Trouble in Paradise (FT, Semi-Open, TG for entry)

[Socialist States Owen]

OOC - TG me if you want to get involved, or Heliocalypse.

Trouble in Paradise

Lateral photograph of Foreland Bay beach and Foreland town.

Rivet Glacial Mountain Range B (Photo taken by Lieutenant A. Soberton, SOH-47B in foreground)

“…would. Would.”
“Oh god, that’s an it!”
“Definite wouldn’t. Would…would….definitely would. Hey, let’s go speak to them, if were lucky tonight we’ll be getting in their-“
“Enjoying the break, gents?”

The two young military police cadets jumped to their feet from their beach loungers, saluting to Group Captain Hobbs. “Yes sir, enjoying the view.” Hobbs frowned. “Let me tell you something son; the girls around here may be absurdly attractive for role-playing purposes, but they get around. A lot. Before you know it you’ll be knee deep in syphilis.”
“Which can be quickly cured with the application of pills sir.”
Hobbs shrugged. “Not before your dick smells like a YakCorp waste compactor! Get back to work!” Both cadets skulked off, walking back towards the council offices they were supposed to be guarding. Hobbs smiled. Perfect, he thought, as he sat down on the lounger and resumed checking-out-local-girls duty.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

“Sierra-Milkshake-Cricket-Three-Zero, it’s 11:38 hours planet side and we are coming over the threshold in three…” The SS Iron Boar, a Type-7 Frigate which was assigned to a regular patrol of Rivet, Soho and Mayville colonies along with SS Crescendo, was currently above Rivet, moving further away from the planet after flying over it in its upper orbit. All seemed good on the colony, home to 2 million people and a prime tourist destination in this system. With the Crescendo busy having a routine check up on Soho II, Iron Bar was on it’s own – but all was quiet, so Captain James Carville wasn’t bothered.

“This is Carville to Rivet Hub, we’ve got zero reading of contacts across the board and no bad word from you. Were going to exit the area via conventional means and proceed on to Mayville. We’ll see you next week.”
Hannah Sovur smiled – as Chief Naval Liason at Rivet Hub, the planet’s communications center, it was her responsibility to sign off the pass. As usual, the young attractive officer got a warm smile from the ships captain on the camera. “Stay safe, Nails.”
Carville laughed. “And you stay sexy, ma’am. Iron Boar out.”

[Heliocalypse]

Perception

"Ahn... it's too much for me...Clero..you're good..."
"Yes, yes i'm, i don't win the title of a leader for nothing my dear..."
"Give me..give me more! Ah!"
"Ok...here goes....relax...i will whisper sweet nothings into your ears my dear..you're everything to me, Jiki..."

As Clero spoke softly in the ears of his patronage, Clero can heard someone was knocking the door of his room rather explosively. Clero, an average man at his thirties usually spent his time, flirting with almost anyone in his office giving Clero the title of Mr. Lecherous. Deep brown eyes with near flowing short brown hair, toned by sensual fragrance and an active personality Clero was able to snatch away maiden hearts easily, if not for his tendency to be lecherous. As Clero continued his facade, the moaning of his patronage got louder till he can almost instinctively sense that something was starting to brew outside of his room's door. Pure rage of fury emanated by someone or something. Clero decided to ignore the presence till the door of his room was cut open with a blow torch.

Anger and Consultations

Rial, frustrated that she cannot get the attention of Clero decided to cut the door of his room with a blow torch. With fury while still having the eye protectors on, Rial screamed at the pair, clearly show the sense of anger. "Mister Clero Vanckel! What are you doing!? Having sex now?!"

"Ah, Rial! No, i was just massaging Jiki! No, not my ear, argh!!!!" shouted Clero as Rial starts to twist the left ear lobe of Clero. Jiki, sitting in front of Clero, facing away was rather surprised by Rial's explosive entry into the room.

"You Jiki should be ashamed!"
"Erm why? I did have my clothes on...and look, Clero was massaging my shoulders....or perhaps you're jealous that you can't keep Clero all to yourself..hm..? You damn sadistic woman..hehe..." smirked Jiki as she rose from the chair that she sat on.

Knowing that herself was wrong, Rial answered Jiki with a tone of anger mixed with embarrassment before leaving the room with an angst of a tempest. "Well, er whatever! Don't just go make weird moaning sounds when someone is merely touching your shoulder, Jiki! And for you Clero, you have four thousand paperwork to sign now!"

"Oh, you said i'm your only one. Heeey dude, you got someone cared bout you, you Mr.Lecherous.." teased Jiki with a provocative smile. Clero shakes his head for comply and laughed a few frame of time.

"Ah, Jiki, you sure knew women well aren't you?" answered Clero as he sat on the bed in the room. The room is coloured dull grey with minimal lighting, as if it was inviting vice and malice. Jiki nodded in comply and said, "Well i'm a woman too you dimwit. Of course i knew how it should feel like. If only you're not so dense regarding it, haha"

"Well look, you dressed like a tomboy and i...you make me do all that ridiculous stuff...now i got some men chasing after me now...argh"
"Ah calm down, you look good in a dress, i mean you look cute....makes me want to violate...no, never mind, you're more dense than plutonium!" laughed Jiki hysterically as she saw Clero was deeply embarrassed by her comment, blushing like a red rose.

Running Impulse

Clero knew he was tricked by Jiki but seems unable to resist of what vice chalice that Jiki impregnated in his mind. Clero Vanckel is the highest authority in the Principality, but yet lost to a mere woman in a game of makeup. This is a huge embarrassment for Clero as the supposedly leader of Principality should never lose in any tournaments even if it's mundane. And so, Clero followed the whim of Jiki occasionally, just to cover his embarrassment. But Jiki knew her ways may cause Clero to lash out on everything he saw, thus slowly keeping her teasings under one fine line. Clero opted to go outside of his room and walked across the bridge for reasons unknown to Jiki. Thus Jiki tagged along, seeing the same visual as Clero saw, glaring eyes focused on Clero as if the owners of the eyes want to kill Clero.

"I'm going for a field trip." said Clero as he was walking near to one of the primary docking area of his ship. Clero office was actually a capital ship, a mobile prison as he felt since he can't go anywhere he pleases. Jiki with a frown running on her facial expression spoke pitifully, "What again? I will miss you Clero! I want to...you do to..err..". Clero knew what Jiki wanted to say, thus he held Jiki shoulders tightly with his hands and then whispered into her ears. "Listen Jiki. I don't like signing those documents. You saw the crews too, right? They hate me."

"Aww what? Don't be like that, i will caress you like a little baby you're!" shouted Jiki through the corridor. Clero was deeply embarrassed as he saw several witnesses in the area that heard Jiki voice. Clero looked deeply into her eyes and responded softly, "Sorry Jiki. That time is now over. I don't want to be locked in this office 24/7, i want to see the universe by myself without three Proctos following me around. Can't they make appropriate decisions for themselves?"

"Well. You're their leader, you're supposed to decide for them, hahaha"
"Well, i will take my leave now. Bye-bye Jiki!" said Clero as he pressed the red button on the wall. Jiki was rather surprised, since all of it happened in a split second. Clero was escaping from his office with his custom built craft. As senses returned to Jiki, numerous warning klaxons can be heard, indicating something is deeply wrong.

"Attention all available crews, we're having two major problems! Clero Vanckel, our leader had escaped! And most of the ship systems are now inoperable due to unknown cause! All hands on alert!"

"You Clero...you're so slick when it comes to this...but you're so dense regarding females...oh well.." snickered Jiki to herself as she saw the warp drive of Clero's small ship activated, leaving his main ship hopelessly crippled. Rial, knew of Clero's doings erupted into molten anger. With fury she ordered several ships to track Clero's small craft down.

"Heh, they won't able to catch me now...haha! Bye-bye suckers!" taunted Clero as he saw his main ship getting smaller and smaller as his craft sped away from its initial point. Little that he knew that there were actually three Razors following him around, getting in sensor shadows and nigh impossible to detect.

Pursuit

"Argh damn Razors..they're so persistent...who built that damn drones?! Man i hate this!" frustrated Clero as he tries to avoid the deadly armament volley of the Razors that followed him. Clero did had learnt some advanced flight training but it was not enough to defeat the better equipped Razors. The drone specifications easily surpassed the ship design of Clero craft but they're no match for an actual human brain to pilot a craft tactically.

"Cease and desist Clero--Vanckel--Office--Waiting--" spoke a transmission received by Clero. The Razors were trying to stop Clero but they didn't know how to do it properly thus the deadly hail of Kovo missiles and disruptor rounds aimed at Clero. Clero did jumped literally across seven systems, only to found the pesky Razors to chase him all the way. Several concentrated burst of disruptor rounds dissolved Clero's small craft shield and sadly, Clero ship was built for speed and not for combat. Thus he have no conventional method to shake those Razors off his tail.

"Oh so persistent aren't you, Razors? I want to use you as my shaving tool later!" exclaimed Clero as he executed a complicated space maneuver known as alpha feint turn, inducing high G forces on himself. To his dismay, the Razors simply fly straight and managed to catch him, as if they knew where Clero will end up on his acceleration trajectory.

Panning his ship sensors into view, Clero saw a debris field and decided to fly into the dangerous path of floating mass. The Razors quickly followed him and managed to catch Clero each time he committed a complicated maneuver. Clero was a hair breadth away from death but was saved due to the tendency of the Razors to shoot his craft every time they got visual contact. The Razors were shooting indiscriminately, hitting whatever in the line of their fire. Clero used this to a great effect. The drones, being AI units do not know how to effectively commit a feint turn and usually ended up shooting up the floating debris in the area. The exploding debris had proven a difficult mess to maneuver out of, thus the Razors were forced to retreat each time their weapons hit something large.

"Argh..blood flowing out...must remember...cookie!" exclaimed Clero as he was nearly fainted on each time he executed a high-G maneuver. On the last stretch of the debris field, the Razors knew that it was pretty impossible to catch up with Clero so they came with a plan. To fake their death so Clero would fly in a straight line on whatever he was heading to.

Clero saw his assailants to stop shooting and instead followed his craft closely. He figured out that, he can now cause the craft to crash by doing a feint turn on a large debris since the drones were copying the exact movement of his nimble craft. "Time to eat your meds, you damn Razors." muttered Clero to himself as he executed a feint turn. The Razors did follow but they stopped midway, launching Kovo missiles in order to make Clero thought that they had been destroyed by collision with the large debris. Clero triumphantly paraded his short-lived success with a sense of pride nonchalantly. That is, before he was ejecting his stomach content on his legs, due to immense nausea generated by all that complicated evasive maneuver.

"Clero--Vanckel--tricked---sensors--report--damage---pursue---Clero--Beacon--activated--" communicated the Razors between themselves as they noticed Clero had left the area. Their sensors were destroyed due to close proximity to a Kovo missile explosion. With the last beacon activated on Clero's small craft, the Razors started to chase Clero again, though they're now blind and solely depended on the beacon for targeting Clero.

Crash

"Ah...seems like a good planet! Let's see...hailing channels...Hi! I'm Clero and i'm running away from my home! Mind if i drop in?" spoke Clero to his intercom. Little that he knew that the Razors are still in active pursuit of himself. Now in open space, the Razors unleashed torrent of deadly projectiles, hoping that they will stop Clero somehow.

Clero didn't notice the Razors until one of his craft wing got blasted clean by an accurate shot of a disruptor cannon. "Shit, they're still alive? Argh i was tricked! Damn drone!"

With his might, Clero tried to shake of his pursuers, only to find it's mildly effective. The Razors are still shooting deadly rounds and barely missed Clero. He can see a moving mass of blue-ish object whizzed across his cockpit as he tried to turn his craft towards the ships that were orbiting the planet. "No, not the engine!" exclaimed Clero as a lone Kovo missile slammed directly into his craft's engine. Clero craft, now with a missing right wing and a left engine started to swivel rapidly into a gravity drop course to the planet.

Only time will tell whether Clero will continue to avoid the main Principality forces or not. For now, he escaped the scout of the Principality and he was aware that the whole military force of the Principality will be looking for him soon. Thus with no regret, he closed his eyes when the Kovo missile struck his craft's engine. "Ah this planet not so bad! Wish this was heaven...too bad i think it will be my grave..."

[Socialist States Owen]

"Sierra-Milkshake-Three-Zero, come in, over."
Hannah turned around in surprise. "Reading you loud and clear Iron Boar. Whats the problem?"
"We've just had a small impact against our shields, and we can see two small bogeys, possibly drones of some kind, following a small ship to the surface. Expected LZ is seven...no, six clicks south of Foreland Bay."
"Roger that Iron Boar. Continue on system patrol, we'll deal with it. Keep a line with us in case we get more bogeys."
"Copy that, Sierra-Milkshake-Three-Zero. Iron Boar out."

Within minutes, a decision had been made by the planet's acting chairman, or FMP (Federal MP) to investigate. Although Foreland remained calm, some people were surprised to see a convoy of no less than 30 vehicles steam through the main road of the town. Overhead, two Raven dropships flew by, ahead of the convoy.

The mysterious ship ploughed into an opening in the outer bands of the jungle, causing a loud boom noise and a plume of dirt and smoke. The last drone had followed it in atmosphere and was just about still running; it glided over the crash site, searching for Clero with its onboard camera. But it was quickly wiped out as one of the Raven's strafed it with its nose mounted Hive cannon. The drone crashed into the long grass, riddled with bullet holes. Both Ravens landed, and shortly after the convoy came through the trees along a nearby dirt track and pulled up next to the ship. Five Marines, dressed in light armour suited for this climate, ran up to the ships wreckage and climbed on to the side, searching for an entrance. "Unknown contact! Please vacate your vessel immediately! Do not bring out weapons!"

[Heliocalypse]

"Clero--Detected--Continuing Pursuit--Warning--Incoming--Projecti--System--Failu--"

One Razor that decided to investigate Clero eventual outcome was shot down by an unknown ship as it tries to scan the wreckage of the Clero's vessel to confirm his status. The drone was taken on surprise, since it didn't notice it was targeted upon. Hails of projectiles struck the drone, causing the drone to drop dead as a fly. The drone didn't explode however, postulated the unknown craft had missed the center of the drone. The incident occurred so fast, the drone didn't have a chance to evade, let alone to activate its shielding system. The other two Razors met an ill-fated encounter. Their sensors were compromised and they had been destroyed due to their collision with the unknown ships on the orbit of the planet.

"Warning. Automatic Self-Destruct System Activated."
"Urm..er..."
"Beginning countdown in 10....9.."
"Uhrm...wha? Oh...i'm still alive..."
"5...4.."
"Wait...a minute....damn auto-destruct...argh"
"System on hold. Please input security code."
"4rEt...err...something..."
"Code wrong, resuming countdown sequence. 4..3...2.."
"Wait...4rEt3X!"
"Automatic Self-Destruct System Deactivated. Thank you for using Weapons In Motion Industries' system!"
"Ow...i think i have some broken ribs...."

Clero was in the verge of death. The impact of his crash had broken some of his ribs and his craft automatically started the auto self-destruct system. The system is in place in all of the Principality assets and ships, to make sure no one outside the Principality acquire the military secrets of the Principality from their heavily damaged assets or ships. Even if it kills the user or whatever in close vicinity. With his remaining strength, Clero managed to stop the system just in time. Before his consciousness faded away again, Clero could hear someone was calling out for him. Someone unknown.

[Socialist States Owen]

"Lieutenant, all I need to know is what it is."
"Well ma'am," sighed the Lieutenant in charge of the crash site investigation replied over the radio, "all we know is that it appears to have a crossover of humanoid and machinery tech. Could be androids of some kind."
"Right. Well, you've waited long enough for a reply. Crack the lid off the pot."
"Yes ma'am!" He put the radio down and climbed out of his Honeybadger Scout Vehicle. "Ok boys, blow her open!"

The squad of Marines, who had located a small waste hatch, took a few steps back and knelt down. One stepped forward slightly and remained standing, holding a tiny detonator in his hand. "FIRE IN THE HOLE!" The plasma charge made a small boom and thud as it exploded, burning through the hatch door to reveal a small waste dump compartment. "Crap, they like throwing away plastic ba-THOSE ARE NOT PLASTIC BAGS." The marine turned away in disgust as he looked down into several boxes of used condoms. The marine climbed down, followed by two comrades, all with their P-1 'Hand Cannons' out. They tentatively stepped over the waste, trying not to slip. "I think I'm gonna' throw man..."
"Man up, Corporal. There's the chute." Ahead of them was a shute, horizontally facing them - clearly the ship had landed on it's side. "There's a second lock door at the end of it. Let's blow this SOB open."

Several minutes later, they were through the chute with a smouldering hole behind them where they had destroyed the lock door. They were now in a corridor - and wierdly they were standing on the wall, as the ship was on it's side. "Surface, we are in. Gonna' look around, see if we can find any survivors, assuming this thing has a crew." The marines slowly walked along the corridor, peeping through doorways to see what was in each room. "IS ANYONE HERE?" Yelled the leader. "IS ANYONE ALIVE?"

[Heliocalypse]

Once again, Clero heard the same voice. Only louder and more clear than before. State of consciousness started to pulsate in his mind rapidly, forcing Clero to traverse the path between life and death. Clero is slumping on the cold steel floor, his eyes facing the command panel of his craft. Dim lighting coloured his current location, below the pilot room. Smell of burnt metal and twisted blood permeates the incessant atmosphere.

"Urgh..who...*cough cough*..." muttered Clero to himself as he tries to re-muster his draining strength. The ship, had activated its emergency mode is being illuminated by low powered lights. In which sheath of light Clero saw something moved. With his blurred vision, Clero tried to move again. But with each move it was accompanied by a sharp pain.

"Wait...if this is heaven....*cough*..why does it hurt? I must be *cough* dreaming then...". As Clero tries to grab the railing in the room, he could hear the sound of electronic fizz and hiss in the background. Slowly but surely, Clero managed to place his upper body upright, only to be shrouded in pain. He heard the same sound again, and then turned his face at the direction of the source. However, Clero eyes are not yet adapted to the dim condition of the room and thus can barely see properly. The intense light of the emergency light units pierced his eyes, causing Clero's eyes to lose focus to see in the dim condition.

