The Arrival (FT, Closed)

by **Heliocalypse** » Tue Jun 07, 2011 2:16 am

Chapter One - Resolute Resolution

A person without a resolution is fragile as a glass. Beautiful, but prone to fracture, prone to Death

Dastia Bastion - Holocrum Starbase
Under Jurisdiction of Haralcian System Segment
Archus Galaxy

A small craft sped across the murky horizon while heading towards the Holocrum Starbase. The large archaic structure, is one of the many starbases that exist in the territories of the Principality. Three streak of yellowish trail marks the craft's trajectory, as the craft slowly approaches the starbase with decreasing momentum. Numerous patrol ships can be seen, noticing the arrival the mysterious craft before some of them decided to escort the unknown craft. Upon close proximity of the starbase, the escorting patrol ships decided to break off from their escort formation. Someone important is coming.

"Control Tower, this is HCL Emissary, the package is onboard and well. Requesting permission to land, over."

"Roger that Emissary. Clearance code is given, please check your navcom. Allowed port to land is Port Axial-34 to Port Axial-36. Reply your confirmation to land along with port choice to land."

"Clearance code received. We like to confirm our intention to land on Port Axial-35, over."

"Roger that. Thank you for visiting this starbase."

"The gratitude is all yours, operator. Initiating docking procedures...now."

The small craft, bearing the symbol of the Pentravase Government slowly descended from its acceleration trajectory to the waiting docking clamps below, on Port Axial-35. As the craft finally stops, the docking clamps quickly swivel into action, securing the craft with speed and efficiency. A small docking arm connects itself with the craft with three burst of steam. A young woman with a short brown hair and green eyes, clad in official slate blue coloured uniform stepped outside of the craft. With each step, the clank of her heavy boots can be heard. The woman is no other, than the Vice President herself, carrying the name of Hisilia Raila.

A man clad in signatory Haralcian official uniform, carries a small slate coloured datapad was waiting for her arrival. As soon Raila embarked from her personal transport, a series of elite bodyguards from the Pentravase System Segment flanked her sides.

The man quickly tapped the left shoulder of Raila from behind to attract her attention."It's time, Vice President"

Paused for a moment, Raila turned her head to face the man. She took the datapad from him before continuing her stroll, "Hm? It's time already? Right, on the double then" Upon her answer, Raila started her walk pace again, marching along the long corridor.

The corridor, set alight via series of illuminating lamps in regular intervals is directly connected to the main observation deck of the starbase via series of lifts. And Raila is heading straight to the observation deck, for a sole purpose unknown to the bodyguards and the man in the Haralcian uniform.The previous man, still tagged with Raila felt slightly intimidated by the malicious aura emanated from the bodyguards. Numerous grey coloured heavy blast doors in the corridor opened automatically to provide a viable path for Raila, as she moves closer and closer to the main observation deck.

As Raila is in front of the last blast door connecting the corridor and the observation deck, two Haralcian Station Guard stopped her group, "Halt, who goes there?!" This was surprising for Raila, by now the whole starbase should knew that she is coming. Seeing two heavy MAC guns trained on her group, Raila decided to confront the guards, "Open the path, i'm under the direct jurisdiction of the Pentravase Government"

Her guards quickly responded by aiming their plasma guns towards the heavily armoured Haralcian Station Guards. They knew that they have no chance combating the Haralcian Station Guards which clad in heavy armoured suits but decided to confront the Haralcian guards with ferocity, to protect Raila. Slowly peeking the stalemate, one of the Haralcian guards replied, "Sorry sir, we're not informed of your arrival and we are under the direct orders of Research Acquisitor Laisa to not let anyone pass this point"

Seeing the eye clashes between Raila and the Haralcian Station Guards, the previous man decided to interfere "And i'm the current commanding officer of this starbase, Officers. I insist you let us through or you're the ones that will get to walk outside the airlock."

With great reluctance, the Haralcian Station Guards let the Raila group to pass. She can feel the murderous gaze from the guards as she passed the point. Raila was surprised, that the escorting man was not an ordinary officer but instead the commanding officer of the starbase. The events hinted the seriousness of the situation, so she thought of.

Raila, with the man wearing the Haralcian uniform and her assortment of elite bodyguards had almost reached her goal, the main observation deck. She can see the floor of the deck, flooded by the tint of light from the surrounding stars. Which are possible due to semi-opaque glass lining the main observation deck. The deck was no more than a standard one, huge glass panels in place of a wall for optimum viewing on the outward side, and a multi-leveled platform to accommodate viewers, connected by a series of stairs. A few steps away from the observation deck, Raila turned to speak with her personal bodyguards.

"Wait me at the craft please. Thank you for your hard work." whispered Raila to her accompanying bodyguards. With a sharp crisp salute, the elite bodyguards left Raila in a single synchronized file formation. As her bodyguards left, Raila hiked the stairs of the observation deck and placed herself on one of the platform existed in the main observation deck, followed by the previous man. The man clad in Haralcian uniform foresaw this event and decided to interact with Raila again.

"Now who are you again, a Minister? What are you doing here, commanding this starbase? " asked Raila.

The man nodded in silence before pushing her second question aside, "That's not for you to know my dear. President's orders I'm afraid."

Frustrated by the man's answer, Raila asked the man another question, "I can clearly figure out what he planned for me, that lecherous man. Where did he end up to?"

The man stared for a few moments at the depth of the corridor before replying, "I'm not sure myself. Well back on important matters, you need to sign this document and this document then the order will be complete. But i wonder, are your plan sanctioned by the President?" As the man handed a new datapad for Raila to sign, he can clearly see the sense of angst bewildered across her face.

"I assumed it is, since Clero himself is MIA. It's time for the Principality to set a foothold. So our fleets will be no longer lost in the so called new universe" answered Raila simply while her hands swiftly crafted a signature on the datapad.

The man, gazed at her swift hands replied, "I hope you knew what are you doing, Vice President. The central government might view it as...treason"

His reply had made Raila enraged with fury. Patiently keeping it under control, Raila placed her views to the cascade of stars outside to solve her anger. A counter argument must be made, she thought, to enforce her idea of the plan. Slowly clasping her hands together, Raila begun to think."Well dear Minister, the plan is extremely vital for the whole Principality to speak of. It's not a light matter i know but if we stay still, we will cease to exist" answered Raila politely.

This development had caught the Minister offguard. For several years he knew that Raila is a short fuse. As the Minister tries to compose his reply, a mysterious figure caught the attention of the duo.

The mysterious man, wearing a black suit slowly walks towards Raila and the Minister. A small crest bearing the symbol of Research Acquisitors can be seen on the mysterious man. With fiery red eyes and a large structure, the man started to speak, "Well well well, what do we have here? Hm, the Vice President, with her accomplice? Are you trying to do something reckless again, hm?"

Raila was surprised by the Research Acquisitors' intervention. The name 'Laisa' can be seen on the man's suit. The Minister, stricken by an awe of fear decided to remain silent.

"Stay out of this, Laisa. It's not your inherent domain to interfere my actions" replied Raila as she noticed that the mysterious man had gotten too close for comfort.

Laisa quietly ran his fingers across the glacial expression of Ralia, "Aahhh, what a beautiful face, what are you trying to do, my dear?"

Enraged by Laisa's action, Raila quickly deflected the hands of Laisa while replying with a strict authoritative voice, "Keep your hands off me, you filthy government lapdog. I'm trying to bring a revolution to the Principality" The Minister coughed lightly upon their actions, to remind them that they're being watched.

Revolted by Raila actions, Laisa calmly scoffed her insidious remark, "Okay, okay i backed off. But, how are you going to do it, with Clero gone hm...?"

Raila stared directly at his eyes, as if she is trying to subjugate Laisa with methods unknown. Complementing her usual composure, Raila replied his statement with simple words, "Watch with your eyes and keep your mouth shut"

As Raila answered, she turned her head to the outside, seeing numerous ships arrived from their travel. The ships arrival were manifested by multitude of purple flashes as their warp drives disengaged. The ships rapidly congregate into a tight tactical formation with the largest ship being the center of the formation. The name of HCL Soros can be clearly seen on the large behemoth, bearing an alluring contour for a ship of its size.

Figuring out the plans of Raila, Laisa calmly responded to her interjection, "Ohohoho, you're sending that fleet! I hope it won't turn out dead so soon! Muahahaha!"

Raila saw his laughter as a vice punishable by several years of prison. But she is powerless, she cannot do anything to him, since Laisa is one of the Research Acquisitors. He rapidly vanished into the darkness as quickly he showed up, with overtones of malicious laughter slithering the air.

"That damn lapdog...go as he wishes...never mind him, Minister, it's time to execute the plan" bothered Raila as she was gnashing her teeth in anger.

The spectating Minister, heard of Raila's order replied simply, "As you wish, Vice President"

Raila saw the Minister was restless with her order and decided to attend to his worry by speaking to him, "It's not the matter of treason Minister. For our survival, someone have to go. Someone have to get the job done."

The Minister scowled into a smaller footprint, not believing what did she just said to him. Her answer left a bitter aftertaste to the Minister's mind, and he cannot do more than to agree to her actions.

"I hate to admit it, but you're right, Vice President. I shall excuse myself then" replied the Minister as he walked away from the deck after obtaining Raila's signature.

Seeing the Minister boarding a lift to leave the scene, Raila shouted to him, "Thank you for your hard work, Minister. Clero will be surprised if he saw what's coming for him." The Minister responded fundamentally by saluting to her, before the lift doors closes automatically.

Observing the graceful movements of the ships outside, Raila gazed into the horizon, seeing the binary star of the system slowly dances across her viewing area. Her vision was partially blocked by the ships as the ships slowly shuffling itself, readying for a formation. For destination unknown.

by **Heliocalypse** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 12:25 pm

Chapter Two-Mission of Glory

Glory is just a facade of what not yet to be revealed

Planet Surface
Planet Odecon, Orbison System
Archus Galaxy

Near the planet surface of the grey and blue coloured world, a mass of hulking metal starts to arrange themselves as if they're in a procession. Millions of humans, moving dots concentrated in close proximity of the moving lines of metal. It's a special occasion indeed, for the Odecon 3rd Planetary Defense Fleet Group to join on the new mission, purported to be mission of glory for the whole Principality. Multitude scrolls of propaganda ran through the streets, the heart lines of Odecon city which is the one of many city on the planet itself.

“Attention, hut! Line up!”

“Sir yes sir!”

“Today is such a glorious day! We shall see action! We shall explore! Don't you agree?!”

“Of course sir!”

“Now, platoons! Form up! Prepare to board the transport!”

Thus walked platoon units of Odecon 12th Infantry into the waiting transport, repeated several hundred times by other similarly responsive units of the Odecon Planetary Defense Forces. Various military units and logistics alike begun their migration into the looming transports, hovering a few centimeters above the ground.

A young man, bearing the title of Captain on his hat stared into the depth of the event. Captain Rikol was it, and no other. “Have the preparations completed?” asked Rikol to his adviser. Seeing Rikol's fiery brown eyes, his adviser replied, “With diligence, Captain. The preparation had been swell. We shall finish our assembly under four hours and meet up at rendezvous point on low orbit with some fleets that originated from Dastia”

“Dastia? I never heard of such system before, I thought it never existed” peered Rikol with curiosity.

“Oh, you never heard of Dastia? The fleets that came from there are of the front fleets of the Principality and kept a secret to many. Perhaps it was the Pentravase initiative to keep it under wraps” answered Rikol adviser as she starts to gaze around.

Intrigued even more, Rikol is interested to ask in detail but he decided to tie his curiosity down. Simply speaking with a plain face, he replied to his adviser, “Well whatever then, I couldn't care less bout them, I just want this mission end quick”

“Sir, it's an one way mission. That's why it's called as Mission of Glory” spoke his adviser in a flat tone. Her answer had left Rikol quite startled. But the notion of her statement was completely brushed off by Rikol. He doesn't want to believe the cold fact.

After the short conversation, Rikol decided to leave the area and headed straight to his ship's bridge, followed by his adviser. The transports that loomed earlier had begun their propulsion systems, en route to low orbit. The departure of the transports were celebrated with cheers and tears. Some were happy to go for the mission, some were sad to leave their family and loved ones behind.

Onboard HCL Rikol
Odecon Military Bay Seven
Planet Odecon, Orbison System
Archus Galaxy

“Yes honey, yes. I will come home later, keep the baby in the tummy safe”

“Hey Mialo, done talking to your wife yet?”

“Eh! Captain Rikol! Sorry, I missed my wife so much!”

“Hahaha, wish I have a wife, Mialo. Are you prepared yet? We might not be coming back”

“Captain, stop teasing me! You know I can't live without seeing my wife at least once per month!”

“Oho? Ok, well promise me one thing. Always follow my orders and I will promise to bring all of us, back alive”

“Ok, deal”

“Good, have this story book then. It's going to be a very long journey”

Mialo slowly watched Rikol left in a distance. He was surprised that Rikol gave him an old book, labeled as History. Mialo guessed, it might be one of the existing rare history archives regarding Principality's history. After saluting to Rikol and watching him leave, Mialo with the book on his left hand returned to his quarters.

Onboard HCL Rikol
Low Orbit Enroute to Naec Warp Gate
Planet Odecon, Orbison System
Archus Galaxy

One by one, the transports and plethora of vessels in Odecon City started their slow ascend to low orbit. Rikol, manning his position could see on how massive the movement is. Numerous ships were rising from the planet surface, which Rikol can tell by the characteristic ship silhouettes and exhaust trails. It's a grand day indeed, with most of the Odecon Planetary Defense Force fleets are participating in the mission.

“This is Fleet Two, fleet up and ready”

“Fleet Seven here”

“Utility Fleet Five reporting”

“Fleet Four arrival in ETA 230 seconds”

“Fleet Eight here”

“Good, all fleets, take Tactical Position Four. Prepare for warp jump. Set coordinates as received. Transmission of coordinates will begin shortly. Ship Captains, prepare for coordinates lock.”

“Dastia Fleet One reporting, we will join your formation shortly”

“Fleet Three of Dastia arrived, taking position”

“Dastia Fleet Five reporting, ready for warp jump”

“Naec Warp Gate will activate in 650 seconds, all fleets on high alert”

A mass of ships started to line up upon the mouth of the large Naec Warp Gate. With three synchronized purple burst of energy, the gate slowly activates, with colours of black and purple filling its core. As the activation of the gate had finished, the fleets had moved into their respective position, ready to execute the warp jump. A shimmer of cyan colour envelops the gate, making the gate glow in the dark backdrop of space. One by one, the ships of the arranged fleets were being pulled into the gate with a pulse of energy burst. Thus there they go, in their assigned mission, arranged by the Vice President herself.

by **Heliocalypse** » Sun Jun 12, 2011 1:32 am

Chapter Three - Judging Judgements

Certainly, not every judgement is of a flair one, lest to be true to be accepted

Dastia Bastion-Holocrum Starbase
Onboard HCL Soros
Temporary Formation Seven
Archus Galaxy

A lone person, looked deep into the gaze of stars on a ship bridge. The ship, the largest of all in the formation lies motionlessly in the thick of it. Three thick gorge lines run through the ship, and to the back main thrusters complete with immense set of flaps respectively, stacked in formation of seven, mammoth engines designed to propel the behemoth forward with ferocity. Numerous smaller thrusters lined the ship's sleek shape, a shape of a long broad sword. Slowly withering away, the ship thrusters glowed in yellow tint. The ship bridge however is nowhere to be seen on the large mass, cleverly hidden inside the hull. Three pylon-like structure rose from the main body, as if they're like actual command towers, but instead filled with heavy weaponry and other equipments. Sixteen large turrets with four heavy barrels respectively, lined symmetrically on the ship, with numerous smaller others aligned in similar tactical formation. Lines and lines of circles sporadically lined the massive hull, indicative of some sort of hatch or so.

Five cavern like space hollowed the front of the ship, as if the ship is entirely hollow from back to front. It's no more a dull space, to house one of the ship's most destructive armament, the Helacron Experimental Weapon. Huge ventral bays with clawing shutters bearing the same number of the caverns, line strategically on the ship, armed with numerous small turrets to deter would be assailants. Other ships are merely dots and lines, on the central ship, harrying it like bees to honey. Filled with expansive corridors that crisscrossing its internal space like a grand maze, the massive ship resembles the complexity of a small town, with numerous equipment decorated the interior of the ship. Coloured officially as slate blue, it's a magnificent sight to behold. And the ship is no other, than HCL Soros, one of the famous Pentravase super capital ship, made proudly of twelve kilometers of titanium and numerous other elements than the invaluable experienced ship crews it possess currently. Crewed by the finest of the finest, it's one of the main pride of Pentravase nay, the whole Principality itself, and a glittering jewel of pure carnage.

The lone person, buried in the thicket of HCL Soros's main command bridge quietly sipped a cold drink, while his outer perimeter is lined with numerous workstations for personnel. The man, coloured by the official colours of HCL Soros sat quietly until a known entity made an appearance to him. It was, the Vice President herself, meeting the man of power.

“So, Vice President, are you serious to initiate the plan?”

“Yes, i'm serious to initiate this plan. We had been delayed for five years now. We're wasting time”

“Certainly I can see that, but with Research Acquisitors hot on your trail, shouldn't you be worried of it, of them? Even a little about it?”

“They can't find anything on me. I had it sorted out”

“Whatever that pleases you then. I shall carry out your order, diligently”

“Thank you for your cooperation, admiral”

Slowly walking with a tone of frustration, Raila left the Admiral to his attendances. The admiral was no other, Admiral Soros, the captain of the massive HCL Soros. She can see a grin reeks off the admiral's face, as if he was expecting something in return. Traveling herself to the nearest transport, she saluted to the admiral once, perhaps the last time for the admiral. The admiral responded, with surgical precision of a salute. Seeing Raila had left, Soros decided to call his line of tacticians and advisers.

“So, how do we squeeze the Soros Detachment over the gate?” asked Soros to his waiting line of tacticians and advisers. Clearly he can see the face of amazement amongst their faces, since the movement was not taken into account, nay or even theorized.

As his advisers and tacticians were bantering with each other, Soros quietly watched over a distance. Wearing a hat bearing the name 'Admiral' that is coloured by steel grey hair and mustache, he stared towards his intercom. For several hours his patrons bickered and bantered with each other up to the point that Soros started to view them with a face of disappointment. In regard of that, he decided to call someone using his intercom.

“Link me up with Captain Rikol of HCL Rikol”

“Confirmed. Acquiring wavelength. Do please wait for at least 120 seconds to establish communication link”

Smiling lightly, Soros placed his view outside. He can still hear the incessant chatter between his patrons. It seems by Soros hearing, he figured that they haven't come up with a viable solution to deal with something of the scale of the plan. With three clicks and a small red glow, his intercom phone vibrated lightly indicating the link had been set up. Once again smiling lightly, Soros is expecting something out of the upcoming conversation, counting that his patrons didn't end with something fruitful just yet.

Dastia Bastion-Holocrum Starbase
Onboard HCL Rikol
Temporary Formation Seven
Archus Galaxy

Viewing the mass amount of ships outside, Rikol sighed. He is thinking of what the future will reveal to his crews and his ship. The last time a large fleet movement initiated was during the Great Storm event but even so, the scale of the current movement dwarfed the previous fleet movement, by several folds altogether. Rikol started to roll his ode of thought. Is the Vice President herself was totally insane? Being the man of duty himself, he can't do nothing much than to obey the government's order.

“So, Laisa, what bring you to my decrepit ship?” asked Rikol lightly to the waiting Research Acquisitor, hidden in a shadow.

The man smiled and answered, “Raila is sacrificing us to accomplish something insignificant. I'm asking you to stop her plan. Do you think condemning the lives of at least one hundred thousand of humans to somewhere unknown as humane?”

“I'm no more than a man of duty, Laisa. I can't do anything. You're asking me to initiate a mutiny so you won't taint your hands is it?” stared Rikol with a tone of sarcasm.

“Oh, you're brighter than what you looked like, hehe. Well of course, that was the deal my friend. If you cannot do it, which I suspect you will never do, I will be watching your every movement.” speak Laisa inquisitively.

As Laisa finished his sentence, Rikol's ship intercom ring with a soft tone. Staring at Laisa and suggesting he should leave with the movement of Rikol's eyes, Rikol slowly picked up the phone of his intercom.

“Yes, who is it?”

“Heeey, Rikol! Wait, Captain Rikol! Guess who is this”

“Oh, Soros? Why did you call? Hm you're calling from HCL Soros?”

“Yep, and I want to ask you something,”

“Wait, HCL Soros? Oh sorry for my improper greetings, salutations Admiral Soros”

“Ok ok, i'm sick of hearing that, now how about you concern more of what I’m trying to ask and worry less of that matter?”

“Sorry admiral. So, what is it then?”

“I'm trying to inquire, how do we fit the whole Soros Detachement through the Horalce Gate? We got two hours left before the plan starts”

“Deprivation and desperation are the catalysts of creativity my friend. HCL Soros is a gate ship right?”

“Yeah, it's a gate ship all right. Then what?”

“ How about you go first, and the rest of the fleet can come later? We can reduce risks that way, than jumping with the whole detachment at once”

“Hm could work, but isn't that move is risky? I mean, you're sending only one ship through the gate and only god knows what happen thereafter”

“Geez, well take two Proctos Class with you then, Admiral. You're worrying too much! You're an admiral for god's sake!”

“Ahahaha, ok ok Captain Rikol. I will let it slide, voicing against your superior, since you came up with a plan, unlike my useless tacticians...damn them...”

“Glad to hear that, admiral. Let's have a drink later sometimes, and have a talk, man to man. No more superior this superior that kind of stuff”

“Later, if we can arrive, alive. Thank you for your advice”

“With pleasure, admiral”

Gazing with cold eyes, Laisa looked at Rikol momentarily. Knowing his plea of bargain had failed, Laisa left Rikol with the angst of a tempest. Sighing, Rikol is feeling grateful, now he dealt with two problems at once. Rapidly composing his thoughts again, Rikol is immersed in the depth of his mind, yet again.

Dastia Bastion-Holocrum Starbase
Onboard HCL Soros
Temporary Formation Seven
Archus Galaxy

Soros, heard of Rikol's suggestion stormed his strategy deck. His fury of notion had made most of his patrons stunned. They were surprised that Soros have come with an actual solution, that had decimated the lingering stalemate over the plan. Bowing repeatedly, the tacticians and advisers asked Soros for forgiveness, for their inefficiencies to come up with a solution. Soros merely glared at them, and ordered the group to properly compose the new solution. They agreed of Soros's order, and started to work up the solution in great detail. After a few seemingly long lapses of time, the group presented Soros with the new solution.

Holding his fleet intercom, Soros shouts his order with ferocity, “Attention all ships, we had come with the jump solution! HCL Soros accompanied with two Proctos shall jump first, followed by other ships! The jumping solution should been transmitted to your ship by now! There will be no reliable communication contact between the front ships and the ones that haven't jumped until a new Warp Gate is made in the destination coordinates! So by all means, follow the jump solution! No heroic acts, understand?! We will begin the operation now, all ships on high alert!”

With the command made, the large thrusters of HCL Soros activated itself with huge thrust of exhaust. Even with such thrusters on a large scale, they were merely gently pushing HCL Soros forward. As HCL Soros is chugging forward, two Proctos that were in the formation started their escort procedure. Three yellow trails marked the movement of each Proctos Class ships, followed by several thick lines of exhaust trails that are emanating from HCL Soros.

“All hands, be prepared for the warp jump! Today shall be the day our names be carved into the history of the Principality! We shall go no one had gone before! Brace for impact!”

Slowly but surely, the Horalce Warp Gate unleashed its energy sheath, engulfing HCL Soros with his escorts. The very superstructure of HCL Soros is screaming, as if the warp gate is consuming the ship itself. But it's not the case of consumption, as the ship is literally shot into the warp channel, to a new destination. Somewhere that mentioned briefly in long ranged scan reports and thought as false probe readings. It's a gamble for Soros. For he is gambling his ship with two Proctos, just to follow the Vice President's plan.

Unknown Location
Unknown System
Archus Galaxy

Returning from HCL Rikol, Laisa quickly initiated his craft's warp drive. Jumping at random coordinates numerous times, finally Laisa piloted his craft over one mysterious ship. The ship, hanging there motionlessly in the thicket of a suffocating nebula cloud, hidden from most sights. Upon boarding the mysterious ship, Laisa quickly marched to the command room of the ship, on his intentions to report to someone. Someone superior to him.

"So, how was your effort to make Captain Rikol to change his mind? Hm?"

"Sorry milord, it seems that i had failed you. I'm ready to accept a punishment for my lackluster performance"

"No need, we shall observe them from the shadows. It's surely an interesting turn of events...."

"Certainly yes, thank you for sparing my life, milord"

"Well Laisa, you did asked for a punishment. So go you then, to observe Soros and his little toy ships..."

"Accord with diligence, my lord. I shall execute your orders"

As his superior finished talked to Laisa, Laisa flexed his head on reflex. A huge plasma bolt had struck the wall of the room, traveling in a line where his head was positioned. If Laisa was late in mere milliseconds, he would had lost his head. Smiling innocently, he quickly left the room before another three rounds of plasma were fired, barely touching his suit. Laisa quickly boarded his craft, and left the ship in haste.

Thus, went Laisa again, with his small craft to observe Soros's fleet movement. He was reporting to his superior, on the current situation to sabotage the Vice President's plan. Clearly he had failed, with departure of Soros swiftly. It was like a kick to his face, for which Laisa rarely failed his assigned mission. He figured that, another one failure might as well cost his life.

by **Heliocalypse** » Sun Jun 12, 2011 1:45 am

Chapter Four - Coded Signal

Ploughing the unknown, one can't help, than to seek help from others

Unknown System
Beta Quadrant
Milky Way Galaxy

On one distant system, far from any theorized civilization, a purple black horizon started to form near an uninhibited planet. With screaming and wailing of radio waves across the sector, three silhouettes resembling a nacelle of an unknown spear formed in the middle of the event horizon. The shapes, belonged no other than to the HCL Soros and his escort of two Proctos ships.

As the ships started to break into the system, three blasts of intense energy emanated from the event horizon, hitting the planet near the epicenter of the event. The first blast shock through the atmosphere of the planet, stripping it away. The second blast literally vaporized the free mass of water on the planet. And the final one, scorched the planet surface, leaving it barren. As the last blast of energy hit the planet, the previous three ships had fully manifested themselves in the sector, with the dissolving event horizon as their backdrop.

“Status report. It seems we had arrived”

“HCL Animo ready, systems fully operational with minor structural damage”

“HCL Socrel suffered minor hull damage, otherwise we're ready”

“Good, all ships, start system scan sweep”

“Acknowledged”

“Carrying out orders!”

With the order made, the three ships started their scan procedure. Numerous sensors unsheathed from their protective covers, affixed to scan the system.

Soros sat on his chair, reviewing the current report of their situation. Several minor systems had suffered damage and some of his ship crews had been injured due to the warp jump, as the report revealed itself to Soros. Facing a holoscreen that floated in mid air, Soros called for a teleconference between him and the other ship captains.

“So, what do you think of this new universe?”

“Esteemed admiral, the system is no distant than what we faced in our galaxy”

“Yeah, I seconded the notion of Captain Aern, it seems familiar”

“Can you tell where are we then?”

“Based on the last report from the probes that were sent into this current galaxy, I believe we're in a quadrant that is called as Beta Quadrant”

“And I myself, as Captain Aern denounce the probe report as no more than a falter of truth”

“Calm down, you two. Now, what solution that we can have? I'm more in tune to seek a solution than pointlessly arguing. We're carrying the fate of the whole Principality”

“Sorry admiral, well I myself not sure of what solution that-”

“Wait, how about we send a signal then?”

“Hey Captain Kiro, that can compromise our position!”

“Wait. Let me hear it, Captain Kiro. Come to my ship. Conference is now dissolved.”

“Roger that, admiral, Captain Aern reporting out.”

“Acknowledged, admiral. I will head to your ship then”

Viewing the now barren planet, Soros waited for Captain Kiro to board his ship. Knowing that it's of a tactical importance, Soros decided to move into a more secure room. A diplomat room it seems, with one titanium table stuck on the floor accompanied by two titanium chair. The crest of HCL Soros can be seen on the wall, colouring the otherwise dull grey coloured wall. Soros sat on one of the cold chair whilst waiting for Captain Kiro to attend to his small meeting request. As he almost dozed off while waiting, the door of the room opened, revealing a young woman. Soros was surprised on who it might be, until he saw the tag name of Kiro on the woman's uniform.

“Ah, Captain Kiro, I didn't know that you're a woman” chided Soros. He can feel the intense gaze of Kiro as their eyes met with each other.

“Truth to be told, many thought i'm a man, probably because of the armour suit im wearing. Now, you're interested of the plan instead of me, aren't you admiral?” replied Kiro with a melancholic tone.

Soros laughed lightly, “Haha, yes. Explain to me the plan then, Captain.”

“Well we can send a message in hope someone else picked it up, counting we only have unverifiable data of the new universe” answered Kiro lightly.

Rubbing his chin, Soros thought of the consequences of the plan in a single flick of time. Remembering that communication with the rest of the detachment will take more time than necessary, Soros agreed to Kiro's idea, “Very well then, so in what form of signal should we give out? Mind that due to our arrival, the planet below is scorched. I think whoever that received it might view us as a threat”

“Oh, we shall move to the adjacent system then, and transmit the signal from there. I'd suggest to use a series of pulses, similar to what our ancestors once used. Clearly with advanced technologies if any, the receiver can decipher our message even when it or her or he is using a radio telescope” speak Kiro with brazen confidence.

