missile alarms fill her neural interface, and she'd have less than a second to deploy flak and countermeasures. She does jam one missile and obliterate a second with flak...but playing with four incoming missiles on terminal intercept is pretty risky, especially when her shield isn't maxed out.

She pulls up, and the cruiser's crew might get an excellent view of the pursuing Arustkaana boiling space-time apart and imploding into a fissure of green lightning. Just a fraction of a second later, a pinpoint of hyperspace radiation shines all the way out in the kuiper belt. The ship escaped to hyperspace a split-second before the missile barrage caught her.

"I'm recharging, your turn," Norev informs.

"Hail chaos," Cirazeth replies, re-entering the battlespace.

Another explosion of brilliant green hyperspace radiation follows - harmless at such long range but impressively luminous - as Cirazeth teleports in above one of the lightly-damaged and fleeing cruisers. He is out of laser range, but probably within missile range. A strobe of bright green plasma reaches across open space at 70% lightspeed, aimed at the cruiser's suspected weak spot. Then he fires a second time. Then a third. Then a fourth. His ship's quantum accumulators are full, so he diverts some extra energy to the phase cannon, boosting its rate of fire. If there is an antimatter-loaded weak spot in that cylindrical rear structure, he intends to find it!

[CBG Palisade]

Reese wasn't certain what she'd been expecting the other ship to do, but it most certainly wasn't completing almost a full revolution in a little less than a second. She was looking at the thermal image one moment, then her log the next, and by the time she'd turned her eyes back to the display she was staring at the vessel from a completely different angle. A massive, dagger-shaped heat-bloom stretched out from where its nose had been a moment ago, and another from where it had fired its reaction-jets to halt itself. It would've taken the Luxor at least thirty seconds to complete the same maneuver, and that was at full thrust on the RCS jets; whatever that ship's crew was made from was sterner stuff. If she was being honest with herself this was likely the strangest day of her life.

Well, this wasn't the oddest thing she'd ever seen. That massive derelict booster they'd caught on thermals one time had been pretty out there. Thing was big as a skyscraper, while she'd had it in her sights- but the moment she'd looked away and back again it was gone. She wasn't entirely convinced that hadn't been a trick of the eyes, given how quickly it disappeared. This vessel, on the other hand, was very clearly real, and very clearly interested in the Luxor.

But there were more important things to consider than the engineering details of a foreign vessel; the fact that a receiver appeared to now be available for the actual laser transmitter to send to. With a touch of a button designating the dish on her screen, the Luxor's systems computing the gimbal the transmitter needed to take to match the designation and swiveling the transmitter in its turret to align the beam, she was ready to send. But what?

Well, they'd said they could pay, hadn't they? If they wanted mercenary services, they would get mercenary services. And by the looks of things they were most certainly capable of paying, if they had vessels the size of cruisers that could do that. They could probably commission an entire Valkyrie brigade without much trouble.

That got a laugh out of her. This entire scenario was so absurd she had half a mind to just send as much; that if they were willing to pay then they'd have a fresh brigade of troops for whatever conflict they wanted. Of course, that would've been significantly overstepping her bounds and authority to conduct transactions, but Reese was confident that old Brittany wouldn't mind if the sum she brought home was large enough. She turned to the keyboard centered in her console's control board and began to type out a plaintext message:

Privately-operated Vehicle Luxor to unidentified vessel-

As a representative vessel of licensed mercenary company 8912, this vessel is empowered to confirm to you that we are willing to pursue your offer. If you are willing to provide us with compensation in the form of materiel, fuel, or finances, and if you are willing to provide acknowledgement and testimony before the Review Board that our combat operations took part as a service contracted by yourselves, we can dispatch twenty-five combat-capable vessels and 330 combat-ready operators to your aid within the day. Please respond with a confirmation that this is your intent if you find these terms to be acceptable.

Reese felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to see an older, rail-thin man in utility overalls and fatigues standing next to her, one hand on the low ceiling keeping him firm against the floor. A ring of patchy, blotchy, vacuum-kissed skin on one cheek confirmed to her that it was her captain, one Adonis Langenhoven, at her side. The ex-espatier was staring at the screen still keyed to the radio telescope's view of the other vessel drifting in space with a grim look in his eyes. Without turning to look at his subordinate he uttered a simple request: "What is that?" But, as usual, the bags around his eyes did the speaking for him. You're the night shift. This is my sleep-block you're cutting into; whatever it is has to be worth it.

Mechanically Reese repeated what she'd pieced together- "Not sure yet, sir. Unknown vessel, aught-point-three out. Big bastard, turns on a dime, too. Hailed us with an apparent request for mercenaries, responded to pings, and now I'm drafting up a greeting."