"*cough* He..y!" shouted Clero a few times, before his pain overpowered himself again. Undeterred by the sharp pain, Clero started to hit the steel wall of the room with his hand, in hope that someone or something could hear it and reach to him.

[Socialist States Owen]

"Did you hear that?" One of the marines whispered, hearing a quiet voice through a door labelled "Bridge." As they moved closer it slid open automatically, and they walked in slowly, looking around with rifles raised now instead of their sidearms. Suddenly, something popped up from behind a fibreglass panel and pushed it over - a roughly humanoid sentry bot of some kind, spinning up its small laser weapon which fired automatically and levelling its in built high power shotgun on the marines. "You are not on the leader's list! INTRUDERS! ASSASINS! ALERT!" It opened fire, strafing the walls and consoles with laser shots and shotgun bursts. One of the marines had been caught by a laser and his arm was bleeding - he was pinned down, lying down behind a podium like platform that would usually elevate someone up into the observation deck. He was inches from a hail of laser fire. The leader and the other marine, who had dodged the salvo of fire, swung around from their hiding spots, the leader wielding a SOAR rifle and his partner an RS-43 shotgun. "SURPRESSING FIRE!" The leader laid down some fire on the sentry, the drumlike roar of the SOAR filling the bridge with noise. The shotgunner ran to the other side of the bridge, tucking himself in behind an indent in the wall. The sentry saw him and did a front flip over a table and began to run towards his hiding spot - big mistake. The wounded marine pulled out his sidearm and fired a single shot. The massive round left the gun with a resounding boom, followed by the sentrys 'head' exploding into pieces of metal and machine.

Suddenly Clero appeared, stumbling along the corridor and falling to the floor. Seemingly unarmed, the leading marine tentatively walked over and checked to see if he was injured. Clero was bashed up from the crash pretty bad but seemed treatable, so he picked Clero up and slung him over his shoulder while the other marine treated his injured comrade. After fifteen minutes of working their way back out, they were back in the sunlight and while the injured marine was taken away to be treated, engineers went aboard to disable the reactors and other marines searched for more survivors and sentries. Clero meanwhile was layed out on the grass, with two marines standing above him. A man walked over, clearly an officer of some sorts, and knelt down to talk to Clero, who had just regained conciousness in the comfortable long grass beneath a blue sky. "You took a knock, buddy. Do you understand my language? I am Major Dushali. I am taking you to be treated. You will then be asked questions about your precense here. Do you understand?"

[Heliocalypse]

Breathing heavily, Clero felt that he was being supported by someone. Persistent rays from the overhead sun traced across his bare skin. Clero could hear a voice speaking a foreign language to him, along with the sound of the wind bristling through his ears. He thought he is in heaven but what followed after clearly indicate his expectations were wrong. Coughed blood a few times, Clero tried to open his eyelids slowly. An expression of pain ran through his face, as he was injured earlier.

"Err...*cough*...hey.." simply spoke Clero to the man he saw briefly as Clero tries to respond to his call. Clero figured the unknown man is trying to communicate with him but alas, Clero wasn't able to understand a word spoken by the man. Slowly shielding his eyes from the light rays by dropping his eyelids, Clero saw the man, clad in a battle uniform of some kind, standing next to him. Clero tried to communicate again, by moving his fingers in hope the man do understand the message Clero tried to tell. But it was all in vain, as Clero was enduring immense pain and unable to move his fingers properly, hampering his effort to communicate with the unknown man.

Noticing his body is in motion again, Clero quietly sighed while trying to keep his consciousness in a coherent state. All that pain had dulled his senses and now he is feeling numb. He can hear clearly the sound of a mechanical engine with his acute ears. Briefly, Clero flashed his vision to check his surroundings. Clero was put on some sort of vehicle, escorted by a few men in the league with the previous man counting the visible markings that he managed to catch a glimpse of. A group of soldiers Clero figured, by merely glancing at their attire before tiredness bagged Clero's eyelids again.

After a few temporal displacement of time, Clero noticed the transport he was on is now stopped moving. He can see the sign of a plus and the unmistakeable smell of phenol as soon he opened his eyes. A medical bay so as he thought. The previous man must had taken Clero from the wreckage and ordered a medical treatment on himself. Being grateful, Clero lightly smiled before his consciousness faded away again.

[Socialist States Owen]

Clero was laid out on a bed in the field hospital at Fort Foreland, a medium sized military establishment north of Foreland. "I don't think he understand's English, ma'am." The doctor who was speaking pulled back a curtain to reveal a woman in officers uniform - a Brigadier, no less. "Then give him the implant Dr Hathaway, see if it helps us speak to him." The doctor left for a moment, then returned with a small device - a rectangular chip, which contained a neural interface.

The doctor reached down and tilted Clero's head to one side, and with the help of a marine they pushed the entire body onto one side. Clero already had a slot of some kind in the rear of his neck, clearly connected to the spinal cord - so the doctor naturally began to slide the chip in. But it popped out and the slot opened slightly, making Clero flinch and the marine reach for his gun. "Hold it!" yelled the Brigadier. "This tech looks strange. Do you recognise it?"

"No ma'am. It looks like it uses a wireless upload rather than a mobile unit upload like ours do." Suddenly a small metal prong slid out of the slot in Clero's neck, and it extended out before clamping on to the main connection port of the chip. It then pulled the chip in, and after a few seconds of whirring it ejected the chip. The doctor threw himself to the ground and caught the chip, dusting himself off as he climbed back up and put it on a side table.

The Brigadier turned Clero onto his back, and then raised her voice slightly. "Wake up. Hello?" Clero jumped up suddenly, eyes widened with fear as he spluttered in a coughing fit. The Brigadier chuckled. "He understands us then." Clero calmed down, looking up at her. The Brigadier leant over him, eyes fixed on his face. "Brigadier Hannah Oberton, Rivet Colony Chief Communications Officer, UFSSO Logistics Corp. And you?"

[Heliocalypse]

"Erm...i swear i didn't steal the bikini....why are you guys...looking at me? Oh heavens..aim that dreaded guns away.." frowned Clero as he just woke up from his short slumber. Rubbing his neck, he noticed that his neural uplink had picked up something.

"Wait, who...are...you..?" speaks Clero in disrupted tone of words as he squinted his eyes around, not familiar of the new environment. Feeling frustrated, Clero is bobbing his head lightly numerous times as his consciousness strobes his mind in seemingly rapid pulses.

In several lapses, Clero tried to recall his broken memory. He noticed a new flood of information entered his brain, words, letters imagined in his mind. A new language set it must be, as Clero painstakingly tries to decrypt the flood of information. A massive headache hit Clero, which rendered himself slightly dazed and collapsed towards the doctor that attended to his misfortune.

Slowly blinking, Clero noticed that he had somehow landed on the chest of the doctor. Trying to muster his strength again, he tried to move his head away but with no avail. His strength had fleeted from him once again. With a red face and an innocent look, Clero said, "Uhm...sorry?". As Clero spoke his sentence, once again he fell from his upright position, only to land on the doctor's lap. His face is red, red as rose as blood bleeds from his nose. Clero decided to keep his eyes shut while muttering slowly, unheard to the present entities in the room.

[Socialist States Owen]

The doctor retreated backwards, pushing off Clero. "Don't worry, just...ugh...." With Hannahs help she pushed Clero back on to his bed. "I'll leave you to it, Brigadier." The doctor walked away, a bit stunned by the events of the last five minutes. The Brigadier smiled, looking down at the half asleep survivor of the crash. "Watkins! The bucket!" Watkins, the marine who had observed these events, went over to the corner and brought back a bucket full of water. He handed it to the Brigadier, who sat on the bed, putting her hand on Clero's leg. "What a handsome man you are. A tired one too." She suddenly threw the water over Clero, making sure he was fully awake. Clero did indeed jolt upwards, sat up with his face and most of his shirt soaked in water. "Who are you?"

Clero was stunned, waving his head around. "Uh, I'm..uh..." Hannah sighed and got a towel to wipe him dry. "I'm sorry I had to do that but I've got business to attend to. Were going to take you to planetary headquarters at Foreland and ask you more questions there." Hannah finished drying him off with the towel and stood up. "A nice face, indeed. You'll be popular with the women at the beaches. There's lots to do in Foreland -casinos, the sea, bars. Lots to do. But first, we've got to find out who the hell you are and where are you from. Or even better, why the you are here."

Clero looked around, now properly awake, at his surroundings. He was in a building made of thin material, more like a cabin of aluminium than a tent, with high-tech medical equipment and several doctors checking on other high priority patients. He had no idea who they were. Suddenly Clero was moving, as a male doctor started moving his bed along and down a ramp to exit the cabin. He worked out that it must've been at least a day or two since the crash since his wounds had healed a little. As they went outside he felt warm as the sunlight splashed on him. Clero looked aorund him again, seeing he was in a camp of these prefabricated buildings and tents.

This was clearly a medical installation - and partly a mining one, as he could see no less than a dozen oil wells swinging up and down like pendulums on a nearby hill. Ahead of him was a landing pad, with a small helicopter sat on it. It had two rotors side by side and a rear tail wing, was green in colour and had heavy weaponry. It was clearly some form of special forces helicopter, but it had been specially fitted out with a rack for holding a wheeled hospital bed and its patient. It would not be a comfortable ride, though.

[Heliocalypse]

Rial furiously decked her anger throughout HCL Lecherous. Knowing that Clero had gone and even disabled the ship, she was beyond control but her fury dragged down by the logical thinking of Jiki. HCL Lecherous, a relatively large craft with five flapped thrusters slowly activate into life as its ship engineers rebooted the ship's control core. It seems that Clero had disabled the ship tactfully, by clever manipulation of system access codes and numerous other sabotages. The ship crews were somewhat thankful to Jiki, as if she wasn't there, all of them would be probably forced to be disposed of via an airlock, based on Rial's mounted anger.

Rial, wearing a tone of subtle rage slowly walk across the ship's corridor, accompanied by Jiki, "And why did you say i shouldn't get mad?"

"Ah, well if you executed all of them, then who would you instruct? We still need people to pilot the ship, and else, dear." replied Jiki simply as she tailed Rial on her way to the ship's command room.

Agitated, Rial left a punch to a nearby wall, "Bah, whatever!"

"Erm..madame? A new message had come through.." speak an officer that happen to see Rial was passing his assigned area.

Reclining her imminent anger, Rial stared at the officer, "What? What is it?!"

"Hey Rial, stop choking that poor guy, listen what he have to say first." interfered Jiki as she saw Rial's action. Upon her recommendation, Rial let the officer's neck free from her grip.

Coughing slightly, the officer answered lightly, "Er, we..*cough* received a rumour that, the *cough* Vice President may had started her plan, Mission of Glory."

"She did? What about Clero?!" angered Rial, only to be held back by Jiki. The officer clearly was afraid to Rial's explosive anger as she was struggling against Jiki's firm grip.

Placing himself slightly against the wall, the officer replied with tone of nervousness, "Uhm madame, the razors we sent to catch Clero are assumed to be destroyed...since we didn't get any more info feed from those three drones. The last data feed was their approach to a planet, where two of them collided with some sort of shield and the third one was brought down by somesort of craft. We had detected strays of unidentifiable data transmission near the system."

"Strays of data? Did you plotted the system yet, officer?" asked Jiki. Seeing Rial had somewhat calmed down, she let Riki from her initial grip.

Stomping her away across, Rial left the scene with fist of agitation, "That good-for-nothing man! I'm so going to get him 're-purposed'! "

"Never mind her, officer. So, tell me, more about what did your unit discovered." speak Jiki with a tone of curiosity. She can clearly see the officer starts to trust her than the spewing anger thrown by Rial.

Withdrawing a datapad from the wall, the officer replied her request, "Well, it seems that we had detected plausible level of civilization in the area that the drones had stumbled across based on the last scrapes of data transmission we compiled. The data is incomplete though, we only managed to piece together scraps of it so we're not sure if it's true or not, madame."

"Hm, we shall head there when the repairs completed then, thank you for the report." answered Jiki.

Saluting away, the officer left the scene with haste after relaying the information to Jiki, "With diligence, Captain Jiki."

Moving herself to the room that Rial had headed, Jiki thought of a plan to convince Rial of her thoughts. Jiki planned to use the new information, although unverifiable, for her own cause, which quite unbeknownst to Rial. After a few steps placed, she transported herself to the entrance of the room, seeing Rial shouting out orders. Pouncing from behind, Jiki pinned Rial down on the floor with surprise.

"Hey. What are you doing to my ship?"

"Jiki! Why you?!"

"Listen, listen to me. Stop your meddling now. Don't make me mad."

"Gah! Stop!"

"Know, your place, Rial. I suspect Soros will show up soon. The Vice President had begun her massive plan."

"*gasp* Jiki..let me go! Stop touching me in weird *gasp* places!"

"You promise you'll listen to me?"

"Ye..yes! *gasp*"

"Good. Give an order. A legal order as the President's retainer. The command of the search taskforce should be given to me."

Jiki swiftly moved away from Rial, seeing Rial trembling on the floor. Glinting her usual mischievous smile, Jiki eyed around, as apparently her action had made the personnel in the room aware of her actions. The personnel rapidly shifted their view away from the locus of the incident, to avoid getting caught in the flak.

"She is sure..dangerous.."

"Hey, keep your voice down! She might hear us!"

"Ah, and what are you discussing?"

"Captain, no ARGH! N-no-nothing!"

"Good. Resume your work."

Slowly releasing her grip, Jiki left the room with haste. Rial slowly calmed herself and barely walk straight as she decided to walk straight to her quarters instead. It seems that matter on the surfaces were just illusions and not of what it might be. Jiki, now adamant with the new power shift, quickly returned to her room to concoct a new plan. A plan to 'retrieve' Clero.

---

Placing his vision around, albeit wobbling, Clero can clearly see that he was about to board a form of a flying craft, or a helicopter so he figured. Back in Zarche, such crafts are extremely rare and only presented in museums as partial blueprints or image retrieved from a handful of rare ancient archives of the now defunct Marchus Confederation. Hearing the sound of the air being chopped, he can see the blades of the craft briefly, working in tandem. Two rotating blades made of somesort of superstrong light materials whizzing away in the atmosphere, barely lifting the craft from the ground below it.

Green colour slithered across the craft's frame, snugly fit the aerodynamic contour of the craft, reminding Clero of the Lucius's Savor craft. Viewing several mounts on the craft with the rotating blades, he figured, the craft may feature some sort of heavy weaponry but now non-existent as if it was detached for an unknown purpose. Moving his head around, Clero noticed that he's being transported to the waiting craft. His thoughts were disrupted by a few sudden bumps. Slowly realizing the situation around him, Clero noticed that he's on a stretcher, lying across the white cloth of the object, flanked by a few personnel that were figured to be some sort of special force considering their different attire which Clero saw briefly.

Muttering a few words, he begin to speak, "Urgh..where..we going?" before his voice slowly muffled by the incessant air waves produced by the rotating blades.

[Socialist States Owen]

Hannah's attention was diverted from looking out at the sea to Clero as he asked quietly where they were - she could surprisingly hear him quite well, as this kind of helicopter was a special operations helicopter designed to be relatively quiet. "Were going to Foreland, a big town by the sea. Capital of the planet. Were going to do another check up on you and then we'll let you relax until the morning." Minutes later the helicopter was flying over Foreland, weaving between two hotels as it approached the helipad on top of the planetary authority headquarters. The helicopter settled down on the tarmac gently, and much to Hannahs surprise Clero simply rolled off the stretcher and stepped onto the helipad. He was tired but clearly his injuries were not as serious as first thought.

Three Hours Later

"Brigadier, don't you know any more?"
"No, sir." Hannah said down the handset of the holophone with exaserpation in her voice. "All we know is that he was the only guy on the vessel, he's male, young or middle aged by our standard and his name is Clero. Anything we need to know about his civilisation can be garnered off him tomorrow but he needs to rest."
"Fine. Get him to a hotel and if he wants to explore, you and an escort go with him."
"Yes sir." Hannah ended the call just as Clero came out of the elevator, with two non-uniform Marines standing at his side. "Let's go Clero."
Clero looked a bit more refreshed but he needed somewhere to stay for the night. "Whats your name? I never asked."
"Hannah. I told you earlier but I think you were semi-unconcious at the time. We were driving something into the back of your neck after all."
"Huh...."

Before long, they were in a large hotel room with two beds and a panoramic view of the city - it was one of four executive suites at the top of the Topaz Hotel. At 800 feet tall, it was the tallest building on the waterfront. Clero had decided he would like to explore the town a little, and was currentley choosing his attire while Hannah and the escorts waited outside. "Are you done yet?"
"Nearly!" There was a wide selection of clothes to pick from. Clero had limited knowledge of the culture of this new civilisation, but it was hardly a world apart from the Principality.

[Heliocalypse]

Jiki patiently waits in a room, coloured titanium grey with creeping cold air emanated from the air ducts in the room. Sitting in one posh chair, she decided to wear the official uniform, the uniform of the ship's captain. Being an avid dresser, her uniform resembles of male officer, instead of the standard female officer. An odd ball others might think but that how's things click for Jiki. Holding a datapad, she viewed her point of interest, three separate forms inside the display.

"Team Leader Grieo reporting." stepped a young man into the room. Lines of black lined his otherwise slate blue suit, with partial head covered by the suit's helmet. Wearing a cyan hued visor, the name Rerealis can be seen on the man's name plate.

Jiki tilted her view slightly, "Come in. Where are the other two?"

"Here here, Captain! Soldier Saecco reporting!" answered a female voice, accompanied streak of taps on the floor. Jiki can briefly see Saecco entering the room as Saecco slammed into the back of Rerealis. Lilting a voracious tone, Saecco is brimming with vim as her hugging suit clearly defined her shapes which had made Jiki quite jealous.

Flickering her attention around, Jiki spun her chair around, "Okay, so where's the last one? Rerealis...if your last member is late...no vacat-"

"Knick knack knock, Captain. It's I, well Tariua!" chuckled the third entity that had entered the room. Jet black hair-like strands graciously adorned the third person, that wears a full encased suit. It's indistinguishable whether Tariua is a man or a woman at the first glance but Tariua insistently identifies itself as a man. Jiki noted, it's no more than a Sentient Droid with a knack personality. Wearing the same visor as Rerealis, Tariua lightly bowed to Jiki.

