Gnonan Vriszh'aion (Honor of Vriszh), Magnus Vermes-controlled sector Bridge
Admiral Vonn Drazhk stood on the bridge, asking the communications officer to replay the clip over and over again. Counter Admiral Gal stood near him, concerned.
The Admiral banged his fist on the command table, temporarily dimming a square on the grid. "What do they take us for!?"
The Counter Admiral looked at him, puzzled. "Whatever do you mean, Admiral? It seems perfectl..."
Drazhk turned to her, barely controlling his strange, combined sense of fury and confidence. "It's obviously a trick. Firstly, how plausible is it that we've made contact with three alien races just so soon after one another? It's mathematically implausible. And if that's not enough for you, allow me to replay a few rather interesting things he said in his transmission. Lieutenant, rewind to the beginning. The first thing he says could easily be interpreted as a simple linguistic blunder, but what does that say about the transmission as a whole? I am referring to where he says 'the the' Kolok'til. Secondly, he misinterprets your rank, Gal, referring to you as Admiral instead of Counter Admiral. Knowing the Captain, I find this a rather odd mistake for him to make. Then, notice how he refers to the fleet as 'your fleet' instead of 'our fleet'. Lastly, he says that the crew of the ship was only lightly wounded, whereas the ship's final distress signal suggests otherwise. It was on the second-highest level of distress when the signal was issued, only to be given in a dire emergency. Lastly, if they were just kindly taking care of our troops after the battle, wouldn't they have the sense to contact the huge fleet the ship had sent a distress signal to earlier that they were in fact taking care of the troops? Wouldn't that make sense?"
The Counter Admiral looked at him, impressed with his reasoning ability, but doubtful about his extrapolations. "What do you suggest it is, then?"
The Admiral smiled in an unnerving way. "It's simple, my dear Counter Admiral. He's been tortured and was probably forced to say this at gunpoint. If he were too overtly nervous, they might have just killed him and started a new message with a different crew member. But he let out almost invisible signs of his apprehension. Very curious for Vroszh'mai. I'd have thought he'd have committed ritual suicide or something by this point. Nonetheless, the evidence is there."
The Counter Admiral wasn't convinced. "With all due respect sir..."
"Enough of this. If my evidence isn't enough for you, let me remind you that we have orders from the Admiral of the Fleet in Naval High Command. Disobeying his orders would be mutinous, would it not? Inform High Command that the enemy has taken prisoners, and send this message to these 'Magnes Vermes', if that's even their real names. They have our prisoners, and they can draw pictograms or something to communicate what I'm about to say to them."
The Admiral prepared himself for a moment, and cleared his throat.
"This is the Vriszh'kai Collective. Return all prisone... ahem, lightly wounded crew members, to our ship immediately, or we will open fire upon orders of Fleet High Command. The troops need a full medical and psychological examination with medical equipment of their own race before we can determine whether or not they are indeed stable."
The Vriszh'kai'aion Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tonoetade City, Planet Vriszh, System Vriszh, Vriszh'kai'aion Collective
Ata explained "The reaction has been very mixed, just as the contact itself was. The people of Vriszh, from what we have seen, are fairly warm to the idea of intergalactic relations, and are pleased that we will be working with you in the future. The news organizations are run by a committee here in the capital, so are free from any unusual interpretations of what's been going on, or blatant lies. It was like that in the Imperial days, I was told. On the other side, however. The attacks on the Exploratory Fleet have everyone up in arms."
The Prime Minister then said, "I fear a group of xenophobic individuals have confused the situation, and have been against diplomacy with alien races. There were a couple idiots with signs at the steps of the Ministry earlier. I believe the guards made them leave the premises."
Ata raised her head for a moment, and it seemed perfectly like the kind of moment where a lightbulb would go on above one's head. "That reminds me, even if its a bad reason to be reminded, have you any interest in establishing an embassy here, so that we can continue our interactions and diplomatic endeavors into the future? I fear the vastness of space will make diplomacy a bit awkward otherwise. Our parlay over the ansible didn't have the same feeling of real communication as we're having here, and I'd hate to have to do that all the time when we chat."
The Prime Minister smiled, and said, with much pleasure, "Perhaps we should wait before talking about that, I think the food is almost here."
-Interstellar Space, near the Nova System, Noviran Socialist Federation- -May 21, 2550 CE-
"Sir, they appear to be scrambling fighters and sensors detect their weapons are arming. Should we initiate fire?"
"No, wait." responded the commander. "Let us see if they respond. We will not fire first."