Nodding and sighing, Soros once again agreed to her plan, “Hm, sounds viable. Dismissed then, thank you for your work”

“With pleasure, admiral” replied Kiro simply before leaving the room. Staring at the dull colour of the room, Soros decided to leave the room and meet up with his communication officer.

Walking across the corridor of his ship, he can see how chaotic the situation in his ship. Soros thought it was serene but the vision upon his eyes proven otherwise. Klaxons buzzing off, systems turning off and on while ship engineers scour the area like ants. Wearing a face of disappointment, Soros decided to walk fast to the communication room. The spectating crews noticed Soros was watching them, and become more fervent to repair the damages suffered by the colossal vessel.

Walking slowly towards a room labeled as Third Communication Room, Soros lightly tapped on the semi-closed door of the room, “Hello, Officer Laoki here?”. He can see the hustle and bustle of the room, personnel scouring the com terminal from one to another, in order to facilitate and coordinate repairs.

“Oh admiral! Yes, what I can do for you?” answered Laoki quickly, peppered by the sounds of chaotic atmosphere in the background.

Wearing a face of angst, Soros asked him, “Laoki, how long till my ship is ready?”

Soros question had left the room suddenly quiet. It seems that no one in the room is brave enough to tell Soros the exact time his ship will be ready, except for Laoki. Seeing the clock on the wall, Laoki simply responded, “Erm one hour. Anything else, admiral?”

“I would like for you to compose a message for our ship to give out in one hour from now” speak Soros as he shifted his eyes around, scanning the area.

Laoki, heard of Soros message, quickly responded while suddenly an additional two warning klaxons had sounded off, “Okay, admiral! Now admiral, it's quite dangerous here, so by all means, I suggest that you leave this area”

“No need to caution me, I will leave now. Thank you” replied Soros lighty as he started his pace to leave the area. As Soros left the area, Officier Laoki started to shout his orders, to coordinate minor repairs in the ship. Soros decided to head to his personal quarters, to take a few winks of rest. The three lone ships quickly activated their warp drives when the operational statuses of them reached favourable of 95%, ordered by Captain Kiro herself.

Soros was awakened from his sleep as he can feel the ship had suddenly decelerated. Knowing that the ships had arrived into a new position, Soros quickly donned his admiral suit and ran to the ship's bridge. Entering the ship's bridge, he can see numerous officers manning their position, facing holographic monitors. Heading towards Officer Laoki, Soros asked him of his current progress.

“So, how is the signal is going?”

“It's now complete. To eliminate duplicate signals, our ship shall transmit the message, admiral”

“Hm good, proceed with message transmission. I hope the receiver can understand it”

“Don't worry admiral, I had ran a few research on the language they or whatever they're, using in this new galaxy. Transmitting message, now”

For now, Soros and his escort of ships just need to wait. For someone to pickup the signal, in order to tell them, their current position accurately. The message was broadcasted in Code Three, akin similar to an old age Marchus Confederation code, which the scientists of the Principality called it as Code of Morse. The message served three purposes. First, to notify that the Principality had arrived in the new galaxy, second, to recognize any new contacts that are advanced enough to reply the message and lastly, to tell the new contact, on the Principality intents to set a foothold somewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy.

Code: Select all: - .... .. ... / .... -.-. .-.. / ... --- .-. --- ... .-.-.- / ... --- .-. --- ... / -.. . - .- -.-. .... -- . -. - .-.-.- / .--. .-. .. -. -.-. .. .--. .- .-.. .. - -.-- / --- ..-. / .... . .-.. .. --- -.-. .- .-.. -.-- .--. ... . .-.-.- / .-- . / ..-. --- --- - .... --- .-.. -.. / .... . .-. . .-.-.- / .... . .-.. .-.. --- .-.-.- / - . .-.. .-.. / ..- ... / .-- .... . .-. . .-.-.- / .-- .... . .-. . / .- .-. . / .-- . .-.-.-

by **Vernii** » Wed Jun 29, 2011 9:09 pm

The FTL communications array of the tramp freighter Sultana resembled an elaborate radio antenna, though the machinery underlying its operation was much more complex. It trawled the extents of the electromagnetic spectrum, its sensitivity even extending to the parallel dimensions that closely intertwined with real-space.

Accordingly, the Soros' powerful transmission was picked up by Sultana's communications array, the computers that serviced it easily breaking the simple encryption that the message had been broadcast with, and sending it to the console of Kimberly Black, who doubled as both the ship's operations officer and navigator.

+++

A tropical sun beat down, dancing girls swirled, drums beat rhythmically, and a struggling captive was brought before the skull throne overlooking the ceremony. A black caped figure resided upon it, scowling down at the prisoner before him. A wrist band on the merciless figure politely vibrated. He ignored it. The drums went silent, the dancers stilled. "Henry Skelton! For the crimes of unpaid gambling debts, exaggeration of product value, and being a general scumbag, you are condemned to death, the sentence to be carried out immediately. My will be done." His wrist vibrated a second time, once more ignored. An executioner approached the captive with a wicked club, and soon the event was marked by crimson splotches on the ground and the gurgles of the captive as he was beaten to death. The club raised one final time, coming down with enough force to fracture the skull. As if in celebration, the drummers and dancers roared back to live. The figure leaned back on his throne, it was good to be king. His wrist vibrated again its in attempt to gain attention. He sighed and reached back and unclipped his VR headpiece, once again surrounded by the metal walls of his quarters; once again James Feldman, captain, instead of king.

"What is it Kim? I was in the middle of...a nap."

"Sorry to disturb you. We picked up a general broadcast message, it reads as follows. "This is HCL Soros. Soros Detachment. Principality of Heliocalypse. We foothold here. Hello. Tell us where. Where are we. Message ends."

The captain considered it for a moment, "Simplistic message aside, this Soros is probably some type of command vessel or flagship, note that it follows up with "Soros Detachment" which is presumably a unit of some sort, which means that the vessel that sent out the message isn't alone. Did the database have anything about this "Principality" that it mentions?"

"No. Nor did the ship."

"Eh, its a big galaxy. "Foothold" implies that its an expedition of some sort, and it would explain why we don't have anything on them if they aren't from around here. The last part's easy, they aren't quite sure where they are. Why they don't know that is a mystery. Anyway, what do you think Kim?"

"I think we should ignore it sir."

"I don't."

"Sir, may I remind you that we're a merchant ship, not a surveyor?"

"A merchant ship that's currently in need of both cargo and a job. This "Soros Detachment" may be able to provide us with business contacts or opportunities. Dismantling asteroids for raw materials may bring in some revenue, but we need something more substantial."

"And what if they aren't friendly?"

"We'll be cautious. Have you backtracked the signal's intensity to point of origin?"

"Yea, the computers narrowed it down to a volume of space 10 light years in diameter, only one system within that volume."

"Easy then. Have us underway within the hour."

+++

Sultana's jump drive deposited her into the outer-perimeter of the system, where she was barely lit by the F-type furnace that the system's worlds were held captive by. Far closer to the star, two rocky worlds swung around it on fast orbits. Both were baked beyond any hope of harboring life, and the closest was a semi-molten hell. Beyond them lay the scattered necklace of an asteroid belt, followed by two more gas giants that were both comparable to Sol's Jupiter in size and mass. An almost entirely unremarkable system by most standards, except for the single blue gem that orbited the first gas giant.

The moon was rich in surface water, breathable atmosphere, and her surface air pressure and gravity were only a bit higher than Standard. A strong magnetic field protected it from the radiation belts of the gas giant that mothered it. Habitable moons weren't unknown, but they were uncommon enough that it was a notable discovery, and Feldman's mouth watered at the possibility of claiming (and then selling) colonization rights to it. But those hopes were dashed as his eyes came back to the icons of three starships that were sitting in the inner system, the starships that had sent the signal and had gotten here first. Damn.

Kim spoke up, "I'm guessing they're a colonization fleet then, it'd make sense with them being in this system."

"That bodes well for us then. Colonies typically need supplies, and supplies need transport to ship them. Send them a message, text only, no encryption."

+++

HCL Soros. This is Sultana, we received your signal. We come in peace. Do you need assistance?

by **Heliocalypse** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 3:16 am

Chapter Five - Illusion of Tranquility

Not everything are of what one might think of in a first glance, a more profound meaning is cleverly hidden from gaze except from the aware

Pentravase Third Capital World, 'Lici Dyha-Zarche'
Vice President Quarters
Archus Galaxy

Raila quietly reviewing the current matters that pertained to her interest. Her hands swiftly moves in the air, interacting with a floating holographic interface that came from a small monitor on her table. It's a basic room, with the crest of the Pentravase Government on the wall, followed by the tones of slate blue coloured titanium of the room. She was so immersed of her work, that she slowly starts to lose her normally acute awareness, until a sound of a knock resonated on her room door.

“Come in.” speak Raila as her eyes attuned to the floating interface while her ears piqued the cue of the knocking sound.

A middle aged man with white hair, wearing a hint of a subtle face while dressed in royal white accompanied by tones of red line coloured suit stepped in the room, and saluted to Raila, “Good day to you, Vice President.”

“And you're? I'm pretty busy right now, you know...” lightly answered Raila. Her view is still fixated to the floating interface, and not directed her interest to the newly arrived patron.

Slightly agitated, the new entity coughed lightly before giving an answer, “Ah, I only ask a fraction of your time, Vice President.”

“Hm, Radisol? What brings the Grand Admiral here? It's rare to see you out of your assigned area.” peeked Raila as her attention was dragged by the man's light action.

Radisol quickly seated himself with an empty chair in front of Raila while slowly clasping his hands together on her table. His action prompted Raila to switch off her monitor and he can clearly see that Raila is not happy with his patronage. Sense of anger can be seen running across Raila's face, as Radisol silently placed himself a few distance from her imminent fury.

“I'm sure you knew of what i'm here for, Vice President.” replied Radisol while deeply staring of Raila's green eyes.

Raila responded with an intense gaze and tone of seriousness, “Oh, about, him...is it?”

“Yes. Releasing him is a vile mistake, Vice President. The central government are not going to be silent over the matter and other segmental governments had taken the wind of your current 'actions' too. ” speak Radisol as he starts to increase the depth of his steel gaze.

Raila forced a smile, and answered simply, “I knew bout it already, I will go fix it later, amongst that lines. And you're here for?”

Radisol, surprised of the her reply begin his short counter argument on Raila answer, while slowly withdrawing a datapad, that listed the matter in question and showed it directly to her. A small form suspended in the middle of the display. However, the monitor on her table starts to flicker into life, and blocked his view of Raila as it projected yet again a similar interface as before.

“I'm here to ask for you to withdraw his 'release' order. He's too dangerous.” interjected Radisol, while he waits patiently for her answer. He put the datapad away from her view, seeing that Raila was not interested to attend to the matter.

Raising her eyebrow slightly while arching her eyes over the small holographic interface, Raila speak simply, “Wait. What makes you say that? I thought you're not so interested in mind games, aren't you, Radisol?”

“Do you know what he had did?” peeked Radisol lightly, as he interacted with the datapad before putting it aside. His question had suddenly made Raila to turn off her table's holographic monitor off yet again.

Spinning her chair around, Raila extracted a document unit from a wall behind her, “I'm clearly aware of that, but that's just plain old speculation. Stay out of this, Radisol. Are you going to challenge the law set by the Archivers? Besides, he was 'exiled', remember?”

“I will not accept that simplistic reason. Even if it kills me, I shall not stop pursuing his imprisonment.” speak Radisol with a monotone flavour.

Slinking her right eye slightly, Raila replied while opening the document slowly after she matched her gaze with Radisol's cold eyes, “Well, no. I thought you're the man of honour of Lucius, Radisol. Never thought you will sink this low.”

“Hm, how about a compromise then? If you agree, I will cease officially of my pursuit. Certainly it will tune the balance into your favour, Vice President.” shrugged Radisol as he saw Raila was more interested on reading the document than interacting with him.

His offer piqued her interest and she stowed the document away, “Interesting. You're exactly like the others said, a clever card. Let me hear it then.”

“Ah, your words are too heavy for me to carry, Vice President. Let me send a representative. I knew Laisa is on the move and he is not merciful as I was told of. Involvement of Laisa will complicate things and my representative might can act as a 'leverage' to avoid that...besides, with the representative, I can monitor the so called 'exile' with relative ease, without calling my whole detachment to chase him.” smirked Radisol lightly while seeing her face directly. He handed the datapad to Raila and a profile of his representative shown itself towards her eyes.

Raila thought of the matter in single flick of time and quickly responded tactfully, “Hm...you got a point there. Your representative however looks plain. Well whatever, I couldn't care less about Laisa, I hate him. I accept your end of the bargain then. Dismissed.”

“Pleasure talking with you, Vice President.” paced Radisol, as he exited the chair with a swift motion of a storm and nearing the exit of the room.

Raila, holding the datapad slowly preached to him lightly, “Remember Radisol, the instant I see you cross that line...you know the consequences...”

“Same goes to you, Vice President. You have many eyes focused on you now. Watch, your back..” answered Radisol as he left the room immediately thereafter.

Another round of headache hit Raila as she was rubbing her temple. Apparently, her plan had taken interest of various entities of power in the Principality, many more than she had calculated. Raila expected a counter reaction to her plan but not as robust as what she's facing currently. It seems that the current matters at hand are not so tranquil as it looked like on the cold image of surfaces in the Principality.

Unknown System
Onboard HCL Soros
Milky Way Galaxy

Soros sat on his command chair, with a cup of frothing eio on his right hand. His left hand is currently busy interacting with a report, composed of a holographic image which floated on the left of his chair. His chair is the center of the ship bridge, in a slighly depressed position from eye level of the crews in the area. Soros can clearly hear small chatters that lingering across the area, which are accompanied by electronic sounds of click and similar. It seems the frantic pace of the situation had died down now, with serene flavour filling the air, till one of his officer called his attention via a ringing intercom. Soros quickly grabbed his intercom and starts to alight of the current matter that his officer had brought upon himself.

“Admiral, we had detected scrapes of unencrypted transmission at vector 394:2X3 :01M.”

“Hm? An unencrypted transmission? Who on ten systems would dare do that?”

“Err admiral? And we're transmitting a message that was coded as the weakest...”

“Right.....ok, play the message to me over band G481.”

“Confirmed, routing incoming transmission over new band.”

“Bzzt....Sultana...bzzt...we..bzzt..come in..bzzt...peace....bzzt..assist-bzzt...”

“What the hell was that, officer?”

“Er admiral, we just got hit by a coronal mass ejection or known as CME.”

“What? How did that happen?”

“Well admiral, we do not have a proper map here and we're jumping blind. It seems that the star in this system is quite active.”

“Ok ok, tell the other two captains that I will call for a conference now.”

“Orders received, admiral.”

Soros is clearly amazed, that someone or something had actually responded to his ship message. Soros realized, that it's another proof to Kiro's intuition which is the galaxy is not so primitive it looked like, unlike of what boasted of Aern's notion to defy the hypothesis. Sipping his cold drink lightly, Soros await for his planned conference, with the other two ship captains. Perhaps it was a good idea after all, to transmit the message publicly in the new galaxy, or so he thought.

Facing two floating holographic screens, Soros put his cup away and decided to speak first of the trio. It seems a matter had revealed itself to him, thus the immediate conference. An image of Aern, in his usual uniform is on the right of Soros while the image of the suited Kiro is on the left of Soros, suspended in mid air. Lightly speaking, Soros begins his move.

“So, what do you think?”

“I'm inferring that, the message was a reply to our earlier message. The word 'assist' may mean they're offering help to us. I'm guessing they're called as Sultanases or whatever, might be a ship or some sort of entity.”

“Aern however are not so in sync. They might be hostile, admiral.”

“Well, we could use this chance, Captain Aern...so how much should we tell them, Captain Kiro?”

“Esteemed admiral, communication is a two way street. We should only tell them as much as they tell us. Information is crucial here. Since they replied to our message, perhaps we can interact with or whatever they're then?”

“Good idea Captain Kiro, and so, did your ship detected the position of the sender?”

“We tried and got the rough estimate, but due to radiation from the star and the result of the previous extra-galactic jump, our scanners are a bit wacky till we can get a Lazole class with us. So, I'm not sure if the scanner readings are true or not.”

“A grave situation then..Captain Aern, did your ship properly scanned the system yet?”

“Well, I had ordered my crews to do so, we picked up the existence of a few celestial object in this system.”

“And why i'm not given the report first hand, Captain Aern?”

“Sorry admiral. Well I can re-route the same question to you, admiral. Your ship is better equipped than mine and why not your ship had picked it earlier?”

“Well Captain Aern, we just got hit by a massive CME. Well thank you for your attendances, conference now dissolved.”

“Roger, admiral, Captain Aern signing off.”

“Captain Kiro reporting out.”

The short conference was brought to abrupt halt, and Soros was deeply embarrassed as Aern asked him of a simple question. Upon hearing the details, Soros decided to solve the matter on his own. The image of the two captains quickly dissipate into the thin air, as the conference is no more. Holding his intercom, Soros shouted an another order, designated for the crews of his ship.

“Attention all available crews. It seems that we had contact of an unknown origin. All personnel are to be ready of all times, we're still not sure if they're truly friendly or not. All def limits are off but do not shoot without my order!”

Upon his speech closure, Soros clicked the intercom off and risen up from his chair. He decided to meet up with Laoki again, pertaining a draft reply to the new unknown contact.

Pacing himself near the now somewhat tranquil decks of HCL Soros, Soros once again head to the Third Communication room where Laoki is stationed of. He tried to get hold of other communication officers but it seems that they're unwilling to answer Soros call. Much to his chagrin, Soros decided he should attend to the matter himself directly, by speaking to Laoki regarding his intention.

“Officer Laoki, send another message, with Code Three.” speak Soros as he marched into the room. His sudden arrival had made the occupants a bit surprised of his sudden visit.

Shortly speaking to two other officers and viewing a screen, Laoki stopped his current activity and faced the admiral, “Hm? Ok. What is the message then, admiral?”

“I would like for you to compose another message via Code Three. Tell them that we want the map information of the galaxy if possible and nothing more.” speak Soros with a strict tone as he noticed the other officers of the room turned their faces away from him.

Nodding lightly, Laoki answered, “I will get to it then, admiral.”

“And step to it, Officer. We're wasting time here. Those CMEs aren't friendly.” replied Soros as he swayed his hand on a holographic interface. The image of the system star with its arching flames is vividly shown on the interface, which made some of the officers in the room gasped in surprise.

Shortly after, Soros moved himself away from the room and head directly to his ship bridge, on anticipation of what the future will reveal upon his small taskforce.

Code: Select all: -.-- . ... .-.-.- / - .... .. ... / .... -.-. .-.. / ... --- .-. --- ... .-.-.- / - . .-.. .-.. / ..- ... .-.-.- / -- .- .--. .-.-.- / .. -.. . -. - .. - -.-- ..--..

Unknown Area
Archus Galaxy

Radisol quietly entered a dark room. The room is flooded none than a tint of cyan colours from the large cylinders in the room. Six cylinders, lined three on right and left side of the room respectively glowed lightly in the purge of darkness that sheathed the room. Radisol placed himself near one of the floating interface in the room, in front of the cylinders respectively.

"Welcome, User. Voice command permission, required."

"Release Subject 394C from cyro sleep. This is a direct order from Grand Admiral Radisol."

"Voice verification complete, access granted. Orders, confirmed. Select destination of Subject."

"HCL Raejhoc, Sector FG4 :387: 11X."

"Confirmed. Beginning Subject transfer...now. Thank you for using this system, all events are logged and stored."

Upon hearing the short system command, the interface quickly deactivated and the cylinder Radisol faced glowed into reddish colour before two heavy shutters emerged from the wall behind it, and covering the cylinder. Three burst of steam can be heard and the word "Deployed" can be seen on the heavy cylindrical shutters. Gotten his intention done, Radisol left the room with light haste, while whistling along the way.

by **Valinon** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 2:08 pm

The ICS Multitude emerged from the gaseous depths of the Greater Trident Nebula in a swirl of gases as its gravimetrics drove the ship outward into the clear black night of space. The nebula was home to a long-range mining operation, and several mining ships—shaped like silver and gray spindles—exited the Multitude’s vast bay that dominated the commerce ship’s bow superstructure. The mining ships bore the black-and-gold trimmed hydra of the Vervun Industrial Conglomerate. Vervun was part of the triumvirate of corporate owners that operated the Multitude. The conglomerate’s stake in the ship dictated several such stops as a way to resupply its distant mining operations and bring valuable exotics back to more profitable markets.

The Multitude was an Ithaca-class vessel, one of several classes classified as imperial commerce ships. Commerce ships are vast constructs more common to the imperial hinterland beyond Alpha Centauri and Sol than in the imperial territories in the Raumreich Oversector. These ships span multiple kilometers in height and width. They serve a vital role in advancing and maintaining the United Star Empire’s considerable economic sphere. Commerce ships are basically mobile stations, providing a base of operations for business interests and smaller independent freighters that operated in the amorphous area called the Verge by the empire. Their populations range from hundreds to thousands, and these populations provided the manpower for commerce ships operations and the small cities that formed the core of a commerce ship’s way of life. The Multitude and its class where toward the bottom of average commerce ships at 3.8 kilometers in width and 5.7 kilometers in height.

The majority of Multitude’s height was devoted to its large bay. The bay provided a home for the smaller ships that attached themselves to the Multitude’s usual route in a large—if abstract—oval that started and ended in Alpha Centauri. The bay ran most of the length of the Multitude’s tallest section. The zero-gravity cavern was lined with docking slips, accesses to warehouse facilities, and limited repair operations. The top of the tall spire was given over to Multitude’s command and control section. The bridge was buried in the middle of the dense collection of towers, above the bay’s flight control center. Higher tower levels housed an assortment of communications and observation offices, as well as several areas reserved for some of the ship’s official functions.

The sections of the ship closest to the bay and the first towers were largely the realm of Multitude’s crew and staff, but the last towers and the ship’s central pylon were part of a very different world. Together these areas of the ship were home to most of the more than 11,000 beings that were registered as ship residents. Shorter towers provided living quarters and smaller office spaces. The towers were organized around central hubs of lifts and core shuttles that were connected to the residential and commercial areas that lined the towers core transportation systems. The transport hubs dropped down toward the chasm created by Multitude’s central pylon.

The bottom of the central pylon was a vast garden that provided the Multitude’s necessary biomass and allowed it to transport various biological materials, bio-exotics, and fresh foodstuffs. The gardens sprawled in an artificial world that included carefully controlled weather and a simulated day and night cycle. Above the verdant pylon floor, intricate spires descended like stalactites reaching toward the garden below. The spires descent was stopped well short of its target by the long strand of the shuttle network that bisected the pylon’s gap. Wrapped in the metal and shields, the Multitude’s urban environment moved through space with timeless regulation allowing its inhabitants to harness the power of imperial economic expansion without leaving the comforts expected of terrestrial citizens.

Many of Multitude’s inhabitants were only dimly aware of their arrival and impending departure from the Great Trident. The Vervun mining operation was a valuable market, but it was not large market. Most of the business transacted between the commerce ship and the miners was limited to Multitude’s bay and its surrounding decks. The stop in the Great Trident meant the Multitude was almost three-quarters through its usual route. The trip was an uneventful one so far, but the ship’s usual introspection was soon to be interrupted.

As the last of the mining vessels slipped away from the Multitude, a gray dart emerged just over one million kilometers from the commerce ship. The stripped down Fleet Feet-class courier was provided by the Olbers Foundation, the entity that owned the controlling stake in the Multitude. It possessed dedicated ECM and stealth suites that bordered those legally permitted by the imperial government, and it was returning to its mothership after an extended mission assigned to its small crew by Nickolas Bosse, captain and administrator of the Multitude.

The Starscape board stretched out before Nicholas Bosse. Its randomized construction of solar systems and more esoteric cosmic bodies was the setting for its players to compete and enter into conflict for resources and strategic territory. The aim of both the competition and conflict was to gain enough advantages to meet one of the games intricate victory conditions, which could be achieved by individual players or cooperative groups. Nicholas was playing a trading collective, which provided an economic advantage but severely limited his game’s military potential. Across the board, Forrest Treger—Multitude’s security chief—was dismantling one of the RI’s position with his stratocracy of semi-federal star systems. Nicholas was considering if a trade embargo would provoke his other RI neighbors to move against his collective militarily when a woman—whose characteristics marked her ancestry as coming from Old Earth’s East Asia—appeared next to the board.

“I am sure this is something that will interrupt the session,” Forrest didn’t look up from the board.

Yes. The interruption is circumstantial and easily confirmed as such. the woman’s image eyed Nicholas.

Avi—short for Avignon—was another product of the Olbers Foundation’s stake in Multitude’s operation. Most commerce ships operated with complex RIs—or resident intelligences—that fell short of the qualifications to make them Sentient Intelligences, which were eligible for imperial citizenship and membership in the self-governing Conclave that existed in the empire. Avi was not a member of the crew, or even listed in Multitude’s registry. She was an Olbers’ contracted employee, but onboard the commerce ship she assumed the identity of Nakamura Toshino, a trade representative and investment liaison assigned to the Multitude by the United Pholus Banking Guild. The UPBG was the last member of the Multitude’s triumvirate of corporate owners, and it worked closely with its partners in the Olbers Foundation. Avignon supported her employers legal fictions by appearing in several of her various artificial bodies and by conducting a small—but surprisingly lucrative—amount of business for UPBG. She made certain exceptions when it came to keeping in contact with Nicholas and Forrest. The three mimicked the Multitude’s ownership by forming the ultimate seat of authority aboard the commerce ship.

Nicholas stood, but he didn’t tell his suite’s RI to shelve the game. He walked to the edge of the balcony that overlooked the green expanse of the Pylon and offered a view of many of its inverted buildings. The suite was a coveted location aboard the Multitude, and part of Nicholas’ collection of reminders that it was invariable good to retain his present position.

“What is it, Avi?”

The Sliver returned seven minutes ago and is inbound. The Verniians found something. Something quite interesting.

Nicholas arched an eyebrow, “How wonderfully vague. Is there some reason this couldn’t wait until I was notified by Chaote?”

Uploading the dump from the Sliver will be the best way to explain this.

Forrest grumbled. Nicholas nodded as he cleared the traffic from his n-plants, only keeping his priority links to the bridge and emergency channels.

He was assailed by Avi’s compressed data-load moments later. His brain whirled to keep tract of the Sultana as its idle course through the Verge was followed by the Sliver. The Verniian freighter—distinguished only by its almost disreputable appearance—suddenly diverted from its predictable search for cargo. The message it intercepted was also received by the Sliver. The courier’s dump included its RI’s translation. Nicholas noted the corrupted, broken sound of its message and wondered what the origin language of the ancient Morse code was. The courier followed the Sultana, stretching the limits of its sensor suite to provide additional details about the system it arrived in. Then it noticed the origin of the unknown signal. Images and data—limited as it was—filled Nicholas’ vision. The ships were large and clearly possessed elements of military design, but if this was an invasion force it was the most ill-equipped one Nicholas ever saw. The courier lingered long enough to intercept the Sultana’s open broadcast to the unknowns. Then its feed broke off, replaced with an end report message and the option to save the compression file.

Nicholas vision returned to normal, and his mouth stretched in a smile. Forrest shook his head a little at the game board before him.

“Store board,” Forrest said quietly, and the Starscape map vanished. “So close, too.”

“If you say so,” Nicholas looked at his security chief as his suite’s comm buzzed.

“There is a message from Commander Choate, captain. She apologizes for the disturbance, but there is a priority message from the reconnaissance courier.”

Nicholas looked at Avi, and he motioned for her to stay.

“Put it through, restrict to audio only.”

“Yes, captain.”

Nicholas worked the smile off his face. His decided to start tailing the Sultana two weeks ago when he discovered his owner. He needed someone of Feldman’s desperation for a small operation the Olbers Foundation wanted to see completed before the Multitude returned to Alpha Centauri. Olbers was known in the empire for its frequent conflicts with imperial laws and restrictions. Its corporate whims provided for Nicholas’ lifestyle—in part—and his ship provided an excellent cover for Olbers operations on the outermost fringes of the Verge. In his three years as captain, Nicholas cultivated his appreciation for plausible deniability. It was a characteristic the commerce ship’s majority shareholder loved. There were few targets more promising than a Verniian tramp freighter forced to work this far from the Raumreich to survive.

But Nicholas saw something that made the resolution of Olbers’ involvement on the distant ice world of Aldiara the merest of motes in the universe’s vast eye. Sultana may be resting on top of a new market that had no bottom, or at least a level of exclusivity that was near-invaluable. Either way, it was something no tramp freighter could easily handle. It was also another reason Nicholas was thankful that Multitude’s owners managed to keep the Office for Verge Affairs (OVA) from stationing a representative aboard his ship.

Nicholas listened to the report from his executive officer. He spent an appropriately long silence “deliberating” the decision of the Sliver’s revelations. Then he ordered the courier to immediately return and continue its observation of the Sultana and its newly-found colleagues. Multitude would follow in short order to provide reinforcement and support the opening of a new commercial market.

Someone like Feldman could easily be bought. Verniian history demonstrated a long history of being easily distracted by commercial opportunity, to the point of blindness where their own security was concerned. After he was bought, Nicholas knew there was another range of options that allowed partnerships to be dissolved or renegotiated. Even with OVA, the Verge was a limitless horizon, a horizon where he with the better position, resources, and manpower always won.