Seeing all of the called personnel had arrived, Jiki started her short briefing, "Good Rerealis! But I'm afraid, your squad won't get a vacation, unless..."

"Unless what, Captain? I badly need a vacation! I've been out there in the field for like 3 cycles with no break at all!" frowned Tariua in a disappointed tone as numerous clanks and beeps can be heard from him when he crossed his hands together.

Jiki hastily declared the datapad which three of them saw it briefly, "Get this man, and an order release from Rial. Say that i instructed her to do so or shall she be 're-purposed'."

"Er, you want us to go catch, the President? He's quite a slinky snake to grip of, my lady." bowed Rerealis in humility after he intricately escaped from Saecco's concrete grip. Getting hit on the back with a tough suit and then being hugged by a solid, hard suit isn't really pleasurable as Rerealis evidently show streaks of pain running occasionally on his composure.

Saecco, slightly mumbling as Rerealis escaped her grip rolled her cheerful tone around, "Well! Wouldn't it be fun to play with Clero again? Hide and seek like before!". She innocently spew forth her radiant smile around as Saecco anticipates of her team-mates' answers.

"Easy for you to say Saecco, that damn man cost me 1 cycle worth of vacation chasing around his ass!" exclaimed Tariua in somewhat angry tone. However it's quite hard to tell his facial expression due to his decision to switch off his face-motor functions. Numerous flashes instead replaced his face function, to convey his expression albeit wonky.

Jiki suddenly stood up from her chair and held the chin of Tariua with her two delicate fingers, "Oh so do you want to be, hm..'punished'? "

"For god's sake Captain, are you giving us a job or not? I'm not in a mood to play around..." frustrated Rerealis as he grabbed Tariua away from Jiki.

"Yay! Group-HUG!" jumped Saecco as she hugged all three of them in an instant after her jump. Her action had caused all of them to collapse on the cold floor.

Quickly avoiding the angular shape of Saecco's suit, Tariua rebutted Jiki's tease, "Saecco's right, Captain! And..Rerealis too! Are you giving us a job or not? Prima-Navy seems love to call our squad to fix the mundane of the mundanest, it made me sick just thinking of it!"

"Well yeah! Captain! We want a better mission, now if you may..." nagged Rerealis as he was centimeters away from getting his visor smashed by Saecco's armour suit's elbow.

Pushing Saecco's face away, Jiki clicked Saecco's suit armour joints open with a series of clever finger manipulation, "Well yeah, go get Clero, i want my toy back!"

"Ohh, can i play with Clero, Captain?!" asked Saecco as she slid off from her suit thanks to Jiki.

"Hey! I dib him first, he owe me a really long vacation!" tempested Tariua as he wriggled off from the prone position.

Sighing slightly while holding Saecco tightly, Jiki answered, "Whatever. Just bring him to me, alive. Don't kill him."

"Ah Captain! Thank you! Saecco on the duty then! I will try to not kill him then, Cap-tain!" giggled Saecco as she thought Jiki tried to play with her.

Seeing Jiki, Rerealis quickly pulled Saecco away, "Hey Captain, I would like to have my squad in tip top shape for the mission."

"Yeah, let's go, Saecco!" exclaimed Tariua as he dragged Saecco away from the scene. He can clearly analyze the scorn mask worn by Saecco.

Jiki rapidly slid out from the arching armour suit while seeing Saecco, in her interface suit being dragged out, "Don't be late! Or you people will be my new...'toys', all you need were pre-assigned. Don't forget your mission!"

Three slashes of air can be heard as the automatic door of the room closes. Jiki vividly witnessed their depature from her influence, as she saw Rerealis thrusting his right hand into the air as an agreement to her orders. Puffing her stand yet again, Jiki calmly sat on her chair with the collapsing armour suit to serve the audio backdrop.

---

Attuning his ears around, Clero could heard a soft classical music slithering the air. What a crisp view of the city, the sun shining valiantly with coloured pure blue skies. It's truly a paradise. Only difference is he's still breathing and, alive. Although the surroundings seems very different than what he faced in the Principality, Clero guessed, all of it mixed together harmoniously thus the feeling of being in paradise. It seems awfully similar to old age Marchus Confederation depiction with exception that the environment Clero's in is vibrantly alive.

Spinning his view around, Clero noticed the existence of a posh bed, coloured pure white with jet black base. Flickering small objects can be seen, of what he figured to be holographic in origin. A crystal clear window which darkened with a push of a button serve as the outward wall, as found out by Clero when he curiously touched one of the holographic object. Three classic looking lampshades, coloured beige sing a resonance with the creamy coloured soft walls, strategically placed in the room to provide ample lighting.

Expanding his view exposure, Clero noticed a black section on the wall, facing the bed. Perhaps somesort of a communication device, since he saw somesort of remote which bear the same word characters as the section. Near it, he marched and into of what can be think of as a closet which facing a door. Confirmed that it's indeed a closet by opening it, Clero can see the sleek corporate black sheathed the object.

Opening the closet, he's amazed on finding that it's actually looked more advanced than it looks like. And classy too, "Hm, what to choose, what to choose...argh why so many clothes!"

"Ah, i will take this one then...hm..." muttered Clero as he decided on his final attire after interacting with the closet. Touching the holographic interface of the closet, he can easily see how he is going to be in the selected clothes. Clero effortlessly extracted his attire of desire from the closet in few mere seconds.

Opening the door that facing the closet curiously, he figured, it must be a bathing unit as Clero saw some sort of pipe extensions, "Hm? Seems ancient...now...let's see if i can wear this..."

"Argh..how do you wear this..OUCH!" exclaimed Clero as he tries to put the attire he chose. After a few uncomfortable minutes figuring where went where, he finally got his selected attire correct in application as he compared it with the closet's interface.

Shedding his old clothes, Clero wears a khaki coloured three quarters pants, a simple inner white shirt and a coat of light brown jacket, "Ok! I'm ready! Paradise here i go!"

Exiting the room with vim, Clero walked to the front of the closet and turned left, to an another door. It must be an exit he postulated, as he heard Hannah's voice bearing the same vector previously. Grinning half line, Clero opened the door with no haste and surprised that it is indeed Hannah waiting outside while he is wearing a sullen solemn expression, "Oh..sorry..i'm being bit late.."

[Socialist States Owen]

Code: Select all

//FLEETCOM.PING;49448BS5//
//>F493IRONBOAR//RIVETCENTRAL.FLEETCOMBASE//

PLANNED PING TO NAVAL UNIT F493. TWO DAYS SINCE LAST CONTACT. ASSUMING F493 HAS REACHED HALFWAY POINT OF STANDARD PATROL. AWAITING REPLY.

//ENDPING.//

The SS Iron Boar had reached the halfway point of its standard patrol through the system. It would round another planet before making it's return path to pass Rivet again.

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

"You took your time. Come on, let's get out of here for a few hours." Hannah had decided to wear some shorts and a netted top to suit the summer atmosphere as the sun setted. The bodyguards were a little less open with themselves, wearing bland collared shirts and dark jeans. It only took them a few minutes to get to the ground floor, but even with this short journey it had got considerably darker by the time they were out of the front door.

This was largely due to the nature of Rivet's nearest star, Ockopolis D, which had an irregular pull on the planets orbiting it. This led to the large difference in weather conditions on Rivet between it's south and north poles - with tropics in the middle. The other side effect was that the planet rolled at the same speed for 27 hours of its 29 hour day, but hours 22 to 23 usually came with a speeding up of the planets pitching roll. As a result, day turns to night very quickly and all of the planets clocks are digital and using 24 hour timescale.

They hastily poured into their ride, a four door armoured saloon with a slick black paint job. Hannah made sure Clero had a window seat, exposing him to the spectacular views of the Foreland resort. It's glinting casino's, hotel's and leisure centres were all architecturally minor masterpieces, coming together in a near perfect collection of different styles and shades.

The football ground looked particularly picturesque, it's goal nets and empty seats visible through the concourse gates in the corners. The hotel they were staying in itself was particularly opulent, boasting a glass structure on it’s otherwise steel girder formed roof, which curved around the top of the building like the edge of a planet around it’s core.

Suddenly the car slowed then came to a complete stop, with the Foreland Central Metro station in sight. It glinted in the light of Rivet’s solitary moon, lighting up this master structure in a complex but well planned system. Foreland was an open plan city with very wide intersecting streets, unlike the megacities of the inner colonies with their sectors and gateways.

Hannah leant over Clero and opened his door so he could stretch his legs if he wanted to. She got out, looking out over the beautiful waters of Rivet’s northern ocean as the sun set behind Forelands skyscrapers, casting a strange light on the water that made it look almost orange.

Whilst Hannah took in the view a bit, one of the bodyguards decided to go get some food. “Ma’am, I don’t mean to interrupt but I am quite hungry and I have a feeling our guest probably is. May I check out the restaurant over there, on the corner of Bridgeways?”

“Go for it.” She replied quietly. “I’ll just have a coffee, thanks.” The bodyguard nodded, and got some money out, before asking the other bodyguard if he wanted anything. Finally he went to Clero’s door, poking his head into the window making him jump. “Would you like anything to eat or drink, sir?”

[Heliocalypse]

This ain't thread gravedig. I'm quite busy IRL and the OP know of this.

Jiki, once again alone slowly clad in her black chair and reading of current reports using a small data slate. She was filled with boredom and anxious to wait for Rerealis's team to properly extract Clero from wherever he was hiding. Reading the data with two swish of fingers, she continued her half-enthusiastic look till she heard the unmistakable soft whirr of the automatic titanium door behind her opening. Several heavy clanks on the floor can be felt by Jiki as she anticipates the new guest, uninformed of his or her sudden arrival except with the declaration of the door opening automatically.

Curious yet aware, Jiki merely tilted her head slightly to the direction of the door while facing away from it, "Who is it?"

"Proper, introduction...won't be necessary, you would have figured me out by now. So there they went, hm? I'm starting to doubt their effectiveness per se." marched an authoritative voice as Jiki heard it entered the room.

Slightly feeling awkward, Jiki answered simply, "I assure you......that they're the best of the best from Holocurn. A few that resulted from the AGE-Mimos."

"Ah, that program...isn't it supposed to be defunct?" peeked the voice with curiosity.

Now certain the owner of the voice, Jiki clasped her hands together and slowly spin her chair to face the new guest, "Not sure myself, but my specops suggested that......it was an another tale altogether, Ambassador."

"Prude to say, Jiki or should i properly address you as Captain Jiki now. Interesting enough but i'm more interested to get Clero again." stared a man, wearing a bulky suit. Encrusted with a symbol from the Pentravase Government, it's sure a clear indication that the man is indeed an Ambassador, although there isn't a nameplate of him on his current apparel. Coloured no more than a light brown skin and a pair of black irises while having no head hair at all, the only indicative that the man is old would be the grey mustache affixed near of his mouth.

"Worry not, i shall get him properly 're-instituted' again. Now, what do you come here for, Ambassador?" smiled Jiki with skin of a fake before she drops her eyebrows a few degrees downwards,"You knew it very well that you can watch over me from afar."

"Well, clearly his actions seem unpredictable at most but i see that it can lead us to something new here, thus the reason i'm here." shrugged the man before lightly grinning while showing a glimpse of his bone white teeth,"Just now your fleet detected plausible traces of advanced civilization with the Razor drones weren't it?"

"You're more lively with optimism than before, Ambassador. It might be true but, i suppose....you do knew beforehand that i made most of my work based on stave of speculations instead of grounded facts most of the time." annoyed Jiki before she gave the man an inquisitive look, "What made you being an Ambassador now if i may ask? You did had a great job as one of the prime personnel of the intel unit of Prima-Navy."

The man does nothing than chuckle, "Of course i knew it well, Captain Jiki. I know much more things than you or Clero know, combined. You might be wondering why i'm an Ambassador right now yes? Let's just say that i'd like to meet new people."

"That....sounds so promising. What else, Ambassador?" sounded Jiki with sarcasm.

The man saluted once to Jiki before shuffling his feet to move outside the room, "Nothing more, i shall return to my ship then. And next time tell your spies listening to this conversation.....to be more discrete, haha."

Angered, Jiki almost punched the data slate on her hands before she grabbed her intercom after watching the man leave the room, "Damn..he noticed...whatever...Control Room, prepare for a warp jump for sector UISR-21. Alert formation after Ambassador left."

"Roger, Captain." replied the intercom with a crisp voice.

---

A small sleek craft resembling a manta ray speeds its way into the same trajectory that Clero went and straight into the previous asteroid belt where Clero managed to shake off the Razor drones. Numerous asteroids hanging there almost motionlessly, spinning and moving around slowly. Piloting the craft is no other than Tariua, an expert of maneuvering small strike crafts in the Principality, even the famous Savor Fighter which is considered the hardest craft to pilot of all. He and his teammates have one single mission. Locate and capture Clero, alive while avoiding detection as much as possible from whom that might be watching.

The craft is simple in design, one Warp Drive for short ranged tactical jumps, two powerful Vortex vectoring engines coupled with a gravitic drive for maneuvering and thrust, and a sleek near black colour, clad with materials designed to reduce exposure to gravimetrics or magnetic sensors as much as possible. The craft carry no armaments whatsoever, but comes equipped with series of recon drones and a pair of decoy launchers. It was designed with one purpose in mind, quick infiltration on unsuspecting enemy facilities. Capable of carrying three personnel at a time complete with necessary tools, the craft is simply known as Reon to Prima-Navy, where the craft was designed for.

Wrestling with the controls, Tariua swayed from side to side as the craft marks its wobbly trajectory across the asteroid field, "Gorammit! We're almost there! But i don't expect this damned asteroids!"

"Hey! Watch it Tariua!" grabbed Rerealis as he's starting to doubt Tariua's skills.

Slamming Rerealis aside with his hand, Tariua shouted to Saecco," Saecco! Keep 'im down! He's hasty!"

"Aye-aye! Heave ho!" jumped Saecco and pinning Rerealis on the shifting floor.

Writhing in pain while slightly dizzy, Rerealis directed his anger towards Tariua with a shout, "Damnit! Let me drive! You're going to kill us all!"

"Gah! Look. We're here now. Stop complaining!" turned Tariua head towards Rerealis.

The trio watched a glimpse of their surrounding via a projection of the image of outside, suspended in mid-air. Sighing lightly, Tariua pressed two buttons on the craft's command console which then switched off the two Vortex engines below the craft and engaging the craft's sole gravitic drive. The former deactivated with a sound of hiss and the latter caused the craft to slightly shake.

A visual image of the planet where Clero landed shown itself to the trio, estimated to be as a L class planet with the craft's sensors. Nothing much can be discerned by the craft's sensors, except that it picked up various transmissions emanating from the planet and the areas surrounding it. Noting the discrepancies, Tariua decided to set the craft into low visibility mode, by switching off its active sensors and long ranged communication systems.

Trying to smile innocently, Rerealis answered with an annoyed tone, "Heh..hehe...okay...we're close. Saecco..now if you mind getting off me..."

"Awww....but i want to play more!" frowned Saecco as she insistingly pins Rerealis down.

Tariua switched on the autopilot and then grabbed Saecco away, "Oookay Saecco, playtime's over. Now what, Rer?"

"*cough* We should get there undetected if possible. I'm suspecting that this kind of planet have some sort of patrol. We're going to use that asteroid as a cover to infiltrate and hope that they won't shoot us down..." pointed Rerealis to an asteroid outside the craft.

Saecco pouted lightly, before deciding to be seated again, "Uhhhhh! Okay okay! How come an asteroid..help us?"

"It can be used to cover our entry into the atmosphere. We can't use the Warp Drive, we don't have proper map of this system. I'm not going to take risks here, we got one shot at this." answered Rerealis while staring angrily at Tariua.

Crossing his arms across, Tariua answered Rerealis's hateful view, "Okay. Brilliant. Now you drive, sheesh!"

"Why, thank you! Geez. We're going to enter at night side. Be prepared!" marches Rerealis to the controls of the craft.

There, the craft tugged an asteroid lightly, before manipulating it into position with its gravitic drive. Putting the asteroid below the craft, Rerealis roughly estimate the flight trajectory of the asteroid before moving it along with the craft, towards the planet. With a silent hum, the craft moved forward, along with the asteroid. Now they just need to wait before they reach the planet and hope that nothing will go wrong.

---

Clero nervously stayed silent for him is facing a new alien environment. A strange craft indeed, with wheels and it looked to be toughly built, reminding him a slight resemblance of certain Holocurn's ground vehicles. Entered the craft and of facing Hannah, Clero was curious and shuffled his eyes around, analyzing the new surroundings that he had gotten into. It was a beautiful sight full of interesting notions indeed, nowhere near the uniform and angular looks of things back in the Principality. Principality building architectures were designed to be functional and thus many are angular or rounded hence seeing the new environment made Clero quite surprised in awe.

Noting the craft Clero was stationed in had stopped, he broke off from his awe when a bodyguard asked him a question, "Eh...i would like a cup of eio if you have any? It have a fruity taste!"

---

Two plume of bright plasma streaked across the night sky as the Reon craft with the asteroid headed straight into the sea which in close proximity of a beach. The craft then tactfully decelerate with its gravitic drive and hovering on the sea while the asteroid now meteoroid slammed into the sea below. The meteor impact caused a shower of water which hit the craft and cooling its hot outer skin. Now cooled, Rerealis quickly activated the Vortex engines with a simple flick of a button, and impulsing the craft into the nearby forest by the beach before lightly landing in undisclosed area. The craft landed with deploying its struts, triangular in shape and numbering five in total while its outward looking view ports darkened automatically.

"Okay, so far so good." alerted Rerealis while he's struggling to wear a short pants with a light coloured shirt in one of the closed compartment of the craft.

Saecco hummed a tune as she is clad in a brown blouse with short jeans after changing, "Yes! I want to play in the beach!"

"No no Saecco! Mission first!" angered Tariua as he too is struggling to wear similar apparel as Rerealis but of wearing jeans instead a short pants.