Langenhoven nodded and turned to scan the draft. One brow furrowed, he turned to Reese with confusion in his eyes. "The brigade? That would require the Admiral's direct approval. And even if you did have the authority to dispatch the whole brigade, a day is a tight timeframe."

"I know, sir." Reese grinned and pointed at the radio display. "But that thing managed to close to knife-fighting range without us noticing it on primary or secondary feed and has the thrust in its RCS to complete a full rev in less than a second. It's cruiser-sized, sir. I think it's safe to say whatever it is that dispatched it can pay enough for us to buy Sacha's forgiveness after the fact."

If Langenhoven had any thoughts on that he didn't immediately show them. Then he pointed to the message still displayed on the screen and gestured to the bottom with a bony finger. "I suspect you're correct. Request collateral, then. And proof of payment. Then send a message ahead to Keller's boys; tell them they need to be fueled and ready to deploy within twelve hours. After that we pray this is all a dream and wait for a response."

Reese gave a curt reply to the affirmative and turned back to her keyboard. With stunned fingers she typed out an addendum to her reply-

Additionally, please provide a vessel designation and confirmation of your intent to deliver payment upon completion of your requested services. If these terms are satisfactory to you, then indicate as much.

Message ends.

From over her shoulder, Langenhoven nodded. "Good. Send it." Then he turned to the intercom velcroed to Reese's control panel and depressed its switch. "Luxor, make ready for sustained acceleration. Five minutes' warning is in effect." Reese merely watched him blankly; she was still rather apprehensive about this whole thing. It seemed wholly insane, and yet Langenhoven was approaching it with the same aplomb he would a trip to the vessel's water closet.

Over Reese's shoulder he leaned down and with a click had the message underway. A second later and the laser transmitter had dispatched a series of pulses of varying intensity squarely towards the Arustkaana's own dish, the short message encoded and sent within only a few moments. Then, its duty done, the transmitter fell silent, much as Reese and Langenhoven did, their eyes fixed on the screen- awaiting a reply. Vaguely they were aware they were in some degree of danger just communicating with this thing, and that fact filled even Langenhoven- a man who had personally choked on vacuum before during his tours with the Confederacy- with a modicum of dread.

If only they knew how right they were to feel that way.

[Unthidor]

Before the cruisers could react to the intruder's return, one of them that already lost a turret suffered direct hits to it's engineering section. Shot after shot burned through the hull until...

Another blinding flash lit the area as the ship exploded in an anti-matter blast. The remaining two cruisers, one without it's port turret and the other without it's starboard nacelle, finally reacted to change their orientation and point their bows, and the missile tubes within, at the newcomer. Four fusion warheads flashed out, two from each ship, seeking to avenge their fallen comrade.

The sudden change of opponents caught the dreadnought out of position, and it struggled against sluggish sub-light engines to get its own firing solution.

--------------------

A message was sent out from Unthidor's Central Command...

To the Hounds of Tindalos,
We accept your terms.
Please join up with Combined Task Force 7/15
at the included co-ordinates and time.

[The Disorder]

A few moments later, the Luxor would receive a reply from the Arustkaana by laser-antenna. This time, instead of morse code, it matches the laser antenna's plain-text encoding:

Intent confirmed: Terms acceptable.

Vessel designation: Arustkaana 0908
Pilot: Serathikon
Affiliation: Disorder Fleet

Your proposed force commitments should satisfy or exceed the battlespace's force-ratio requirements for victory. Post-combat testimony will require either navigational data or authenticated encryption. Compensation will be provided in advance. Gratuity compensation for exemplary service will be provided after operations are complete, proportional to excellence.

We find the following compensation options acceptable and statistically popular:

Element 79 (Atomic mass: 196.67) - heavy nonreactive metal
Element 78 (Atomic mass: 195.08) - heavy nonreactive catalytic metal
Element 74 (Atomic mass: 183.84) - heavy metal, high melting point
Element 0 (Atomic mass: 4.00) - stable hyperdense 'neutronium' nonmetal
Element 92 (Atomic mass: 238.00) - heavy radioactive metal, fuel-grade
Element 92 (Atomic mass: 235.00) - heavy radioactive metal, weapons-grade
Element 94 (Atomic mass: 244.00) - heavy radioactive metal, weapons-grade
Element 2 (Atomic mass: 3.00) - noble gas, aneutronic fusionable material

Compensation is intended to satisfy or exceed your requirements. Negotiate mode(s) of compensation?