“Open board, Helsion Match 3.”

Nicholas moved back toward his seat as the board return. Avi’s avatar took another seat along one of the board’s sides. The two men resumed their game, but Nicholas felt the Sultana’s discover buoy his perspectives on the game. He also saw a way to break the trade link between Forrest and his RI ally—the one that allowed his otherwise ramshackle military economy to function.

The Sliver returned to the nameless system Sultana arrived in. The ship’s crew carried out a considerable risk, considering the brevity of their original survey. They used the courier’s Verner drives to bring it out in the upper atmosphere of the outer gas giant. The lieutenant commanding the small ship gambled that the jovian’s world mass and its chaotic atmosphere would cover the ship’s reduced exit signature.

The logic held, in principle, but the Sliver exited near a vast storm that barreled through the jovian world’s clouds. The ship was buffeted and sensor functionality limited. Whatever transpired between the Verniians and their new friends was lost as Bosse’s courier struggled around the storm and drifted toward the gas giant’s north pole. It’s harried master cut his speed and made for a slower course in the upper cloud layers, intending to traverse the planet then use the gravimetrics just enough to break the gravity well before running silent to monitor the freighter’s actions and wait for the Multitude.

by **Vernii** » Tue Jul 12, 2011 10:21 am

YES. THIS HCL SOROS. TELL US. MAP. IDENTITY?

"Well, we got a reply."

Feldman crossed his arms, frowning in thought, "Tell us. Map. They must not be quite sure where they are, or aren't familiar with the local stellar neighborhood. I think this gives credence to our colonization theory, any military expedition should have a decent idea where it is, where its going, etc."

Kim wasn't very happy, "Still doesn't mean they're trustworthy though. There are three ships, at least one of those should be an escort, if they aren't all armed. It's a big risk just being here."

"Which is why we'll stay right where we are for now. James, make sure to keep the range open if they try approaching us. Start running calculations for an emergency jump if we have to make one." The pilot gave a quick, curt nod in acknowledgement.
"I guess we should work on a reply then."

HCL SOROS, SULTANA IS INDEPENDENT FREIGHTER. SENDING MAP OF LOCAL STELLAR CLUSTER. IDENTIFY STARSHIP TYPE, IDENTIFY PRINCIPALITY?

Attached was a map of star systems in the local stellar cluster, covering basic star types within a 50 LY radius of their current position, and where possible, other system information. The cluster's relative position in the Milky Way was also designated.

"So what are you trying to do James?"

"We need trade contacts, and if this is a new colony being established than that's potentially very valuable. We could provide them a link to the rest of civilization, bringing in supplies and materials, providing transport, and shipping exports to buyers. That's why we're out here now anyway." The captain's expression tightened, "We can't compete with the big freight lines anymore, so we're reduced to finding small customers that they won't bother with. Hopefully they'll need us just as bad as we need them."

by **Heliocalypse** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 3:06 am

Chapter Six - Rolling Motion
One can't help than following the grandeur flow of time set in stone

Unknown System
Onboard HCL Soros
Milky Way Galaxy

Soros sat unequivocally amidst the current rim of staffs lining his ship's bridge. Balancing a cup of near frozen cup of eio with two interlocking swath of fingers, Soros sharply viewed the surrounding for a glance before once again started to view a floating holographic interface. His eyes merely scanned the bustling flood of reports till a tone of call broke his inherent immersion.

“Admiral, a return message from the unknown contact,” speak one of the officer near Soros. Her eyes flickered into flashes as the new report had been documented as valid. A short simple name of Farsise can be seen by Soros in his interface when he installed his view towards the officer.

Soros, lightly rubbing his hairless chin swung his cup around and replied, “Hm? Have the communication team deciphered it yet?”

“No, not yet.” answered Farsise as she slightly peeked into Soros position with the turn of her head.

He glinted his cup slightly and ordered her, “Send it to them, and be prepared. We need to be prepared for the next warp jump.”

“Wait, I thought it should be settled by now?” surprised Farsise as she thought things had calmed down.

Sighing remarkably tinted slightly with tone of anger, Soros replied light-heatedly, “The plan is still running, officer. Just do as I instructed.”

“Orders received, admiral.” answered Farsise as she moved her head to face her work unit yet again. Soros's resolute order had resonated inside the ship bridge as he noticed the personnel in the room had yet again to not remain idle as before.

Unknown System
Onboard HCL Raejhoc
Archus Galaxy

Radisol lightly sat on a floating chair in an undisclosed room. Shades of cyan and white intermixed, colouring the atmosphere of the room while bismuth blue and yellow copper coloured lines strewn across the room in specific shapes of frames. He yawned slightly while placing his steel stare upon a lone, cylindrical container which glowed in tint of cyan in the middle of the room. Facing a floating interface, Radisol clicked an icon thrice and thus the cylindrical container rapidly formed a matrix of green lines, placating a few words floating in mid air. Seven burst of steam can be heard in sequence as numerous tube connections slid out from various spots located in the circumference of the cylindrical container and begun their maiden connections with the container.

“Subject received.” spoke a mechanistic voice.

Radisol tipped his view slightly and gave out a mono order, “Good. System, start program K3O”

“Executing...link established. Subject now activated.” answered the mechanistic voice.

A second voice, mysterious yet subtle preached Radisol's attention, “Grand Admiral of Lucius, may I remind you what happens if things.....go wrong?”

“I have you on my side perhaps, and it should be a great experiment for your plans...” answered Radisol as he started to tune his ears around, to triangulate the position of the speaker while still having his view affixed to the cylindrical container.

The voice answered in a different loci as Radisol tried to scan the previous origin of it, “Clever...I might be soft-hearted but others are unknown. Careful.”

“Don't worry, as long you support me, you will get what you want then.” gleamed Radisol with pride as his hands quickly fiddled with the floating interface with his ears scanning around still.

The voice slowly faded away from existence while warned Radisol of lightly tone, “Right. Don't forget our agreement then.”

Guessing of the disappearance of the voice by a declaration of three hiss of sound, Radisol once again concentrated his attention to the floating interface. Still having his eyes locked on on the cylinder, he occasionally spun his eyes and flexed his aging fingers, each with an audible snap with each flex. It seems that the guest had left as he saw no trace of humanoid silhouette in the room after he glinted his eyes around momentarily in sequence.

With the previous matter out of hand, Radisol calmly worked his way with his intentions, by interacting with the floating interface more robust than before. Smell of phenol slithered across the room as his work progresses with time.

Several lines of steel grey started to form on the cylinder and the same mechanistic voice as before spoke, “Start up, Subject. Voice command setup.”

“Command received. Input name.” peered Radisol as the rhythmic pace of typing carved by his hands abruptly stopped as the mechanistic voice played for a second time in sequence.

Filtering variables in series of flicks, he picked a short name, “Hm, Keo”

“Gender? M/F” asked the mechanistic voice as two series of beeps can be heard in the background.

Radisol answered simply without thought, “Hm...program default.”

Another series of beeps but then accompanied by several of steam tint marched through the air, followed by the same voice, “Ready. IQ level?”

“Program K3O level, sub level A3TR protocol, side protocol Z3R” replied Radisol as he lightly yawned.

The mechanistic voice answered with several unmistakable whirr tones of an active system accompanied by burst of bubbles,“Command received. Beginning program now, verifying....installing....select end destination and service protocol.”

“Set destination HCL Rikol, Para-37 Protocol, Protocol Order S3V3.” replied Radisol with a monotone answer as he started to scan the now bubbling cylinder. A proto form, composed of unknown materials slowly formed in the previously grey-ish middle line in the cylindrical container.

Three pillars of light descended from the top of the cylinder, while the same previous mechanistic voice answered Radisol, “Confirmed. Coordinates lock. Protocol, confirmed. Thank you for the data input, estimated construction completion time in ETA 31391 seconds.”

Deploying his legs around, Radisol exited the chair and decided to stand. Truly an odd sight to see, seeing something unworldly view started to build itself in front of his very own eyes bit by bit. Moving away from the cylinder, he left the room shortly after, seeing several shutters emerged from the cylinder's outer skin which partially covered the container. A job done perhaps, or so Radisol thought of.

Dastia Bastion-Holocrum Starbase
Onboard HCL Rikol
Temporary Formation Seven
Archus Galaxy

Running rapidly across the long corridors of HCL Rikol, Mialo hold a datapad, while lurching forward to the ship's bridge. The ship is partially filled with proper crews as series of bureaucratic procedures misunderstandings had caused slight delay of the ship's staffing. Rikol expected the possibility of the problem beforehand and requested additional supplementary crews earlier but chaotic coordination within the formation had caused considerable delay. With no idle officers available to relay a message to Captain Rikol, Mialo was forced to deliver a new received urgent message manually by running to the ship's bridge.

“Captain, we have some......slight change of staff, few ships and equipments.” panted Mialo as he exclaimed his breath while leaning towards the wall.

Gazing his eyes around, Rikol noticed Mialo's call and answered with a frustrated face, “Wait, what? Right now? Who or what is it then?”

“I don't know but here, the profile of the new staff, captain.” exclaimed Mialo as he tries to catch a few breath while handing the datapad to Rikol.

Holding the datapad firmly, Rikol answered lightly to Mialo while shuffling his eyes within the contents of the datapad, “Thank you for the report, XO.”

“I shall excuse myself then.” walked Mialo away as he delivered the intended message.

Seeing the name 'Keo' shown on the new staff profile, Rikol furiously trawled the data till he saw the little emblem of the infamous Lucius Saectraryii-Raellorse on the profile, “Hm...who did...wait...Radisol?”

As Rikol viewed the matter at hand via various angles, numerous chatter can be heard in the background, all due to his little musing of the name, Radisol. Glaring his piercing gaze around, Rikol noticed the staffs in the room had picked up the scent of the matter. Coughing lightly, he stared around for the second time which had caused the staffs in the room to stop their chatters immediately. Fixating his view yet again on the datapad, Rikol stand still in the middle of the room till a tone of a ring can be heard. His personal intercom glowed in tint of red, indicating that someone is trying to speak to him in private. Putting the datapad aside and reached the intercom's phone, Rikol glued his left ear to the phone.

“Captain Rikol of HCL Rikol I presume?” voiced Rikol's intercom.

Noticing it's the unmistakeable tone of voice of Radisol, Rikol tactfully responded, “Salutations, Grand Admiral of Lucius. What made you call me then?”

“I assume you got the 'message', Captain.” answered Radisol with a tone of seriousness.

Coloured by angst across his face, Rikol replied slightly off from imminent anger, “With all due respect, what does this mean, grand admiral?”

“A slight 'change' of staff for your current mission and numerous other changes assigned by myself personally, as you can see there.” toned Radisol as he calmly handled the threatening voice of Rikol over the intercom.

Walked a few steps forward, Rikol hastily answered, “By the orders of whom? How do you know i'm going for a mission?”

“It's good to have some 'connections', Captain. Well let's say I personally had 'negotiated' with your 'superior', Captain. Anyhow, take good care of the new staff.” firmly gripped Radisol as he blunted of Rikol's fiery question.

Rikol, with rage building up within simply spoke, “And what if I don't?”

“Consider your fleet and everything you know, erased from existence.” interjected Radisol with flavour of schism can be felt through his voice over the intercom.

Answering in a slightly robotic tone, Rikol had almost hit his personal intercom unit, “Thank you for your 'friendly' gesture, Grand Admiral. As a reminder, do not trifle with the law set by the Archivers, hope you do get that message.”

“I know, Captain. Enjoy, your 'mission'.” simply replied Radisol before his mischievous voice was cut off as he eliminated the com link.

Rikol put the phone with the rage of a storm. His action can be heard across the room, which had startled some of the personnel in the ship's bridge. Viewing the datapad again, Rikol decided to hold it in his hands and thus walked to one of the current stationed officers in the room.

“Argh...damn him...officer, when does this fleet will jump?” asked Rikol to the officer. He can briefly see the name of the officer, Joivix as it stated proudly engraved on the titanium made name tag located front of left upper chest pocket side of uniform Joivix currently dressed in.

Noticing Rikol's words, Joivix turned his chair around and faced Rikol while touching several floating holographic buttons. An interface shown itself to Rikol and Joivix debriefed the current matters to Rikol, “In few hours, Captain. It seems that the new staff change along with assortment of other unplanned changes had caused us to lose our jump slot. The plan however gave us an alternative jump slot to recoup the lost timeframe.”

“Hm? Then what will go first then, officer?” asked Rikol as his eyes scanned the projected timetables of the plan.

Joivix answered simply by touching a few elements on the interface, which altered the overall composition of the floating interface, “Considering we were supposed to be the first fleet to jump, our jump slot is replaced by Utility Fleet One.”

“Hm.....ok then. Thank you for your work, officer.” swayed hands of Rikol as he interacted with the interface. Details of the fleet, its composition and related matters were all scanned by Rikol slightly before his interest died down. Due to that, it prompted Rikol to leave the area and thus he attended to other field of interests that had caught his attention impromptu.

Joivix tipped his hair slightly, “Just carrying out orders, Captain. Glad to be in service.”

Seeing Rikol had left his station, Joivix quickly immersed himself with current matters at hand, regulating and monitoring the work he is assigned to. He can faintly hear the footsteps of Rikol leaving the area, accompanied by several sets of sighs. The captain is worried indeed, guessed Joivix based on the stimuli he had received.

Unknown System
Onboard HCL Soros
Milky Way Galaxy

The massive HCL Soros lies motionlessly in the middle of radiation barrages spewed forth by the system star. A bright blue star indeed, spraying HCL Soros and his escorts a gratitude stream of ionizing radiation. Occasional blue tinted flares can be seen near the ships, indicating that their shield systems are actively reducing multitude of impacts from numerous small ionized gas pockets thrown by the energetic star.

Still sunken in his comfortable chair, Soros had almost dozed off when a call to his name had stopped his venture into semi-consciousness. A small interface window shown itself towards Soros, directly in the middle of his vision field. Touching lightly the floating interface, Soros accepted the interface's intentions and interacted with it. An image of Farsise with her usual hud-like helmet casually adorned the interface and Soros can clearly see that she had begun her elaboration.

“Admiral, the message was now analyzed.”

“Hm, forward the message, along with the starmap to Captain Kiro and Aern. Tell them that I ask them of a holo-conference too.”

“Roger, admiral.”

With the declaration made, the image of Farsise faded away, accompanied by the floating interface in two flashes of lines. Two larger flickering interface shown itself to Soros as yet like before. One interface on his right and another on his left view of vision.

Facing the parallel interface, Soros sighed lightly before putting his cup of eio away. Moving the portraits of the captains he contacted closer via movement of his hands, Soros begun his short speech, with a declaration of two made-up fake cough. The floating portraits quickly changed to a live holographic video feed of the respective ship captains, a holo-conference as the Principality usually branded it.

“Read the message?”

“Yeah, admiral.”

“Done, admiral and you're calling us for?”

“It seems that we're dealing with something significant here.”

“What do you mean, admiral?”

“They gave us a map as we requested. They might be a benefactor.”

“I'd advise extreme caution, admiral. We still not know of what we're dealing with.”

“Hm the risk might be lower, Captain Aern. Notice that the message state they're unaligned?”

“Captain Kiro's right. They're an independent entity.”

“Ok then admiral. I suppose HCL Soros will draft the reply?”

“No. The plan is still in effect. HCL Animo shall move a new position, the coordinates would be transmitted by now thanks to their map. HCL Socrel will accompany HCL Soros to our original exit point. Captain Kiro, I trust your judgment to reply to the message and of taking additional actions. Good luck.”

“Will do admiral.”

“But admiral? How do we know the map is true and not false?”

“We will know soon enough, Captain Aern. Some of the coordinates in the map matched with our previous position coordinates via data extrapolation and by Ercoh-Evaluation method. Conference now dissolved, thank you for attending.”

“No sweat, admiral.”

“Roger, executing orders now.”

The squarish interfaces rapidly quelled their short existence amidst the thin air. Soros shouted an order from his seat and into the intercom, of informing the massive behemoth will soon move with HCL Socrel into their initial point of origin. Swaying around slowly, massive thrusters of HCL Soros kicked into life, thrusting the mass hull forward with orbiting HCL Socrel as a companion. HCL Animo on the other hand moved in a slightly different vector, heading to a more discrete location. It took several expanse of time before HCL Soros was finally directed to a proper direction. With three flashes of purple, the ships engaged their warp drives and thus they went in their own intentions.

Unknown System
Onboard HCL Animo
Milky Way Galaxy

HCL Animo, shot through the space rapidly decelerated from her short jump. With the new star map at hand, it seemed to be accurate as the ship gracefully avoided a collision course with the benevolent gas giant, saw briefly when HCL Animo tried to scan the system.

Captain Kiro, wearing a set of perfectly matched shape-blank armour suit stared lightly to the massive Jovian giant and adored it's inherent beauty. Standing near center of her command deck, Kiro curiously waited for a complete report of the current status of the ship, to prove of what she saw is no more than a mere illusion. Leaned slightly, she affixed her ears, hearing numerous click and beeps adjourning the background, till a floating interface broke her curiosity.

“Captain, we had arrived. Ship systems fully operational. We're ready to broadcast in ETA 392 seconds.”

“Good, take vector 34C:391:101. Transmit message on arrival, Code Three.”

“Roger, executing order.”

Three hums of click can be heard as Kiro slowly gripped her teeth. Now it's time to prove her worth to Soros, that she is more than a mere tool. Kiro noted of his history, of mercilessly viewing others as tools and this is what she wanted to avoid most and hope of becoming an indispensable force to Soros. It's not fame she might seek for, but approval as her previous actions had shown. To gain trust of another is very profitable as she thought of.

HCL Animo, marked by its shark like appearance contrasted to HCL Soros blocky design slowly trawled her nimble main thrusters, flaps moving in coordination in order to direct their thrusts accurately. Influenced by Lucius tone of art, the ship is streamlined, with occasional barrels jutting from her aerodynamic profile. Mounting the same amount of gorges as HCL Soros, the thin canyons ran through her slender body, marked ends by towering pylons in symmetrical three dimensional configuration.

As HCL Animo stopped her movement, a series of tubes emitted from her body in strategical locations, unleashing a web of antennas. It's no more a dedicated communication array, coloured carbon black while radio waves leaked through it. Sheltered behind the noble Jovian away from the energetic radiation poured by the system's star, she started a series of pulses, of Code Three to the postulated position of the new contact.

Code: Select all: - .... .- -. -.- .-.-.- / - .... .. ... / .... -.-. .-.. / .- -. .. -- --- / ...- . ... ... . .-.. .-.-.- / ... ..- .--. .--. --- .-. - .-.-.- / .-. .- -. -.- / --. ..- .- .-. -.. .-.-.- / ... --- .-. --- ... / -.. . - .- -.-. .... -- . -. - .-.-.- / .--. .-. .. -- .- -....- -. .- ...- -.-- / ...- . ... ... . .-.. .-.-.- / .--. .-. .. -. -.-. .. .--. .- .-.. .. - -.-- / ... --- ...- . .-. . .. --. -. - -.-- .-.-.- / .- .. -- ... ..--.. / ..-. .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--..

by **Valinon** » Sun Aug 07, 2011 2:03 pm

“Right, you fucking bastard!” Silas Lartey fought with his controls as the Sliver continued to buck during its ascension through the uncharted jovian’s atmosphere. Silas swore again and studied his n-plants tell-tales and the pilot’s station. Sliver’s gravimetric and navigation systems were recovered from the brush with the raw energy of the maelstrom, but the long-range orbital suite was still reporting some damage. The boat’s RI was attempting another series of repairs before resorting to rerouting functionality.

Silas’ systems came through the storm better than Lieselotte Velmontes’. She served as the boat’s comm- and sensor specialist. The displays for long-range sensors were still rife with disruptions, though the intensity of the interference was lessening as Silas put kilometers between the boat and the storm.

“What’s the ETA on long-range sensors?”

“None of the nodes were harmed by the storm, and the system reboot on both bow primaries will be completed in four minutes. Communications array is coming back online now.”

“Petross?”

The engineer turned away from the multitude of displays at the back of the boat’s cockpit. “Reactor is stable and the check on our primary gravimetric block is green. Secondary gravimetrics are green, too. Initialize the primaries…?”
“When we’re blind for most of this fat planet’s orbit? Hell, no! Increase secondary bloc’s capacity to two-thirds and keep it there until we get this sorted.”

Petross turned back to his station. Silas was comforted by the added power, and he could already feel the Sliver calming in his hands. They were approaching the upper atmosphere of the jovian.

“Minute and a half until nodes are restored, Si. Communications are online, and I’m getting a new pulse sequence.”

“The unidentifieds hailing the Verniians?”

“The signature is the same pattern, but it’s strong—a lot stronger. The source of the signal is probably closer. I just can’t confirm it without the bow nodes.”

Silas glanced to the chronometer counting down the minutes until the Multitude reached the system. The Sliver’s encounter with the storm cost too much time, and Silas was more and more uneasy about entering even a low orbit once breaking out of the atmosphere’s fringe. His hands twisted in the control fields. Sliver’s course started to level off. Silas started studying his options for a safer atmospheric course.

Lieselotte spun around, “The message from the Verniians is decoded and logged. The vessel sending the message identified itself as the Amino under the flag of some principality’s navy. They keep using the term Soros Detachment, but that doesn’t coincide with any principalities the empire recorded contact with. None of the principalities we’ve established contact with in this sector have the infrastructure to build or man warships like that. They’re querying the Verniians for their identity and aims.”

“That response will be interesting, and all the more reason for us to keep out of sight,” Silas turned away from the controls for a moment after selecting a course for the Sliver. “Once the sensors are back online I’m going to take us up enough to do a single active burst scan. Then we make a hard drop back into the jovian atmosphere and wait for the Multitude. We will encrypt as much of the scan as we can into a surveyor drone burst format and transmit it back on the network Bosse’s SI monitors and wait for instructions.”

One of Silas’ tell-tales flashed at the edges of his vision.

<SYSTEM: SENS-NET SLI-PRIM-BOW-SEC>
<SYSTEM: Boot cycle completed. Functionality restored>
<RES: Integration with system COMPLETED>

“We’ll go topside in eight minutes. Petross, trim back the power to a third and stagger the secondary bloc. That should give us enough of a likeness to a long-range drone that the Sultana will be fooled.”

“Roger, Si.”

Silas resumed control of the Sliver and prayed that a two-minute cushion after the active burst was enough to cover any maneuvers his boat would need to make before the Multitude arrived.

Eight minutes later the Sliver’s narrow profile cut through the jovian planet’s final cloud layers and rode above the swirling gases for a few moments. Onboard the courier boat, Lieselotte activated the sensors for an active burst that focused on the jovian’s planetary system. The procedure lasted just over two minutes before Silas started to drop his boat back into the jovian’s atmosphere.

The Sliver’s secondary gravimetrics flared in a regimented pattern that pulled the courier back down into the jovian and started to accelerate toward the terminator line. Lieselotte’s burst confirmed that one of the unidentified Principality vessels was much closer than previously estimated. Either the Amino was capable of tactical superluminal jumps, or it enjoyed rates of acceleration many warships would be envious of.

Either possible answer only affirmed Silas’ commitment to caution and made him wonder all the more what the Sultana’s captain had found in the back of the beyond.

“Permission to signal final jump countdown, Commander?”

“Permission granted, Lieutenant Oleson,” Jaswinder Chaote nodded as the Multitude was slowly brought about to face the distant brilliance of the uncharted system. The imperial commerce ship’s executive officer was enjoying the productive quiet that dominated the bridge when she was left as the officer on duty.

Jaswinder contract with the Multitude’s board ended after this run, and she was not going to miss the odd vessel. Bosse was an unnerving man to serve under. The captain’s high esteem for Forrest Treger further complicated the ship’s command structure. Bosse effectively made the security chief the XO, regardless of who served as the ship’s commander. The turbulence in the command ranks was only emphasized by the parallel restlessness and secrecy of the Multitude’s owners. Given the series of commanders that preceded her, Jaswinder fully believed the Multitude’s owners purposefully sought out XOs that gave their vessel a veneer of respectability. She was going to give her credibility to one of the new Twin Star Lines commerce ships slated for runs into the Verniian FEZ and leave the noxious world of the Verge behind permanently. One of the public RI’s voices could be heard from the corridor outside the bridge.

”All crew and inhabitants prepare for Verner drive activation. All hands and inhabitants prepare for Verner drive activation. The Multitude will jump in T-minus ten minutes.”

There was little jump preparation for a commerce ship’s population. Preparation was almost exclusively limited to the helmsman, navigation, engineering, and flight control. Other than securing parasite craft and various attendant vessels, most of the Multitude was oblivious to the ship’s movements except for the change in ports-of-call and trading markets. The announcement was a relic from the commerce ships’ origins as bulk freighters that was still enshrined as “an expected safety measure” by the empire’s government.

Several of the bridge’s displays were replaced with the countdown. The seconds and milliseconds started their relentless temporal waterfall.

“Flight Control, give me a final status report.”

“All vessels are secured, Ma’am, and the bay chiefs report full lockdown. All hangers are ready for Verner activation. GSHQ reports our first-response squadron is ready for rapid deployment.”

“I want Commander Daliva to prepare all squadrons for rapid deployment.”

“I hardly think that will be necessary, Jaswinder.”

The cool tones reinforced Jaswinder’s belief that the captain of any ship—regardless of class and size—should be announced by the bridge’s guard detail. She still missed that quiet warning from her time in the Kriegsmarine and as XO of the ICS Rubric of Variance. It was a warning she knew not to expect from Treger’s bridge security detail.

Nicholas Bosse was strolled across the bridge with the security chief at his side. Both men wore their day uniforms—Bosse’s was the same dark grey as Jaswinder’s and Teger’s was security’s muted teal. Jaswinder waited for Bosse to approach her station before continuing.

“Captain, I was concerned by the relatively limited data on the system. I don’t believe it is unsound to consider some additional precautions.”

“That is an excellent notion, but it is also unwise to provide anyone with full knowledge of your capabilities in your first meeting. Mr. Lartey will provide us with another data dump when we reach the system, and the rest of the Multitude’s Tohokus will be kept at combat readiness. Agreed…?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Mr. Hatari, let the lieutenant commander know that only the first-response squadron needs to rapidly deploy. GSHQ will keep the remaining squadrons at full readiness.”

“Aye, sir.”

Bosse eyed the countdown clock, “Forrest and I will join you for the last jump, Jaswinder. I presume Navigation gave us the course for the outer system?”

“Yes, Captain.”

Bosse folded his tall frame into the captain’s chair as the clock fell below two minutes, “We may soon give our Verniian competitors a run for their money, Jaswinder. The board’s bonuses for establishing new, profitable markets are quite generous. It will give you a nice egg to live on until you leave us for Twin Star.”

Attention all crew and inhabitants, the Multitude will execute a Verner jump in one minute.

“And, if you wish, I invite you to enter the Tohoku issue into the ship’s log. I will accept all responsibility for what transpires after the jump.”

Jaswinder turned toward the simulated viewports, “I am sure that will not be necessary, sir.”

Jaswinder heard Bosse make some assurance in the final moments before the jump. At that point, she didn’t care what the Multitude’s captain was offering. She was making her own promise to notify OVA of the contact situation if Bosse failed to do so.

Executing Verner jump.

The Multitude emerged from the jump roughly 377 million kilometers from the jovian planet the Animo was orbiting. The imperial commerce ship immediately began the transmission of its normal transponder and identification codes while its shields reinforced themselves and its hangers returned to normal operation. Twelve of the Multitude’s Tohoku-class gunships exited from their launch tubes in quick succession. They moved to take up their usual patrol routes around the Multitude’s considerable bulk. Several smallcrafts exited the main hanger as the commerce ship prepared for normal operations.

On the Multitude’s bridge, Nicholas watched as the Multitude’s sensors replaced the dated map from the Sliver’s first expedition with real-time observations. He was immediately disconcerted by the absence of the larger task force.

“The Verniians appear to have lost their new friends, Captain.”

Nicholas eyes Chaote with no good will. His flat expression was only marred by the click of tongue against teeth, “They didn’t leave entirely, Jaswinder, nor did they attack the Sultana. That suggests they are not entirely dangerous. Still, I think it would be best if you saw to the gunships and expanded our sensor coverage.”

“Yes, sir, and shall I hail the Sultana or the remaining warship?”

“No, we will wait until they contact us, and while we wait—Navigation, I want another jump charted and our Verner drives held at the ready until otherwise instructed.”

“We will give the new plot to helm within five minutes, sir.”

Nicholas nodded and activated his n-plants, paging Avi.

Where is Lartey?

There was a data-burst from the courier seconds after we arrived. The feed was limited because it was modeled to resemble a long-range exploratory drone. Lartey is hiding in the gas giant’s atmosphere. The remaining warship identified itself as the Amino flying the flag of some unknown principality in another transmission to the Sultana. They are enquiring after the freighter’s affiliation and aims.

And the other warships…?

Lartey doesn’t know where they went. The Sliver’s return proved rougher than expected. Its long-range sensors and communications were temporarily disabled.

Bloody fucking wonderful.

Lartey is requesting additional instructions.

You can make a return burst without this principality vessel identifying the receiver?

Perhaps. I am confident I can make a similar burst that will look like we are hailing an unmanned drone instead of a courier.