Saecco frowned lightly before facing Rerealis with a sad look, "Uhhhhh! Okay okay! No fun...."

Exhausted after finally getting it done after struggling in few minutes, Rerealis decided to give few orders to his team mates, "Okay. Here's the plan. We're wearing this because we need to blend in so we can nab Clero away. What Jiki told us was this planet might have a civilization and yeah, it's correct. Images captured by the Razors suggest us this cameo setup. We need to catch Clero before he flees again."

"Wait a minute...will this work? Look! I can barely wear whatever this thing even!" pointed Tariua at his lightly torn jeans. His large stature made it quite difficult for him to wear Human's clothing.

Saecco spins around gleefully, "Okay~! Now when we can catch Clero? I want to play hide-n-seek with him, again!"

"Tariua, no matter. You stay here and guard this craft to ease our escape. Saecco, you're going with me. We're going to catch Clero while he's alone or when he's asleep. Remember. We only have one shot at this!" exclaimed Rerealis before turning around to head to the craft's exit.

Saecco then followed Rerealis, looking quite happy, "Okay! Here we go!"

"Gah! Whatever...it ain't my style! Catch him soon, i want my vacation!" frustrated Tariua as he torn off the jeans he's wearing and decided to get a new one from the craft's internal closet.

Turning his head around slightly, Rerealis pressed the open button before walking outside the craft, "Don't worry. We will. Have fun selecting matching clothes! Hahaha!"

"I hate it when you require me wear this thing!" throws Tariua his torn up jean away while watching Rerealis and Saecco vanishes from his sight.

The craft deployed its door open automatically and Rerealis decided to walk even though its ramp not yet reach the ground. Having a beach slippers to sole his feet, Rerealis moves away from the craft with Saecco in order to proceed with his given mission. He and Saecco wears the given apparel, accompanied with a small communication device, shaped like a watch on their arms. Now, it's just a matter of time before Jiki can re-capture Clero again, with aid of Rerealis's team.

[Socialist States Owen]

OOC: Retagged.

Bridgeways Corner
Foreland City Beach District
Rivet Colony
1:57pm Local Time

The bodyguard came back with a large pizza, with multiple dressings including Syihakli, a local fish, a coffee, two beers and a Kuma Beach Cocktail. The bodyguard heard Clero said this 'eio' was a fruity drink, so he got him a fruity drink - albeit and alcholic one. They also got a cider for the driver, who sat on the boot of the car while the others took Clero onto the beach to relax.

It was very late at night and the streets were empty, with only the night party groups and street cleaners out. The city lit up the sky in a beautiful haze of red, with the sea black sea of space towering above littered with glowing stars. Hannah pointed to a shooting star blazing across the sky - Rivet regularly recieved small meteor showers, mostly hitting the polar regions. But this meteor was closer, casting light on a ship out at sea - it had passed between the ship and the coast.

Rivet Extra-Terrestrial Monitoring Office
15 miles south of Foreland
11:59pm Local Time

The streak of light in the sky had been no meteor however - after all, it was moving too slowly. However, this was not obvious to those in the Rivet ETMO, a local government run organisation which monitored conditions in space and potential perils to Rivet, like the weather men without an atmosphere to judge.

The office was dimly lit and only two employees were present, on the 11:30 to 03:00 shift. One was playing the video game Blackout: Reloaded on a console he had brought in to work. This being a more advanced society, the console was the size of his hand but had the processing power of a brand new 21st century desktop. He had connected it up to the big screen, and was enjoying himself immensley.

He and his co-worker were taking turns at this, drinking beer together and generally doing the minimum amount of work required. Suddenly, the other employee started recieving a signal on his computer, relayed from two satellites above the planet. "Hey..hey Carl. Carl!" Carl spun around, having just been shot on the game. "Dude, I'm trying to do One Plasma Bolt, One Grotesque Wound on Super Legendary. And we're fucking General Infantry. Again. What is it?"

The man at the computer sighed at the sound of his co-workers tone. "We've got a low speed contact that's just come down to the north of the city. It was heading for the sea but it's course changed and it hit land." Carl sneered, clearly not convinced. "It's nothing, man. Now come help me kick this kids ass, he keeps calling my mother a-"

"Snap out of it, dude! Didn't you hear me? It changed course. After that thing crashed in the jungle the other day, shouldn't we be calling this shit in?" Carl got out of his chair and walked over. "Nah man, look, there was high winds in the upper atmosphere when it passed through. Must've been blown off a straight course. Look, if it makes you feel better I'll log it and phone up 6th RDF Battalion Headquarters. They'll send some guys out in the morning."

"Fine." Carl nodded in approval at this agreement, and went off to phone up the 6th Rivet Defence Force Battalion HQ. The RDF were yet another colonial branch of the General Infantry, who were essentially the FSSO Army. There were marines on the planet but their precense was small.

A makeshift camp
Subman Forest
10 miles north of Foreland City
0:14am Local Time

A group of three tents were organised in this clearing of light forest near one of the smaller roads leading out of Foreland, trailing off to the villages of Carn and Subma. This was a temporary encampment for a twelve strong platoon of RDF troops, who's battalion had been ordered to take part in a minor military exercise.

It was essentially a weekend in the woods for the troops, who sat around a portable, plasma fed QuikKit Military Furnace, one of many FSSO batlefield innovations to make logistics less complicated and cheaper to handle. Their NCO, Sergeant Wiley, came out of one of the four man tents holding a glass of water.

"Just got a call from battalion. Some debris has come down from out of the atmosphere near some beach north of here, and we've been ordered to drive down there in the morning with second platoon up the road. We're leaving at six thirty, so get some shuteye and be ready to mount the Honeybadgers at dawn."

[Heliocalypse]

Sorry for the late reply...hope this is good enough of a reply! Inspiration hard to come by nowadays and RL is hectic...sorry for my little godmodding there...May contain Mature content, read at your own risk!

Shortly leaving the forest area where his team's craft would be, Rerealis and Saecco head towards of what seems to be an establishment of structures near a coastal area. He can see such structures from afar and Rerealis cannot do more than agree to the Razor's drone report. At first he thought the planet that Clero run off into might be a random desert planet or a jungle hellhole filled with ravenous beasts but this world seems quite different. This planet have abundant free mass of water, some appreciable level of greenery and most importantly prime for life. And to add to the strange notion, this world seems to be colonized or rather civilized by something unknown.

Multiple questions ran through Rerealis's mind, could this world shelter one of the original twelve fleeing transports on the brink of cataclysm that wiped out the Marchus Confederacy and kick-started the formation of the Pentravase Segment? It must be a lie he thought, this world is currently too far from any recognized or mapped space done by the Principality but then of what wonders their founders might had further causes him to collide his views on the matter. Moving the suspicion out of his line of thoughts, Rerealis then attend to another concern that popped to his mind. This planet seems like a paradise, reminding him much of similar worlds in the Principality although they're quite rare.

Coming from one of many harsh Haralcian worlds and migrated to Lucius-held world, the view of the current matter greatly contrasts with what he had seen before. It looked much akin to Lucius-held world although the jutting structures on the horizons are distant from the curvy and sleek shapes of Lucius, that band of art-crazed freaks which he perceived when he migrated to his second home in Lucius-held space during his childhood. And the large structures remind him much of the brute architecture of Haralci, albeit a bit more refined. Did the Haralci Segment and Lucius Segment finally reached a cohesive understanding already? Such a debacle and such a mysterious proposition he thought, it can't be, too good to be true. Those two Segments are clawing each other as far as he could remember.

He can clearly see the sloshing of waves on the shore during the twilight of the night as gentle winds blowing out to the sea slowly swirl and hugs his face, rasping him out of his warmth. In the coldness of the night, Rerealis can feel the saltiness of the sea on his tongue and hearing a calming tone of the sea, broken by occasional sonic outbursts originated from the settlement that he and Saecco is currently heading. What is this world? Why does it exist? And more relenting is, why does it have a Human-like settlement? These series of questions continued to bombard Rerealis's mind which give him much curiosity. Is this world hostile? Is it a trap? Is it hell in guise of paradise? Rerealis being a man of duty behind the shadows cannot help than having such paranoid-centric questions running through his cold expression.

Of course, such questions are no more spawned from other reasons than his previous experience as a special operative in service of Holocurn, infiltrating and doing reconnaissance on some of the most harsh worlds found in Principality's space. Ah, if only this world truly a paradise, Rerealis wishes that one day he could retire from being a special operative and die peacefully somewhere on the world. He never cared that aspect much when he was in service in before and Rerealis do note he can die anytime and get replaced by another person, probably a person he never heard of either. To himself, he sees that he's just another shadowy tool fielded by the central government for sometimes reasons unknown. Rerealis only followed their orders diligently, and if they say assassinate a certain person, he would gladly accept the order with a fake smile although it filled him with disgust.

Building enough thoughts, he volunteered for the mission to re-acquit the Elected Leader again in power so he can motion forward his dissatisfaction and unravel the true dark secrets of the central government to the Elected Leader. However, it's going to be a very challenging one when he heard that the Elected Leader is Clero, a quite clever yet lecherous friend of him. The last time he met Clero was during his last years on one out of many Holocurn-sponsored military academies in the Principality although he didn't expect that guy ended up as the President for the whole Principality. Clero as he remembered was actually quite of a sly fox, playing around with girls and quite adept at escaping. With ardent, Rerealis selected Saecco to lure Clero and Tariua to grab Clero out, well that was the plan before he actually met both of them.

Saecco as he saw, is quite innocent on the surface although it hides a more sinister side of herself. She may look innocent and abated but on certain situations, Rerealis found himself being thrown around by her although Rerealis is trained as a special operative and supposed to manage and negate much of any plausible hostile situation. Armouring her brutal violence would be her usual innocent clamour, as if she was taught by someone that violence is good and fun, someone very twisted perhaps. Although Rerealis is trained to kill, but he still have a bit of remorse and filial pity, but not unlike Saecco that thinks everything is just a game to her. Rerealis can do nothing than shudder to think, of what consequences if she was going to meet or interact with the more common face of the Principality, which are the civilians. A born killer perhaps, created on sole purpose of murder? What the hell were the Pentravase Segment doing? he thought, with much vigour trying to figure out of who actually running the nation that he obediently serve and obey with utmost precision.

And then, there is Tariua which is an odd character. It's or more correct term would be 'he', is one of few old age sentient droids that dated back prior to the Machine Rebellion in Haralcian-controlled space in the Principality. He seems to be quite carefree unlike Saecco which only consider violence is fun. Tariua as he firstly saw seems like a cool temperament person, only to be deceived that he's as reckless and ruthless, a common trait of Haralcian. The intel Rerealis scooped out of him bare only one single info, Tariua was the first Sentient Droid opposed to the droid rebellists, saying that a revolution is just a waste of time. And then there were traces of info that Tariua is somehow connected to major arms manufacturing companies in the Principality although Rerealis didn't manage to get more than a simple point of data pointing that out.

In the Principality, any Sentient Droids be it in the civilian sector or security must be wholly registered with the central government and Rerealis failed to see any indication that Tariua's identity exist in any databases of the Principality as if the person is just a ghost, a ghost in the machine perhaps. He, although is another shadowy tool still have a fake official identity and basic info assigned by the central government but not Tariua. Nothing, there's nothing more to Tariua that he can search for, only the data that he found that seems credible. Even if a Sentient Droid may not on the official radar of the Principality, his department that he worked for should have any substantial info on such droid but even they don't know of who Tariua actually is. Perhaps Tariua is a servant of the notorious Research Acquisitors? His personal infiltration into the organization didn't even bare a single thread about Tariua than the matching set of info that Rerealis gotten in his previous investigations done against the Sentient Droid.

Meeting with Jiki further shook him out of the blue, Rerealis didn't expect that the front men and women of the Principality a bit radical than what was portrayed in the military academia. Once a gun, always a gun he thought, as he had done many assassination missions so much that he lost track of the count coupled with multitude of near-death experiences. Never of his life that Rerealis expected to face this kind of mission, to catch a fleeing person. He sees it as some sort of bad joke but then, to take a different turn than all that orchestrating vanishing of undesirables from the roots of the Principality seems like his new preference. This might be a paradise to his eyes but Rerealis decided to strengthen his resolve and finish this mission quickly as he noted that his life and the survival of the Principality itself are on the line, or so he thought.

---

Rerealis calmly walk of what seems to be somesort of pathway made of asphalt, perhaps it's for transportation for this world, "Are you with me, Saecco?"

"Yes, yes! Can i have a vacation too? I never seen this place before!" taps Saecco on a sea wave retainer, made of some unknown material. She quickly dashed on the retainer with her fancy footwork as if she is showing off her skill to Rerealis.

Raising his eyebrows a few degrees upward, Rerealis watches Saecco running on the odd structure, "Wait wait wait, we still have this mission! We need to catch Clero first!"

"Ok lead-er~! Saecco on the miss-ion~!" saluted Saecco with a broad grin, as if she is mocking Rerealis although she is being sincere at heart.

Her childishness only conjured to Rerealis that Saecco is going to be hard to handle of which gives him much sighing, "Well...that's good to hear."

"So, where is Clero? I want to play with him again! Like last time!" exclaimed Saecco with lilt, anticipating his answer.

Rerealis rubbed slightly a device on his right hand from the moisture of the night sea while matching his gaze with her, "With this device..i hope."

"Eh? What is that?" piqued Saecco with much interest before jumping straight to Rerealis with a tone of a strong thud, "I want it, i want it, i want it!"

Heavily breathing due to Saecco's grip, he tries to dislodge her away with force only to find she insistently cling on him, "No, no, *cough* no, no! Do the, *cough* mission first! And get off me!"

"But but but...." solemnly nags Saecco with much sadness, serving up fear running towards Rerealis's spine.

Remembering the pain being thrown around like a rag doll that would result if she happen to cry, Rerealis quickly detach the device from his hand and handed it to Saecco while giving up pushing away the clinging person, "Fine, here you go. Do you know what it is?"

"Umh..thank you!" happily darted Saecco away from Rerealis before giving him a puzzled look with an innocent dumbfounded tone, "Erm....no? It's just a watch right?"

Appalled by her answer, with surprise he almost shouted but held back with discord, "Saecco, with that we're going to find Clero."

"Eh? This thing? But how does it do that?" enthusiastically asks Saecco as she witnesses the device in her hand writhes out unknown material all over her left hand before in position of complete fit with her fingers protruding from the black coloured skin of the said device.

"Lemme teach you." lectures Rerealis as he moves closer to Saecco, and finding that her attention moved elsewhere, "Hey! Are you even listening?!"

In a distance she run from Rerealis, jumping into the sea retainer wall and of moving forwards towards her point of interest, "Look Rerealis! A wheeled thingy!"

"Wait up, don't leave me here alone!" places Rerealis three strides forward added with few angles of balance before accelerating to the fleeing silhouette of Saecco.

---

The Ambassador slowly sips his goblet of wine before orchestrating his charade, "What is it, Grand Admiral? What of assistance you may require from me?"

"Greetings, Ambassador Keylon, if that is your given name. I want you here quick, for a certain discussion with the Oronii government." flickers the image of Radisol over the Ambassador's simple communication device.

Eying his area around which clad with dull grey, with disgust the Ambassador replied, "It seems you got some interesting sources, Radisol. I'm afraid that would be not necessary. Jiki got the Elected Leader on track and she's on pursuit."

"It's not Clero Vanckel that i concern, it's the Vice President herself! She blatantly stepped out from the league of the power vested on her by releasing that person and executing that plan!" angered the image of Radisol.

The Ambassador can clearly feel the wrath of Radisol and fires off his counter-offensive, "The Vice President...hm..you mean, Hisilia Raila? That matter is not in any of my considerations, Grand Admiral. You knew well of whom i serve for, right? Stop your pointless meddling with the mind games, and do some real work. The Lucius Segment could use an experienced person like you to serve their citizens faithfully and of not messing around aimlessly, Grand Admiral. I thought you knew it well, Radisol."

"Do you wish the collapse of the Principality done by them?" stingily replies Radisol fervently, flavoured by tone of his frustration which clad with a murderous gaze.

The Ambassador clasps his hands together before rubbing of his chin after putting his cup away, and of matching his irises with the gaze of Radisol, "With all due respect, i don't care less for it to happen as you know they will back off as soon Clero Vanckel come into power officially again."

"I hope you're right, Ambassador. This matter should be taken seriously and to be not left to some snob-nosed brats of Prima-Navy." repels Radisol on the Ambassador's notion with a mocking tone.

Shortly before terminating the link, the Ambassador gives Radisol a mischievous grin while gleefully balancing his cup with his cold fingers and of showing his razor sharp set of tooth briefly, "Oh, don't worry. They will serve quite well. I personally hand-picked them myself. And stop calling me by that name, officially the person with that name is dead."

With the sudden conference of Radisol terminated, the Ambassador further sips his wine in luxury while eying the sector map that displayed in front of his eyes. He then proceed to give a simple order through his intercom, "Navigation. Divert course to Dastia system and lock coordinates of Jiki's projected arrival for future use."

"Carrying out your orders, Commodore Larche." crackles his intercom in reply.

---

"Ohhh! Rerealis, Rerealis, Rerealis!" exclaimed Saecco with bright tone upon the point of her interest lies in front of her eyes.

Panting forward after managed to catch up with Saecco, Rerealis scans the area with acute detail briefly before focusing his eyes towards Saecco. He can see odd shapes upon his vicinity, shapes of solid and rectangular in the area. This must be the settlement Rerealis thought, and with surprise he's on high alert due to his unfortunate rapid entry into the area. A nerve wrecking experience indeed, as he was supposed to conduct full length reconnaissance before even setting foot in five kilometers range from their point of infiltration located on the fringes of the settlement.

Deciding it's too late to consider that option, Rerealis sighed, "What is it again...., Saecco?"

"Can I have some ice cream? Can I? Can I?! Can I?!!" nags Saecco as she insistently tugs on Rerealis's jacket.

Rerealis turns his eyes to confront her point of interest and see a familiar symbol of frozen treat not far from his current location, "Eh? Err...well if i buy you one, promise me that you will finish this mission quickly."

"Saecco agrees! Let's go now!" tugs Saecco hand on his hand as she once again starts to propel towards her point of interest.