[The Disorder]

"Second enemy warship down!" Everyone listening in the Disorder's psionic network could feel Cirazeth's smile. "There may be some variation in the configuration of the reactor, the plating, and the systems in that area from ship to ship, so you might have to spend a few shots blowtorching the internals out before you hit something critical. But it's in there! You just have to dig around for it."

Cirazeth was much more ready for a missile barrage than Norev, with fully charged shields and auxiliary accumulators still mostly charged. Jamming came online the instant that the missiles flashed out of the hostile cruisers, and a smart-mine full of diamond flechettes exploded just a meter after it was clear of the shield. At 0.75c, the very moment that the sensors detected missile launch meant that the missiles were already 75% of the way there. The narrow cone of diamond flechettes failed to strike any of the incoming missiles - but one went unguided and one veered off-course violently. Cirazeth braced for impact, as he watched the two missile vectors intersect his ship. The countdown-to-impact timer counted down to zero, in fractions of a second...

But the third missile didn't explode properly. Indeed, it was successfully jammed after all! Electronic warfare duped the third missile into thinking that its target was still 5,000 kilometers away, even as it slammed directly into the Arustkaana's shield at three-quarters lightspeed! It still landed with the kinetic energy of a small nuclear detonation, converting itself and a fraction of Cirazeth's shield into an apocalyptically hot and x-ray luminous flare of plasma.

The fourth missile detonated properly, boiling a huge swath of vapor off of the ship's leading edge shield. It held, and with a fair margin of error - 34% shield integrity remained.

"I have identified a synergy in their launch patterns! Their missiles fire in predictable intervals," Cirazeth announced.

"Or they could be holding back on us, waiting to bait us into a foolish offensive," Norev warned.

"...As we're culling their ships from the battlespace?" Cirazeth seemed skeptical.

"You mean the small and expendable ones? Exactly the ones you would sacrifice to an enemy as bait?"

"Good point," Cirazeth conceded.

"Besides, I'm almost charged. We're not in a hurry. Once we take out one more of the little ones, then we can start picking apart the slow and thickly-armored one."

The two conversed at the speed of thought in the telepathic network, unencumbered by the necessities of physical speech. They could have an entire discussion in the span of a single second.

Brilliant green flashes of exhaust strobed from Cirazeth's ship as he pointed toward another cruiser. He couldn't spot any particularly juicy targets on the hull. No turrets faced him, and the reactor-room vulnerability was obstructed by the sizable spherical front end of the cruiser. So he just centered the cruiser approximately in the reticule, and fired!

The phase cannon's blasts came substantially less frequently. He would deliver a steady and methodical one-two punch, sending twin beams of relativistic green plasma streaking across the void. The reactors shared power between the phase cannon, shield regeneration, and thrusters, as Cirazeth didn't want to expend his ship's auxiliary power reserves right away. After all, if his theory was right, the cruisers had a while before they would be able to fire missiles again. He could afford to be methodical.

[Unthidor]

Just as the two remaining cruisers were about to fire another volley of missiles, one was struck directly in the bow. The first shot scorched the black dome covering the main navigational deflector and sensor array, the second managed to punch threw the weakened hull plates to damage the array. Reduced to just the sensors on its stern, the cruiser was effectively blind and unable to target its remaining weapons. It veered off in an attempted maneuver to bring its aft laser turret and sensor array into range.

The second cruiser, once again leaking warp plasma from the missing nacelle strut, was down to just eight anti-ship missiles left. Its captain decided to risk a full volley, and fired half of them, one from each tube, before changing course to cover the first cruiser.



Meanwhile, on the carrier Glorious, Commodore Hardy watched the tactical display on the viewscreen. He scowled as he realized how this battle was going to end. "We've lost," he said to no one in particular. The rest of the bridge crew was silent, waiting for orders. A deep sigh from the center chair. "Helm, get us moving and prepare for warp speed. Navigation, plot a course to Grid Halex. We can rendezvous with reinforcements there."

Captain Roode turned to face Hardy. "Sir, what about the Phenom?" he asked. "Are we to aban-"

"This battle is lost!" Hardy snapped, jumping out of his chair. "The Phenom can provide cover for our retreat. We need to get what information we have about these invaders back to Central so a counter-attack can be planned." His eyes narrowed. "That is our mission now. Everything else is secondary. Is that clear, 'Captain'?"

Roode nodded. He didn't like it, but it was the truth. "You heard your orders, people," he said to the crew, turning back to the viewscreen with crossed arms.


The carrier started moving away from the planet, its nacelles powering up for the jump to warp once the course was calculated. Meanwhile, the dreadnought also began moving, trying to keep itself between the carrier and the enemy. Two missiles launched from its bow....