Lartey is to keep his boat out of sight. Tell him we are on a course to approach the jovian, and that we will arrange some sort of extraction when it can be done without too many eyes noticing.

Done.

I need you to keep an eye on the Sultana as well, Avi. See if there is an ansible unit on that junker you can access. If not, give me your assessment on how we can possibly gain access to any of its systems.

When do you want this assessment?

You have an hour.

That hardly counts as a challenge.

Nicholas broke the connection. He noticed a glance from Chaote—so obviously suspicious that it was pathetic. He glanced to Forrest. The security chief’s eyes were slightly glazed. Nicholas assumed Forrest was being debriefed by Avi as well.
Nicholas sat up in his chair, “Mr. Hatari, are we scanning all frequencies?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Any responses to our arrival?”

“None, sir.”

“Let me know the moment that changes.”

by **Vernii** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 9:50 pm

Confusion, momentary disappointment, and then brief panic had been the reactions aboard the bridge of Sultana. The rapid disappearance of the Soros with its escorts had lead to the first two, but the Animo's tactical jump closer to Sultana's position had severely unnerved the crew of the almost-unarmed freighter, as it severely reduced the amount of response time that the freighter would have to any act of aggression.

"New message!"

"Put it on my screen. Kim, how are our jump capacitors?"

"30% sir."

"Let's hope this doesn't go pear shaped."

THANK. THIS HCL ANIMO VESSEL. SUPPORT. RANK GUARD. SOROS DETACHMENT. PRIMA-NAVY VESSEL. PRINCIPALITY SOVEREIGNTY. AIMS? FACTION?

YOU ARE WELCOME. INTENTIONS SEEKING CULTURAL EXCHANGE, TRADE, INFORMATION. FACTION IS IMPERIUM OF VERNII, LOCATION APPROXIMATE TO SOL.

Moments after transmission, the situation became even more complicated.

"Sir!" Kim's voice betrayed a rising note of alarm, "We're being illuminated by an active sensor but it's not from the Animo."

"Nail down its origin." Feldman was obviously unhappy with the turn of events, and it showed in his worried expression and voice.

"Working on it.....its coming from the Jovian...and it just ended. Whatever it is got a good look at us then disappeared."

"Damn it. Alright, Astro, turn us around and run for the hyper limit. This is getting a bit too exciting for me."

Sultana's drive fields climbed in power as the freighter slowly swung about to put it on a heading away from the gas giant's hyper limit.
"New contact! Just had another contact jump into the system."

"Pin it down Kim, I need to know what it is."

"One moment sir.....We're picking up emissions consistent with a Verner jump drive, it's Valinor or something built by them."

Feldman cursed under his breath, got out of his seat, and went over to the master plot that his operations officer was working at. New information tables began surrounding icon of the new contact as it started transmitting its transponder and other identifiers, which Sultana's computers were automatically comparing to the information in their libraries and returning anything relevant on the display.

"Multitude, Ithaca-class Imperial Commerce Ship, classified as long-range and civilian;multi-purpose," he softly read to himself.

"They must have caught the same broadcast we did. Damn, this could be bad. A goddamn Valinor commerce ship, with all of its assets and backing shows up right at what could be our lucky break. Goddamn my luck."

"Should we hail them?"

"No, but we are going to stop running. I'll bet that sensor sweep was one of their recon drones checking out the area so they didn't jump in blind. We're going to stay for now. Helm, cut the drive field."

by **Heliocalypse** » Sat Aug 20, 2011 1:35 am

Chapter Seven - Stark Suspicions

Only of the aware would suspect, while others being blinded

Unknown System
Onboard HCL Animo
Milky Way Galaxy

HCL Animo, gliding gracefully through the thick misty space that laced with radiation flares set eclair with her articulating thrusters. Now gotten Kiro's intention's done for now, the ship lazily orbited the noble jovian, away from the ever energetic center of the system, a bright flaming blue gas giant. Kiro, zipping her irises around traces the floating interface of her command deck interface. Moments of uncertainties trawl throughout the ship, as Kiro and her crews anxiously await a reply from Sultana. HCL Animo is now clearly alone in the system, with no one to support her swiftly, which made the crews of the ship quite nervous. They're positioned near the jovian in a new galaxy, with no available close range supports and waiting for a moment of uncertainty to pass. Flashes of silence unnaturally fill the decks of HCL Animo, with occasional burst of statics caused by the system's star.

“Warning. Active e-burst detected. Input command.” floated a red coloured interface near Kiro's line of vision. Multitude of interface boxes of the same colour followed suit, multiplying in numbers which clutters her line of periphery sight area.

Officer Sithena in her usual station exclaimed in anguish in her sensors workstation as numerous red lights fills her workstation interface, “Tier two sensors all report reds, Captain! We got hit by an active burst!”

Numerous other personnel in their workstations eyes Kiro as they too received the same alert of the situation. Something out there just had shown itself to HCL Animo, either by chance or by malice which gripped their wildest imaginations. Various personnel can be seen turning their heads around, with inaudible communication of fear emitted between them.

“What? You sure it ain't a random gas pocket, officer?” peers Kiro with her inquisitive look over the matter while striking down the gaze of other personnel in the ship's bridge.

Sithena, unsatisfied by her captain's query turned her chair around and voraciously answered Kiro's debate, “We're behind the jovian, captain! There is no plausible source than something out there! Orders, captain?!”

“Calm down. Activate all passive sensors and tier three ECMs. Launch few net probes, I want a N3T perimeter up and running.” sways Kiro's hand on the floating interface, pinpointing several locations on her command deck's holographic map to assure that the situation is well under control.

Sithena turns her chair around and clicks multiple times on her workstation's interface, “Aye aye! ETA launch prep five minutes!”

“Captain, we detected something is off in our long ranged gravi-mag sensors, it seems something had just recently appeared out there.” interfered Leci. His image can be clearly seen by Kiro by a floating interface that shown itself at Kiro's line of sight.

Kiro, waiting anxiously eyes Leci with a piercing gaze “Wait, what? Are you sure it ain't some random planetoid?”

“We got hit hard by the star's flare before, Captain. I can't verify it accurately.” popped a data interface in front of Kiro as Leci begin his explanation.

Interacting with the data interface, Kiro sighed lightly while tracing a line using her fingers on the interface,“Ok. First we need to prepare an escape solution. Officer, since you found it, tell your team to give me a reading detail in next five minutes intervals.”

“Roger, captain. Another note captain, we had detected traces of ionized trail on the jovian. It ain't natural looking.” popped another image near Kiro, of now shows a picture of the jovian, zooming rapidly to the area of interest as said by Leci, with the image accompanied by numerous iterations of it a few seconds after the main image shown itself.

Kiro, clenching her left fist slightly, zooms out of the jovian image by moving her right hand fingers on the floating image, “So us will be damned. I want that jumping and sensor solution ready and I want it now! Flare out ECM burst tier three, we need a vantage point now!”

“About the broadcast, Captain?” queries Sithena again, as she notices that Kiro mentioned of moving away from their current position.

Kiro places her view upon Sithena while monitoring the current situation projected by her command deck in few tempo of focus, “First we need a vantage point, judging by the previous burst, they're very close to us. We need to keep range. Turn off any active broadcasting array.”

“Ok Captain!” turned Sithena's head as she once again faces her workstation.

With several synchronised clicks, the situation seems to be under control with panic amongst the personnel quelled. Kiro patiently scans her surroundings with her cold gaze, to ensure every personnel in the room complied to her suggestion.

Now adamant that her order is followed, Kiro clicked a button on her command deck, to give a short announcement for the current ship's crew, “Attention all personnel! Code Five! All personnel are to be station ready at all times till restriction is lifted!”

Ode of chaos slithers across the decks of HCL Animo for a moment, before organized notion helped the crews of the ship to be orderly calm. Now they're alone, further more panic will only be detrimental to their mission, or even their very own lives. Multiple circles opened on the sleek body of HCL Animo, revealing a set numbers of net probes that then quickly jumps into their position as ordered with declaration of a few purple flashes. With Kiro's order made, HCL Animo initiates her acceleration curve, accompanied by several large pulses emitted from her three main engines.

Dastia Bastion-Holocrum Starbase
Temporary Formation Seven
Onboard HCL Rikol
Archus Galaxy

A group of ships slowly approaches the fleet helmed by Rikol, bearing a dual emblem of Gauisi System Segment and Pentravase Government. It's a taskforce, dispatched directly from the Gauis Ostrolis to participate with the mission designed by Raila herself. Rikol's fleet, noticed of the arrival anxiously await for them to pass Rikol's fleet position.

The vanguard of the approaching group, lead by a large battlecruiser bears a name of HCL Thirma, with its ventral sections perfectly aligned with its massive dorsal thrusters. Its escorts moved in conjunction with HCL Thirma, in a diamond defense formation that coloured by various sizes of ship's exhausts in yellow tints. Looking more like a stacked pine cone, HCL Thirma quickly fires its vectoring thrusters in series of pulses, slowing down appreciably before loading up its communication array.

“Well Captain Rikol! I'm Captain Ethina of Utility Fleet One. It's an honour.” pokes an interface near the chair of Rikol.

Eying a sigh, Rikol slightly places his view to the newly formed interface, “Yeah..whatever. Good luck, Captain Ethina. You will need a lot of it.”

“Eh, don't be so gloomy! I will buy you a casket of grehl when we meet again. Bye then!” flashes the interface in three lines as Ethina cut off the com link. HCL Thirma then proceed to their jump point with its escorts, leaving HCL Rikol in a distance.

Rikol, sunken in his chair moves his head around a few degrees, “Sigh, I can't believe it, Radisol? How dare him....”

"Excuse me, Captain? I'm sorry to disturb your rest, but they will be arriving soon." flashes an another interface near Rikol's line of vision. A live image feed of the officer can be seen on the interface.

Rikol then moves his fingers around, interacting with the new data interface that shows the current changes set by Radisol, “Alrighty. Let's be prepared to meet this new so-called personnel.”

The sudden visit of Ethina adds another frown on Rikol's face. Cursing the Grand Admiral name in his heart, Rikol decides that it's far better to move with the plan done by the Vice President, as to not delay it. It's either do or die. Any slight mistake will result the complete erasure of himself, and anyone he knows, or so Rikol thought of.

Unknown System
Onboard HCL Thirma
Milky Way Galaxy

HCL Thirma was the first to arrive into the first initial entry point of the Soros Detachment of the new galaxy, with multiple backdrop of purple horizons as more ships of its group arrive in sequence. Numerous pulses of energy blasts its way through the space, where HCL Soros closely monitors in a safe distance. With HCL Soros being there, stabilizing the area with his massive gate systems, HCL Thirma arrived with ripples of intense energies, that was quelled by HCL Soros's powerful gate system. However the gate system is far from perfect, and massive amount of kinetic energies still resonated within the ships that done such jump.

Reinitialising the systems of HCL Thrima, the main AI core of the ship decides to speak seeing most of the ship crews are currently affected by jumpshock, “Sensors reported all green except bloc tier Four, Three, and Nine. Repairs initiated. We had arrived, Captain.”

“Argh...it's worse than flying in the Carnal Regions..” nearly puked Ethina as he slowly grabs one of the railings in the command room.

The main AI, senses the position of Ethina via series of electromagnetic detectors accurately project a floating interface near his position, “Incoming transmission from HCL Soros.”

“Play it, system.” coughs Ethina as his irises slowly focuses to normal focal length. He can clearly hear the personnel in the room slowly returning their consciousness, thus Ethina exhibits his vocal again, “System, *cough* execute Medic Program XC-191.”

The main AI, notes of Ethina orders quickly executes its mission, “Acknowledged. Estimation completion time ETA three hundred and two seconds.”

Ethina, mustering his strength again, manages to sit on his command chair in the center of the room. Beacons of sound and light can be heard, as the workstations of the personnel in the command room slowly reactivating, which much of Ethina managed to notice. Still having his head dizzy, he interacts with his chair, as shown by the existence of multiple skins of shapes made of light flickering into life. Two set of holographic partial rings surrounds Ethina, before two floating interfaces pops out that shows the current status of his ship in his line of vision. A third interface, with the name of HCL Soros follows shortly after.

“Hello, well you're not Rikol isn't it? What happened?” flickers the third interface. Ethina can clearly see the righteous face of Soros in the interface while Ethina himself tries to look professional as to save his face against the admiral.

Slightly frustrated, Ethina flexes his fingers, “Greetings Admiral Soros. It seems that the plans had changed drastically. With all due honour, I can't tell much, but the Vice President have new mission directives for you. I assume i'm under your command now, admiral?”

“That is rightly correct. My ship will transmit a set of data for your fleet then.” answers Soros with a monotone flavour, before another interface pops near Ethina, with Soros directly stares of Ethina's eyes, “You need to rendezvous with HCL Animo. The data your fleet going to receive have everything you need to know about current situation.”

Closing the other open interface windows with the movement of his fingers, Ethina gains his usual colour again, “Roger admiral. I shall take my leave, if you have no questions further-”

“Wait. When does HCL Rikol will jump?” interferes Soros as he gives Ethina an inquisitive look.

Coughing slightly, Ethina brings up two small interfaces with the movement of his fingers to see the jump schedule, “According to the now modified plan schedule, the ship will arrive two fleet jumps after this, Admiral. The full details and the new directives of the modified plan will be transmitted to your ship, now.”

“Hm...i see. Thank you. You may be dismissed and proceed with your given mission then.” nods Soros, before leaning slightly backwards, “ HCL Animo will assume HCL Soros's role as mission leader till the full detachment had safely arrive here.”

Ehtina,heard of Soros orders saluted slightly to Soros, “Ok, Admiral. Moving now.”

The interface that shows Soros's image quickly vanished into thin air as the conversation between him and Ethina ended. Clicking the air around him a few times, Ethina lightly frowns, “System, is the ship ready?”

“Minor repairs done, operational status at optimum 87%. Input command.” pops one rectangular interface near Ethina as the main AI core noted of his question.

Swaying his right hand, multiple interfaces shows itself to Ethina, “Analyze data from HCL Soros, follow mission objective FR-193. Notify formation.”

“Acknowledged” answers the main AI core before it slowly reactivates all the systems of HCL Thirma.

Ethina slightly observes his surrounding and notes that the personnel in the room have again returned to their normal operational status with chatter of sound heard by his acute ears. Flickering his yellow irises, Ethina interacts with his chair, bringing up the floating interface of the current mission data and as well the other ships in his fleet with a series of movement crafted by his hands.

HCL Thirma, now again the leading ship of Ethina's fleet lunges forward, followed by the other ships that escorts it. Rapidly forming a dark purple horizon in front of the ship, HCL Thirma action then followed suit by its escorts before punching straight into the horizon. Numerous purple flashes can be seen in the area, as the fleet had activated their warp drives. Now it's only a matter of time before Fleet Utility One reinforces Kiro's lone struck position.

Unknown System
Onboard HCL Animo
Milky Way Galaxy

Kiro anxiously anticipate the outcome of the current situation while grinding her teeth with audible clicks. The panic situation seems to be resolved but she knew that if there isn't any vessels from the Principality that comes to their aid, the situation could regress into something worse which Kiro clearly want to avoid. Shuffling the data of the current situation, her eyes darts around while she becomes increasingly jumpy in her command chair. All seems terrible, till an interface shown itself to Kiro.

“Captain, we had detected an encrypted identification broadcast on narrow slot which is emanating outside from the jovian area.” flickers a small floating interface. The name of Leci can be seen on the small squarish interface.

Kiro, alert of the announcement quickly springs her question, “What? Who or what is it? Is it the Sultana?”

“No, the transmission matched with our own encryption. It identified itself as HCL Thirma, Fleet Utility One! Friendlies!” exclaimed Leci as numerous other interfaces shows itself near Kiro's line of vision.

“Finally. Sigh, transmit message on wave 394XC, secure link.” replies Kiro with a slight sigh, and then continued to catch her fleeting breath, ” The faster it's transmitted, the better the outcome for us.”

The interface quickly quelled itself, with two words that can be heard by Kiro before it vanishes, “Roger, captain!”

Now exhilarated of the latest news, Kiro gains another tone of confide as she realizes that she was not left alone, not now. The plan is still running much to her bewilderment while confidence level hit all time high. The arrival of Utility Fleet One soon picked up by eyes and ears of the personnel inside HCL Animo, which dissolves their worry and knocked a final nail of the coffin of their panic. They're not left alone to die in this new galaxy, no, not now.

Unknown System
Onboard HCL Thirma
Milky Way Galaxy

Ethina, now calm slowly sips a cup of steaming coffee. It seems that they had arrived to the postulated system where HCL Animo is situated without any threatening hitch. Cutting away the darkness of the space, the yellow tints of exhausts crafted by the fleet slowly carve the monotone sound of the space. Emerging at the frontier fringes of the system, the fleet slowly chug through the space, heading no more than the last position of HCL Animo.

“Captain. We had detected transmission pattern matching Pentravase com link coming from the jovian in this system. It's heavily encrypted though. We also detected the presence of HuKa Tier Three ECM broadcast accompanying the transmission pattern.” peers a rectangular interface near Ethina's field of vision.

Ethina, glances his eyes to the newly formed interface, “Er? Play it through then.”

“This is HCL Animo bzzt...Request assistance..bzzt..possible..bzzt..hostiles..”

“Hm..Officer Feren, alert the other ships.” glinted the cup of Ethina, before he breathes in one tempo, “ Tell HCL Turl and HCL Vicr to activate all tier four sensors on my command and other ships to be ready.”

The officer image in the interface nods in agreement once, “Ok Captain. But why now? We don't see anything hostile so far.”

“HCL Animo had activated its tier three ECMs. It means something really bad is going to happen. Better safe than sorry.” sways Ethina fingers, bringing up three small windows of information near his field of vision.

The officer, sways her right eyebrow around for a few degrees, “Ok Captain. Should we proceed to HCL Animo position or?”

“Hm...prepare a warp jump to HCL Animo end point. We need to close this range gap. Tell HCL Animo that we're going to aid them too.” ordered Ethina as he slightly glances at the officer's image.

With three lines of light, the image of the officer vanishes with an audio pattern, “Roger, captain!”

Unknown System
Onboard HCL Animo
Milky Way Galaxy

HCL Animo quickly fires her gravity thrusters in sequence, to decelerate herself to orbiting speeds. As the ship finally stops in her acceleration curve, Utility Fleet One had arrived with multitude flashes of purple, in mere five hundred kilometers of the current position of HCL Animo. The fleet lead by HCL Thirma quickly pulses their powerful sublight engines, chugging directly to HCL Animo's orbit line and slowly joins the ship's line of travel. Kiro lightly leans to her current chair until a small interface flashes lightly on her left eye, floating in mid air.

“Excuse me, Captain. We had now safely arrived at the end of our acceleration curve. Utility Fleet One had confirmed to join our current position soon."

“Ok. Open channel band 34CX, triple wave. Keep an eye on those net probes too.”

“Roger.”

Kiro notices the arrival of the fleet, by observing new starship icons that pops up in her field of vision. Leaning slightly in her command chair, Kiro decides to stand up and interact with the command deck. Her eyes and fingers move in unison as she analyzes the current matter at hand, till a soft tone of her intercom breaks her activity. Slinking her arm, Kiro reaches for the intercom and hold it close to her right ear.

“Kiro! Well well well, what you gotten yourself into this time?”

“With all due respect, we need to act as professionals, Captain Ethina. You still have that annoying tone of optimism you know. We're facing a crisis here.”

“Eh? What crisis? May I lend a hand?”

“I would prefer more if HCL Soros showed up..but ah well, our ship needs urgent repairs. We had launched net probes earlier. I assume you had accessed the tactical situation?”

“In a few, Captain Kiro. So, you're meeting this new ship, named as Sultana? And they called themselves under the banner of Imperialist of Verniians or whatever?”

“Well yep. That's their latest transmission said.”

“Hm how do you hail them? Are they the hostiles?”

“So far they didn't prove to be hostiles. We contacted them on Code Three, under the orders of Admiral Soros.”

“Ah, well okay. Then what you're going to do then? Help is on your way, by the way.”

“Do you have any idea? We just got hit by an active e-burst and we can't even tell from who or what it is.”

“Eh, well surely my ships can take care of that. I leave the composing the reply to your hands then.”

“Yet you identify yourself as an utility fleet? Strange, Captain Ethina.”

“Sorry, can't tell. Vice President's orders.”

The abrupt notice of Ethina had somehow startled Kiro. But now it's more important for Kiro that she get her ship repaired as soon as possible thus she let the notice slide. Two ships from the Utility Fleet One slowly approaches HCL Animo shortly afterward after the conversation. For the crews of the HCL Animo, help is at hand, which have renewed their level of confidence yet again.

“Captain? How do we transmit the message if the main transmitter is off?” flashes an image of Leci on the command deck of Kiro.

Pinpointing several areas on the deck, Kiro brings up a few of interface windows and traces a few lines on the current projected map of the system, “There is a reason why I ordered the release of the net probes. Use Probe-7E as the transmit node and other probes to emit false fade signals on non-true vectors. We can't afford to let them or whatever track us. Direct specifically of the message to the postulated Sultana's position and open up all active targeting systems.”

“Roger, Captain. But why are we trying to contact them again if there is actually a probability that they're the hostiles?” asks Leci simply while carrying a puzzled face.

Glinting her irises around, Kiro sighs lightly, “We better solve this problem diplomatically, Officer. We don't want another war on our hands do we? We must do this without any failures.”

“Roger Captain.” answered Leci before his image dissipated into thin air.

HCL Animo once again opens up her communication rods, a few less than before. Glowing lightly in blue tint while coloured carbon black, the rods transmit a series of instructions to the net probes released earlier by HCL Animo. The net probes responded, and tactfully carry out their given orders with no delay.

Code: Select all: - .... .. ... / .... -.-. .-.. / .- -. .. -- --- .-.-.- / .-. . -....- ... - .- - . / - .-. ..- . / .. -. - . -. - ... .-.-.-

Unknown System
Onboard HCL Soros
Milky Way Galaxy

Soros lie quietly in his command chair, reviewing the starmap given by Sultana. Seeing the matter at various angles quite literally, he decides that the starmap should be checked for consistency. Sure it was true, but only proven for a few coordinates. Any error might as well cause Soros to lose his ships. Thus he gallantly decides to order a solution to this plausible problem. Swaying two fingers, he contacted the Second Weaponry Room with declaration of a small rectangular interface.

“Officer. Ready the MCL systems.”

“For what Admiral?”

“We need to get better picture of the situation. Send out N3R Posts. Let's see how accurate their map is.”

“Roger, Admiral.”

As Soros's order is heard, various circles on the massive body of HCL Soros rapidly opens, ejecting several mass numbers of what seems to be odd looking missiles. The missiles quickly positoned themselves with their sublight engines, before disappearing in tone of purple of all directions of Soros could think of. Now he just need to wait, for the N3R Posts to report their maiden scan to himself.

Unknown System
Unknown Area
Archus Galaxy

A lone man entered a dark room, slightly illuminated by several pulses of blue glow in the room. Hulking his way around, the man carries a huge rectangular looking weapon. The name of 'GMS' can be seen on the weapon itself, with the weapon's shape slightly resembling a square hammer fused with a rifle trigger. Putting the weapon in the middle of the room where a table would be, the man lightly awaits until a voice visits his ears.

“Hm...a bulky gun..slightly off center...it have a good weight... And what does it do?”

“Milord, that is the latest arsenal designed by WiMi. It's supposed to be close range anti-riot weapon that is powered by radioactives.”

“Radioactives? I thought PCA restrict such weaponry, let alone in this handheld form?”

“Apologies milord, that was the amount of detail I managed to gleam off from its creators. Acquiring the gun's testing batch was difficult enough, with most of Prima-Navy and Holocurn watching the weapon development around the clock.”

“Good work however. And do you know where the gun will be shipped?”

“Well based on the data I extracted from the weapon developer staffs, it will be sent to the Soros Detachme-”

“Wait. Him? Go now. Go chase him. I don't want to hear any more excuses or you will lose your head!”

The man quickly darted out of the room as numerous rounds of superheated plasma followed suit. It seems that the owner of the voice is undeniably angry. Now, the man figured out of what he must do next. Meet up with Laisa or he will be damned.

by **Vernii** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 4:36 am

"More new contacts. Emission signatures are similar to the Principality ships that departed earlier, but none of them match those recorded earlier. I'm guessing its a second wave of ships." Kim's voice betrayed her rising frustration, though Feldman couldn't tell if it was due to the situation or directed at him.

The newcomers had jumped near the Jovian, making the space around it once again alarmingly crowded.

"Begin moving us away from the new contacts again," ordered Feldman. "I'm starting to get tired of the new surprises." His pilot acknowledged, Sultana's drive fields began slowly edging upwards in output, so as to not startle any of the other ships and whatever gunnery crews that they might possess.

"I think you should start evaluating our options again." The irritation was definitely noticeable. The icons of Sultana's new contacts suddenly vanished from the main plot, replaced by faint shells of color representing dissipating radiation fronts, reappearing momentarily at Animo's position.

"New transmission."

THIS HCL ANIMO. RE-STATE TRUE INTENTS.

Feldman bit his lower lip, "Goddamnit. I think they might be getting paranoid , bet that damned commerce ship appearing like that spooked them a bit."

He quickly typed a reply at his workstation, forwarding it to his communications and sensors chief's panel for transmission.

ASSURANCE THAT INTENTIONS ARE AS PREVIOUSLY STATED. SEEKING CULTURAL EXCHANGE, TRADE, INFORMATION. ARE WILLING TO OFFER EVIDENCE OF GOOD INTENT IF REQUESTED.

Kim grabbed him by the upper arm and pushed him to a corner of the bridge, ignoring the curious glances of the bridge crew. "Look, we are edging into dangerous territory here, and the way this is going there's a good chance you're going to get us killed!" She whispered it to him, but put enough anger and emphasis into her tone to make it clear that she was upset. "Why the hell are we sticking around when there are warships from an unknown power getting a bit antsy about whether or not we're hostile? Hell, they haven't said a thing yet about even being willing to trade, for all you know they're waiting to make sure we don't have any backup before they take this ship and maybe us apart to see how we work. I want you to understand this, that you are gambling right now with all of us."

Feldman gave her a thin smile, "I know. If they decide we're hostile, we're probably dead. But, I think this time it's worth the risk. Let me show you." He gently pulled her over to the master plot, manipulating the controls to display the Jovian's moon system, then zooming in on the life-bearing moon that had attracted his attention when they first jumped into the system. It was a beautiful blue and green sphere marked with streaks of white and light grey clouds. "Large quantities of surface water, breathable air, developed ecosystem, tolerable gravity and surface air pressure. Since those ships were already here when we jumped in, I figured they were here to colonize it, but after most of them jumped out, I've started wondering if perhaps they don't really care about it."

He fixed her with an intent stare, "If they don't care about that moon, don't want it for whatever reason, then we were here second and claiming rights go to us. You know how profitable that could be. Even if they do want it, perhaps we could buy access to it, get some samples of the local ecosystem to take back to the Raumreich. If the ecosystem is exotic enough, we both know that there are pharmaceutical and agricultural companies willing to pay good money for useful samples."

He smiled broadly at the look of comprehension on her face as she thought over his points, and continued excitedly.

"That's just for the moon. We update our databanks every time we put into a port, and there's nothing on the Principality in them. That means they aren't from the local stellar neighborhood. I'd be willing to bet they're from the other side of the galaxy, which probably means that no one else in this sector or anywhere proximate has heard of them either. In that case, there's plenty of other opportunity. Technology, consumer goods, art, entertainment, and especially food! Hell, even if those Valinor make the same deals as us, there are plenty of potential customers that we'd probably never even cross paths with them again, and there's always the possibility that these newcomers are interested in buying stuff from other cultures, in which case we can sell our services as an intermediary. We could easily make enough money from all that to stop operating out here in the frontier, and if we can get that moon from them, retire in luxury."

"I think its worth the risk Kim. Now, I need you to go over our databanks and then inventory, see if we have anything that we can offer them as a free sample or whatever."

She smiled thinly, still not quite pleased but satisfied at least at having her concerns addressed. "Alright. Try your hardest not to get us blown up though."

by **Valinon** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 11:12 pm

The Sliver’s gravimetrics continued their staggered sequence at a third of their normal power. Silas’ course—now being carried out by the RI—was taking the courier around the jovian and moving it closer to the massive planet’s southern polar regions. The course moved the Sliver away from the unknown principality’s warship and closer to the Sultana’s orbit.

Silas leaned over next to Velmontes to study her station’s more detailed sensor feeds. Most of the data came from the Sliver’s earlier sweep, but updates were being fed as the courier continued to use its passive sensors at some of their lowest operational strengths.

“They know we saw them,” Velmontes’ hand hovered over the distorted area where the warship was located. Its position was now distorted by snarled data created by military grade ECM interference.

“That shows that whoever the Verniians found is competent in military protocol, Liesel. Bosse wanted his scan and got it, but them turtling up is about as surprising as a shark going for chum,” the courier’s master tapped at the energy reading signature from the warship’s area of space. “We’re sure these are in passive ranges?”

“They’re high passive ranges, but still within the parameters. She’s looking for whatever pinged her.”

“But not at full strength…that is interesting. I don’t think we’re lucky enough for these unidentified to think our hello was from the Sultana, but they don’t seem to be asking the Verniians any hard questions up there.”

“They’re not asking anything at all, Si. Communications between the two ships went dead after our burst. Even with the ECM, we would still be picking up on the signals between the two ships.”