Almost getting his face kissing to the ground due to Saecco's sudden pull, with coordinated movement Rerealis paces his steps to match speed of Saecco, "Ok ok, stop pulling me so sudden!"

There, he can see the icon he saw earlier which attended by a humanoid life form which from afar and near gaze seems to be an old man. Surrounding the old man, Rerealis noticed the presence of other Humans although sparsely distributed. Must be due to the time he thought, and he can see that such Humans are rather concentrated in certain establishments near the shore line, perhaps in what he would call as seaside bars. Trying to act normal, Rerealis slowly moves forward in order to not raise suspicion on the local populace of the said area.

The old man, notices the pair shouts while fervently trying to brandish his wares to the guests, "Hey you young couple there! Do you want some ice-cream?"

"Rerealis, i want it, i want it, i want it." nods Saecco repeatedly with a serious tone as if she agrees with the invitation of the old man vehemently although she cannot fully understand of what the old man just said.

Carefully paces his steps, Rerealis assembled a reply after a few seconds of thought trying to understand what of the old man just said, "O-ok! Ice...krin..tuu?"

"Well here you go! Two ice creams for the couple here! Vanilla for the lady and chocolate for the guy!" shuffles the old man with his ice cream scoops as he extracts two sphere of the frozen confetti before laying it on its respective edible cones.

Saecco immediately snaps of the old man's offer, "Thank you ve~ry much, Rerealis! I love you!"

"H-hey! Get off me, Saecco! Your ice-cream will stain my shirt!" struggles Rerealis as he noticed that Saecco attempts to cling upon him again, with the ice cream in hand. He then carefully takes of what the old man offered to him with a puzzled look, "Hmm..."

"Are you eating yours, Rerealis? I want it too!" watered Saecco's mouth although she already got one ice cream on her hand, not yet even consumed.

Rerealis shakes his head in disbelief while putting his right hand on her shoulder, "Saecco. How many times i must told you, do not waste food...finish what you have first! And say thank you to this man."

"Uuu...ok! Violae mi hi di!" (My gratitude for you!) tones Saecco with annoyance as she noticed she just got lectured by Rerealis.

The old man's irises widened, as if he didn't believe of what he just heard, "Wait wait wait, you said that this young lad just violated you?"

"Saecco, don't be angry! If you stay nice, i will give you a present!" motions Rerealis as he sees that currently Saecco is sulking over his little remainder. With a downed look, Rerealis faces the old man, "Yuballseno." (Thank you)

"Huh? What did you just say?" perplexes the old man while pointing at Rerealis with his metallic ice cream scoop, with the still frozen ice cream on the scoop slowly melt and drip into the ice cream case below.

Viewing his sides a few degrees for a moment and of watching Saecco left, Rerealis answered with much vim, "YUBALLSENO!" (THANK YOU!)

"What?! You say i have no balls and you violated that girl?!" angers the old man as he heard of Rerealis's speech and of Saecco leaving the area with an antsy look.

Rerealis moves forward and negates the old man's question while walking towards the sulky Saecco and giving her a pitiful look, "Saecco, don't be like this dear. I need you in tip top shape for the mission! I promise you, i will make it up for you."

"Promise?" sobs Saecco with her ice cream untouched still.

As Rerealis about to answer her question, a metallic ice cream scoop almost hit his face and struck the tree behind Saecco, "Eh? What the-"

"Anyone! That man is a molester! Get him!" furiously set the old man while trying to call more people to support his cause.

Some of the passerby in the area heed of the old man's call which prompts Rerealis to tug Saecco away and run, "Saecco! Let's go now! That man seems angry!"

With haste they flee from the scene while being chased by the old man earlier and of few unknown entities. It seems that he himself is the target, he realised as Rerealis noticed few objects glances with his body of merely touching him, as if the angry mob tries to subjugate him. Further accelerating, he and Saecco move farther and farther from the angry mob till fatigue starts to catch with his breath again. Rerealis notes that it's pointless to run any more as the dreaded old man had started to call out even more entities to give chase thus he decided that the best decision would be to hide.

Ducking into a dense vegetation, Rerealis pulls Saecco along, "Damn it...this is sure going to go into my records! You ok, Saecco?"

"Wuu...my ice cream! It's gone!" teary eyed Saecco as she holds no more of an empty ice cream cone, with the ice cream gone.

Remembering the acute pain of being thrown around like a rag doll when she did cry, Rerealis nervously tries to seek for a replacement and about to hand his till he noticed that his ice cream plus its cone is gone from his possession. Tactically, Rerealis quickly fires off his round of appeasement to calm down Saecco, "Awww, don't cry. I will buy you a new one, wait, i will buy you two boxes of ice cream just for you, Saecco."

"*sob* Re-really? You promise?" eyes Saecco deeply into his eyes, as if she is expecting something grand.

Clasping her hands before putting his right hand on her shoulder for a moment, Rerealis gives an affirmative nod, "Sure. It's my treat. Now don't cry. Finish this mission and i will buy you it."

"Umh...ok! So...where is Clero?" queries Saecco while throwing her empty ice cream cone away and of wiping her tears.

Rerealis then holds her left hand with his right hand and presses a button on the device, "Well Saecco, you see this arrow? That will show us where is Clero is, understand?"

"Ohhh! Cool! So that's the way then? Yay, ice cream, ice cream!" says Saecco with a smile as she paces her foot to run into the direction which the arrow projected by the device shown to her.

Rerealis flinches for a moment before realising that Saecco just had left him alone, again. "Gah...not again! Why the hell i must do this babysitting!"

---

Clero stares for a moment towards the drink given by the guard. It seems like any ordinary eio juice given the smell of the beverage as his nose had picked up. However, its colour seems a bit off and unlike the beverage he used to know. Must be a brand new eio juice perhaps, made by those quite-insane Gauis Advanced Technologies Inc, he thought thus Clero uncertain of the composition of the drink gulped the whole volume of the cup he's given. Much to his liking, the new drink given by the guard seems addictive thus of him asking more of it till his eighth cup.

Still feeling dizzy a little, he feels that his vision starts to blur slowly, shortly before he faints, "Eh...can i have this one again?"

It seems that Clero had fainted due to the alcoholic drink and dropped his head on the lap of Hannah. His face turns bright red, and of him starts to mutter some inaudible words.

---

Finished catching up with Saecco, Rerealis slowly decelerate his steps and grabbing Saecco before she can move forward any more, "Wait, i see that there are people there. We need to find a route first, Saecco."

"Uhh...ok!" stops Saecco from moving, almost falling out of balance due to Rerealis pulling her shoulder from behind.

Rerealis then takes out a small binocular from his pocket and using it to determine the location of Clero, "Ah..there he is...one hundred meters from here. Wait...hm..they're moving Clero to somewhere else?"

"Eh? Then..what do we do?" pings Saecco's curiosity over the matter with a puzzled look.

Viewing the area around, Rerealis then put his binoculars away, "Well, we're going to infiltrate of course. What i saw was about..one military-like guard and two civilians in close proximity of Clero. They seem to accompany him and he seems to be fainted."

"Eh? Then I will just stay near and watch? Waaa!! No fun!" nags Saecco with a wide frown after noticed of Rerealis's orders and of him giving his binoculars to her.

Trying to shield himself from getting hit by Saecco, Rerealis paces his step carefully on the beach, "Ok ok ouch! You can help, but only when i'm in trouble! Use Red Drop."

"Ohh...okay!" declares Saecco with a big smile before following Rerealis's movement with precision.

Rerealis then put a circular device he extracted from his pocket on left and right ear of him, a device known as HUD-Link. The circles tactfully emit two pairs of lines respectively which moves forward before angled at ninety degrees. With the line angled, it collided in front of Rerealis's nose, forming a somewhat holographic display within and glistening with a squarish visor shaped steel grey colour accompanied by three red dots on the outside facing of the device. Moving his head around, the red dots trail on the misty air, marked by three threads of red while he sees that Saecco is activating her HUD-link as well.

---

Rerealis and Saecco uses Red Drop, a special handgun-like weapon designed for infiltration use that fires specially made darts. The darts will induce a sleeping effect on contact with skin and have a chance to cause the victim to not remember of what he or she does when hit by the dart although the memory loss effect is variable and do not occur often. The dart will dissolve due time after it hit an organic target, leaving only an entry wound of the projectile, which is a small puncture on the skin. It's normally fast acting but the length of time the target being knocked out is variable.

A female entity, presumably a medical staff of FSSO armed forces checks upon Clero after depositing him on the bed in the chalet near the shore, "Good grace, you're drunk are you? How many cups of alcohol did you drink?"

"Urgh...Jiki, I'm a man! I can..eurgh." mutters Clero dizzily as the alcohol still have a strong effect on his central nervous system. With his implant of the neural interface, the effect is amplified way more than a normal Human might encounter.

The staff eyes of Clero's appearance before trying to pour a glass of water, "Take it easy. You drink too much, sir. Are you a man? You don't seem like one, hahaha."

"I..i'm!" swiftly moves Clero, and dropping his body on the staff.

The glass of water on her hand slips away and she is suddenly surprised of his action, "Hey! Get hold of yourself!"

"Jiki..i am..err.." mumbled Clero with his eyes half shut.

As the staff tries to answer his statement, a small dart hit her neck, "Sir..what..."

"Jiki? Are you...erugh.." asks Clero, not knowing that the staff had fallen unconscious. The dart that hit the staff's neck slowly dissolves, leaving only a puncture mark on her neck.

Not long after, Rerealis cut the lock of the chalet's door with a small laser knife, "Saecco, i see Clero. Do a recon sweep."

"Ok, moving now!" enthralled Saecco on Rerealis's order and of her moving forward although he specifically instructed for her to wait in a static location.

Focusing his eyes, he sees Clero lying on the floor, on top of some Human. Rerealis then almost grabbed Clero till his ears picked up a sound of a rustle, "Wait Saecco! Movement!"

"Huh? I don't see any, Rerealis." hashes Saecco's voice on her short comlink device.

Rerealis turns his head backward as he was about to enter the chalet and to his surprise, an armed FSSO guard showed up on the right of Rerealis, presumably from patrol. As their gaze collide with each other, the guard nervously fires his weapon thrice, barely hitting Rerealis. In response, Rerealis aims his weapon and fired off a counter in split second, "Careful Saecco, patrols!"

Immediately the guard collapsed on the ground as the dart fired by Rerealis's short weapon met with the arm of the guard. Thud, the guard fell, and thus Rerealis starts to drag him and hide his body in the vegetation growing in the area to avoid plausible further detection from other postulated patrols. With great strength, Rerealis lifted Clero from the female staff and starts to carry him out of the chalet, only to find another patrol sighted him. Rerealis failed to take into account that the previous guard's nervous fire had apparently alerted a few more of FSSO guards in the vicinity of the chalet.

"Halt! Intrude-urk!" fallen the patrol on the ground with a thud, nearly presses his weapon trigger, as once again Rerealis manages to shoot his weapon on time.

He then put Clero leaned to a wall near the exit of the chalet before eying around and speaking in a hashed voice to his comlink device, "Saecco, you there? Do me a bit of intel, it seems like there is going to be more than one patrol."

"RAHHH!!!" announced another patrol, unknown to Rerealis. The guard charged straight to him from behind and pinned Rerealis to the wall outside the chalet with a bone-like crushing thud with his big weapon, resulting an impact that nearly knocked Rerealis's consciousness out and causes him to drop his small weapon. The guard then speaks towards Rerealis with a harsh voice, "Who the hell are you?!"

"Haa!" chops Saecco's hand on the guard's neck before dislodging him away, shortly jumping a few degrees above the ground and landed a kick that sent the guard lying on the ground. Noticing of the pain suffered by Rerealis, she quickly tend to him, " You okay, Rerealis?"

"Never mind me...get Clero out of here now! They noticed us!" coughs Rerealis for a moment before he grabs his dropped weapon.

Heard of the order, Saecco enters the chalet and tries to move Clero, "Ok! Rerealis!"

"Tariua! Get the ship ready! We got Clero now!" hastily shouted Rerealis to his comlink device while adrenaline starts to fill his senses.

Rerealis comlink device quickly responded, "Working on it!"

With much effort, Saecco managed to carry Clero but only to trip over the unconscious guard near the entrance of the chalet and further tripped on the ejected ammo casings of the FSSO guard, "Owwiee...Rerealis, a bit of some help here?!"

"Shit..better be fast Saecco! It's the ice-cream man with the mob from before! They managed to spot us!" sways Rerealis for a moment to Saecco before aiming his weapon towards the approaching crowd, "Forgive me!"

The mob marched forward, each armed with a melee weapon of sorts, planks, bottles and anything they can get hold off. Rerealis flees the scene in order to distract them from Saecco and it seems his plan worked as the mob is only chasing him as per now. Meeting a dead end near the chalet area, the mob begin to assault Rerealis with their handheld weapons. One swings his iron pipe, dodged by Rerealis on time while putting the muzzle of the Red Drop weapon on the first assaulter. Thud, falls the first assaulter while another person in the mob follows the same pattern but now using a glass bottle. Crash, the bottle hit Rerealis's HUD-link and spraying him with the bottle content and shards of glass shortly before Rerealis punched the second assaulter and firing his weapon in close range. The third assaulter manages to catch Rerealis off-guard and landed a few punch on his chest, causing Rerealis to cough. In reply he aims his weapon on point blank range and presses the trigger, causing the third assaulter falls on the ground with a thud. Mustering his strength again, Rerealis stands up and prepares to flee.

Knowing he's outnumbered, Rerealis then tactically configured his path of travel to slip pass the mob with success. Still having the mob persistently chasing him although he manages to escape from being surrounded, Rerealis stopped from running and flexes his weapon backward, and fires at one of the remaining mob shortly before a thrown plank almost hit his face as he manages to flex his head on time. On instinct he raises his left arm and blocked off another projectile thrown the mob, leaving his left arm bruised by the impact. Rerealis then tactically swishes his laser knife on his right hand by reflex and cutting the iron pipe flung to him which originated from the mob till three more people from the mob collided with Rerealis and causes him to drop his laser knife.

Saecco in the vicinity of the area that sees Rerealis's predicament quickly ignored his previous order and thrown a kick on one of the mob that sends the kicked person back and taking two of his comrades down. To make sure the remaining mob stay put, Rerealis then shoot his weapon quickly, firing three successive shots on the people downed by Saecco earlier on close range and reacquire his fallen knife. On reflex Saecco aims her weapon directly on the forehead of one of the mob that tries to take her down by surprise and she shoots her weapon at point blank range, causing the surprise attacker to recoil backwards. She then proceed with Rerealis to return to the chalet in order to acquire Clero in haste but not long after, Rerealis succumbed to the damage he received and nearly fallen on the ground after getting back to the chalet where Clero would be.

"Are you ok, Rerealis?!" shows Saecco with concern as she can clearly sees that Rerealis is writhing with pain.

Gripping his teeth together in order to distract himself from the pain, Rerealis then lifted Clero and leaned him to Saecco's shoulder after deactivating his knife and of putting it in his right trousers pocket, "Get Clero to the ship! We must leave here soon! They will notice soon!"

"Uhhhh, okay!" replies Saecco rapidly before not long carrying Clero on her back while being followed with Rerealis.

Rerealis then presses a button on his squarish HUD-link, "Tariua! Send out a signal, tell Jiki that we got Clero and we need to leave, NOW!"

"Eh? Why now? You said that we just need to bail out, no need for signal even!" answers Rerealis's comlink in disagreement.

Frustrated by Tariua answer and topped with the increasingly virulent pain on his chest, Rerealis coughed, "They will notice us soon, some of their guards managed to catch us off-guard! Just do of what i told you to do!"

"Ok! You got five minutes window to get back here before this ship left this planet!" toned Tariua with agreement.

Hannah, presumably coming back from somewhere sees Rerealis and Saecco of kidnapping Clero and the lying guards on the ground. She grabbed her SMG and begin to fire upon the former to avoid hitting Clero, "Hey! Get back here!"

"Saecco, go! Ouch!" grazes a bullet spewed by Hannah's weapon on Rerealis right leg. Further indulged in adrenaline, Rerealis drops on the ground and flexes his aim to fire at Hannah while five more bullets spewed by her SMG barely hits Rerealis's body, "Don't worry about me, go Saecco!"

"But! How can i leave you here?!" stops Saecco as she heard of the gunfire earlier.

Still trying to suppress the pain, Rerealis then firmly presses the trigger of the weapon as more shots spewed by Hannah's SMG manages to graze his right arm and hitting the device on Saecco's left hand, "Just go! Clero is more important!"

"Wuuu! Don't die on me! You promised me some ice cream!" sprints Saecco after heard of Rerealis's order.

After missing Hannah a few times due to the pain inflicted on himself, Rerealis scores a hit and sees Hannah drops on the ground while the last shot fired off by Hannah by chance smashes clean on the right portion of his HUD-link, nearly blinding him, "I will follow you soon! Just go!"

"Gah! No matter, i will carry you too!" grabs Saecco on his hand and causing him movement after stopping from sprinting forward.

There, the pair quickly left the scene, leaving the unconscious people minus Clero lying on the ground. Rerealis initially hoped that he would not to fire a single shot when retrieving Clero but it seems that he unknowingly underestimated this world a bit too much. Maybe the appearance of this world, appearance of a paradise caused him some unwariness and slack? The question running in his mind quickly changed by intense feeling of pain on his chest. Striving forward, he tries to keep up with Saecco although the pain inflicted on his chest started to get worse with each movement he made. Rerealis only hoped that he will manage to escape this world on time.

[Socialist States Owen]

"Fuck!" was the first word to escape the breathless voice of one of the bodyguards as he dragged himself up on to a table. The other guard was down, unconcious, as was Hannah. "Brigadier! Brigadier wake up! Damn!" He checked his watch; 2:34 am, local time. He'd been out for at least half an hour, Clero was gone and the assailants presumably with him. He was about to call for backup but he realised he was surrounded by locals who had already called the police. An ice cream man helped him up slowly and helped the bodyguard walk towards a police patrol van which had just pulled up. A screen on the side of a building was flashing and displaying 'Citizen Alert' messages. "What happened, sir?" the officer enquired.
"There were...three of them. Four? I don't know. I remember an uppercut to the stomach and bugger all after that."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely."
"Ok..damn." The officer had hoped to have been off duty and in bed by now, but he had just found a high ranking military officer and two agents of some kind drugged and a prisoner missing. Hannah woke up at this point, clearly just as dazed.

Several ambulances had arrived now to check on Clero’s former captors – awake and seemingly healthy or not, they had been injected with a foreign substance and needed to be given medical checks. At the same time several military police had arrived and were interviewing locals briefly, hoping to get further information on what had happened. The ice cream man was loudly berating the MP’s for not going after the assailants. It was all very chaotic, yet isolated, as it was the early hours of the morning.

However, this worked in the favour of the local authorities. The roads and pavements were clear and several police vehicles were now prowling the Coral Head district, looking for the assailants to try and prevent their escape.

----------

SOH-47B Recon Helicopter
Serial RDF-SH140
Over the Coral Head district of Foreland
2:40am

'This little birdie' goes the beginning of a common lullaby, but this bird certainly wasn't sleeping. The helicopter had been looking over this area of the city for ten minutes trying to sight between two and five individuals. The pilots and observers sitting on the rear floor had seen nothing, even with the aircraft's complex observational equipment that allowed it to see through entire groups of urban structures. It had to be assumed they had missed the opportunity to catch up with the targets. SH140 was sent new orders to move further east along the coast and to go into low profile flight, searching the woods to the east of the suburban outskirts.

Meanwhile, the group of soldiers who had been sent to examine the orbital anomaly were getting closer to the landing site, which unknown to them was the landing spot of a mysterious alien vessel. Clero's kidnappers would have to be quick to get back to their craft, otherwise they would be in for a surprise.

One of Rivet’s many defensive set up’s was its Deep Space Buoy Array, or DSBA, which is a regular feature of FSSO colonies that have been colonised for longer than 5 years. While their usual function is to help planetary authorities monitor incoming and outgoing traffic, and detect incoming objects such as small meteorites early, they serve the additional purpose of detecting unknown vessels that could be a military threat.

The Principality naval force which was hunting Clero had been summoned to the planet, and although the message sent between the hunting party on the ground and the ships had been picked up by Rivet’s orbital radio monitoring station, Rivet C&C 14, but was unclear and discarded automatically by the ships AI. However, the Principality fleet was now nearing the edge of the buoy field that covered a large area around Rivet, and several buoys relayed readings of activity back to the DSBA Control Centre back on Rivet.

The facility, situated 8,500 feet above sea level on a shallow sloped mountain, relayed the information to Rivet’s central command as it was stonewall evidence of something moving towards Rivet. However it was hardly going to throw Rivet into a state of alert, despite the fact that an extraterrestrial humanoid had been captured and now there was a significant group of metallic objects moving towards the planet. It could easily be a group of small meteorites, after all.

Nevertheless, the SS Iron Boar – one of three frigates patrolling this system – was on its way back to Rivet and was sent a brief ping via FLEETCOM, with instructions to look out for activity on the rim of the buoy field

[Heliocalypse]

"Wormhole XJ-581 in range of five hurel, Commodore." flickers a faint blue interface in front of the Ambassador.

"Shoot up a JSK term message and cut off the node before the jump." swings the Ambassador's head towards the new interface before he calmly analyzes his surroundings. Looking at the projected holographic system map floating away not far from his rustic grey tinted eyes, the Ambassador shoots up a small reply, "Initiate tactical reduced presence mode after jump."

The Ambassador fixated his view on the central tenet of the map, a bright, swirling mass of energy. He sways his fingers a few arcs forward, which brings up a small window that shows the true colours of the energy mass, a natural wormhole to be precise. Even in his personal, customized ship that is equipped with the most advanced form of technologies Principality had to offer, he could still feel inferior. Inferior to the naturally occurring wormhole. Who or what was it that created it? Is it an advanced race that created it? Searching through his ship's scanning log, he could do naught than wonder.

The wormhole is truly a testament to how inferior he is, or rather how inferior is Principality Faster-Than-Light travel technology to such a massive sphere of energy. This clearly showers him with a slight cleave of feebleness, over what kind of power that might had created such an impressive object, even though the Ambassador is standing on one of the most upfront side of Principality, in technological terms. Brushing the feeling aside and closing the window that shows the picture of the natural wormhole, the Ambassador then breaks from his trance that lasted a few fractions of a second.

His previously announced words is then acknowledged by numerous clicking and low frequency hums which is picked up by his sensitive ears, "Confirmed, Commodore Larche. Formulating new JSK."

The Ambassador slowly rises from his seat with restrained vim and proceeds to pour some beverage into his now drained cup whilst whistling an order through his intercom. A new interface shows up in close proximity of the Ambassador as he begins his speech again, "Personnel, set up new protocol. We're changing course."

"Reporting in, Commodore. To where, specifically?" flickers the newly formed interface.

Widening his irises a few degrees outward while shrugging a few degrees downwards, the Ambassador replies nonchalantly, wearing a glacial face plastered with a fake smile, "Central Diplomacy Block One. I'm an Ambassador after all."

"Entering the wormhole in t-minus thirty seconds." sounds the first interface on the peripheral spatial area of the Ambassador. A temporal visualization then quickly manifested itself on the center of the interface, as a line of numbers coloured in slate white.

The expressionless image that bears a hooded person contacted by the Ambassador flavours his reply with monochrome tone, "Roger that. Anything you may want to add, Commodore?"

"Oh yes, shoot up this message transcript upon reaching R4 line. Don't forget to address me as Ambassador Keylon instead when we arrived. That is all." grimaces the Ambassador with an eerie smile, showing a glimpse of his bone white set of teeth.

The Ambassador again finds his attention divided with a small declaration, "JSK message formulated and node link is now activated, Commodore."

"Affirmed, Commodore." replies the second interface called up by the Ambassador before disappearing in a thin mist of light.

The first interface formed over the Ambassador's view area speaks yet again, with a steely tone, "Entering the wormhole in t-minus twenty seconds. All personnel are advised to be station ready."

"Hmm mhhm ho hum hum" sways the Ambassador with now steaming cup of beverage in his right hand. Boxing his legs on his chair yet again, the Ambassador calmly sips his cup before putting it away in a specialized compartment on his chair, "Oh, this will do."

"Entering the wormhole in t-minus ten seconds." coordinately declares the temporally attuned interface. Another small nearly transparent interface shows itself towards the Ambassador's line of vision, accompanied with several coloured bars, "Preparation complete, Commodore."

A small weapon forms on the left hand of the Ambassador. He intently stare at the weapon before noticing the interface's reply, "Good, proceed with full caution."

"T-minus five seconds." sounds the interface whilst its temporal cascade accelerates further, clearly marked by its shifting numbers.

The Ambassador flexes his neck a few degrees apart for a moment while releasing his fingers from locking the weapon in his palm. Numerous cyan shapes form on his hands for a few seconds before vanishing, "Virtual Weapon Armoury system deactivated."

"T-minus four seconds." continuously charades the temporal interface with cold white numbers.

"Combat Adaptive Armour ready, cloaking devices on standby." flexes the Ambassador again, with his arms while numerous hexagonal shaped blurred images of air form and disappearing on specific locations on his body.

Looking at the temporal interface, the Ambassador notices it's three tempo away from the ever bright, and chaotic wormhole outside, "T-minus three seconds."

"Data synchronized. Unit, ready." registers his audio sensors before several hexagonal blurred images of air circles his head in few specific radians.

Nearing closer to extinction, the temporal cascade once white coloured red, "T-minus two seconds."

"Hmm...." glances the Ambassador to a floating screen made of light on the left of him. The blurred hexagonal shapes of air circling his head quickly suppressed, coupled with an unnatural grin plastered on the Ambassador's head.

On the verge extinction, the temporal interface flashes red before collapsing rapidly into thin mist of light, "T-minus one second."

With a small grin glued to his face, the Ambassador calmly points his horizon forward whilst hymning a little tune. As fast it's formed, the temporal cascade stopped concisely on its expiry date, no more and no less than a fraction of a second, "Jump Initiated."

---

Wearing a thin veil of malice, Jiki slowly strides along the long cold corridors of HCL Dudthum, the proper name of the current ship she is stationed upon. Disregarding any form of security measures, she ordered beforehand the ship and its accompanying escorts to go at full thrust upon catching the glimpse of signal flashed by Tariua over the harkened space. An impressive ship defined by its sharp angular curves it is, chugging through the dark parade of stars outside with non-visible thrust ports. The other two escorts are struggling to keep a pace with HCL Dudthum, not far behind with sharp tail of blue hot exhaust trails.

With a sharp gaze, she strides forward, till a floating square interface formed in front of her which accompanied with a small portrait, "Captain Jiki, sensor section detected that our lower port shield had hit something. We estimate it as some sort of reconnaissance unit."

"Do you intend to interfere with my current work, personnel?" impales Jiki words towards the interface, with a cleaving gaze.

The formed portrait shudders for a fraction of a second before shooting up an intriguing look, "Oh no Captain. I'm assure you it's not hindering your duties. But it's my duty here to tell you the plausible con-"

"What? Are you going to lecture me now?" matches Jiki's steely gaze upon the interface.

Wearing a scent of torridness, the interface replies simply, "It will be troublesome if we happen to meet hostiles, Captain. Mind you that this ship cannot take a full brunt of a proper fleet without backup."

"Talk again like that and you will find yourself outside the airlock." glazes Jiki with anger before dissolving the formed interface with two swishes of her right hand's finger.

She continues her march yet again over the long corridors amongst a maze of personnel stationed there and there. The personnel can clearly hear that Jiki is not in a good mood, evidenced by her heavy clink of movement over the strengthened titanium floor. Pillars of light can be seen across her path, illuminating the somewhat dark passage. Upon reaching of what seems an end, the wall slides away, revealing a small lift. Jiki enters the lift and aligned her head on the left side of the lift, glistening with a light blue panel. Two thin mist of light project from the panel, before accompanied with a small beep and with the lift's door closing in.

She reflexes her irises backward, which action accompanied with numerous hexagonal blurred images of air forming all over her body save her face. Dampening her rising anger, Jiki stays motionless in the spatial area, waiting for something to happen. Her clothes which is ranked 'Special Captain' with its specific insignia slowly surrounded by the hexagonal shapes, increasing in speed. She closes her eyes for a moment while her ears picks up the buzzing sound of air accelerating in her vicinity. Her once dark blue attire melted away into a jet black form, before re-emerging in slate blue colour, plastered with occasional hexagonal shapes and ridges. Her hat disappeared as well, replaced with a rectangle block a few distance from her line of sight.

---

The lift once accelerating can be felt to stop, by her ears and feet. Jiki then calmly steps outside, and moving directly to a specific portion of a wall labeled as 'A-021'. Upon reaching the section, she swishes her hand towards a small circle embedded on the wall, revealing a small room hidden in the dimly light corridor, accompanied with two small mechanical sound. In the center of the room, she could see Rial, stripped bare of clothes naught more than a basic attire. Rial stands there, motionless while her hands and feet are restrained into four large metallic cylinders, anchored to the ceiling and the floor of the room. The room is nothing more than a restraining chamber planted in the loci with Rial in it while clad with stone toned titanium walls, lighted with several dim cyan coloured lights in specific points in the room. Wisps of steam can be seen and felt by Jiki, as she stands at the maw of the room before calmly stepping in.

Her entrance quickly alerts Rial, "You...why do you put me in this?"

"I assume your previous answer was not..clear enough. You will need some disciplining, my dear." slyly answers Jiki while approaching Rial with a murderous intent.

Weakly apprehending Jiki's answer, Rial tries to muster her restrained strength, "Just..neurally reset me out! Why do you do this to *sob* me?"

"Oh no my dear. We can't have that. I just need to know, what is the key sequence?" grabs Jiki on Rial's hair with her right hand while putting her left hand over Rial's mouth.

Rial find herself struggling to breathe as Jiki's fingers enters her placid mouth before deflecting it with all of her remaining might, "Mnnh! No, i won't tell you!!"

"Okay. You leave me no choice then." glances Jiki away with a mischievous grin as she find her grip on Rial was completely deflected by Rial. She takes a step back while calmly grinning, analyzing the near stark naked Rial, facing Rial's face directly. Two cylinders quickly erupt from the back of Jiki, accompanied with its segmented metallic body, snaking its way around before Rial can clearly see the sinister snakes, "System activated..."

Rial's irises widened in fear as she immediately recognizes what would the glistening metallic strands would bring upon contact with her body, only to find the cylinders quickly deploy themselves at the base of her neck, "No! Anything but that! No NO NO ARGH!"

Savouring upon the sight of twitching Rial's structure for a moment, Jiki then splits half of her view into a newly formed interface in front of her eyesight, "Neural Dive system TR9, activated. Diving in 391 psy/s..desync protocol detected."

Jiki flinches aback of Rial's persistence to resist before immediately grabbing Rial's body with her right hand, which is clad in a purple glove that fires off a specific faint blue pattern on the touched area, "Stop being defiant!"

"No! Urk!" hashes Rial with increasing levels of wariness and defiance. Her cheek flushes red as soon Jiki places her palm on Rial's stomach. Rial shakes her head a few degrees back and forth, in attempt to dislodge the sinister cylinders attached to the back of her head. She could feel the steel cold flavour of the metallic cylinders on the back of her head which sends small shivers and tremors over her spine as they try to take hold on her neck.

Angered, Jiki put her another free hand near Rial's stomach. The thin veil-like clothing covering Rial is rendered as if it's wasn't there, given the pulses of faint blue lines continue to emit from the palm of Jiki's hands directly over Rial's skin, "Give me the key or else!"

Upon Jiki's action, Rial start to convulse almost uncontrollably while unconsciously tightening her lower abdomen, "Ah..no, no no AHRRR!"

"Retrieval of memory complete." twitches the metallic cylinders before quickly detaching themselves from the back of Rial's head, leaving a small trace of fluidic emission upon their previous mark. The circular fluid marks slowly seeps their way down, attuned to the dim light flooding the room.

The snaking metallic cylinders quickly move aback, and compressing themselves behind Jiki's back before disappearing. With similarly flushed red face, Jiki could see small clouds of steam flowing out of her mouth while fixing her lusty gaze towards Rial, "Good. Now be a good girl."

"Mnggh...AH!" profusely sweats Rial even though the room is undeniably cold, enough to make her shiver. Still slightly convulsing, her head once held a few degrees up stoop to the floor, glancing her eyes with her chest.

Jiki slowly wipes off saliva that drips from her mouth before stepping away from Rial, "I will come for you later, heh."

"You...monster...urgh..." mutters Rial with low tone as if her stamina was totally vanquished. She feels that her body have no longer appreciable levels of stamina, and she can do naught than cursing Jiki's name in her mind.

Quickly cladding her lustful desire, Jiki once again plates her image with an insidious aura. She scales her trace back to her origin, whilst leaving the panting and twitching Rial alone in the restraining chamber, along with the secret room away from most sights. Numerous hexagonal blurred images of air formed yet again on Jiki's body, morphing her attire into her former attire, a formal dress of Principality Special Captain with two chevrons and two curves respectively, as an insignia. With a tone of a smirk on her face, Jiki had just gained the securing key of her endeavor, specifically a Jump Synchronization Key which is retrieved directly from Clero's special secretary, Rial.

---

There are three figures that can be seen over the horizon, illuminated by the rising shine of the planet's star. No other than Saecco carrying Clero on her back while pulling Rerealis along, with haste they try with their might to return to their landing zone again, for escaping from the seemingly tranquil paradise. Still feeling heavy pain on his chest, Rerealis grip his lower lip with his teeth, in order to suppress the pain. He noticed that he can't stop now, he need to continue forward in order to escape plausible chasers. As he predicted, his HUD-Link registered an increase of electromagnetic transmissions in the area, not far from the chalet area where they retrieved Clero. It seems that the retainers of Clero had noticed their usurpation thus with increased adrenaline, Rerealis tries to keep a pace with Saecco till she apparently stumbled over a block and landed on the asphalt squarely on her face.

Hearing the thud, Rerealis stops from his tangent and flexes his view towards Saecco, "Urghh..hurry Saecco!"

"Mrrh..." writhes Saecco in slight pain as Clero carried on her back now pinning her down. She manages to struggle herself out of the situation, while trying to carry Clero yet again with much vigour, "I'm trying, i'm trying!"

Keeping his display of pain sideways, Rerealis attempt to aid Saecco, "Use the mode, Saecco!"

"But but!" negates Saecco profusely over Rerealis's quick judgement.

"Kuhuk!" coughs Rerealis for a moment before saliva slowly drips from his mouth, "Urgh...No buts! Now is an emergency!"

"Uhm..okay Rerealis!" anxiously faced Saecco on his order. Numerous hexagonal shapes then quickly forms on Saecco's luscious figure, plastering her clothing with a sleek suit, "System activated."

Rerealis is quickly cut down with his increasingly virulent pain manifesting on his chest. He estimated, he might have several fractured or broken ribs, "Use the..kuhuk!"

"Rerealis?!" supports Saecco on the falling figure of Rerealis. It seems that he had indeed taken quite a beating during their previous encounter with the native population.

Dazed downwards, Rerealis tries to comfort her, "Don't worry me, i just taken some light damage....Use the RG tool *cough*"

She glances her head from side to side, as a form a disagreement to Rerealis's suggestion, "No Rerealis, you know what will happen to you if i use that on you, don't you?!"

"Hey guys? You bettah pack your asses! I'm seeing rise of activities here!" quickly forms an interface in front of the duo. Clero is still knocked out slowly mumbles, oblivious to the current situation, which accompanied by the increasing luminosity of pillars of light descending on the background. The smell of the sea water rises quite significantly, before slowly recedes back into the sea whilst the sea batters the wave breakers, not far from their location with audible sound.

Rerealis then musters his remaining strength, trying to hold his consciousness together, "Do it, Saecco..."

"Uhm okay.." eyes Saecco to a side after putting Clero on the ground. A small, nearly holographic tool forms on her right hand, shaped like a glove, while tinted faint cyan.