“We know the freighter is still up there. She didn’t get vaped.”

“She was moving to run,” Silas and Velmontes looked at Petross, surprised by the interjection. Sliver’s engineer left his station to look at the sensor feeds. “RES, scale feed data, less 0005.”

Velmontes’ station spawned a new projection, showing the sensor data from five minutes earlier. “RES, scale feed data, specific Sultana.”

Petross’ index finger jabbed at the energy readings from the Sultana, “She flared. It was brief—really fucking brief—but she flared. Captain considered running, and came damn near close to doing it. He changed his mind just as fast.”

Petross’ finger followed the readings through their spike, then their dip back down to previous levels. Si and Velmontes studied the data.

“Decline coincides with the Multitude’s arrival. Sultana knows Bosse’s out there,” Velmontes looked at her captain.

“I doubt Bosse tried to hide his arrival. The Multitude doesn’t lend itself to subtlety. Give this data the same priority as any comm traffic we get between both ships when we make our next transmission.”

“We’re making another transmission?”

“We’re playing the role of a drone, Liesel. We need to look the part. I will move us back toward the equatorial latitudes when we come close to the point of our last transmission, then we’ll make another burst. That one will be our last for a while, I think. A drone is smart enough to hide itself, especially if it looks like the mothership barked an order to. We are canceling that second active burst, though. All the churning helium above us can’t keep a missile out.”

“Still no hails, Commander.”

Jaswinder looked back to Bosse. Multitude’s captain continued to lounge in his chair as the commerce ship continued toward the jovian where the Sultana and the Amino circled above the concealed Sliver. The distance between the gas giant and the Multitude would fall below 300 million kilometers within the next five minutes. The first-response squadron’s gunships were increasing the range of their patrol routes, adding their sensor coverage to their parent ship’s own.

There was an increasing murmur from Flight Control. Bosse concurred with Jaswinder’s recommendation to hold the more extensive commercial traffic until the situation stabilized. It was a small victory, but Jaswinder was glad that the number of hulls that needed to scurry back to the Multitude in the event of a quick exit from the system was smaller than usual.

“This is becoming tiresome,” Bosse leaned forward and clasped his hands while resting them on his knees. “The Verniians know we are here, even if these principality forces don’t.”

The Amino’s burst of electronic interference and increased sensor signature caused a stir on the Multitude’s bridge earlier, but when it became clear the warship’s interest was focused on the planet the discord subsided. Jaswinder could not fault Bosse’s assessment that Amino was responding to the Sliver’s sensor burst rather than the Multitude’s arrival. That did not explain the Sultana’s silence, or the sudden comm blackout by the two orbiting vessels. Jaswinder moved toward Bosse’s station, she kept her voice low.

“Captain, I am beginning to suspect that we may be the target of some Verniian operation staged to lure us into this system. We know almost nothing about these new arrivals beyond our courier’s reports, and these events could easily have been staged—possibly by the Imperial Navy or the Imperium’s frontier security services.”

Bosse’s too-dark eyes locked on to his XO, “You mean MFS? Even Vernii’s frontier kleptocrats have standards that make dealing with a ship like the Sultana something of poor taste, Jaswinder. Besides, why even stage such an operation? This is well beyond the area the MFS normally operates in, our observation of the Sultana only confirms that it’s been months—if not years—since that tramp saw anything that could be generously called a modern port. We are in a backwater, even by the Verge’s standards, and well beyond our usual trading routes. The Multitude is not the Rubric of Variance, Commander, our…footprint…is minimalized to keep us below the radar of the Office for Verge Affairs, much less some foreign service.”

“There is something unusual about this, Nick. Our arrival should have gotten some sort of response. This silence is flat out suspicious.”

Bosse turned toward his security chief with a look that could be expected from being informed the Multitude’s sewage system was purging into his quarters. Jaswinder did her best hide her own surprise that Forrest Treger offered anything that resembled agreement with her position.

“New contacts! Multiple contacts confirmed in the inner system!”

Jaswinder and Treger both turned toward the sensor chief’s station. Bosse stood from his chair and walked toward the bridge’s main plot. A series of new contacts glowed in the inner system, but they lacked any significant details. Jaswinder did see that the new contacts were almost on top of the crosshair that denoted the location the first group of unknown vessels appeared at. She could tell by Bosse’s narrowed eyes noticed that too. For all his arrogance and dissemination, Jaswinder knew her CO was not stupid.

Data on the vessels continued to stream in. The sheer size of several of them allowed for ease of identification as separate vessels, despite the primary’s level of interference. The sensor section confirmed seven vessels—three were labeled as capital vessels of unknown class while four others distinctly smaller classes. Bosse stepped back from the plot and moved toward the sensor section.

“Additional details?”

“We are not likely to gain any, sir. The interference from the primary—and the distance—is proving too much for our passives. We need to concentrate active sensors or deploy a survey drone to improve our coverage.”

Jaswinder and Treger belatedly followed Bosse. Jaswinder was not happy about the paucity of the data on hand either. Treger’s earlier concern was vanished behind his usual neutral mask.

“I think the response from the escort the Sultana was communicating with is indicative of how their colleagues will respond to a full burst from us, Captain. I cannot recommend it,” Jaswinder did not flinch when Bosse turned to fix those eyes back on her.

“I am inclined to agree, Jas—“

“Energy spike from the new arrivals! It’s near what we saw before they arri—they’re gone!”

The seven vessels signatures vanished from the sensor section’s vision and left vanishing ghosts in the main plot. Jaswinder stepped aside as Bosse brushed past her, returning to the main plot. He rested a hand on the edge of the plot’s podium.

“I want a full passive sensor sweep. Take us right to the edge of our passive levels, if we cannot find them…”

“…if we cannot find them, prepare for an active sweep of the entire system,” Nicholas rested both hands on the plot. He could feel Chaote hovering behind him and heard Treger’s footfalls as he followed from the sensor section. “Staples, did we get a clear enough reading from the new ships to see if it was the first group of ships returning?”

Staples looked up from the sensor section chief’s station, “The data from the courier was limited, sir, and we weren’t able to gather much before they jumped again. Initial estimate is that it is unlikely the new ships were the original task force returning. There were some noticeable differences in the ships’ energy and propulsion signatures, as well as mass shadows.”

Nicholas sifted through the tell-tales at the edges of his vision and brought up one of the secured channels he shared with Treger. He continued to rake his eyes across the plot as sensor updates streamed in.

What exactly was that earlier? We are well fucking past the time for second thoughts about this.

I can understand our unidentifieds being slow to respond, but Chaote’s right, the Sultana not hailing us makes this suspicious.

We’ve dealt with the ‘suspicious’ before. Multitude is more than capable when it comes to taking care of a floating hulk and a single escort.

Avi, you there?

Does Alpha Centauri have three suns?

What is your analysis of the interference programs from the warship communicating with the Sultana?

Their approach to ECM relies on brute strength more than finesse, but it is quite effective—especially at this range. It shares some characteristics with ECM systems and protocols the Solar Navy used. The similarity is most likely coincidental.

Most likely…?

It is coincidental. The Hegemony never designed anything like this, and the successor states have higher priorities for their resources than aiding some Verniian freighter in carrying out some ruse. However, I do suspect that the level of ECM that warship is running is interfering with their communications capabilities. That may partially explain the lack of traffic between the two ships. It also explains the other signals that were exchanged between that escort and the inner system.

You detected comm traffic besides what was exchanged between the freighter and the warship?

I detected regular energy pulse signatures from the warship. I thought the pulses were associated with their sensors or propulsion, but they occur independent of what we can now assume are increased sensor and engine activity. It is either a weapons system of some sort or their communications network at work, given its directional nature the latter is most likely. I am not able to decrypt or analyze it further.

And we cannot even begin to estimate what the escort may be communicating with besides those ships that just vanished. I don’t love Chaote—prissy little bitch that she is—Nick, but I think it’s time we consider cutting our losses on this one. The reaction to Lartey’s sensor burst makes it clear these fuckers are paranoid, and the paranoid invariably—

“New contacts!” one of Staples’ juniors shouted. “New contacts sunward of the jovian, six—strike that—seven distinct energy signatures. Removing the initial energy distortion shows seven vessels on an apparent course to intercept the jovian along its orbit.”

Staples looked at Nicholas, “The readings are consistent with what we saw in the inner system, sir. Vessels’ sensor signatures are identical, and the task force is composed of the same classes of ships.”

A micro jump…

Lartey was correct. These people do enjoy displaying their warships’ capabilities rather openly.

We can discuss their lack of appreciation for military secrecy later. Micro jumping is uncommon, but not unheard of.

I reiterate, racing out here like that to support a lone warship from nothing more than one sensor burst shows that these are paranoid little fuckers.

“Designate the ships as Group Alpha. Designate the escort with the Sultana as Group Alpha’s primary ship until further notice,” Nicholas turned to Chaote. “Jaswinder, I was in error earlier. GSHQ is to prepare two additional squadrons for launch and keep them on hotbox status until I rescind the order. Understood?”

“Yes, Captain,” Jaswinder moved toward Flight Control, but Nicholas saw her eye Treger on the war. The security chief was standing next to the plot, arms crossed and eyes glazed. Nicholas heard the dull echo of alerts being issued to bring several of Multitude’s tactical response units to readiness.

Additional security seemed prudent, if we are going to be sending out more of the Tohokus.

I concur. There is another open signal being transmitted from remote sources near the escort already in orbit. They must have seeded communications satellites after the Sliver’s sensor burst.

Well, that at least confirms the estimate that their ECM is as much as a problem as it is for us. Do we have a decryption?

A new screen filled one of Bosse’s eyes. The terse message from the Amino filled a few lines of it.

Same code. Same pattern.

Did you compose that message I requested before the jump?

Yes.

Send it through my station.

“Comm, prepare to transmit the message I am forwarding. I want it unencrypted and across all known common channels, and make two focused transmissions toward the planet.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Nicholas leaned on the plot, arms splayed outward as he glared into the plot. The Verniians not reacting to the Multitude’s arrival was proving difficult, and the difficulty was clearly not winning him any favors with the jumpy sods Feldman somehow managed to find.

“Message is transmitting in the clear, sir.”

“Monitor all channels for any responses, either from Group Alpha’s primary or its other ships.”

“Aye, captain.”

Avi, transmit a message to the Sliver. I want future sensor burst aborted until further notice. Lartey is to keep his cover as a drone until we can arrange for his boat’s extraction.

Done.

Is the Sultana operating an ansible unit?

There is one on board. Its currently maintaining passive level operations.

It’s time we started learning all we can about Captain Feldman. Prepare to run low level incursion on my instructions.

With pleasure.

Multitude’s typical comm traffic and identifiers were joined by a message modeled after the Sultana’s responses and continued in a ten-second delay loop.

Code: Select all: .... -.-. .-.. / ... --- .-. --- ... .-.-.- / -- . ... ... .- --. . / .. ... / - --- / .. -.. . -. - .. ..-. -.-- / -- ..- .-.. - .. - ..- -.. . --..-- / .. -- .--. . .-. .. .- .-.. / -.-. --- -- -- . .-. -.-. . / ... .... .. .--. .-.-.- / .-. . --. .. ... - . .-. . -.. / .. -. / ..- -. .. - . -.. / ... - .- .-. / . -- .--. .. .-. . / --- ..-. / ...- .- .-.. .. -. --- -. .-.-.- / .-- . / -.-. --- -- . / .. -. / .--. . .- -.-. . .-.-.- / .-- .- -. - / - --- / . ... - .- -... .-.. .. ... .... / -.-. --- -. - .- -.-. - / .- -. -.. / .--. --- ... ... .. -... .-.. -.-- / - .-. .- -.. . .-.-.- / .- .-.. . .-. - . -.. / - --- / .- .-. .-. .. ...- .- .-.. / -... -.-- / ... ..- .-. ...- . -.-- / ... .- - . .-.. .-.. .. - . / -.. . .--. .-.. --- -.-- . -.. / - --- / .--- --- ...- .. .- -. / .-- --- .-. .-.. -.. .-.-.- / ... . -. ... --- .-. / -... ..- .-. ... - / .--. .- .-. - / --- ..-. / ... .- - . .-.. .-.. .. - . / ... / --- .--. . .-. .- - .. --- -. .- .-.. / .--. .- .-. .- -- . - . .-. ... .-.-.- / .--. .-.. . .- ... . / -.. --- / -. --- - / .- - - .- -.-. -.- .-.-.- / .-- .. .-.. .-.. / -.-. .- -. -.-. . .-.. / ..-. ..- .-. - .... . .-. / ... .- - . .-.. .-.. .. - . / --- .--. . .-. .- - .. --- -. ... .-.-.- / .-. . --.- ..- . ... - / .--. . .-. -- .. ... ... .. --- -. / - --- / -.-. --- -. - .. -. ..- . / .- .--. .--. .-. --- .- -.-. .... / - --- / .--- --- ...- .. .- -. / .-- --- .-. .-.. -.. .-.-.- / .--. .-.. . .- ... . / .-. . ... .--. --- -. -.. .-.-.-

by **Heliocalypse** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 4:47 am

Chapter Eight - Chaotic Clash

In advent of the unknown, only the wary would not panic but act cohesively to handle the situation.

Unknown System
Onboard HCL Vicr
Utility Fleet One Formation
Milky Way Galaxy

Commanding HCL Vicr from the safety of the ship's bridge, Renec served the Gauis Ostrolis for more than a quarter of century and having blue-green iries coupled with near silver hair as the trademark of all Gauis Segment citizens although Renec now uses an artificially made robotic eyes. Veteran of the Gausi Neuro War, he was reconstructed by the Gauis Segment to serve the Segment yet again due to his exceptional talent and tactical brilliance. However due to limitation of the Segment technologies, Renec eyes and chin were replaced with something robotic to make do with the deficiency, causing him to have robotic eyes that occasionally glow in green colour and having one metallic 'chin' which have one large screw on bottom side of it respectively.

Calmly standing in the near middle area of the command area, Renec twirled his fingers around, pressing a few holographic button on his command station, while being flanked on all sides by the ship's personnel in HCL Vicr command area. Numerous clicking and beeping can be heard in the area, as the command crews of HCL Vicr faithfully carry out their designated duties as set by Renec.

"Sorry to disturb you Captain Renec, but repairs on HCL Animo is almost completed. What are your orders, Captain?" asked an interface near Captain Renec line of vision.

Flexing his robotic eyes around, Renec replied, "Thank you for the report, Officer. Did you manage to get current data from HCL Animo? It would be highly valuable since we can use that data to fine tune our drives and optimize our ship systems even further."

"Working on it. Any further orders, captain?" flickered the interface slightly.

Renec pats his non-existent beard by putting his gloved right hand on his metallic chin "No, officer. Not yet. Not now. Keep an impartial watch on all those variables..this matter seems quite interesting...."

"Ok Captain." flashed off the interface.

Another one floating interface flashed in front of Renec, "Captain Renec i presume? That robotic eyes and chin..oh yes, it's you!"

"What is it, Captain Ethina? I was having a slight line of thought...it better be good." crackled Renec hands in annoyance.

Image of Ethina flickered and tattered for a fraction of a second, "Now now, don't be hasty or you will wreck your ship again. I need you to prepare a scan report with HCL Turl. Do whatever you deem necessary, as long you get that report scan complete."

"Really? No restrictions? I hope you know what are you suggesting to me, Captain Ethina." smirked Renec in disbelief.

Ethina gave Renec a frustrated tone, "The hell if i know. You need to ask Captain Kiro, she's the current mission leader, not me."

"Hm...she? I guess it wouldn't matter then. I will be working on it." toned Renec with an intrigued look.

Image of Ethina faded away with a burst of horizontal flash, "Good. Get to work then."

"Interesting...no wonder Radisol insists me going on this mission, interesting indeed." chuckled Renec to himself before he noticed a flashing icon on his command console, causing him to press one button that brings up an interface, "Officer, track that signal down. Use all passives."

"Roger, captain." answered the interface before disappearing in thin mist of light.

Cackling and chuckling away, he clunked his fingers on his command console on pertaining matters that interests him. Renec spin his vision around for a moment before focusing his attention to his command console. It seems that things are going to get very interesting, or so he thought of.

HCL Sethra and HCL Resoa tactfully activated its repair systems in order to conduct emergency repairs on HCL Animo. Due to the previous intergalactic jump and close shave with the current system's star, HCL Animo had suffered some minor damages, mainly of its sensitive sensors and of a few maneuvering thrusters. Charred carbon and electrical pulses leak through the exposed armour layers of HCL Animo, as if the ship had been involved in slight skirmish but HCL Animo AI core prevented further extensive damage dealt to the warship on time, by tactically activating specific sections of the ship's segmented shields to cover weakened areas from being damaged from exposure to the radiation front that are spewed by the system's bright, active star.

Now behind the jovian with HCL Sethra and HCL Resoa attended to HCL Animo, the AI core of HCL Animo lowered the active shield segments, in order to ease repairs and access for the two repair ships. Multiple shades of blue in shape of hexagons flashed for a fraction of a second, as the active shield segments of HCL Animo are slowly toned down automatically to lowest settings. Flanked left and right by the repair cruisers, HCL Animo lies in relative velocity of the cruisers as the ship is locked into position by the repair cruisers' dedicated interdictors. Multiple small repair drones were released from side tubes of HCL Sethra and HCL Resoa, and heading to the damaged areas of HCL Animo in ballad of sync.

The drones work efficiently, replacing and repairing damaged areas of HCL Animo, sparks fly and various debris ejected, only to be sucked in by other drones dedicated to recycle broken debris for plausible further usage or collecting them for removal as standard operating procedure of Prima-Navy dictated of. Multitude of bays opened and closed on the trio of ships as the drones retrofitted and replaced damaged armour plates of HCL Animo, other than the broken down systems while dedicated small scale freighters from the repair cruisers shuffled back and forth for the same purpose, reaming and fixing of HCL Animo internal systems. HCL Turl and HCL Vicr, flanking the formation right and left whilst HCL Animo being in the center of the formation that is now headed by HCL Thirma acutely preparing their passive sensors as ordered by Ethina.

The delta shaped sleek appearance of HCL Turl and HCL Vicr contrasted greatly with the main warship of the formation, the Ionel Battlecruiser named as HCL Thirma. Five main engines of the Gyrgyr class ships slowly sputtered a glow that withered in yellow tint flavour as the ships locked in orbit with HCL Animo. The Gyrygr class ships, standing at half the size of the Ionel Battlecruiser automatically made minute adjustments to their relative orbit paths by moving and readjusting their dorsal or side maneuvering flaps that are equipped with small thrusters, to take into account the battlecruiser mass size and the tidal gravitational waves produced by the massive jovian below.

Unknown System
Onboard HCL Animo
Utility Fleet One Formation
Milky Way Galaxy

Kiro anxiously watched the galore of the repair drones working outside while teething her near evident nervousness, "Officer Sithena, how long till the repairs are done?"

"It will be done when it's done, Captain. I'm not sure myself." flexed Sithena's head as she noticed of Kiro's question.

As Kiro gazed her looks around, an interface showed itself near Kiro, "Captain Kiro. The net probes detected a return message from Sultana. Decoding it now."

"Hm? Play it when it's ready. Forward it to HCL Turl, HCL Vicr and HCL Thirma." tinged Kiro irises as she is aware of the news.

The interface vanished after a few seconds of existence, "Orders received, Captain. Working on it."

Unknown System
Onboard HCL Vicr
Utility Fleet One Formation
Milky Way Galaxy

The delta shaped Gyrgyr class ships tactfully extended their sensor rods out of their hulls, carbon black against the bright background plastered by the ever bright central star in the system. The rods slowly seeps of electrical energy moments before it becomes charge-less as the owners of it started to reverse the energy flow transmitted to the sensor rods. HCL Turl then directed most of its sensor rods to face the jovian below in order to scan the planet and the space surrounding it using passive sensors before followed suit by HCL Vicr that extended its passive sensor ranges as far as it can outward from the jovian, in order to scan the system as much as possible without using any active sensors.

Captain Renec, viewing the sensors data stream from the enclave of his chair in form of a holographic interface noticed something as the sensors brought an interesting signature, "Officer, mark up the object."

"Roger Captain. Should we tell the other ships?" queried one interface near Renec line of his vision as he decided to contact his officer beforehand.

Viewing the data output in front of his robotic eyes, Renec flinched a little, "No, not now. Continue to observe them as much as possible. Mark object as Ship One."

"As you commanded, Captain." flashed the interface off.

Renec then pressed a single button on his command console, "Connect me to HCL Turl. This is Captain Renec speaking. Tachyon link."

"Confirmed. Acquiring wavelength and initializing data transmission." replied his command console.

An image of Captain Liceto appeared in a floating interface in front of Renec, a person with indistinguishable facial features as Renec vision's gleamed that the person is currently in an armoured suit, "This is Captain Liceto speaking. What do you want, Renec?"

"Ah still finesse as always, Captain Liceto?" poked Renec at Liceto with a sarcastic tone.

The image flickered for a moment before Liceto answered with an annoyed tone, "I don't like using honorifics or ranks, Renec. It sets us away from others, we're all plebeian once. Now what is you want from me? I still have to compile a sensor report on the jovian, make it quick."

"Down to earth person eh? Interesting character you are. No matter, what i would like to request is, to forward some of the data you collected to my ship, over secure tachyon link." crossed Renec's fingers as he calmly responds.

Liceto answered with a slightly angry tone although it's hard to discern the person facial's expression due to the armour suit, "I'm not for your amusement, Renec. Don't make my ship shoot you down.", the image of Liceto then faded away quickly,"It shall be done and dealt with, now without further ado, i have work to do. You seem to have a lot of time in your hands Renec, you should worry more of not doing your job."

"Hm...must be some of Raila's schemes...i can use this..." muttered Renec to himself as he simply brushed aside Liceto's threat.

Unknown System
Onboard HCL Animo
Utility Fleet One Formation
Milky Way Galaxy

The repair drones that once attended to HCL Animo then slowly moved away and back to their respective ships. With the repairs complete, the two repair cruisers then moved away and released HCL Animo from their interdictor with several chug of plasma stream emitted by their engines. HCL Animo then automatically re-engaged her main thrusters again after deactivating them for repairs, causing the ship to lightly experience an inertia tremor that vibrated throughout the ship. Multitude of shield segments of HCL Animo flashed for a second before disappearing and the flexing of some of the ship's maneuvering flaps a few degrees which are carried out as part of maintenance check done by the main AI core of the ship.

"System repairs complete. Fully operational." speaks a steely tone towards Kiro.

Much to her delight, she gave an order via her intercom, "Attention all personnel, repairs are complete! Prepare on decks!"

Shortly after, an interface pegged Kiro's attention "Captain, the message from Sultana is now decoded and logged."

"Great, contact HCL Thirma, Vicr and Turl." simply stated Kiro's curiosity as she fixed her eyes on the newly formed interface.

The interface then lightly fade away, "Confirmed, Captain."

Unknown System
Onboard HCL Turl
Utility Fleet One Formation
Milky Way Galaxy

Encrusted in heavy armour, Liceto eyes does nothing than flinch, reading the scan report HCL Turl had conducted, "Hm...no wonder Kiro picked this place, the jovian have lot of resources that we can utilize...a habitable moon even, good."

"Captain? We had detected traces of an ionized trail on the jovian and few wave disturbances on the local gravity field." poked an interface near Liceto line of vision as it shimmered on Liceto's HUD visor.

Liceto then flexes the suit's head and eying the new interface, "What is it now, Officer? You do know i'm reading this report don't you?"

"I-I-I'm terribly so-so-sorry for disturbing you Captain, but....recent passive deep core scans revea-led something is in the jovian, some sort of craft hiding in it." answered the interface with nervousness.

Pressing one holographic button that closed the sensor report, Liceto decided to listen to the officer, "Tell me more, officer. Give me a detailed scan on it, use full passive. Don't fail me."

"Ro-ro-roger, Captain." flashed the interface off immediately as soon as it formed.

Unknown System
Onboard HCL Animo
Utility Fleet One Formation
Milky Way Galaxy

Lightly stepping into the command room after taking a slight break, Kiro voiced a command over her command chair, "System, run Protocol Seve."

"Protocol unavailable, active sensors are still synchronizing. Passive sensors are in near working capacity." answered a steel tone near Kiro's chair.

Sitting on her chair, Kiro pressed a few buttons, "Ok...run Protocol Ast. Prepare comlink."

"Acknowledged." replied the system to Kiro's command.

Then, three squares formed near Kiro's line of vision where each object shows a name near the bottom of its area respectively, Ethina, Renec and Liceto. The squares initially shows the respective logo of where the ship was assigned to before flashing a video feed that shows the respective ship Captains. The brief flicker of Ostrolis logo on the squares made Kiro's eyes somewhat shifty, till the squares shown to her the live feed image of the ship Captains, except for the square that supposed to show Renec's portrait.

Curious of the situation, Kiro voiced a query, "Captain Renec, why the cover if i may ask?"

"I would suggest if this conference is done in tachyon link. You were hit by an e-burst correct? We need to become more careful than this." answered the square that is supposed to show the image of Renec.

Kiro then gave the square a puzzled look, "Well, if the other ship Captains don't mind it..why not be prudent?"

"As Captain Renec says, i don't care really." shrugged Ethina's image.

Liceto image lightly brimming with ode of seriousness, "Whatever. I want this to be done with, right here, right now."

The image of the squares lightly flicker before disappearing, only to reform few minutes later as new mode of communication is being established. Several shapes of light blue formed near the squares, indicating that tachyon based comlink is established, and appearance of few interfaces that shows the current status of the link and the current passive sensors readings that are based on the communication link in order to check for plausible enemy detectors. The newly formed interface come into life, as the static images of bars on the interfaces animate after a few seconds of formation and retrieving data from main AI core of HCL Animo.

"Ok, it's done. All is present yes?" sways Kiro's eyes for a moment before focusing on the previously formed squares now showing the respective image of the ship Captains.

Ethina rampantly shot his first line of thought, "Captain Kiro, is the ECM is still needed? The repairs of your ship could be done faster if it was turned off, you know."

"Better safe than sorry, Captain Ethina. It's still activated. Now let's get to the root cause of this matter." leaned Kiro's head slightly to the right and then of her clasping her fingers together, "I assume you all had read the latest report on the current situation, and what is our benefactor named as Sultana had given us, right?"

Renec's image liltly smiled with a little grin, "Well of course. The benefactor you speak of given us a starmap when Admiral Soros simply asked, and they're under the banner of Imperialists of Verniians right? And called as Sultana?"

"Imperialists of Verniians? What kind of new power is that? And why would Sultana gave a map simply as requested by the admiral? I thought they or whomever in the Principality that saw HCL Soros would immediately run away or completely surrender." asked Liceto with tone of curiosity.

Kiro pats her head in frustration, "Captain Liceto. Please scrap that stubbornness of yours and stop being clueless...we're in a new universe right now, with no ally in sight or any Principality forces than us to that matter. We are on our own now."

"If it isn't an order directly from Ostrolis bugging me here, i won't be here on friendly terms with you, Kiro. Watch your mouth." angered Liceto with a threatening tone.

Renec lightly rubbed his metallic chin in response, "Captain Liceto, Captain Kiro is right. We don't have any ally right now and gaining one can grant us substantial advantage here."

"I'm inclined to agree with Captain Renec. But can we trust them enough?" pry Ethina's attention over Renec's statement.

"We will know soon enough, Captain Ethina. Now, enough off-topic, i need a consensus here, guys." annoyed Kiro over the matter.

Noting that the assailing tone before is negated, Liceto replied simply, "Sure. Then what do you suggest?"

"Wait. Playing the message again for refreshment of memory." pressed Kiro's finger on one of holographic buttons near her command chair.

Code: Select all: ASSURANCE bzzt..INTENTIONS ARE EUA2931 PREVIOUSLY STATED. SEEK-bzzt-CULTURAL EXCHANGE, TRADE-bzzt-INFORMATION. bzzt-WILLING-bzzt-OFFER EVIDENCE OF GOOD-bzzt-INTENT IF REQUESTED.

"Can't HCL Animo get a better picture of the situation?" shot a question from Renec's portrait.

As Kiro merely opening her mouth to speak, Ethina suddenly sprang his answer instead, "The ECM is still active, Captain Renec. It's messing with the EM coms used by the net probes. I thought you knew that!"

"Ah sorry, my mistake." nodded the image of Renec a few degrees down before recoiling back into its usual position.

Analyzing the situation, Liceto brandished a few set of short sentences, "Wait. They want to trade?"

"That's so far what they said, pretty much consistent for a few times. Given they grant us the starmap, i guess we should give them something in return perhaps." replied Kiro simply while staring at Liceto's portrait.

Renec shudders a few degrees left and right before announcing his statement, "Suspicious...we need to do more background check on them, ask them more questions...."

"Not sure if they want to answer, they seem spooked out by our move. Well me and my crews were spooked out too, by an active e-burst." tattered Kiro's fingers before lightly twirl in mid air, activating few more interfaces, "Captain Liceto, i assume you had scanned the jovian right?"

"With much ordain, yes." answered Liceto surprisingly polite before the interfaces brought by Kiro come into life as Liceto authorized data link to HCL Animo with two swipe of fingers, "My ship detected that this jovian can provide us with much needed fuel, and the existence of the habitable moon only made it more lucrative to take hold on."

"Hm perhaps that is the reason why HCL Animo stumbled on Sultana in the first place then?" peered Ethina with curiosity that is followed by curious glance from Renec.