Numerous thin line of light then emitted by the object held by Saecco, directly penetrating Rerealis's chest. He recoiled with pain, even though the extended shapes can be figured out as nothing more than photons, "Rgurh!"

"Don't worry, im still fine.." tries himself to assure Saecco that nothing much is wrong. His facade however is clearly unproven with a slight tint of pain trawling his face.

Saecco's tool projected several floating images while her tears nearly flow out of her eyes, "Rearranging....linking....procedure will complete in five seconds..."

The same interface from before but now clearly shows Tariua's face glistens its sonic appearance towards the duo, "Guys? Where the hell are you?! I'm picking up various transmissions here! They had noticed!"

"Rerealis, don't push yourself!" notices Saecco on Rerealis's attempt to move after her tool retracted its 'claws' back again before disappearing into thin air.

Noticing his vitality had restored, he tries to move again, only to feel a strong headache, "No...i'm fine. We need to go to the ship now, Saecco."

"Urmm...okay..." nods Saecco a for a moment before attempting to carry Clero again on her back.

Tariua's portrait switches its vector while encircling the spatial vision of Rerealis, "The hell?! Stop delaying, get your ass here now! The ship will leave soon!"

"No worries, Tariua! We will go to you soon!" replies Saecco with a worried tone. Her tone is valid, as for they were noticed by the natives and her fix on Rerealis is nothing than temporary.

"Uhh...make it quick! I see flying crafts here on sensors! They will spot you soon!" shines the interface lightly, after snapping its position towards Saecco.

Coursing his renewed vitality, Rerealis tries to stand back on his two feet albeit wobbly,"Just be ready, Tariua.."

"I don't sign up the mission just for this! Damnit, damn it all!" quickly vanishes Tariua's image with a scent of frustration over the impending matter.

Rerealis quickly notices the changed composure of his companion, "Keep your head up, Saecco."

"Ummm...okay." nods Saecco upon Rerealis's advice. Picking up her previous pace, she lifted Clero and put him on her back before starting to run again, alongside with Rerealis to their objective.

---

Jiki slowly steps into the HCL Dudthum's bridge while nonchalantly whistle around before a floating interface caught her attention yet again. It bears the similar pattern as the previous terse fired off by Tariua,"Incoming transmission."

"Hold it. I know who is it. Put thrusters on maximum!" orders Jiki with full force. Her voice clearly resonates within the cold titanium clad command room.

One of the personnel fires off an interface towards Jiki, accompanied by several small images, "Captain, our sensors indicated that we had hit something in our path."

"Hm? Continue the charge!" gallantly orders Jiki, disregarding the personnel's enlightenment.

With a wave of the curiosity, the personnel tones a question, "Shouldn't we take any precautionary measu-"

"Heh. Now Clero is within my sights..you will not escape this time, hahahaha!" feigns Jiki in ignorance as she quelled the formed interface with her two fingers.

A mysterious figure calmly declares its intention with a crisp male voice, "Is she is always like that?"

"I don't know. Ask her then." answers a second figure in the background but with a female voice.

Jiki's ears rapidly notices the arrival of her invited guests thus quickly shoot up an order, "Now that you two are here, get ready! I won't allow any infractions!"

"Gladly, Captain Jiki. We will dispatch soon." replies the figures in unison.

Jiki is somewhat relieved upon hearing the acknowledgement thus with confidence she lashes her words again while placing her view forward, "Good. Silence them. We cannot afford they to know it all."

Gazing across the room, Jiki could see a projected map of the current area where the ship is carrying her. A blue gem amongst the dark void of space, glittered with a spice of stars ripe in the background. Not long after, HCL Dudthum activates some of its armament, and shoots out two small objects towards the planet where Rerealis and his companions are. Ordered directly by Jiki, it's not long that Rerealis will find out how her new instruments would act.

[Socialist States Owen]

Starskipper Flight 4839
Hamilton A89 Shuttle
Travelling from Lyndhoy Spaceport (Dune) to Hasby Air Terminal (Rivet)

Hasby was Rivet's second settlement, a large town home to 90,000 people, and was located over 300 miles north of Foreland. This shuttle, full of miners (103 passengers and 12 crew to be exact) on their way to Rivet's classic working town. Most of the passengers had been on a training course at a very large deep core mining facility on the nearby colony of Dune. However, they were about to have a change of schedule. A call came in over comms for the pilots just as they were passing through the buoy field on the other side from where the Principality fleet was. "Hamilton 4839, this is Romeo Hotel One at Foreland. Planetary defence level has been escalated to level four within the last hour. All orbital contacts are going into withdrawl mode or are to immediatley divert to Foreland Spaceport. How do you copy?"

The pilots looked at each other, surprised. After a quick discussion, they decided the passengers would probably prefer to land than turn back and took the decision to divert. "Hard copy, Romeo Hotel One. Hamilton 4839 going into new landing pattern." After informing the passengers they had to divert, the pilots began to approach their new landing corridor. The craft flipped on its back and descended rapidly, before turning on its nose and and bringing its re-entry resistant hull level with the blue haze that surrounded the gem in and ocean of blackness that is Rivet. The aircraft quickly descends through the atmosphere, hitting Mach 10 as it leaves the vaccum of space, before levelling out and turning off main thrusters at an altitude of 30,000 feet. At this point it begins a rapid 500 mile approach towards Foreland, slowing down from Mach 7.5 to Mach 2. At this speed it deploys it's in atmosphere functioning parts, such as flaps, and descends to 20,000 feet. It now brakes hard, causing slight discomfort for the passengers, and begins a gentle flight in to the port.

However, as the shuttle approached land, the pilots spotted something. A small hovering craft, that looked like nothing these pilots had ever seen, was positioned above a heathland behind a beach and emitting a faint cyan haze from its engines. It had no recognisable radar signature. "Hamilton 4839 to Romeo Hotel One. Approach continues. Unidentifiable aircraft spotted at very low altitude north of Foreland. Recommend immediate investigation. How copy?"
"Hard copy Hamilton 4839. Just as we thought. Continue your approach."

This was the final straw for the Rivet Defence Force. They now knew the inevitable destination of the escaped prisoner Clero, and immediatley deployed the two recon helicopters already in the air and four gunships to approach the craft. Surprisingly, they already had a ground force close by; a platoon of troops who had been ordered to investigate the 'extra-terrestrial impact' the night before to save local astrologists a job and give the troops something to do. This group of General Infantry were quickly alerted and now realised that this was the real thing....

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

Subman Forest
14 miles north of Foreland City

As dawn began to break, Sergeant Alan Wiley realised his platoon of lackadaisical GI's were tired. "What's this?" He boomed. "We've only walked four miles! Pick it up!" With a collective groan the platoon sped up, travelling almost at a semi jog. Finally they had reached their destination and they were surprised to see not a small meteorite crater, but a small alien ship of some kind hovering above an area of heathland behind the nearby deserted beach. Wiley and his eleven troops approached the edge of the forest, eyeing up the aircraft; this is what Wiley had been told to look out for over radio. He had also been informed that for whatever reason there may be individuals attempting to board any craft. Wiley had a plan for that eventuality.

"Ok platoon, this is our target. Air support is incoming but we might have a job to do if these...aliens? Not aliens. Maybe aliens. Whoever the fuck they are, they can't reach the craft. Boone, I want you to take five to the southern side of where the forest and heathland cross over and stay in cover. Naffra, take two guys to the north side. Williams, you're with me. Let's go." As the soldiers moved into position, the droning noise of approaching gunships could be heard over the relatively quiet UFO. The gunships were G-50s - jet powered gunships for in atmosphere recon. With a missile suite, rockets and powerful Ashdale laser cannons, these small and manuverable vehicles approached the UFO with deadly speed. They quickly swung around it, encircling it, enabling Wiley and Williams to trot out into the open. "Sure is an ugly bitch." Wiley perhaps didn't have great taste - the spacecraft was majestic - but he was being quite brave in going out in front of it, even with four aircraft backing him up.

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

Rivet's now level 4 alert level entailed a state of semi-military readiness. Army staff were being called up from holiday time and reservists would be getting notices to be prepared for a small chance of emergency call up. The city of Foreland's advanced city management systems were put into a military readiness mode, controlling early morning traffic and closing several roads, whilst the large city management notices screens which were sprawled over the city alerted the populace to the level four alert. Rivet Air Defence put all in and out of atmosphere interceptors on medium alert, and the wet navy took similar measures. In orbit, various space stations were instructed to remain vigilant and the SS Iron Boar began a short journey towards the outer buoy field in stealth mode, to investige the approaching cluster...

[Heliocalypse]

Two ovoid shaped objects cruise amongst the dusty space from HCL Dudthum and directly into the orbital path of Foreland. Carrying a lexicographic symbol of Holocurn Tac-Ops plastered on one flat section respectively, the ovoid shapes or rather commonly known as 'Tear Drop Pods' in Principality ground forces mark the elites of Principality, Holocurn Tac-Ops which made evident by their crimson coloured appearance. Occasional cyan haze would appear on their nearly polygonal bodies, made evident by opening of some fractal sections of themselves as the pods automatically make flight path corrections to their respective movement vector. Upon reaching proximity of Foreland, the pods automatically eject toroidal magnetic and gravitational fields, in a bid to reduce their presence as much as plausible, clearly tinted with a faint purplish flash that surges their surfaces respectively.

They accelerate even faster upon entering the gravity well of Foreland and subsequently hit twenty times speed of sound while grazing the exo-atmospheric layer of the planet. HCL Dudthum, not far away automatically reverse her engines' thrusts and articulating several thruster flaps in order to reduce inertia, exhibiting clear pale yellow coloured spikes on her frontal sections. The two pods accelerate even faster and brightly glow as air friction against their projected protective magnetic field sheath ionizes the trapped air particles into plasma. The ionized plasma then quickly envelop the pods, following the shape of the projected magnetic fields and imparting less heat to the pods respectively.

They swing their way thirty five degrees to the left on x-axis before plunging downward seventeen degrees on the z-axis, "Range in....three cu...two cu...atmosphere break."

"Stabilizing vector...deploying mitigation field, compensators activated." The enveloping plasma sheaths then quickly disperse themselves as a bluish halo form in front of the pods and eject into a toroidal shockwave that strips the plasma layer away.

The pods tactfully shape their descend vector in a helical pattern in order to shed excess speed as they decelerate even slower, "Target location sighted, diving in one cu per second."

"Bursting mitigation field, halo hover mode initiated in three seconds." Multiple air brake foils open on the pods akin like an expanding pine cone as they try to reduce their excess inertia further. Numerous faint cyan eject from their spiky appearance as they slowly stop their revolving tangent.

---

Multiple red coloured interfaces quickly clutter Tariua's vision, "Warning, close proximity crafts. Craft type unknown, engines analyzed to be thermal air jet."

"Oh no. Oh...no you don't! Gorammit it!" He wrestles the control of the craft sideways in attempt to find an escape route.

Tariua right hand quickly detaches from the dual stick controller after he twisted it to the right, bringing up a small interface and causing the craft to swerve sideways a few degrees to the front. Small thin cylinders quickly form on his hand, accompanied by a formation of the current map of the area in front of him. Numerous cyan hazes form on the sleek body of the craft as it tries to retain its hovering balance automatically as set by its AI core.

Another interface popped in front of him, covering the map interface, "Energy signatures locked on. Escape probability unknown, advice subvert interdiction. Proceed? Y/N"

"Saecco...get your asses here!" Tariua punches a button with his left hand, leaving the control stick to steer by itself before glazing his left hand on a newly formed interface that displays the craft's available weapons.

Not far from the landing site, Saecco fervently answers Tariua's call, "I'm trying, i'm trying!"

She could see the craft they came with swerving from side to side as it tries to escape from the column of trees surrounding their landing zone. Saecco instinctively ducks as she could hear a telltale sound of an atmospheric craft over the distance, and confirmed that it's indeed an atmospheric craft which resembles some sort of heavy gunship over the craft's peculiar appearance with her eyes. Her eyes then fixated on multiple heat signs located near the landing zone, revealed by her sensitive HUD-Link. Saecco decides to continue her charge as if she and Rerealis fail to board the craft piloted by Tariua, they're good as dead. Neglecting any tactical safe measures as it's evident that the strange gunships are more interested on the craft piloted by Tariua, she run towards their landing zone while arming her left hand with Red Drop gun and chugging Rerealis with her right hand.

---

An another red flashing message form in front of Tariua as he tries to upload his commands to the craft, "Warning, TC-2 operatives detected."

"Oh shi-" shudders Tariua as he tries to grasp the current situation in a composed manner.

The once spirally descending pods tactfully initiate their gravity retrothrusters, aligning themselves parallel to the y-axis. Numerous flaps open on their body as they initiate a landing procedure while emitting a circular faint cyan tail respectively. Upon recoiling for several radians before stopping, the pods then land squarely on the earth and cracking open and rolls out several carpets of cold steam in all directions respectively, "DEPLOY."

---

Rerealis find himself increasingly hard to breathe and his irises slowly iridescence into a dark tint, "Haah..hah..hah.."

"Rerealis, you okay?!" She quickly try to prop Rerealis in event that he suddenly loses his point of balance.

With a slightly tattered tone, Rerealis tries to persuade Saecco, "Don...don't worry about me...get Clero on the ship...i will catc-"

"No! We're going to leave this planet together! You promised me ice-cream!" Saecco insistently negate his suggestion while her HUD-Link automatically open, revealing her pearly green eyes.

Rerealis quickly succumbed to a new pain that manifest in his body or rather across all limbs of his body, "Urgh...wait..."

"Hold still." Saecco instantly snap her head towards the voice and find a humanoid figure standing in a distance, between her and their landing zone.

The loud roar of the natives' gunships can be clearly heard in a distance and the characteristic rustling of leaves in the forested area, followed up by a near-mute pulsed low hum of the team's craft. Her irises instinctively widen upon viewing the humanoid figure, or rather staring down into a big barrel of some kind of a weapon. She could sense an additional presence similar to the humanoid figure, moreso than the suspected heat signs hidden amongst the tree in the area as the figure's killing intent is clearly bright as the day and the apparent formation of more weapons on the figure. She could further witness one of the humanoid figure extended its arms over the grassy ground which action followed by materialization of several small turrets, evident by formation of several fractal faint cyan coloured shapes. The manifested turrets, some having a boxy head while others are viewed to exhibit either two or three barrels seemed to aim in multiple directions and not just herself as Saecco becomes more aware and aware of the gravity of the situation.

Saecco presses a button on the left side of her disengaged HUD-Link after putting Clero on the grassy ground, "Tariua...? Who are these guys?!"

"Shit man! We're surrounded by multiple contacts! By the natives including their aerocrafts and now, TC-2 ops! Damn it!" clearly answers Tariua with an angsty tone.

Clero, still feeling quite drowsy manages to lift his head from the earth after being knocked out for a while, "Umm, Rerealis is that you...? Where...am i?"

"Urk...President. Are they your friends?" Rerealis tugs Saecco hands from firing her weapon in time while having one of his hands over his chest with an anguished look. He hinted at Saecco to not exhibit no more hostilities but finding his command ineffective as Saecco instantly lashes his hand across and engaging a combat stance.

"I'm not...sure." lifts Clero's upper half as he tries to widen his vision while still feeling quite drowsy. He could see the weapons glinting in the pale moonlight, "Err...they don't look friendly..."

[Socialist States Owen]

OOC: I think I can work more on this post Helio, so please tell me on IRC what can be changed.

OOC REMINDER TO SELF REMOVE LATER: MYRMIDON

Subman Forest
Principality extraction vessel landing site

Suddenly the situation was becoming rather confused. The landing of the Principality special operatives in pods had changed the situation, and as a consequence Sergeant Wiley had to react quickly. He hurriedley commanded the G-50's using his comms link to 'divide and conquer' - two of the gunships swung away to ensure the floating alien craft remained unable to move, and the other two descended slightly to take the new arrivals. Their pilots flicked on high powered headlights, with one G-50 aiming at the special operator deploying turrets and the other swinging in front of the special ops operator charging towards the alien craft, cutting him off completely and forcing him back. The infantry then made their move; Sergeant Wiley and Williams sprinted towards Rerealis and Saecco on the grass, raising their rifles and yelling "Down" in English.

The troops in the trees simultaneously burst out from cover, with a group of four headed by Boone heading towards the figure deploying turrets while he was being thrust upon by the G-50, while another group of four led by Naffra charged towards the other special operative, rifles raised and yelling "Down" while he was seperated from Rerealis and his comrades by the other G-50. This quick thinking left a fragile situation; the special ops operators who had exited the pods were going to be turned to a gory mess if they so much as moved, while Rerealis and co were protected from the spec ops but not in a position to resist the GI's - or the aircraft for that matter. Further dropships were on the way and straight away three rapid response trucks swung through the forest on a dirt track onto the edge of the opening. Twenty four marines poured out, running towards the GI's positions to support them.

SS Iron Boar
Type 7 Frigate
Orbiting Rivet

The approach of the HCL Dudthum and it's escorts had not gone unnoticed. However, there was only one ship in a position to respond immediatley; Iron Boar. A frigate that is far from young and of a less capable nature than newer classes of frigates, Iron Boar is not the strongest ship in the Euran Navy but it was strangely suitable for this situation. Small and built for stealth, the ship had accelerated quickly towards Rivet, and was now in a position to try and see what the unknown craft were up to. They were approaching the planets orbit and clearly intended to enter the atmosphere; the Iron Boar's optics suite had identified the vessels changing course for a brief descent and had seen them travel past several orbital facilities without interacting with them. It became clear very quickly that the frigate needed backup. First, it sent a ping to Rivet Central.

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//FLEETCOM.PING//
//F493IRONBOAR>>>RIVETCENTRAL//

F493IRONBOAR TO RIVET CENTRAL. IDENTIFIED NUMEROUS CRAFT ON TRAJECTORY TOWARDS RIVET. HAVE BYPASSED SEVERAL ORBITAL MONITORING STATIONS AND RIVET ORBITAL COMMUNICATIONS GRID. RECOMMEND IMMEDIATE DEPLOYMENT OF GROUNDSIDE DEFENCES AND STANDARD EVACUATION PROCEDURE. MOST URGENT.

//ENDPING.//

It also pinged the wider fleet; standard procedure in this sort of emergency.

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//FLEETCOM.PING//
//F493IRONBOAR>>>FLEETCOMEMERGENCY5//

CAPTAIN CARVILLE ON IRONBOAR TO FLEET. URGENT. ALIEN CRAFT APPROACHING RIVET COLONY. EARLIER CRASHED CRAFT MAY HAVE BEEN SCOUT. REPORTS OF GUNFIGHT IN FORELAND CITY. UNABLE TO SAFELY ENGAGE ALIEN CRAFT. IMMEDIATE  DEPLOYMENT OF REGIONAL RESPONSE FORCE IS A NESSECITY. SUBORBITAL DEFENCES ALREADY DEPLOYED BUT IF HOSTILE ALIEN CRAFT UNLIKELY TO BE INTERCEPTED. AWAITING RESPONSE.

//ENDPING.//

On the ground, a state of emergency was declared on the colony. The streets cleared in Foreland as people headed for their homes and before long military vehicles were streaming through the streets, anticipating a defence, while other vehicles moved towards the crash site. To the north east of Foreland from an airbase concealed in the jungles and forest regions, a dozen IN-25 "Black Widow" interceptors craft took off, along with a number of in-atmosphere only fighters. The interceptors were armed with anti-shipping torpedos and missiles, prepared to attack ships when they enter the atmosphere. These were the main measures taking place, not to mention the emergency evacuation of the various small orbital facilities around the planet - either that, or their crews prepared themselves in case of an unexpected boarding action.

[Heliocalypse]

HCL Dudthum - Reluct-class Assault Bomber
HCL Malovar - Tarkl-class Assault Cruiser
HCL Thrikel - Tarkl-class Assault Cruiser
4x MT892 Strike Jammer Platform
5x Scal-2 Heavy Defense Drone

An interface, clad with numerous lines and cascading temporal flow flickers slightly in front of Jiki while accompanied with numerous floating data images, "1.2 m/u from target planet. Sensors picked up active transmissions emanating from planet."

"Analyzing unknown frequencies." The air inside HCL Dudthum small bridge clearly attenuated with tension, evident with two bar of frowns on her face. She sways her hands to numerous floating images of light in her position, selectively interacting with them with several clicks of air.

Jiki pushes a data interface away with her right hand while raising her glance to her left side, "Adjutant! Where is that report?!"

"Analysis complete." Two of the circular interfaces quickly died down and replaced with three new ones as Jiki swipes her fingers on some of the displayed tactical icons, "Tactical jamming option selected. Initiating orbital track."

One of the officer inside the room turns his head toward Jiki with his hands tapping incessantly on a holographic keyboard in his workstation, "Working on it, ma'am!"

"Passive sensor sweep indicate active EM activity at predicted bands IS-4 to KR-2." Another set of floating interfaces form in front of Jiki, displaying the image of Foreland, accompanied by multiple visual cues with their respective information overlays.

She horizontally swipes two of her left hand fingers over a blue tinted interface in her workstation, "MCL Tube One to Nine selected."

"Bring us in a large arc around this planet, the defenders will show up soon! Eyes up and jam-bomb them!" Jiki slams her right hand over an interface, followed by an eruption of two snake-like cord of wires from her back, "Neural protocol engaged."

A affirmative male voice quickly snaps up Jiki's query, "Aye Captain Jiki!"

"Launching MCL Tube One to Nine, readying Tube Ten to Twenty." Jiki dissolves several of the floating data interfaces before calling up two new interfaces, represented with dynamic bars of light.

She blurts another order while having her eyes fixated on the formed representative map of the current area, "Launch those heavy interceptors too! We ain't going to be caught in their fleet or whatever and we need to do this fast!"

"High orbit path selected. Priming engines and cloaking systems." Another map appeared in her vision, carrying the representative icon of her escorts and their current vector information before shortly followed by an odd low toned hum felt throughout the very structure of HCL Dudthum.

She continues to dance her fingers on the floating interface while reclining three degrees backward on her seat, followed by an audio cue, "Initiating turbo mode."

HCL Dudthum continues to accelerate toward Foreland, gradually vanquishing its short-stacked thin bluish exhaust trail as the warship switches its propulsion to gravity field effect mode. As quickly they opened, the MCL tubes rapidly sequence their sealed state while their launched payloads coast toward Foreland. Jiki's ship continues to ride on its built momentum while flexing some of its periphery thrusters for minute adjustments, followed up by formation of several hexagonal shapes on the sleek warship, fooling wash of photons in the vicinity of the warship into thinking HCL Dudthum didn't 'exist' in the current area.

Four of the launched payloads immediately stopped in a fair distance between her ship and Foreland, extending their closed form into operational statuses while another five block-shaped payloads coasted toward Foreland in a thin purplish hue respectively. Not far from HCL Dudthum fleeting appearance, HCL Malovar and HCLThrikel split their tangent away from the travel path of Jiki's ship with reducing exhaust luminosities, accompanied by several shrieks of electromagnetic interference generated by the extended payloads.

---

12x Razor Interceptor Drone
4x Coronis Shielded Interdictor Drone
4x Morkat Heavy Assault Drone

"Target distance 0.2 m/u. Initiate triangulation." One by one, the block-shaped projectiles launched by HCL Dudthum break into the atmosphere of Foreland, plastered with white hot plasma respectively while traveling in a single vertical line.

The plasma sheath however didn't live long as the projectiles quickly emit a burst of purple hue over their blocky body, dissolving the sheath into three circular spikes respectively. "Coordinates lock, sensor sweep begin."

"Acquiring target, maneuver flash." The blocky projectiles gradually space their vertical descent into a large spiral over the forest while shedding their hypersonic velocities with increasingly large circular tangent.

Two of the blocky projectiles cracked open in mid air, exposing six Razor Interceptors in one projectile and two Coronis drone installed in another, "Triangulation complete. Begin interdiction and termination."

The revealed drones then snaps out of their fixture inside the cracked projectiles respectively, engaging their light purple thrusters in various tangents as they accelerate further downwards, "Three unidentified assets detected close to target area."

Several hexagonal shapes of light blue form on the deployed Coronis drones as they initiate their shielding systems, "Tranzeum Roll setup."

"Deploying defensive circle." Another projectile cracked open, trouncing six additional Razor Interceptors from its crimson-hot metallic body.

As they coast their ballistic trajectories toward the forest, the Razor Interceptors rapidly engage their primary drives and shifting their path profile with erratic movements while arming their missile armaments, evident by multiple faint dot glows on their swept back wings. Another projectile cracked open, revealing two Coronis drones that literally shot from its hull as they engaged their primary drives. Six of the Razor Interceptors craft their paths again, in attempt to gain a lock-on the FSSO gunships in supersonic erratic motion, followed by four stable trajectories craft by the Coronis drones and a ballistically spiraling fifth projectile launched by HCL Dudthum. The remaining Razor Interceptors gradually spiral outward from the loci of the drone formation, each with varying descent speed and erratic supersonic movement profile as they try to set up a temporary air perimeter.

---

It was tense. Time seemed to stop as Rerealis stares toward the spec-ops sent by Jiki with much prudent surprise. He could feel the warmth of Clero's hands sided over his shirt before overwhelmed by the lisping front blowing from the sea while having his other senses muted by the numbness spreading from his chest. As he tilts his head a few degrees toward Saecco, Rerealis could pick up the characteristic illusionary movement of the elite spec-ops with the corner of his eyes, moving thrice as fast as everyone in the area. He could further perceive an impending danger coming from the sky, not from the FSSO gunships but something else, something he is most familiar with; Principality heavy combat drones.

"Saecco! Duck!" With the ounce of his strength, Rerealis extended his hand and shoves Saecco to the side as he noticed the turrets deployed by the spec-ops start to activate with multiple sinister faint dot lights.

The turrets swiveled and start to spew voluminous amount of anesthetic bullets in the area, in a circular attack pattern. He could see the bullets glancing over his arm before two of them impacted, sending a burst of pain through his spine, "Saecco, run!"

"Wha?" Saecco immediately flexes her head toward Rerealis, while catching the glimpse of the spec-ops conducting their action; one of them extends its hand toward the air while another flexes its legs to jump.

The spec-ops continue to move, slamming their hands toward the ground with a pulse of electrifying wave that arc across the area and generating a blinding flash of light. Rerealis could feel the traveling current pulse in the air with its rasp flavour as he found his senses gradually going black in one full second, "Damn..."

"Rerealis?!" Saecco rapidly recovers from the light blast, extending her arms toward Rerealis and Clero in attempt to shield them from plausible actions of the spec-ops.

A small audio cue immediately surges a partial fraction of consciousness of Rerealis. "Hey guys....? Is..OH SHIT"

"Rerealis! Are you ok?" She vehemently tries to awaken him even though a major fraction of her senses are still dulled. Saecco glances toward the location of the spec-ops again, only to find them gone and with the turrets now taking aim toward her.

Clero, unaffected by the situation grasps a fraction of his congested thoughts while averting his eyes upward as Rerealis failed to support his body,"Err..."

He could clearly characterize the bright spotlights emitted by the FSSO gunships in close vicinity, scorching white as day but what attracted his attention most would be the sudden emergence of a falling block from the sky, accompanied by several distinctive shapes that he knew well, the shapes of Principality combat drones. Clero further gazes upward with fleeting consciousness, witnessing four blue-hued shapes with a dark crimson center shape that gradually becomes bigger. He tilts his head toward Rerealis, finding him half-dead with multiple anesthetic bullets stuck on his right arm before he would hear the characteristic muffled sound of Principality combat drones.

Six Razor Interceptors rapidly unfurl their compact green-trailed missiles, aimed at the FSSO gunships respectively while the Coronis drones adopted a diamond formation, escorting the fifth final projectile. The projectile then cracked open, shooting four large drones from its body before disintegrating to smaller pieces while the Coronis drones shunted forward, unleashing intense electromagnetic shrieks in attempt to jam the area. The Morkat drones, shot from the final projectile unfurl their compact form into a large triangular drone, complete with their signature triple barreled energy cannons respectively as they accelerate into cardinal points over the forest while the Razor Interceptors started their acrobatic supersonic profiles in the sky.

[Socialist States Owen]

As the Principality spec ops operatives fled into the forest, they were replaced by the very dangerous force of drones which had been deployed by the Dudthum. As it became clear that with the spec ops leaving the GI’s would be able to capture Rerealis and his accomplices before they could board their vessel, the G-50’s switched their focus immediately to the drones – all four had come under fire as soon as they had appeared. These strange craft moved rapidly, attempting to establish a perimeter and get a lock on to the gunships before they could fire back. This was proving problematic as the radio chatter in Wiley’s ear proved:

“Get a lock…lock him…for fuck sake!”
“Hotel Four, go to guns.”
“No can do Three, bogies are moving fast.”
“Holy shit those smaller ones are going to fire, Two cover me!”

Indeed six of the Razor drones, “the smaller ones”, had revealed racks of green tinted missiles, and Hotel One suddenly was being locked on to. Two swept in front of One to disrupt the lock; an unsuccessful manuver in preventing a lock but instrumental in gaining one. Two immediately gained a lock on one of the Razors and the pilot let rip with its twin cannons. Wiley could see above him two gorgeous streams of light coming from Hotel Two’s guns, as the sheer power of hundreds of bullet like projectiles was let loose at the drone. It was torn apart instantly, shred into pieces of burned metal that showered down like cinders on the long grass. Another Razor locked on to Three and fired a missile, but Three’s countermeasures were enough to detract the projectile harmlessly into the beach not far behind the clearing.

After One had disposed of another Razor with its guns, Two had more luck, knocking a Coronis out of the sky with two missiles that sent its burning wreck into the forest. However one had been left exposed and it was caught out as a Razor got a lock and fired two missiles from very close range. The first missile overshot the G-50 by a long distance but the other smashed into its tail, destroying the rear third of the craft and sending it into a spin. With the co-pilot injured badly by the crumpling of his side of the craft the pilot was on his own in trying to control his descent, but it was of no use. Hotel One plummeted into the forest, rolling over several times before coming to a stop. Three quickly avenged this loss, forcing one Razor to retreat by dealing critical damage to it with its guns before destroying another with a missile.

-----

“Don’t you fucking move, buddy.” Clero woke up to find Wiley’s handcannon aimed directly at his skull. The other GI’s had poured forward, and with the backup that had arrived eleven men now surrounded the entrance ramp into the small craft. Clero had been trying to sit up but he no longer had to bother as a GI hauled him up onto his shoulder. Rerealis was in no position to resist given his two back wounds and remained on the ground as the GI’s approached, but Saecco stumbled up the ramp, trying to dig out the dart gun which had proved so useful earlier. Saecco was bundled over by a charging soldier while looking for the gun, and the GI’s began to carry her away despite constant struggling.

At this point two Raven’s and a further two G-50’s turned up, flying in over the water. Both G-50’s immediately swung in to engage the drones, but the dropships went straight to ground. The GI’s quickly poured on to the craft, putting Clero and Saecco on one and Rerealis on the other, with five GI’s on Rerealis’ craft and six on the other. The Marines meanwhile had been planning to board the small ship in the clearing and investigate, but the arrival of the drones complicated matters. Therefore half a dozen of them raced into the forest towards the gunship crash site hoping to recover the pilots, while the others (somewhat to their annoyance) were ordered straight back into their vehicles. Above the air battle raged on as another Razor went down – the effects of the jamming by Coronis drones seemed to be not too effective for now - but there were still at least another six remaining while the larger Coronis and Morkat drones had almost finished setting up.

On the way were a squadron of in atmosphere fighters, but they were not here yet. Orders had come through from Rivet Central giving very clear instructions; fly Clero and any other ‘aliens’ out of the area aboard suitable transport and await further instructions. The two dropships obeyed, lifting off and speeding away (deploying their ECM suites to avoid being targeted as they slowly lifted off from hovering positions) as the five gunships turned around to follow. On the ground, the Principality spec op troopers had presumably fled into the forest, but no aircraft were available to pursue them. What was more problematic however was that the other six Razors were ready to engage and the Morkat’s were fully deployed, leaving the dozen and a half Marines by their vehicles and the other half dozen Marines rescuing the crashed pilots quite exposed. The larger group of Marines were also being fired on from abandoned but still active turrets left by the Principality spec ops in the grass, to which they responded with some sporadic small arms fire but mainly hiding out of the turrets line of sight. Three of them were already in a dazed condition after being temporarily stunned by the flashbang-like devices deployed by the spec ops operatives earlier – one was suffering from temporary paralysis and had to be stretchered into one of the vehicles. They would have to hope the drones would continue their pursuit rather than stay behind.

-----

Emergency Scenario Response Centre
Euran Navy Fleet Command
Bastion (Homeworld of the Euran Federation)
Four hours after HCL Dudthum enters Rivet’s atmosphere

Deep within the bowels of the biggest military complex on Bastion, the most important and influential figures of the military and government had been convened on an issue which they had never faced – first contact with a sentient alien civilisation in Euran space. They knew intelligent life was out there based on communications intercepts from deep space probes, and had sent out ships (consequently sharing physical contact) to meet alien species before. But when Eura finds them, it’s nothing new – when they find Eura, there is a cause for alarm.

Of course they were completely unaware of the reason that Clero, seemingly an important official in this alien civilisation, had landed on one of their most isolated colonial possessions. If they knew who Jiki was, and that her and Clero had been sharing the passions of the bedroom not so long ago, they might chuckle and begin negotiations. However there is no way they could know this, and they interpreted Clero as most likely a scout for a planned first contact; or worse, an invasion. Just before the meeting began, another ping came through, this time from Rivet itself rather than the lone warship nearby.

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//FLEETCOM.PING//
//RIVETCENTRAL>>>FLEETCOMEMERGENCY5//

CONFIRMING DISTRESS CALL SENT BY VESSEL F493 APPROX 1H 23M AGO. ALIEN CRAFT HAVE DEPLOYED UNMANNED HOSTILE MILITARY EQUIPMENT. MINOR GROUND SKIRMISH HAS OCCURRED. TARGET ‘CLERO’ RECAPTURED BY GROUND FORCES ALONGISDE TWO OUTWORLDERS. IMMEDIATE MILITARY ASSAULT SEEMING LIKELY. RIVET ILL EQUIPPED TO RESIST. ASSISTANCE IS A MATTER OF THE UTMOST URGENCY.

//ENDPING.//

Fleet Admiral Walker, the co-ordinator of the Naval Expeditionary Force (a permanently deployed battle group ready to move out at short notice) had been called to the meeting to outline what response the navy could muster to the Chairman, Prime Minister, Minister of Defence, the Chief Executive of the Naval Intelligence Division and several high ranking officers. After ten minutes of discussion, he was finally able to give his report.
“My latest update from Rear Admiral Johnstone on the Thunderous is that currently twenty six vessels are available. The Thunderous is the only dreadnought and it is accompanied currently by nine frigates, twelve destroyers and four assault carriers. The marine detachment aboard these carriers and other vessels numbers fifteen thousand troops along with light and heavy armour, mechs, dropships, gunships and all the equipment we will need to stage any planet-side deployment.” The Defence Minister was visibly concerned.
“Twenty six? This is a first contact scenario, not a field exercise. We need to field sixty ships, with ten carriers and at least three dreadnoughts.” Unsettled, Walker delivered a scathing reply.
“…and if you had not pooled the funding for Holdenburg’s defence platforms under our main budget, we probably could have afforded this year to have that many on standby with the NEF!”
“I recommend you restrain yourself in this time of crisis, Walker.” The Prime Minister had no time for this squabbling. “We are on the same side. Now, how quickly can these ships get to Rivet?”
“Forty eight hours if they go as soon as they are ready, maybe sooner. Reorganising to accommodate more ships will increase the time in which Rivet stands alone by at least three days. It’s your call, noble Chairman.” The Chairman, hero of the people, had remained silent throughout the meeting. Now he chose his time to speak. “Today, we either greet a new, friendly civilisation into our midst and a beautiful friendship begins – or we meet a little known and mysterious enemy in the brutal hardship of war. Risks must be taken in the name of progress; send the twenty six ships as soon as they are ready.”