Kiro lightly interacts with the newly formed interfaces, "It might be. Now what would we respond to them then? I need a consensus here."

"I guess turning the ECM off would be a show of good faith? Accept their offer and give them a sample or whatever, we can use that to predict their actions, if they're hostile, im sure my battlecruiser can handle that." smiled Ethina.

Renec flinched slightly with skin of sarcasm, "It seems that you're more clever than what you physically look like, Captain Ethina. Yeah, that method can be used."

"Right. I will compose the message personally then." nodded Kiro in agreement while she pressed a button that slowly powers down HCL Animo's ECM systems.

"Warning. Massive ship detected bearing Ni1:103:34A. Requesting all personnel to be station ready. Ship analyzed to be estimated as capital class ship on mass and magnetic sensors." breaks the conversation, as the system of the HCL Animo picked up something before the whole fleet noticed of the news.

"Wait, what?" shocked Kiro before grabbing her intercom, "All stations, Code Seven! Plausible hostile ship detected!"

Renec shifted his eyes around for a fraction of second, "Oh, no."

"Wait. Are you setting me to your trap, Renec? Explain yourself!" flashed the image of Liceto before rapidly disappearing after image of Renec vanished.

Ethina shrugged a bit before his image subsides, "Don't ask me, ask them."

"Man...why do they have to import their rivalries here..." frustrated Kiro for a moment before she managed to collate her focus yet again, "Identify that ship now! I want a reading solution quick, on passive mode! They might be the cause of the e-burst before! Release few decoys and reduce our signature!"

Unknown System
Onboard HCL Turl
Utility Fleet One Formation
Milky Way Galaxy

"Aim HCL Vicr here and now! Don't let it escape!" voraciously thundered Liceto voice over HCL Turl's internal intercom.

One of the officers in the command room propped a question, "Er Captain? Why would we aim our own warship?"

"Get him. Get him now! I don't care what method you use, shoot him down or your neck will be gone!" grasped Liceto's large mechanical hand on the officer's neck.

The officer nodded a few degrees before spluttered a cough as he is being chocked by Liceto, "Ye-ye-yes!"

"I knew it..that massive ship...it must be Renec's ploy to foil me!" released Liceto grip and then smashed the command console in the area in anger after viewing the new icon that shows the newly discovered ship, more than three kilometers in length as the console stated before it's destroyed by Liceto.

Multiple weapons and targeting systems on HCL Turl flared active and begin to track HCL Vicr's engine signature moments after Liceto's orders were given. Various klaxons buzzed on HCL Turl as the crews onboard on the ship prepares for combat, auxiliary personnel to safety closets, military personnel quickly manning their stations and multitude of systems come into life that is peppered by chaotic sound of the situation. The Gyrgyr class warship flexed its maneuvering thrusters and opening a few degrees wider of its backside vector thrusters, propelling the near one and half kilometer warship closer to fire upon HCL Vicr given HCL Turl is on the left side of the formation while HCL Vicr is on the right, separated by the massive HCL Thirma in the middle of the current fleet formation.

Unknown System
Onboard HCL Vicr
Utility Fleet One Formation
Milky Way Galaxy

"Put that thrusters on maximum officer, our lives depends on it! Charge up the warp drive too!" screamed Renec at his intercom over realization that Liceto is now furious and coming to shoot him down.

The personnel in the command room tactfully responded, "Charging warp drive! Twenty percent! Engine output on maximum!"

"What's the situation on the jammers, officer?!" stated Renec as beads of sweat started to roll over his face. Due to various reasons, his ship are not properly armed as HCL Turl as Renec traded firepower for sensor systems thus his decision to flee from the scene.

One of the personnel in the room panicky screamed, "Captain! Traces of active sensor illumination from HCL Turl! They do intend to shoot us down!"

"God damn it, he's serious! I doubt Ethina can help on time, maneuver us out of here and release decoys!" flinched Renec rapidly while he views the current starmap acquired from Ethina in haste.

HCL Vicr swayed forward, accelerating away from the formation as its massive backside thrusters opened their flaps larger and larger as more fuel being ignited by its engines. Various electronic pulses run through the body of HCL Vicr as it activates its self defense mechanisms, point defense cannons swiveling towards HCL Turl, multiple segments of shields flared active and of its main guns started to swivel in order to counter fire HCL Turl. The other ships in the formation, the repair cruisers and medical frigates started their acceleration curve to seek refuge near HCL Thirma as they noticed that there soon be a conflict between the two Gyrgyr class warships in close proximity of them.

Unknown System
Onboard HCL Thirma
Utility Fleet One Formation
Milky Way Galaxy

Ethina waved his hand over his command chair, that brings up the holographic map of the system, "Officer, run passive scanners at full. Track that massive warship down."

"Aye aye captain!" replied one of the personnel in the command room.

A few moments later, various smaller icons appeared near the one central icon that represented by the detected large ship that shows itself towards Ethina's eyes, "Hm, fighters? Activate decoys, launch interceptor drones!"

"Roger Captain! And about HCL Turl and Vicr?" queried one of his officers.

Ethina quickly viewed the matters at hand, opening up new interfaces that shows HCL Thirma's weapon systems before selecting several weapon systems, "Use tractor beams and interdictor beams on them, blanket jam."

With Ethina's orders heard, various systems on HCL Thirma kicked into life, tractor beams slowly powering up with a deep hum and of multiple weapon turrets started to swivel towards the both of the Gyrgyr class warships. Smaller ports on the battlecruiser opened, ejecting several small interceptor drones that initially dead before activating and escorting the warship moments after being released. As HCL Turl was close to activate its main cannons, multiple tractor beams shot from the body of HCL Thirma, tugging the smaller warship near the battlecruiser while the escaping HCL Vicr is caught in the tractor beams of the battlecruiser as well, helplessly trying to chug away as the tractor beams started to become stronger and stronger on pulling HCL Vicr towards the battlecruiser. Noticing that the battlecruiser now have majority of its weapon systems aimed at themselves, HCL Turl and Vicr quickly admits defeat.

Unknown System
Onboard HCL Animo
Utility Fleet One Formation
Milky Way Galaxy

Kiro pressed a holographic button that connects her comlink with both of the Gyrgyr class warships with a disappointed sigh, "Liceto, Renec, what is the meaning of this?"

"I'm just mad at him. Let me kill him." flared the formed image of Liceto near left of Kiro's vision.

Image of Renec shortly form afterwards, with him being slightly jumpy, "Wait, i didn't do anything wrong!"

"Sigh. For this i could have you both trialed for treason. Stop fighting each other, you're here under my command and you will and must obey my orders. Do we have an understanding here?" harpooned Kiro words over both of the contacted captains.

Image of Liceto flashed off, "Whatever."

"Thank you, Captain Kiro...Liceto is like a fierce..tiger.." nodded Rene's image in humility or so it looked like of.

Kiro then tacitly pressed another button, "Captain Ethina i appreciate your help on stopping both of them on time but you too have some explaining to do here."

"Err...opps?" speak an image of Ethina after it shortly formed in Kiro's line of vision.

Kiro lightly sighed, while viewing the new icons that shown the accurate position of the detected large ship, and finally the exact location of Sultana as passive sensors of HCL Animo scanned before, "Did you forgot the SOP, Captain Ethina?"

"You were flashing an emergency signal, Captain Kiro. Of course, i'm following the SOP of the Prima-Navy. Well, i did consider to use the SOP of the Ostrolis before coming here but Admiral Soros indicate that i should use SOP of Prima-Navy..." muttered Ethina in disgrace over the matter.

Renec giving a surprised look hearing the matter decided to break into the conversation, "Now, if we did follow the SOP of Ostrolis, this wouldn't happen did it? I'm thankful to you Captain Ethina on stopping Captain Liceto and Captain Kiro, i suggest that the SOP of the current protocols should be reviewed."

"Right...yeah..i will review the matter soon. Well, the SOP of Prima-Navy is still being constructed upon...so what do the info we have on the new contacts?" flayed Kiro's finger in mid air as she interacts with the holographic map projected in front of her.

Ethina then decided to speak, accompanied by several new interfaces that shown towards Kiro, "As far as i know, it's some type of carrier. My ship detected presence of some sort of drones circling the ship. More than three kilometers at length and a huge mass too."

"A large carrier eh? I thought it's some kind of barge when my ship first detected it." interjected Renec.

Viewing the matter at hand, Kiro then interacted with the new interface that shown towards her, "I see. Captain Renec, why am i not notified by this?"

"Well....." near silenced Renec as he tries to brush off Kiro's question.

An alarm sounded off as Kiro is intensely staring at Renec's portrait, "Incoming transmission, Code three. Vector confirmed. Ship of origin is not Sultana, origin ship tagged as Ship One."

"Hm? Interesting, the massive ship sent us the same signal pattern as what HCL Animo sent Sultana with, Captain Kiro. I never thought anyone than Sultana managed to recognize Code Three. " peered Ethina over the matter.

Tracing the origin of the signal, it's indeed emitted by the huge ship now tagged as Ship One icon in her line of vision, "Perhaps..they been watching us for a while. We got decoys off right?"

"Yes, my ship had released a few decoy drones and started emergency measures." nodded Ethina in reply.

Renec, noticed on the news poked at the conversation yet again, "Wait. If you do it wrong, they might suspect us. I suggest we act like usual...somehow."

"Yeah right, after your feud with Captain Liceto? They're sure to be alarmed." toned Kiro annoyingly.

A few new interface then showed up with accordance of Ethina's speech, "How about, we use those decoys to surround our main warships, then let our ships shoot some of those decoys down? It might fool them."

"Good idea Captain Ethina, but i wonder if it can work. Use false signals then, let them see that the decoys as some sort of enemy." contributed Renec to the conversation.

Eying her vision around, Kiro agreed to the notion, "Ok, make it as realistically as possible. I will see what i can do with the message from Sultana, and the message from this new big ship."

Several tractor beams now interdictor beams of HCL Thirma then pulsed off except for the ones holding HCL Turl locked in position. The various drones that drifted away from HCL Thirma then quickly jumped a few times away from the battlecruiser, warping in and out randomly in the system to give an impression that it's some sort of out of control drones before shot down by missile systems of HCL Thirma, Vicr and Animo. Multiple missile ports opened on the trio of warships, launching various small missiles that then accelerate and try to hit the drones. Most exploded a bit too early and failed to take down the drones but eventually missiles launched by the ships managed to destroy all of the drones. To make it even look realistic, the drones were equipped with weapons and fired at the trio of warships, barely hitting HCL Turl while slamming kinetic, energy weaponry projectiles towards some of the shields of the trio of warships.

Kiro staring outside from the safety of her chair given an order to her officer, "The message was analyzed correct?"

"It's translated now, Captain." nodded the officer in compliance.

Bringing a new interface, Kiro contacted Ethina and Renec over secure tachyon link, "I assume you two analyzed the coded message from Ship One?"

"Yes. They identified themselves as Multitude and seem to have same intent as Sultana but they're flying under different flag, under the banner of United Empire of Valinon Star." formed image of Ethina.

Image of Renec flickered slightly, "Okay. Now we're dealing with two space faring empires, Imperialists of Verniians and United Empire of Valinon Star? Do our databases have info on them? So far my ship database have nothing on them."

"As far what their message tells, we only know as much they told us. My ship and HCL Soros have nothing on them either." shrugged Kiro while viewing the latest image data and scan results procured by the fleet sensors that detected Multitude and Sultana accurate positions.

Hearing the matter, Renec shot up a reply, "So ok, they're new empire-backed entities the Principality never saw or heard before. We need to be very careful then, the two ships out there named as Sultana and the large Multitude might be their decoys to lure us in, Captain Kiro. We're here, alone with who knows how large and powerful their empires are. They might be coming around to gun us down even!"

"You might be right to suspect them, Captain Renec. But we need more substantial data before throwing such wild accusations around. Some of them might prove useful to us, being our ally perhaps. I know it's risky trying to trust them but it seems that Sultana seems trustworthy enough, giving us a starmap." argues Kiro over Renec's statement.

Ethina can be seen rubbing his chin over the holographic portrait of his, "I tend to agree with Captain Kiro, Captain Renec. Putting that aside firstly,so the Multitude or whatever want to collect their satellite here? I don't see any satellite of them here, no, nothing whatsoever than ours."

"My ship here detected the presence of some sort of craft in the jovian, maybe what the owners of Multitude saying is true." interjected Renec as multiple interface showing the data of the jovian shows itself towards Kiro.

Kiro interacted lightly with the data interfaces by dancing her fingers around, "I see. Hm..this ship called itself as Imperial class, commerce ship...but why is it the size of an assault carrier? Having drones too? Weird."

"My ship can take care of that, Captain Kiro, we have proper equipments to deal with whatever drones they're using, i guess. Why the ship is the size of the assault carrier is no one guess but even my battlecruiser is nearing the length of the so called Multitude. With our military and numbers advantage, i'm sure we can deal with them or whatever they try to throw at us." triumphantly broadcasted Ethina with a prideful smile.

Kiro then gave Ethina an annoyed look, "Captain Ethina. Realize this fact. They detected us faster than we detected them! It means that they might have spy nodes around and militarily competent enough to instantly recognize our warships by merely seeing it. Besides, they're under a flag of an empire, clearly they're organized enough to recognize our capabilities and our lethality by sending a message towards us."

"Well, sure they're militarily competent somehow, why not we check whether they might setting an ambush against us? I have a few N3T Posts here, similar as the ones used in the HCL Soros. Don't ask me how i got my hands on them." suggested Renec's portrait over the debacle.

Leaning her head to the left lightly, Kiro thought of the answer, "Hm, seems reasonable. Do it then. I will see what i can do regarding the reply to Sultana and the new ship named as Multitude."

"Ok, Captain Kiro." faded the image of Renec and Ethina in unison.

"Transmit these messages to the net probes, one for Sultana and another direct to the Multitude position. Split the focus mode, make sure Multitude is unable or least able detecting the message we sent to Sultana." twirls Kiro's fingers on a newly formed light blue coloured floating interface that shows a trove of words and letters on her left field of vision before a roughly made translator program popped up as a new light green coloured floating interface accompanied by several new data interfaces near her right field of vision, "Limit the dispersion deviation of the signals, increase signal resolution, buffer the signals in cyclic wave and add false signal vectors as buffers, i don't want anything else than Multitude or Sultana capable of picking up and identifying our Code Three transmissions. Make it quick and set the net probes to broadcast both messages simultaneously."

"Roger, Captain." answered the personnel.

In sequence, various communication rods of HCL Animo erected again from the ship's sleek shape and transmitted a set of information towards the previously released net probes as the fleet position now riddled with many mass and energy signature decoys to avoid prying eyes from accurately telling the position of the warships. Various interceptor drones slowly revolve HCL Thirma, with HCL Turl still being held in interdictor beamers, HCL Vicr moving to its original position while other ships of the fleets scurried under HCL Thirma. Multiple odd looking missiles ejected from the body of HCL Vicr, before disappearing one by one in a purple flash in every vector Ethina suspected, that other forces of the empires the new contacts they found might be hiding somewhere out there.

Message for Multitude broadcasted twice with delay of five seconds between each message :

Code: Select all: - .... .. ... / .... -.-. .-.. / .- -. .. -- --- --..-- / ... --- .-. --- ... / -.. . - .- -.-. .... -- . -. - .-.-.- / -- . ... ... .- --. . / .-. . -.-. . .. ...- . -.. .-.-.- / -.-. --- -. ..-. .. .-. -- .- - .. --- -. / --- ..-. / -. --- -. -....- .... --- ... - .. .-.. .. - -.-- / --- ..-. / -- ..- .-.. - .. - ..- -.. . / .-. . --.- ..- .. .-. . -.. .-.-.- / .-- . .- .--. --- -. ... / --- -. / .- .-.. . .-. - .-.-.- / -. --- -. -....- -.-. --- -. - .-. --- .-.. .-.. .- -... .-.. . / .--. .-. .. -. -.-. .. .--. .- .-.. .. - -.-- / -- .- -.. . / -.. .-. --- -. . ... / ... .... --- - / -.. --- .-- -. .-.-.-

Message for Sultana broadcasted once :

Code: Select all: - .... .. ... / .... -.-. .-.. / .- -. .. -- --- --..-- / ... --- .-. --- ... / -.. . - .- -.-. .... -- . -. - .-.-.- / -. --- -. -....- -.-. --- -. - .-. --- .-.. .-.. .- -... .-.. . / .--. .-. .. -. -.-. .. .--. .- .-.. .. - -.-- / -- .- -.. . / -.. .-. --- -. . ... / ... .... --- - / -.. --- .-- -. .-.-.- / . ...- .. -.. . -. -.-. . / --. --- --- -.. / ..-. .- .. - .... / .-. . --.- ..- . ... - . -.. .-.-.- / .... -.-. .-.. / .- -. .. -- --- / . -.-. -- / - ..- .-. -. . -.. / --- ..-. ..-. --..-- / .--. .- .-. - / --. --- --- -.. / ..-. .- .. - .... .-.-.- / . ...- .. -.. . -. -.-. . / .--. .-. --- .--. . .-. / .-. . .--. .-.. -.-- / .. ..-. / --. --- --- -.. / ..-. .- .. - .... / . ...- .. -.. . -. -.-. . / --. .. ...- . -. .-.-.-

Pentravase Second Capital World, 'Lici Dyha-Vorchse'
Central Diplomacy Department Block Five
Diplomat Room Three
Archus Galaxy

Radisol with his regal white uniform clad with red lines calmly awaits in a room, away from any suspecting eyes in the area. Selecting one of many secure rooms in the administration quarters, he swiftly lit his cigar and puffed a few times to waste time waiting his guest. Smoke slowly rises from his mouth, spinning and spiraling into a vortex before sucked in by the ventilation duct on the ceiling of the room. As he was about to take the fifth puff, Radisol twisted his cigar in the ash tray with short lived fiery ash dusting the tray. His guest had alighted over his presence, and Radisol tactfully pressed a remote that activated a small display in the room.

"Breaking News, this is the ALCN Network! On the national state of affairs, we have received reports that recently several warships and planetary defense forces within the Gauis Segment had declared unilateral sovereignty but the exact underlying reasons over their defection are not clear. The rebellion was quickly managed and halted by intervention of the Pentravase Segment with presence of Prima-Navy seeing the Gauis Ostrolis is currently very busy on ensuring the safety of its frontier colonies and handling the Mossr Toxic Leak accident. Due to the incident, the market price of HCC had brought down significantly and traders had voiced their concerns on the stability of the currency over the gradually worse security situation in certain areas of the Principality. It's noted that the Gauis Ostrolis will do a full review over the matter and it's expected-"

A man encrusted with official uniform of the Pentravase Government having a dark green eyes and a short black hair leaned to a chair, "Turn off that television, Radisol."

"Gladly. Now you see the turbulent situation we're facing right now, Minister?" stares the Grand Admiral to the new entity.

The man eyes the room around, "I can see that and all of this is caused by disappearance of the Elected Leader is it?"

"That is correct and the bastards of the Gauis Segment had picked the telltale signs of it. For that i would suggest to use Amendment of Article IXC and declare state of emergency since the central government are so incompetent that they don't even know that the Elected Leader is missing." withdrawn Radisol a small datapad from his pocket, displaying the matter in question with his eyes clashing against the eyes of his guest.

The man flinched slightly before reading the datapad given by Radisol, "Wait. I'm sure Raila had begun her move to search for the Elected Leader. The central government will know soon enough."

"For dear Minister, i suspect it's just a ploy for her to wrestle power from the central government! Her plan is not approved by the High Council even!" interjected Radisol furiously over the matter.

Putting the datapad aside, the man tended to Radisol's temper, "I don't believe so. With Research Acquisitors on the move, i suspect it's more than that. Let her run her petty plan, i would like to see how it will turn out."

"Ok then, if you wanted it to go that way, then this negotiation is over. Good bye." declared Radisol as he left the room in haste.

Before Radisol left the room, the man shouted to him, "Mind your steps Radisol. Do not challenge the laws set by the Archivers."

"Heh, doesn't he know that i already told someone to catch the Elected Leader? Good lord Radisol, playing with fire will only get you burnt." muttered the man with a slight chuckle after seeing Radisol moved out of earshot. The man then left the room calmly, striding forward with a grin.

It seems that not every plan engineered by Radisol is going to work, and such caused him a tone of anger over such failures. Gripping his way forward, now Radisol put all of his hopes on his representative, to tip the matter over his favour or so he thought of.

by **Valinon** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 5:04 am

Tension aboard the Sliver was well beyond being alleviated by routine maneuvers. Silas repeatedly decreased the frequency of the passive sensor scans as the number of ships orbiting in the jovian kept increasing. The more limited data still coming in did little to distract from the fact that there was now a fleet above all their heads, and that the courier would soon be on the side of the planet covered by the Principality warships.

There was sweat rolling into Silas’ eyes as he ordered the RI to start varying the latitudes the orbit and take them as deep into the atmosphere as he was willing to risk. The storm forces around the courier were strong enough that no amount of maneuvering and compensation could completely cancel them out. The Sliver periodically bucked with an intensity that was noticeable even through the compensator’s moderation. Silas sent out some garbled transmissions making sure he added random bits of code and queries that looked like a limited artificial intelligence desperately querying for orders as the situation it was confronted with spiraled outside his parameters. He got up and was headed back toward Velmontes’ station when an alarm sounded.

Velmontes knuckles whitened as she clenched her hands in her lap. The sounds of Petross sprinting back from the head could be heard in the corridor, and Silas almost jumped the remaining distance to the main sensor station.

“One of the fuckers found us,” Velmontes gasped out as she took a stuttering deep breath. She tilted her head back and looked up at unadorned metal of the ceiling. “It’s one of the ships that just jumped in…bigger…probably a battlecruiser or some sort of dreadnought…”

“Can you tell if they’re tracking us, Liesel?” Silas looked at the readouts for answers and heard a soft thud as Petross slid into his chair.

“I don’t know. They scanned the planet with a much stronger sweep. I think it’s still in passive ranges…but I don’t know. I don’t know, Si.”

Silas ground his teeth, “How far out was the Multitude?”

“Our last contact with her put it at 300 million out. I can’t tell where she is now unless we ascend or increase the power of our scans.”

“Bosse isn’t going to fight his way through a whole fleet to get us,” Petross was holding his head in his hands as he looked at his crewmates.

“He doesn’t have the firepower to fight through this if he wanted to,” Silas turned back to look out the cockpit’s screens. “I’ve had enough of this shit. We can’t feed that much more data to the Multitude without starting to give those bastards up there a clue of what we may actually be. Send another message to Bosse. Tell him we will continue to make false transmissions locally but that I’m not going to risk another burst transmission. Petross, I want you to prep one of the survey drones for launch.”

“It won’t survive for more than a few minutes, Si.”

“It doesn’t have to last that long. If those warships are just turning their passives on the jovian, they most likely won’t be able to detect if we drop a drone. I am going to run a jump calculation and prime the Verners. We are going to run if they focus in on us again and detonate the drone behind us. Bosse can explain the situation however the hell he wants. My contract is signed by the ship’s board, not him.”

Silas walked back to the pilot’s station and brought up the primary jump navigation program. He started to work through the emergency overrides after starting a calculation for a crash jump that would take the Sliver beyond the system’s Kuiper Belt.

Nicholas paced and prowled around the main plot, periodically barking out orders or glaring at the comm section. He last ordered the Multitude’s engines be cut to quarter power and issued an administrative suspension of normal hanger operations—effectively ending the illusion that the commerce ship’s present location was a routine stop. Both did little to make the annoying whisper in his brain that was starting to suggest that Treger’s suspicions may be warranted go away.

He stopped and watched as the jovian’s orbit swarmed with activity. Chaote believed that the Principality ships were effecting repairs on the Animo. That at least meant not all the recent arrivals were warships as Nicholas original feared, but they were still clearly military in nature. The repair activity was even more bizarre. It suggested the Principality must be using some suspect form of superluminal travel, though Nicholas was at a loss to know how a nation that could produce warships of this size could somehow neglect designing a reliable jump system. That at least suggested whoever the Principality represented could not be a collaborator with Vernii’s intelligence services or military.

There is another message from the Sliver.

It’s about fucking time. Is Lartey able to make any more of the situation than we are?

No. He reported that one of the ships in Group Alpha isolated the position of the Sliver, and he is suspending additional operations. He intends to jump if we cannot extract the courier before the Principality starts to use active sensors.

Damn him! More data on those transmissions—or those tachyon distortions—could get us all the information we need to finally crack these bastards.

What about the intrusion run on the Sultana?

The Sultana’s ansible is functioning, but the network is managed by an idiot. Its condition leaves me with little choice but to sort through it by code and file individually, unless I went after administrative and command protocols. I thought that imprudent until we establish if this navy is intent on establishing contact or simply blowing everyone within weapons range out of orbit.

I couldn’t agree more.

Meanwhile, I am left to deal with that Madrasi whore doing everything but gloating. The only good thing to come of this is at least we know the warships aren’t talking to the Sultana any more than they are to—

“HOLY SHIT!”

Nicholas and Treger pulled themselves away from their secure channel with Avi as the exclamation from Staples’ sensor section disturbed the bridge’s tightly-wound silence. A glance at the plot made the reason for the junior’s exclamation clear even without the violent hustle of activity that spread from the sensor section through the rest of the bridge. The jovian’s orbit was far from quiet now, and the silent repair operations were giving way to something far more ominous.

The Multitude’s vision of the planet was snarled as the Principality warships started to produces waves of distortion and interference as more of them started to engage active ECM. It resembled the Animo’s earlier response to the Sliver’s active scan but was far greater in both power and intensity. The ECM did not hide the surge of additional activity as two of the ships launched what were either drones or active decoys. The outline of the ships rippled with power signatures and energy spikes as they started to accelerate. Most of the ships started to break their formation and scatter out of their orbital pattern, but the two ships that launched parasite craft actually started to close on each other as their power signatures built.

“The hell…?” Nicholas stood dumbstruck by the occurrence. He barely noticed Chaote’s gaping jaw as they watched the Principality warships’ behavior become bizarre beyond belief.

“Are they going to fire on each other?!” Chaote leaned in closer to the plot. “Someone confirm these readings!”

Nicholas brain finally caught up to reality, “We can confirm it later. Helm! Cut our acceleration to one-sixteenth normal power and alter our course to swing us out and around the planets orbit. Navigation, I want a serial jump pattern to take us a minimum of two light centuries away from this hole! Flight Control, I want the hanger prepped for an emergency jump. Jaswinder, tell GSHQ to hotbox all of our Tohokus and pull back the existing CAP. They are to further instruct the CAP to prepare for possible hard landing!”

Chaote looked at Nicholas, eyes blank and mouth working over the orders, “Now, Commander!”

She turned toward Flight Control. Nicholas turned toward the plot and watched as the two warships closed on each other. They were close enough in terms of their profiles and energy signature that he assumed they were either the same class or same type of warship. That still left the question unanswered as to what the other screening vessels were, and why the smaller warships were so eager to get away from what appeared to be a mutiny en masse.

“Wha…,” Nicholas saw Treger turn back to the plot as he leaned in. The energy spikes were subsiding and both vessels were starting to decelerate. The drones launched early suddenly vanished and reappeared, evidence that the Principality possessed drones that were capable of intra-system jumps. Both warships launched missiles in erratic intervals and were joined by the Animo. The drones launched earlier returned fire before being vaporized and ending the extravagant performance.

“The hell do these bloody morons think they’re doing?” Treger was leaning in like Nicholas. Nicholas saw the same puzzled expression across Staples’ section and throughout the bridge. Chaote was staring at Flight Control’s displays.

“Some sort of martial display? A warning…?”

Her questions barely registered, “We may at least be able to sell the records of this display to the Kriegsmarine to see if they can make any sense of it. Helm, continue executing our new course, and I want those jump coordinates.”

Send a message to Lartey and get anything he has on this display. Then tell him he is released to do whatever is necessary to preserve the Sliver, and I want a dump on whatever the Sultana gets of this fracas—quietly as possible.

Message is sent. Quiet and complete is not easy in this rat’s asshole.

Keep me updated.

The warships launched another flight of drones that started to produce EW signatures, distorting Multitude’s readings. They were joined by a few other craft, some that lingered near the warships drifting in and out of the electronic interference, but several headed away from the Principality fleet to vanish.

“Keep an eye out for these superluminal capable drones. If they come within our defensive perimeter, weapons are free to destroy them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The probes along Group Alpha’s perimeter are transmitting a message, Captain. It’s directional and targeted at our present position. I…I think that there’s another message being transmitted as well…but it’s impossible to isolate through their interference.”

“Transmit the decoded message here.”

Chaote and Treger returned to the plot to read the Animo’s message.

“We are going to respond to them…?” Chaote’s tone was respectfully low, even if the question wasn’t entirely.

“Comm, transmit the reply I am sending. Repeat it in five second intervals,” Nicholas turned to Chaote. “Talking to them may serve as a distraction while we prepare for a jump, or at least allow us enough of a head start they cannot track us.”

The Multitude continued to decelerate as its course started to yawn in a arc around the jovian. The commerce ship started to move away from the planet, the distance creeping closer to 400 million kilometers with each passing second. Its out-riding gunships also drew back, forming a tighter defensive perimeter as they did.

Code: Select all: .- -. .. -- --- --..-- / - .... .. ... / .. ... / -- ..- .-.. - .. - ..- -.. . .-.-.- / .-. . ... - .- - . / .--. . .- -.-. . ..-. ..- .-.. / .. -. - . -. - .. --- -. ... .-.-.- / .-- .. ... .... / - --- / . ... - .- -... .-.. .. ... .... / -.-. --- -. - .- -.-. - / .- -. -.. / ... . . -.- / - .-. .- -.. . .-.-.- / .-. . ... - .- - . / .-. . --.- ..- . ... - / - --- / -. --- - / .- - - .- -.-. -.- / ... ..- .-. ...- . -.-- / ... .- - . .-.. .-.. .. - . / .. -. / .--- --- ...- .. .- -. / .- - -- --- ... .--. .... . .-. . .-.-.- / .-. . ... - .- - . / .. -. - . -. - .. --- -. / - --- / - . .-. -- .. -. .- - . / ... .- - . .-.. .-.. .. - . / --- .--. . .-. .- - .. --- -. .-.-.- / .-- .. ... .... / - --- / .-. . -.-. --- ...- . .-. / ... .- - . .-.. .-.. .. - . .-.-.- / .-. . --.- ..- . ... - / -.-. .-.. .- .-. .. ..-. .. -.-. .- - .. --- -. / .-. . --. .- .-. -.. .. -. --. / ... --- .-. --- ... / -.. . - .- -.-. .... -- . -. - / .. -. - . -. - .. --- -. ... .-.-.- / .-. . --.- ..- . ... - / -.-. .-.. .- .-. .. ..-. .. -.-. .- - .. --- -. / --- ..-. / .-- . .- .--. --- -. ... / ..-. .. .-. . .-.-.- / .-. . .--. . .- - --..-- / .-. . --.- ..- . ... - / -.-. .-.. .- .-. .. ..-. .. -.-. .- - .. --- -. / --- ..-. / .- -. .. -- --- --..-- / ... --- .-. --- ... / -.. . - .- -.-. .... -- . -. - / .. -. - . -. - .. --- -. ... .-.-.- / -.-. . .- ... .. -. --. / .- .--. .--. .-. --- .- -.-. .... / ..- -. - .. .-.. / .-. . ... .--. --- -. ... . .-.-.-

by **Vernii** » Mon Dec 26, 2011 11:14 pm

Though the fleet's electronic warfare systems served as an effective screen against Sultana's more advanced sensors, its distributed optical arrays and infrared imagers were able to silently capture the dance of the fleet's manuevers and the hurried activity of the repair cruisers.

The Principality formation's response to the appearance of Multitude quickly aroused the curiousity (and no small amount of apprehension) on the part of Sultana's bridge crew.

"There, see, they're clearly manuevering against each other!" Kimberly's eyes reflected her excitement and a touch of I told you so in them.

"Open the range between us and them, plot a least-time course to the edge of the gravity well."

Sultana's drive field strength rapidly rose in power as the freighter began both a slow turn and increased in velocity, the impending but quickly aborted battle falling further and further astern.

"Captain, sensors are picking up weapons fire."

"Between what units?"

"It appears that the Principality is engaging a unit of drones, maybe a live-fire exercise or released by one of the warships involved in that brief scuffle."

"I'm starting to think that our visitors have as little idea of what's going on over there as we do. Continue course and acceleration."

"Message received from HCL Animo."

Feldman sighed, somewhat exasperated at this point by the stress of the situation, as he examined the contents of the latest communication.

THIS HCL ANIMO, SOROS DETACHMENT. NON-CONTROLLABLE PRINCIPALITY MADE DRONES SHOT DOWN. EVIDENCE GOOD FAITH REQUESTED. HCL ANIMO ECM TURNED OFF, PART GOOD FAITH. EVIDENCE PROPER REPLY IF GOOD FAITH EVIDENCE GIVEN.

"Alright, they sound a bit apologetic over that instance. Maintain course but halt acceleration. That should show them we're getting a bit fed up by the shenanigans but aren't completly writing them off yet."

HCL ANIMO, REQUEST STATEMENT OF INTENTIONS TOWARD SULTANA. REQUEST ASSURANCE OF SAFETY. TRANSMITTING CARGO DESCRIPTIONS AS EVIDENCE OF GOOD FAITH INTENT, ALL ITEMS AVAILABLE FOR TRADE, INFORMATION AVAILABLE FOR TRADE.

Following that transmission, a series of images were transmitted, each one containing descriptions and images of items contained inside Sultana's cargo bays. It varied from raw materials (condensed gases, volatiles, and metals), to foodstuffs, personal electronics, light-manufacturing equipment, and information, both in the form of encyclopedias and databases from a variety of nations, to entertainment media. In the latter case, movie and chapter excerpts were provided as well.

"Multitude looks like its starting to run as well, her course is changing and parasites are closing their orbits."

"Perhaps our Valinor friends are in the same situation as us, might as well message them and see if they have any information of use to us."

Multitude, this is Captain Feldman of the Sultana. I was wondering if you would care to exchange any information that you may have gathered on this 'Principality'. I have noted your course change and wish to inquire if you are withdrawing from the system. I am considering that course of action myself. Perhaps a joint-plan of action may be beneficial?

Attached to the message was a log of all communications between Sultana and the Principality fleet so far.

by **Heliocalypse** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 9:33 am

Chapter Nine - Tic Tetchy (Part One)

Amongst the jagged realm of malarkey, not many shall remain calm and composed.

Pentravase Third Capital World, 'Lici Dyha-Zarche'
Vice President Private Quarters
Archus Galaxy

A small pin of light, nothing more than a narrow gem of shine sequentially increases its luminosity, slowly overpowering the flood of shine emanated by three pillars of light upon the room. Located slightly off spatial loci of the room, the pin of light turn brighter still, pointing to the ceiling and glistening it with titanium radiance before shortly erupting into a thin horizontal bar of luminosity, a few feet above the segment-patterned floor whilst diverting much of its coherent beam previously to the formed bar of soft light. Not far from the newly formed shape of light lies the Vice President, with her eyes trawling the room coupled with a few thin frown on her freckles face. She presses a small button on a discrete remote, before putting it away on a rectangular metal table affixed to the wall of the room.

Shortly after putting the remote away with her left hand, Raila switches her attention to a dark blue-coloured elongated octagon trace a few degrees away from the cold table and subsequently swishes her right hand over the trace a few centimeters away while barely touching it. Her action then accompanied by the once metal-clad appearance innards area of the trace into something silvery reflective which gradient of change ropes down vertically from atop to down, turning it into something resembling a long mirror. While Raila keeps her gaze from the center of the room, the thin bar of light extends itself upwards, into a thin vertical plate of light.

Its announcement of activation is clearly audio cued, with two tuned audio signature beeps that break the near silent hums emitted by numerous girded ventilation ducts in the room before followed with several crackles and the subsequent crystal clear audio, "..greetings news viewers! I'm your news anchor for today, Jeridan Lewci and this is...Helli Ricil! On today's headlines...Is it true that the Oronoe CGB had just lowered base lending rate of currency to rock bottom four point two percent?, Did the nation famous yet covertly mysterious persona Dr.Helacron shown him or herself on the Retho V's first class resort? Exotic matter explosion in Mossr! Five ships of the Gauis rescue force were reported to be heavily damaged while other two ships statuses are currently unknown!, Rare footage of previously thought just fable, Energy Dragon..."

Numerous thin shapes form on the surface of the now silver reflective mirror with the crisp image of Raila projected unto it, only to be in a reversed reflection of her. She touches two small circle shapes that formed on the surface that brings up another interface that ply itself amongst the reflective area. Multitude of uniform designs then expanded into her view upon her action to enlarge the fingerprint of her fingers that engaged the interactive surface.

Raila then unconsciously presses the remote button again, while still having her right hand and her eyes affixed to the interactive surface. With a distinct beep, the previous plastered audio muted for a second before followed by an audio pattern, accompanied by shadows of lights that catch the attention of the corner eyes of Raila, "....Ultra Definition R-Series. Ultra-Fast....Ultra-Compact...Ultra-Define, Ultra-Realistic and Ultra-Satisfaction. Upgrade now to the new Ultra-Neuro Compo Device SLX R-Series to neuro align stations near you. Limited time offer only, upgrade now and save thirty percent off for.."

She hymns a small tune while still having her eyes affixed to the reflective surface. With two swipe of her right hand fingers, Raila selected one formal attire, coloured slate blue with Principality insignias, two arching red coloured fractal arrow heads facing opposite on x-axis specifically which symbols are mostly aligned on the left chest area of the attire. From a small icon when she selected the image of the attire on the reflective surface, it expanded into a larger one and automatically Raila could see her image on the surface that is clad with such attire.

"....hold on, new reports coming in. Officials stationed in Mossr stated that the cleaning process may take more than....ten cycles and the recent exotic matter tank explosion in the sector had hampered the coordinated Gauis cleaning force. The explosion, believed to be triggered by excessive synchrotron radiation emitted from one of the rescue vessels in a effort to scan for survivors on now wrecked Mossr I space station blindsided sensitive sensors on majority of the ships. It's estimated that several billion liters of toxic fluids were released to space around the sector upon the destruction of the orbital Mossr chemical stations though experts said that such fluids would be spread quite thin and be photo-disintegrated by the sector's stars with time which is uncertain. The Gauis Ostrolis however had issued a level three warning for space travelers inside the area, in danger of the toxic fluids propagating in the sector while hoping that the matter will be resolved quickly in...", changes the audio emitted from the loci of the room as her left hand touches the remote on the table again.

Looking somewhat satisfied, Raila turned off the interactive surface with a specific hand gesture on it, watching it slowly melts away to its previous state, a dull and bleak metal-coloured surface. She let out a small sigh as her ears registers the present audio before snapping again at the remote. Her action then quickly followed with a conformity beep and a small audio crackle before turning crystal clear, "HELLO VIEWERS! On todays match Dead Round, we have the brutal killing machine Android Svat versus the newcomer Theorad! Android Svat is today's favourite with rating of seventy four out of one hundred, closely followed by Theorad at seventy! A little bit of info for you watchers, Android Svat had mashed, cut and grinded in total of thirty two opponents in last season! Oh look at that sweet sexy dual arm chain guns spewing six hundred and eight millimeters of death! The Sentient Droid once worked in Holocurn decided to take a career turn and there we have it, Svat the Brutal TERMINATOR!!!!! As for Theorad, our experts cannot take a guess out of him or it as anyone asking it found his or her head gone in a fraction of a second! This match shall be legendary, the old guard (Svat) clashing with the new blood (Theorad)! Place your bets now..!"

Feeling quite abject, Raila holds the remote on her left hand and flexing her neck towards the center of the room before orientating her body to the same direction. Not far from her dull and stale pure white coloured bed, clad with titanium coloured linings, she could see an interactive image between the two axises of her vision, only to press the remote again. The image quickly turn light blue before displaying an another animated image, "....buy buy buy~! We at Z-Revolution Inc present you the newest model of our grehl series. The all brand new spiffy and spunky Z-INVORATE! This new concoction is guaranteed to give you the best trip to wonderland in the whole Principality or your monies back! Buy now at two hundred thousand HCCs! This ad is sponsored by..."

"...thank you for the question moderator. Is an Energy Dragon really a creature made of pure energy you ask? Well for forty cycles my life i had dedicated to research them, they are known as being not made purely of energy as most scientists would thought. I and Dr. Sansa here figured out that they feature trace amounts of exotic matter of high quantum aggregate kept artificially in gamma level energy levels. We postulated that upon hureco analysis of the spectra emitted by them. Problem is, they're so rare that i can't even tell whether our footage reveals an actual Energy Dragon or just another random exotic matter comet, but one thing is certain. That thing attacked our camera probe shortly it turned...uhh..its head or some sort towards the camera. We don't know anything mo-" changes the image yet again as she decides to press the remote on her left hand while slowly walking to the image.

The thin image along with its accompanied audio then tattered in a fraction of a second before she presses another button on the remote, pauses it from moving. She could hear a small yet mysterious voice emanating somewhere in the room even though it's adequately lit with three pillars of soft beige light not far from touching her view, "Well, why don't you use....your NIS device, Rai-, wait. Make that now, Vice President."

"For what business you showed up here? This is my private quarters." gazes the Vice President across the room with an increasing hostile intent, flared across her eye irises.

The voice then changes its origin vector, evident with a formation of wedge of disappearance manifesting on the paused image in the center of the room, "Oh, don't be like that, Vice President. You need....to scale down your hostilities, the bronzes doesn’t really like your....attitude."

"You were dead and yet you dare to come disturb me?" brandishes Raila of her malicious stare which is directly pointed to the forming occlusion in front of her.

The announced voice changes its loci while dissolving the transparent wedge occlusion, leaving the thin plate of light fully formed again in the center of the room, "It's true that i'm dead...thanks to you. Well if you define death with the destruction of a physical body that is..."

"Stop dragging this nonsense. There must be a reason why you showed up here, even after the grave. I don't like persistent persona, it makes me feel to eliminate them." stings Raila's sentences across the cold atmosphere of the room. She notices someone is indeed inside the room and the thought the person dare to mock her only makes her furious.

For a few seconds, the voice disappeared into thin air before it slowly lightens its presence, directly on the Vice President's left ear, "I must applaud you, Vice President as your action several cycles ago gave me quite of a freedom.....so now i'm here, to reward your action....Now look at your display unit. I'm quite surprised that you still use that old age display unit...hehehe."

"I have my reasons to use that, and you better watch your words." swings Raila's left arm on reflex, only to slash naught more than a block of cold air. Her eyes lashes around with a torrent of a raging ode in order to visually confirm the location of the mysterious voice.

Her head then snaps to the direction to the center of the room after nodding a few radians around, witnessing the thin plate of soft blue light emerges into life and displaying a certain picture, "...PHS News Update...You're now watching the Urgent News Segment, as hosted by Arasi Saville. *charan~charan~ding* Good day viewers, on today's urgent news, the Senatorial Advocate Circle recently proclaimed that the Vice President, Hisilia Raila had engrossingly risk the lives of one hundred thousand servicemen under the flag of Prima-Navy over what seemed to be an unauthorized force deployment involving top tier detachments of the national navy. The council further stated that she overbounded the mandate given to her as per the Pentravase Constitution with such actions. Numerous political parties, primarily the far-right Yertham political faction commented the Vice President's action as something 'unexpected and disgusting' while other parties remain with mixed feelings. The Second Embassy in Lici-Dyha Kaelo had been reported to be a target of a flash mob that was postulated to be formed from the relatives of the servicemen as told by a source inside the embassy. There are also reports of increasing civil unrest in certain areas of the Principality upon the council declaration, and the citizens that we interviewed seemed to be mostly at unease, as shown in this video..."

"What the...did you did something?! Answer me!" enrages Raila even more, flavouring her already furious state.

The mysterious voice then quickly changes its axis of manifestation, to the right of Raila before lightly receding away with an eerie tone, "Oh no, i didn't do anything...Vice President. I'm 'dead', remember? I thought...you would be more..careful than this. You can physically kill a man yet you can't keep...a bunch of cretins quiet? Funny, hehehe."

"Vice President! Vice President are you in there?! This is bad!" frantically knocks a voice over the room, offset to the right angle of Raila.

Upon hearing the impetus of knocks over her door, Raila presses a button on the remote on her left hand, dissolving the formed thin mist of light in the center of her room. With coordinated strides, she hastily throw the remote over her bed and moves toward the gun metal coloured dull door. She swishes her right hand once, cracking the door apart from its middle line with three burst of whirring sounds, "What is it, officer? You know i don't like being disturbed during my rest time."

"*pant* Sor..ry Vice President! I'm from the Presidential Office Relations division and our department had just be swamped with calls! More than a hundred thousands of them, and they're all asking about you!" exclaims a stout man, trying to catch his fleeting breath. Even though the long corridors adjacent to the Raila’s room are maintained to a point to make someone without proper attire shiver, she could see the man sweating profusely.

Intrigued of what the man said, Raila voices her curiosity, "What is it now?"

"Vice President...! *pant* Did you see the latest news broadcast?!" lashes the man with increasing state of panic.

Raila leans her head to the left slightly while increasing her confused gaze, "Yes i did, just now. Catch your breath first. Next time use the intercom, so spill it out, whatever urgent thing you wanted to deliver."

"...Vice President, majority of the Lower Assembly wanted to put you into trial, by invoking the Emergency Act Section...20.", calms the pace of breathing of the man while still displaying a sign of torridness.

She took a slight breath before heaving her thoughts forward, manifested by her action of shrugging her shoulders a few degrees upwards, "Under....the Emergency Act?"

"Yes, Vice President! They say you...not only allow an unauthorized usage of assets of Prima-Navy, but also state you plan to cause coup d'etat, starting with hiding the fact that the Elected Leader is missing!" strains the man's voice as he notices that Raila negated his concern away with her action of leaving the room and avoiding eye contact a few seconds later.

Wearing a face glinted with a slight tone of frustration, Raila paces her step over a long corridor, plastered titanium white, "Heh, are they trying to accuse me for something i didn't do? Jumpy bureaucrats."

"But but Vice President! Here is the alleged logs and security footage that they say are true--that you're a national threat!" frantically displays the man a data slate towards Raila.

His vigour managed to catch Raila's attention, evident with her action of stopping from moving forward and taking the data slate from the man with her white-gloved hands, "Really? Strange...the Lower Assembly doesn't have any legal powers...as far as i know."

"I don't know that-but one thing is certain, Vice President! It's not only your neck on the line, they're trying to charge the whole President's Office section, including a low ranked personnel like me for treason!", explains the man with utter grief before extending his hands slowly in order to take the offered data slate again as he notices Raila wanted it to be put away with her hand gestures, "I didn't do anything wrong either! Please, Vice President, you need to punch the allegations away, I have three mouths to feed!"

"I know, officer. I know my implied full responsibilities as a Vice President immediately on the moment when i sit on my chair in an office space given to me." strides Raila again before flexing her head backwards for a brief moment of time, "Give them a heads up, i'm going to discuss with them directly...as soon as plausible."

"Thank you Vice President! Make sure..you win this time!" nearly cries the man while bowing repeatedly to Raila.

Even though he notices that his act is degrading himself and the fact that Raila doesn't even give a sign of appreciation of his action--not even a glance or a bat of an eyelid, he is truly grateful. For now he found another ray of hope for his family, and for his future even though he feels that his pride is hurt badly. For his family, he would do anything, almost anything. Upon hearing a lift's door closing with two distinct mechanical whirrs, he tries to complacent his usual composure again in order to exhibit a sense of professionalism as one of the personnel of the prestigious President's Office.

Unknown System
18 AU to System's Star
Onboard HCL Soros
Milky Way Galaxy

Soros silently gaze around his ship's command bridge with a scrutinizing look, coupled alongside a tone of skepticism. The thought that he would need to be here, staying relatively motionless with the behemoth Pentravase Super Capital ship with nowhere to go for a specific amount of time had somehow offsetted his usual valour. He's now a Fleet Admiral of the Detachment level yet he was requested to stay here for a long time? This can't be right, voices his pride, though his logic then intervenes with a counter--he will need to stay here since the other ships of his detachment can't arrive here without the presence of the mighty HCL Soros.

Occasionally Soros would curse in his heart, on what deranged person in the Principality made the doctrine that states most of the capital ships are supposed to be jump points, putting them at plausible tactical risk although such move was explained to have some of its benefits which one of them allow the rapid reinforcement of a lone capital ship. Considering a capital ship take substantial resources and time to create, he sees on the justification of the doctrine although now he will need to deal with more problems associated with such doctrine than what he faced two thousands cycles ago--the day where he was once proudly commanding huge steel chunks of death known as capital ships, minus the doctrine.

Feeling at unease, Soros sways his right hand on a blank space near his command chair, calling a small floating interface, “Engineer Thoka, what’s the current status of my ship? The primary AI core states that the previous jump had damaged some of the ship’s systems.”

“Oh? Sorry for the late answer, Admiral Soros. My team had checked the damage and it ain’t extensive. Theoretically the ship is tip top for a few cycles before needing any major repa-” answers the formed interface, alongside with an animated portrait that portray a woman with a silvery body suit.

Upon hearing the answer, Soros increases his skeptical look, “Theoretically you said? I want definite and real answer here, Engineer Thoka. You do know what can or will happen if any of my ship's functions happen to be defective, right?”

“Well admiral, we checked most of the ship and found few broken down subsystems, mainly Helacron Field Stabilizers and non-essential energy conduits in bloc nine, four and seven. In my opinion, those minor subsystems would not impair the performa-” vehemently voices the personnel counter over Soros's question before interrupted with his speech.

Putting two fingers of his right hand over his eyebrows while encumbered in a tone of frustration, Soros shoots up his reply, “Ok ok, just tell me one thing, Engineer Thoka.”

“What is it, admiral?” surprised the personnel, with an intriguing tone.

Soros shrugged lightly before letting a small sigh, clad with a disappointed look, “I need you to provide me a strong reason that my ship will not have a chance to blow up when it’s activating the Socron for next incoming twenty fleets.”

“Wait, what? You’re going to activate the Socron for twenty times?! That's!” sounds the interface with much shock.

“Yes.” nods Soros for a moment before gazing seriously to the formed interface, “Don’t forget, Engineer Thoka. We’re still in a mission and I want my ship in tip top shape, theoretically and realistically.”

Filling the temporal gap of his conversation, a steely tone chimes in, accompanied with several formation of small and discrete interface on Soros's periphery sight area, “Sorry for the intrusion, Admiral Soros, Protocol N3T had been completed and status all green. Input command.”

“Hm? Acquit protocol BY43, record all logs and use com method RT012” sways Soros's left hand on the newly formed light green interface.

The new windows of light then responds with a confirmation cue before dissolving some of the previously formed interfaces, “Orders confirmed. RT012 link will be activated in seven hundred seconds. All events logged and stored. Input command.”

“Err, admiral? Are you really going to activate Socron twenty times?” sounds the first interface again, braided with a tone of uncertainty.

“In a way, I just want my ship here, is in tip top shape theoretically and realistically.” pauses Soros's vision to the interface while his fingers dance on a newly called keyboard interface. He then snaps his view to the personnel's portrait, “You got that, officer? If you happen to make one mistake, remember, it’s not only your job is on the line, Chief Engineer Thoka. Make yourself more useful than a standard AI core, Chief Engineer. Do I make myself clear here?”

“Yes…” nods the portrait before toning in a submissive affirmation, “Roger admiral, I and my team will see what we can do…at least.”

“On the double then, engineer. I expect you to perform splendidly and no more dilly dallying.” reduces Soros's frown by one line before he closes the interface and voices an another command, “System, collect all data and run Protocol Nyielm.”

His order then quickly replied with a confirmation cue, “Orders confirmed Admiral Soros, beginning protocol.”

With his order, the behemoth HCL Soros quickly synchronizes its communication and sensor systems while emitting a specific defensive field to mostly shelter the flurry of energy distribution and electronic activities caused by the warship. Numerous small electronic warfare pods automatically launched with the order of the main AI core of the grand flagship, immediately filling the void left by the defensive signature field and as well scanning for plausible hostile sensors with their passive sensors while readying their electronic countermeasure systems.

The main sensor sections of the HCL Soros automatically tune themselves in order to accommodate the disturbance caused by the defensive signature field and the electronic warfare pods while the main electronic warfare modules of HCL Soros awaken from their sleep and put in standby mode as ordered by the main AI core.The flagship then proceeds to give an order through its advanced quantum tunneling communication section to all of its launched listening posts, which action empties one small exotic matter storage tank inside the large behemoth.

Unknown System
Utility Fleet One Formation
Onboard HCL Vicr
Milky Way Galaxy

“Greetings Captain Renec, our passive trachonometry sensors detected that the Multitude was accelerating away but now it’s decelerating its speed and its trajectory tangent had changed than what it’s expected in previous extrapolated data. Passive energy sensors also detected a significant build up of its energy signature in plausible propulsion points. What should we do, Captain? Should we open fire?” flashes a small interface upon Renec's view, before several large interfaces followed suit, “Another report, it seems that the Sultana is indicated to accelerate away from its expected orbit trajectory as well.”

Snapping to his usual colour, Renec's robotic eyes glowed bright green for a fraction of a second, “Thank you for the report, Lieutenant. You said that they’re both moving away from our current fleet position? Are you sure it’s not false data? And no, don't shoot them till we know what they are concisely, and if they pose any threat to us.”

“Roger Captain, shunting weaponry protocols. It’s exactly what the data said, Captain. I had run Ercoh data analysis routines several time and it seems valid, through all those e-interference caused by HCL Thirma defensive systems.” replies the interface, dissolving several interfaces and calling more of newer floating windows of light.

Tracing his gloved hands over a projected map of the current system, Renec zoomed its resolution by a specific hand gesture, “Hmm…Sultana moving away…that can be explained but…why would the big ship…decelerate so suddenly, if it wanted to run away…the ship should go full speed by now…”. Viewing the formed data report, he singles out the icon that represent Multitude, “Did the other ship Captains noticed it just yet?”

The first interface quickly sounds off its reply towards Renec's question, “So far e-traffic yields nothing, Captain though they will soon know about the foreign ships travel trajectories.”

“Keep your intrusions low on head, we don’t want HCL Thirma blow us out if they know what are we doing.” gazes Renec from side to side, observing his surroundings while speaking in a hashed tone, “And continue monitoring the Multitude, it may attempt some fancy tactics. Activate the Helacron Force Projectors too, on the lowest power settings as we don’t want the petty satellite of Multitude or whatever it is sees what we’re trying to do.”

The first interface then quickly quelled its existence into thin mist of light before dissolving completely, “Roger, Captain. Maintaining low level activity and device activation shall be done soon.”

Closing the formed intefaces of light, Renec shoots up a specific command, “System, start up analysis protocol and synchronize data.”

“Orders confirmed, running full analysis. Input additional commands.” hears his ears over an audio cue while witnessing the formation of several interfaces in his view area.

Dancing his fingers over the formed interfaces, Renec plots several lines on the air canvas with the gestures of his fingers, “Link N3T Posts, WIS-23 band. Erase quantum non-localities, apply energy masquerade masks and run protocol till finish.”

“Orders confirmed. Initializing systems and redistributing energy signatures.” responded an audio cue to Renec's order, accompanied with the disappearance of the interfaces called up by Renec except for one small minimized bar of light on his right viewing area.

With Renec's orders confirmed, the AI core of HCL Vicr quickly responds and act to carry out his order in a fraction of a second after it was received. The ship's internal space hummed deep lightly for several seconds that put most personnel over a hedge of curiosity till they believed that it's just an another maintenance protocol. Unknown to a majority of them, several energy circuits of the HCL Vicr tattered themselves in a fraction of a second as the circuits redistributes their energies toward the archaic Helacron Force Projectors, cleverly hidden inside the superstructure of the hull. Numerous minor energy circuits on the warship flared lightly for a moment as well, to cover the brief steep decrease of supplied energy distributed by the main energy circuits.

Unknown System
Utility Fleet One Formation
Onboard HCL Animo
Milky Way Galaxy

“Input command.” flashes an interface towards Kiro's view before it flashes several lines of red coloured letters, “Command denied, active sensors still synchronizing.”

Passing a tone of curiosity, she clicks several times on the cold air with her fingers, touching the floating virtual interfaces, “Run maintenance check five to seven.” At the same time, Kiro presses a small icon floating on her vision's left side, “Engineering, is HCL Animo fully operational?”

“We’re still working on it Captain. All these new parts need tuning and it won’t be optimized properly any time soon, we need a Mythl class with us if we are going to synchronize it faster and efficiently.” tones the icon now a small portrait window with much argent of concern.

“Why so?” nods Kiro backwards before she flexes her eyesight to the right, “System, open recording protocol and log events on J-103 and R-107.”

“The spare parts came from the Gauis Ostrolis and they use different stadial protocol than us although they use somewhat similar base functions, Captain. It gave my team a lot of trouble just to convert their base functions to make it usable and useful enough…” explains the floating portrait before shortly bowing lightly to Kiro, “Well sorry for my rant there, I thought the navy use one uniform stadial protocol for the replacement parts by now, Captain?”

“Mhhm, Prima-Navy is still new, and our fleet represents the effort to form that standard.” sighed Kiro, and delineating a tone of assurance she continued, “Keep on the good work, Engineer and forward your data to the Engineering database of the ship. We can use that data for our next upcoming ships.” Wearing a fake smile clad with a tint of caution, she adds, “Use terminal E-451 and put quad layer encryptions. We don’t want our guests peeking through our ship’s database so easily.”

“Working on it Captain. We will try our best to fix the problem.” nods the portrait and then proceed to carry an inquisitive tone, “Before that, another question though, why do we need such level of security, Captain? I’m sure the foreign ships will take a good time trying to crack our code let alone actually capable of telling the characteristics sequence of our codes.”

A steely tone then abruptly enter the conversation, catching Kiro's attention, “Update pending, problem areas identified in the report. Input command. Automated fix is in beta phase. Proceed? Y/N.”

“Run Jehkov Analysis Program. Specify problems, specify areas. Run program 45CR.” flexes Kiro's sight from the portrait of the personnel into several newly formed interfaces before she pauses a little bit to give a slight attention to the personnel, “We can’t afford to make any mistakes here, Engineer. Our previous show may had told them a bit too much of our military capability and I would like to not risk the detachment cause someone thinks that an additional security protocol is redundant.”

The portrait then quickly silences itself, leaving Kiro quite busy dealing with the matters of HCL Animo electronically, “Oookay, I think I will resume my work now. I will inform you when the synchronization process is done, Captain.”

"Good grief, the top brass said this detachment is the best of the best...but why they failed to see in supplying the correct equipments?" sways Kiro's head in frustation.

One of the personnel in the area, presumably walking across to his station from taking a bio break shows his support towards Kiro, "Oh Captain? Don't worry so much! Rely on us more, Captain! We're all here for a reason, and that reason is to help you!"

"Well...yeah okay. It's just that they throw me to do this kind of job, it's highly stressful since if i did something wrong, all of you will be in dange--nay the whole Principality will." saddens Kiro with a permissive outlook as she snaps her vision towards the personnel.

The personnel lightly sighs before continuing his pace, "We're fully aware of the risks involved the moment we signed up for this mission. If it takes my death to make Principality great, so be it."

A patriot thought Kiro, of his declaration while she continues her line of depression further upon hearing that as her is unsure where her allegiance and morality should stand, for the glory of the Principality or for the basic needs of a human--survival. Serving the national navy more than seven cycles, Kiro had seen the gore and bore of being a servicewoman from a lowly cadet into what she's now. She once piloted a Savor Fighter and was asked to shoot down a ship full of asylum seekers back then in the lawless area of the Principality. Kiro can still remember the colour of blood spreading in space, alongside with charred and bloodied body remains floating in space shortly after she completed the task. Her craft was mysteriously stained with the smell and colour of the blood as well, filling her with much guilt. But she noted, if she wanted to survive in this harsh reality, she will have to ultimately sacrifice something. She chooses her compassion.

Unknown System
Utility Fleet One Formation
Onboard HCL Thirma
Milky Way Galaxy

Slightly off center of Utility Fleet One's formation, the large HCL Thirma automatically adjusts its orbit around the jovian. Its numerous shield segments occasionally flared up one by one, breaking up small micrometeorites in vicinity of the area and blocking off bolts of transient radiation that are actively spewed by the system's brightly hued star. The other ships in the formation occasionally flared up their thrusters, trying to keep apace of HCL Thirma and the refuge it provides; the large battlecruiser automatically generate a specific gravity field in close proximity that bends most of the plasma torus of the jovian below from negatively affecting the ships. Even though the smaller ships, particularly the military ones are capable of defending themselves from the haphazard of space, having a large ship to do it for them is beneficial, as they have now lesser stress load on their ship systems.

As identified by the battlecruiser's systems automatically, the planet have an unusually large magnetosphere than what is commonly encountered in the Principality thus its action to extend a defensive field in vicinity. Perhaps it's an indication that the planet is truly special and the crux reason why the fleet persistently cling to its orbit rather than doing evasive maneuvers upon noticing the foreign ships? The petty captains of the civilian ships can do naught than observing the situation while in the same time hoping to get out of this matter alive in one piece.

Ethina, the man of power behind the largest ship of the formation quickly realizes the current situation and found his attention smeared with the jovian's unusual characteristics. With much ardent he ordered off several observation protocols to be executed while deciding to get as much data as plausible from the situation. Even though his personality is not the best as he tends to flunk his assigned duties, Ethina still carries a phantasmal air of expertise around him, as if his outer appearance is nothing more than a shell, which hides a sinister self within. After all, he is a recognized Principality Group Captain.

A small red coloured interface jumps in front of the right eye of Ethina, “Warning, passive sensors bloc three and seven detected that Multitude is changing trajectory.”

“Run Protocol Seve, passive mode.” pushes his right hand fingers on the interface, putting it on positive x-axis from his face.

The interface then changes its colour to light blue, floating amongst other interfaces that circles Ethina in close proximity, “Orders confirmed. Synchronizing passive sensors and acquiring triangulation solution in sixty seconds.”

“Captain, may I ask you a question?” sounds a personnel that stands a few degrees away from Ethina's command chair, amongst the flurry of activities within the ship's bridge. The personnel, clad in Holocurn's tactical uniform bowed his head lightly towards Ethina before fixing his view upon the finish of his sentence.

Briefly catching the glimpse of the personnel, Ethina peered for a fraction of a second toward the personnel, “Yes, what it is, Second Adjutant?”

“It’s Yarhon Charact, Captain Ethina. May I ask you, when are we going back to the Principality space?” eyes the personnel towards Ethina with a piercing gaze.

Noticed of the gaze, Ethina replies with a sharp stare, “Hmm, what makes you ask that, Adjutant Yarhon? I never had seen you before.”

“Sorry for the late introduction, I was drafted from my post on Haloi Patrol Fleet Nine upon general notice given out by the Oronoe Security Services.” bows the personnel again, purposely avoiding eye contact with Ethina.

Ethina sways his head around with a smirk as he laments of what he remembered before, “Oh, that Haloi? Ah, I still remember Haloi…getting drunk…getting chased by those Oronoe ‘privateers’ and damn swell, I was close to getting laid too! Ah, and…that sweet woman a-”

“Er, Captain? I appreciate your nostalgic sentiment, but it would be prudent if you gracefully answer my simple request.” arisen the personnel's head from bowing lightly to Ethina and establishing eye contact yet again.

Ethina sways his head to an interface to the right of his shoulder, “Ah, that little question of yours is it? Hm…”

“Solution acquired and verified. Multitude is classified as Q-Hotbox Seven, confirmed. Bogey speed confirmed. New movement trajectory, confirmed. Trachonometry Phase II suggested that Multitude is moving away from its calculated initial orbital course by the following data.” flashes the interface on the right of Ethina with several animated bars before it automatically moves toward in the front of Ethina with a set of newly formed data tables, “The bogey is expected to exit the system on current course trajectory in ETA two hundred thousand seconds with current calculated gravi-mag field signature. System detected that Multitude is actively decelerating and exhibiting significant increase of magnetometric flux signature.”

Noticing the floating window of light, Ethina clicks several times on it with his fingers, “Run Com Protocol Ervas, triple encryption layer on vectors, tight beam link.”

“Select target.” forms a new interface amidst the clutter of light in front of Ethina.

He then decides to minimize all the open interfaces by clicking their minimize button, “HCL Animo, HCL Vicr. Use phasic wave mode, compensate for e-interference, masquerade signal.”

“Confirmed. Acquiring new wavelength sequence in twenty seconds.” cued one of the small interface before minimizing itself automatically.

Feeling annoyed that he's totally ignored by Ethina, the personnel asks him again while clad with a slight tone of disappointment, “Err Captain? You haven’t answered my question.”

Ethina is so immersed in his current activity, he barely heard the personnel's question and decides to negate the personnel's interest, “Hm? Oh your question is it? Run along, I’m a busy man right now.”

“What about my question, Captain Ethina?” ask the personnel with non-satisfied look.

Ethina let out a small sigh before snapping his view towards the personnel, “Adjutant Yarhon, if you’re nosey enough, why don’t you get that equipment maintenance report done? I’m still waiting for it. If you’re so persistent to get your answer, ask Captain Kiro or something.”

“....” silences the personnel for a few seconds before bowing his head lightly towards Ethina, “Duly…acknowledged, Captain. I shall excuse myself then.”

His sign of respect however is completely ignored by Ethina, leaving the personnel with much chagrin of frustration. Clicking away the air, Ethina flashes an order, "Sensor section, where is that report?!"

"Duly sorry for the delay Captain Ethina. We had detected the return message from Sultana and optimized our Code Three communication algorithms to instantly translate the message to our language albeit a bit of small translation error. It's already logged and recorded, Captain, you just need to open the file and analyze it." forms an interface in front of Ethina as soon as he finished his order, alongside with a small rectangular interface a few distance apart.

He grinned lightly before complimenting the personnel in question and shouting a general statement, "Good work. This is what i expect. Others! Let this be an example! If you're useful, prove it!"

Unknown System
Utility Fleet One Formation
Onboard HCL Animo
Milky Way Galaxy

"Incoming transmission. Source, HCL Thirma. Decrypting transmission link in five seconds." forms an interface in front of Kiro, catching her off-guard.

She sighed lightly before eying her surroundings, "Hm...what is it now?"

"Captain Kiro, my ship detected that Multitude and Sultana is currently tracked to move away from our current position. Should i shoot them down? The data should be uploaded to your ship in two seconds from now." forms a portrait of Ethina on Kiro's left area of vision.

"No, don't kill them. Their help are indispensable to us, for now." sways Kiro head from side to side while gesturing her right hand fingers on confirming the data report from HCL Thirma. She tones further with alert while reading the collected data regarding the two new foreign ships, "Shooting them down without even knowing their full extent of capabilities may put us in a severe disadvantage, i mean look at the size of Multitude. They might have an even advanced navy than us."

"Hm...you might be correct on that Captain Kiro, oh and i had informed Captain Renec as well. He should be on...a few seconds from now." agrees Ethina over Kiro's notion.

She sways her fingers over the called up data tables while waiting with full anticipation, "Ok then, i hope we don't lose sights of them."

"Oh and a little info. My ship had received the coded signal from Sultana and it's fully deciphered as well." adds Ethina casually.

She shrugged in disbelief of what she just had heard, "Wait, so you're telling me that you detected and managed to decipher Sultana's message in one go?"

"You shouldn't underestimate my battlecruiser or the ships from Gauis Ostrolis in general, Captain Kiro. Till then, till Captain Renec shows up." fades the grinning image of Ethina from Kiro's view.

A small interface forms as soon Ethina's portrait dissolved from her view, "Captain Kiro. We detected a return message from Sult-"

"I know. Decipher it quickly and forward it to me, officer." cuts Kiro with a frown on her face before the personnel can finish his sentence.

The interface then proceeds to vanish into thin air, "Errr copy that Captain Kiro. We will be working on it."

She silently abates her surprise while analyzing the new data received from HCL Thirma. Kiro could tell that what Ethina said is true; both Multitude and Sultana is currently moving away from her ship, or rather Utility Fleet One. Based on her observation, it seems that the new guests didn't buy the bait presented by the fleet formation as they're evidenced to move away with the data report and she postulated further that, her recent actions may somehow scared the new guests. Are they truly civilian ships? Why do they didn't buy the bait? Numerous questions plays in her mind, as she tries to solve the enigma whilst waiting the audience of Captain Renec. One thing for sure for her that is, if she didn't do something awfully quick, she would lose the sights of the new guests and risk the detachment's reputation over two newly discovered space-faring empires.

Unknown System
Utility Fleet One Formation
Onboard HCL Vicr
Milky Way Galaxy

"Captain Renec, sensor section detected a full wave directional electromagnetic radiation in vicinity of the jovian. The radiation is determined to be as some sort of a digital transmission." forms an interface in the front of Renec with a steely audio cue.

He quickly shoots up an order while calling up more interfaces with the gestures of his hands, "Sensor System, prepare passive scan mode QER-1. Extend scan area to 1 cu, eliminate signature disturbance from E-113 Pods."

"Orders confirmed. Incoming encrypted transmission from HCL Thirma, decrypting in ten seconds." disappears the interface within a thin mist of light.

The report that a directional electromagnetic radiation is directed at Utility Fleet One piques Renec's curiosity. It seems that the new guests are capable enough in communication thought Renec as the incoming radiation was shortly analyzed to contain complex electronic patterns. Upon his order, the Gyrgyr class warship slowly extends its sensing rods while flowing with negative energy before it turns neutral. Compensating the disturbance caused by signature decoys released by HCL Thirma, HCL Vicr tunes its sensors automatically in order to catch all of the new directional electromagnetic radiation. The main AI core of the warship rapidly load up new sensing protocols, changing the current settings on its coupled sensor rods to extend their sensing range by simply tuning in to the plasma torus and magnetosphere surrounding the jovian, basically turning the whole plasma torus and the jovian's magnetosphere as a no-cost volumetrically large passive sensor sphere.

Gleefully smiling, Renec furiously click the air around him, analyzing the incoming data as collected by his ship in a form of floating interfaces circling him, "Good...good..valuable data!"

"Captain, do you need our help? We noticed that you had ordered a QER-1 scan order and we would like to warn you that it's not fully perfect." peeks a small portrait not far from Renec's right robotic eye.

Under a fraction of a second, Renec's robotic eyes formed an eerie green trail as he flexes his head, "Ah just in time, officer. I need your team help to decipher the incoming data-it's a brilliant jackpot! Analyze it all, take it all, don't leave even one byte!"

"Err...gladly, Captain. Anything else?" surprised the portrait.

Clenching his fist together, Renec barely can contain his enthusiasm, "Yes! Log it all, record it, do whatever you deem necessary! This is a revolutionary discovery! I expect at least three indepth report of the scan result on my terminal, ASAP!"

"Link established." forms an interface on the left area vision of Renec.

The portrait of Ethina formed a few seconds later, with a disgruntled look, "Captain Renec, what are you doing, rejecting my ship and Captain Kiro's call, hm?"

"I'm pretty busy right now, fresh incoming data!" exclaims Renec in surprise.

Another image formed on the right area of Renec, bearing an image of Kiro, "Captain Renec, i ask for only a fraction of your time. Is it so hard to show a little of courtesy to me, and to Captain Ethina that even consider to include you in our upcoming conversation?"

"What is it?! Make it quick! I want to analyze all these new data!" flinches Renec like an scrupulous man.

A large interface automatically formed in front of Renec, along with audio cue of Ethina, "I'm sure you knew that our new guests are trying to run away do you not? And tell us a little bit about this new data you detected."

"What? Why did HCL Thirma didn't detect all the new raw data?!" asks Renec furiously.

The image of Ethina shrugged lightly, "Well, my ship did detect it but you know the sensors on my ship is not really suited for the task than your ship, Captain Renec. Besides, the sensors' power may frighten our new guests a little bit too much. That could put our fleet in a precarious situation..should they run away from us."

"Oh yeah, you didn't order the tuning process Captain Ethina!" adds Renec before continuing his speech in his usual colour, "Well my ship here detected some sort of directional EM radiation toward our position and i assume all of you noticed the coded message sent by Sultana as well?"

Kiro was the first one to speak, "Well yes. Did you read the message yet?"

"Hold on, oh never mind! We will discuss it now!" sways Renec hands on the right area of his vision, minimizing most of the formed data interfaces.

Wearing a thin mask of grin, Ethina tilts his head lightly to the right, "Well, the message suggest to me that is, Sultana is not ready to run away as what i suspected thereof. It's asking us to not shoot at it and indicated that it's interested in trading. I presume the directional EM radiation was their offer, i suppose but my ship sensors filtered it off."

"Oh that directional EM radiation eh? Wait a second! I'm trying to decipher it-aha! It's a form of a complex digital signal! An audiovisual signal to be precise!" exclaims Renec with surprise as numerous interfaces form on the sides of his vision.

Kiro's portrait lightly stares at Renec, "Wait, wait wait, an audiovisual signal? Are they out of their minds?"

"Well Captain Kiro, you did ask them to show some good faith..and i suppose their offer to trade-along with the audiovi-whatever that is, represent their intention of good faith. What strikes me out is, they moved away from our fleet position almost in sync, as if Multitude and Sultana are in cahoots." explains Ethina with a convincing tone.

Kiro flinches aback over Ethina's reply, "Well...that's understandable on why they move away. I guess they are afraid from being hit with our weapons...so we will need to be more careful than this. Though i can't negate your idea of them being in cahoots, their actions seem suspicious."

"Cahoots? Cahoots oh yes! We're showing a bit too much of our military capability to them! I suggest that we restrict our current activities then!" adds Renec with a nodding tone.

Ethina lightly nods to Renec's suggestion, "Ok then, i'm going to deactivate the E-113 Pods."

"No, don't deactivate them. Randomize their disturbance effect so they cannot recognize the decoys' specific interference signature." cuts Kiro with a tactical tone.

Nodding away, Renec quickly brandishes his idea, "Oh and when HCL Animo is giving a return message, drop down the pods' e-interference too! We could at least cover our warships capability to communicate even when the pods are active so that they believe the interference is troubling us much as it troubles them!"

"Good idea, Captain Renec. A question though, have you deciphered the new EM-whatever that is, coming from Sultana?" sounds Ethina's portrait with an inquisitive tone.

Renec swiftly moves his hands in his vicinity, calling several data tables made of light, "It's a really complex signal, but i think my ship captured all of the signal. Sultana just gave us a new transmission protocol!"

"Oookay. What does it say?" asks Kiro with an interested look.

Ethina then adds to Kiro's statement, "Better yet, Captain Renec, please forward us the completed data in secure tight beam link. The E-113 pods will provide signature cover."

"Working on it! Now if you may, i want to continue to analyze all these new data!" flexes Renec head to his left side.

Kiro portrait however shows a different tone, "No, we need to analyze it now. Any longer and we might lose our chance to keep them in the system."

"Ok then, i will send the data to your ships in a moment, respectively!" agrees Renec over Kiro's statement.

Renec tactfully click several times on the floating data interfaces in his vicinity. With his order, the powerful communication auxiliary processors of HCL Vicr awaken from their slumber, rapidly digesting, reorganizing and reassembling the new data transmission received from Sultana. Under mere ten seconds, the main cores managed to piece together the new format, suited for Principality transmission sequence. A small interface then pops up near Renec which he quickly snaps at the floating button which action sent the translated data to the waiting warships in several tight beamed communication bursts.

by **Heliocalypse** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 9:34 am

Chapter Nine - Tic Tetchy (Part Two)

Invigilating a new information shall secure the vision and mission of a person should he or she know what to do.

Unknown System
Utility Fleet One Formation
Onboard HCL Vicr
Milky Way Galaxy

For a moment, both portraits of Kiro and Ethina disappeared from Renec's view and immediately replaced by several other interfaces. Not long after, both of the ship Captains portraits quickly formed yet again, catching Renec by surprise as he's busy analyzing the new data. Renec quickly shunt away most of the floating data interfaces with the swish of his left hand while focusing his robotic eyes towards the newly formed portraits.

Ethina is the first one to speak, "Well...i couldn't make much out of it, but it seems that they're offering trade goods. I did recognize one image in the data, it's some sort of metal and gas."

"Yeah, a lot of unknown information in that data. I couldn't make it out most of it either." continues Kiro over Ethina's sentence.

Realizing the words of Ethina and Kiro, Renec gazes lightly towards their portraits, "Well, my team managed to decipher what they meant. It seem that they're offering us some sort of raw materials, an electronic device and some empires name. I think Sultana is independent from its host nation of Imperiium of Vernii due to the information given but still, ruling it out from plausible association of the nation behind it might be a bad idea."

"If you say so, regarding Sultana, Captain Renec. I see the new transmission contained several names, matching with our new guests' given information such as Imperium of Vernii and United Empire Star of Valinon, along with other ten or so names. The names even include their respective symbols and identification flags." nods Kiro's portrait towards Renec.

Ethina then continues the conversation, "Right. One thing for certain, those names are identified by the data under a new name known as Oversector of Raumreich."

"Raumreich...with ten or so plausible empire names under it? Hm...we might be dealing with a very large coalition here, we need to be extra careful..." gazes Kiro's portrait with a cautious tone.

Renec quickly intervenes, "Yes! It's a major discovery! Not only we just met the representative of two empires, we might just meet a coalition! Image the wealth of information they posses!"

"The data given by Sultana is big enough, Captain Renec. Mind you we need to be very careful so that our new guests doesn't suddenly call their..other brethren to shoot us down--Look, if United Empire Star of Valinon can field a ship as large as Multitude, image what their navy including their brethren can field. I doubt HCL Soros can even survive from being attacked by warships coming from more than ten or so space-faring empires under the plausible coalition. We cannot rule out that risk and we cannot lose our trump card here, our main vanguard HCL Soros." debates Kiro while watched closely by Ethina's gazing portrait.

Ethina portrait lightly tatters, "Well, we have our combat advantage here. We have a first strike capability, Captain Kiro. Our torpedoes and missiles should let us to last long enough, along with tactical usage of our capital ships..to escape them if they happen to attack us."

"And escape to where? We don't even know what they're capable to begin with. We need to continue observing them more while reducing our display of military strength." logically shoots Kiro's sentences.

Renec voices his opinion over the debacle with an intriguing look, "Well..it seems that the data indicate Raumreich is not only a single coalition, there might be more but i cannot tell it properly. The coalition is a loose one however, based on the data on the new empires under its name as what i found."

"Okay, then we might have a chance then, if we played our cards right. But for now, i think we should maintain an overall neutral stance, not favouring either of the empires under the coalition name as the data also indicate they had several plausible incoherency of unity in the past. We would like not to get caught in their...plausible political power games." agrees Kiro.

With a sleazy look, Ethina asks Renec, "So...do you have an idea how we would respond to our new guests now?"

"Oh and Captain Renec. I would like the message to not drive them away or we might have a whole coalition to deal with." adds Kiro.

Renec closes several interfaces amongst his vicinity while calling several new ones with his hand gestures, "Wait, i think we should offer them as similar what they offered us. My ship worked out the new transmission protocol as similar to what we received from Sultana though it's a bit rough due to the interference caused by the E-113 Pods in vicinity."

"And for Multitude? I had received report that it's increasing its energy signature and decelerating, I suspect it's trying to execute a FTL jump." asks Kiro with a cautious tone.

Viewing one of the data interfaces, Renec quickly agrees, "That's correct! Multitude behavioural pattern indicate preparation of some sort of FTL jump but my ship cannot detect what kind of jump is it unless i'm using active sensors."

Kiro's portrait tones lightly with full caution, "Don't scan them with active sensors, neither of us should or we might frighten them away, considering they're aware of our abilities. They might think we're trying to shoot them down, hell anyone would if he or she notices a high powered sensor is directed to his or her ship. Captain Ethina, i would like for you to lift some of the interference generated by the E-113 Pods and cease several security protocols, as to convince them that we pose no real harm and further cover our true military capability when we're giving the return message to Sultana. The pods underneath our fleet should remain activated for obscuring our fleet view from the Multitude satellite and make it clear to them that we dislike being scanned as much as they would. I suspect Multitude will be able to detect the audiovisual transmission somehow, thus by doing so we can kill three birds with one stone."

"That sounds a little bit risky, Captain Kiro. I wouldn't like to cease or deactivate any of the fleet's current security protocols and the E-113 pods now it's clearly assumed that they're backed with ten or so more empires." disagrees Ethina with an eyeful look.

Kiro lightly intervenes before Renec is able to speak, "Do we have a choice here, Captain Ethina? If we don't do something awfully quick, they will be out of our grasp and we might have ten or more empires hunting for our heads, Captain Ethina. We need to convince them that we pose no real threat in order to ensure safety of the Soros Detachment. I choose to gamble on disregarding our security protocols here as there aren't much we can do, in order to impress them that we're not trying to shoot them down."

"I will have to agree with Captain Kiro, Captain Ethina. In my tactical opinion, the benefits going to be gained by us on relying on them sufficiently over-weigh plausible repercussions of our actions. Who knows, maybe we can gain a useful ally-nay even a coalition to back us or Soros Detachment in general?" nods Renec with a glowing green robotic eyes.

Clad in annoyance, Ethina's portrait can do naught than agreeing, "Ok then, and about them in cahoots? I do suspect that they're more fragmented than what it is now but if we did a mistake, the whole detachment will be in danger."

"As long we can convince them or one of them by playing the right cards...i would say they are likely to not report about us to their postulated allies. First impression is the key, and that moment is disappearing fast. Since we cannot satisfy two different entities equally at the same time, i guess we should continue our alleged favoritism to Sultana and perhaps...draw the entity behind Sultana to favour us, while in plain view maintaining an overall neutral stance. They being in cahoots are easily explained by them under a single coalition and their political incoherency could be used to our advantage." explains Kiro with a monotonous tone.

Flashing his eyes across, Renec claps his hands lightly, "Brilliant Captain Kiro! I doubt that we will be able to remain neutral once we attracted one of their attentions however..."

"You're the smart one, Captain Renec. I'm sure you will figure it out. I shall be excused then, now that it's clear what we should do. I will give you the cue when the involved E-113 Pods are deactivated, Captain Renec." flashes Ethina's image off from Renec's view.

Kiro's image is the next one to follow, "Captain Renec, you will be tasked to give out the return audiovisual message to Sultana and i trust your judgement over the matter. My ship will compose both Code Three replies and for the audiovisual message, transmit it to the net probes when the involved E-113 pods interference is lifted and let the probes do the additional work after that."

"I shall see to it then, Captain Kiro." answers Renec before Kiro's image fades away from his view.

As per Kiro's order, the signature disturbance pods launched by HCL Thirma earlier slowly tune down their interference field that are blocking the direct tangent to the net probes launched by HCL Animo. Two Code Three messages were transmitted simultaneously, followed with a mimicked digital transmission protocol straight to Sultana's position. The rough digital transmission carries the flag of the Principality, alongside with the leader's name of Principality, Clero Vanckel, topped with the insignia of the Soros Detachment. Similar to what given by Sultana, the emitted digital transmission carry several images of organic volatile compounds, several images of Principality-native fruits, coupled with several simple images depicting Principality-made beverages minus the Principality language words. Following closely of the previous images would be a short video depicting a Principality-made industrial mining device in action, a plasma based mining beam equipment.

The star of the transmission however is a specific short muted video of Principality industrial technique, flash cutting industrial technique whereby the video discern a block of metal traveling on a conveyer belt, accompanied with several bright flashes. Between the interval of the flashes, the metal is shown as if it was cut and shaved by something which the end of the video depicts a small female human statue. The transmission was set to be transmitted briefly, in several mere seconds as it was compressed into a compact one, in order to minimize plausible exposure to other uninvited guests. As soon the Code Three transmissions with the digital transmission are broadcasted, the E-113 Pods quickly raise their interference field yet again, riddling the fleet position with multitude of energy, magnetic and mass signature disturbance.

Transmission directed towards Sultana position directly.

Code: Select all: . ...- .. -.. . -. -.-. . / .-. . -.-. . .. ...- . -.. .-.-.- / .. -. ..-. --- .-. -- .- - .. --- -. / --. .. ...- . -. .-.-.- / ..-. .-.. . . - / .-- .. .-.. .-.. / ... - .- -. -.. / -.. --- .-- -. --..-- / .. -. - . -. - .. --- -. / ... .- -- . .-.-.- / .... -.-. .-.. / .- -. .. -- --- --..-- / ... --- .-. --- ... / -.. . - .- -.-. .... -- . -. - .-.-.-

Transmission directed towards Multitude position directly.

Code: Select all: - .... .. ... / .. ... / .... -.-. .-.. / .- -. .. -- --- .-.-.- / .. -. - . -. - .. --- -. ... / .- .-. . / ..-. --- .-. / ... . -.-. ..- .-. .. - -.-- / .- -. -.. / -- .- .. -. - . -. .- -. -.-. . / .--. .-. --- - --- -.-. --- .-.. ... .-.-.- / ..- -. -.-. --- -. - .-. --- .-.. .-.. .- -... .-.. . / .- -. -.. / -- .- .-.. ..-. ..- -. -.-. - .. --- -. . -.. / -.. .-. --- -. . ... / .-- . .-. . / -.. .. ... .--. --- ... . -.. .-.-.- / ..-. .-.. . . - / .- .-. . / .- .-- .- .-. . / --- ..-. / -- ..- .-.. - .. - ..- -.. . / .. -. - . -. - .. --- -. ... / .- -. -.. / ..-. .-.. . . - / .-- .. .-.. .-.. / ... - .- -. -.. / -.. --- .-- -. .-.-.- / .... -.-. .-.. / .- -. .. -- --- / .-. . --.- ..- . ... - ... / -- ..- .-.. - .. - ..- -.. . / ... .- - . .-.. .-.. .. - . / - --- / ... - .- -. -.. / -.. --- .-- -. --..-- / ... ..- ..-. ..-. .. -.-. .. . -. - / -.. . - .- .. .-.. ... / --- ..-. / -- ..- .-.. - .. - ..- -.. . .----. ... / --- ..-. ..-. . .-. / .- -. -.. / ... ..- ..-. ..-. .. -.-. .. . -. - / -.. . - .- .. .-.. ... / --- ..-. / -- ..- .-.. - .. - ..- -.. . / .. - ... . .-.. ..-. / .. -. / . -..- -.-. .... .- -. --. . / --- ..-. / ..-. ..- .-.. .-.. / ... . -.-. ..- .-. .. - -.-- / .- ... ... ..- .-. .- -. -.-. . / .- -. -.. / - .-. .- -.. . / -.-. --- -. ... .. -.. . .-. .- - .. --- -. .-.-.- / ... .. --. -. . -.. --..-- / .... -.-. .-.. / .- -. .. -- --- --..-- / ... --- .-. --- ... / -.. . - .- -.-. .... -- . -. - .-.-.-

Dastia Bastion-Holocrum Starbase
Vicinity of Starbase - 13^th Strategic Haralcian Carrier Fleet
Archus Galaxy

"The Holocrum Starbase is within range, Rear Admiral." forms an interface towards a mysterious person.

The person, shaded black with the lack of light over his position lightly answers, "Continue within range. This should surprise Captain Rikol, hehe."

With the person's order, two gargantuan shark-like warship chugs through the misty space with a glittering blue tinted exhaust while articulating their respective maneuvering thruster flaps lightly, accompanied with numerous other smaller warships. The nucleus of the formation represents one of the strategic Principality warships tasked in long termed operations. A Soronova Assault Carrier model to be precise, capable of holding numerous strike crafts and still capable of carrying a number of smaller Principality warships, namely the Ragnor Assault Cruisers. Acting as the super carriers of the newly formed Soros Detachment, the two gargantuan warships direct their course towards the starbase, as per Vice President's plan.

The Arrival (FT, Closed)

The Arrival (FT, Closed)

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