After a few seconds, the communications officer said, "They're responding to the hail in Catopian. They say:"
"The mighty expedition fleet of Wu Empire will pass, the mission entrusted by our High Lord Grand General Alchemist Nartek Wu III, grandson of Commander Nartek Wu, requires the emperor's blade. Admiral Ban Zare requests communications to negotiate."
The commander, after thinking for a minute, said, "They must be some sort of splinter Karteriean faction trying to regain the throne." The several Karterieans in the room nodded. "Arm our weapons and scramble fighters. Then open up the video feed."
When he could see the black-scaled Karteriean's face, he said in Catopian, "I am Commander Zivast Opkov of the Noviran Socialist Federation. You have no right to claim the emperor's sword. The Nawu'Rawu Empire is the true and only recognized Karteriean empire. If you continue on this violent and determined yet futile attempt to claim the imperial sword, you will be destroyed."
---
-Planet Vriszh, System Vriszh, Vriszh'kai'aion Collective- -May 14, 2550 CE-
The admiral nodded as the zenophobes were mentioned. "There are a few like that in every society."
The foreign commissar, in response to the second question, said, "Yes, we can resume later. An embassy is an excellent idea, however." "We will have to make provisions for that before we leave."
When he could see the black-scaled Karteriean's face, he said in Catopian, "I am Commander Zivast Opkov of the Noviran Socialist Federation. You have no right to claim the emperor's sword. The Nawu'Rawu Empire is the true and only recognized Karteriean empire. If you continue on this violent and determined yet futile attempt to claim the imperial sword, you will be destroyed."
Admiral Ban Zare placed his helmet back upon his head "Do not count out the might of the Wu Empire expedition fleet, may honorable death find you in battle."
Alchemists working comm station cut the feed "Same battle planes, a single ship each is to ram the class B targets then detonate all nukes aboard to take them out, fighters are to focus on the class D targets, and boarding crews are to attempt access to the class C targets, prepare my personnel fighter, I have a commander to deal with."
Admiral Ban Zare went grabbing shield, plugging it into plug on back of power armor then sword sheathing it on waist, the admiral then made his way off bridge down corridor to head to hangers.
Flagship comm operator "Do not destroy bridge of enemy command class B ship, repeat do not destroy it, Admiral Ban Zare wishes to deal with enemy fleet commander himself."
The Wu Empire expedtion fleet began to move into battle positions, fighter craft and boarding craft would begin to launch out of hangers aboard warships, and three warships would change course to ram the three battle cruisers.
Before the ceremony - Home planet Hycrane - Great One (Of the military)
A great one was walking down the narrow the hallway. It was simply a back way that she repeatedly use to get to the ceremonies when she wasn't exactly on time. When people had figure out that she took this way, it was instantly remade from its poor condition. It was repainted with a smooth dark red with beautiful tiles that lay in the floor. A carpet was laid down the entire way down the curved hallway. New lights were also installed all just for the great one. The general populace would usually do so much more but most know that she respect her privacy. The great one stopped for only a second to check her robe one last time. It was a spacious robe made of bright colors off silk with polished metals and the tips of her robe. She wondered if she looked stupid but she new that no one would tell her so. Before she had a chance to start walking once again she was interrupted by a voice that came behind her. She looked behind her to see one of her intelligence officers. She could tell instantly by her tight fight dress that had openings by her gills.
"My lady!" she called out to the great one with a bright expression "We found it!" The great one had a confused expression on her face and waited for the officer tom come closer. When she reached the Great one she was panting and took a minute to catch her breath before speaking. "We found it! Sentient beings!"
The Great one was surprised and didn't know what to say. She asked the questions that came to her mind first "Where? How long ago? Aggressive? How advanced are they? How-" She was caught off by the officer who was still excited.
"We were sending out scouting ships from the Thorien system near sigma when they were in compressed space travel one of the ships came across a signal, that was soon followed after by another. It was 10 minutes after the transmission was sent that we received it. From the looks of it the race looks as advanced as ours if not more, it was hard to tell through the coms though"
The Great one asked the officer if that was all as if she was disappointed in their great find before asking "Could we understand their dialect?"
The officer said sternly "no" before explaining why. "The language sounded surly and the translator programs that we have are old compared to the technology now. We didn't expect to find Sentient life capable of space travel so soon. It will take 2-4 risings before we can vaguely understand the dialect. Because the program is so old it requires hands on work from our people to analyze the language as other will create a new program that should do a more efficient job, and we only got so much from the transmission" she pause a while before speaking "Should I tell the others?"
The great one spoke quickly in response "No" before continuing "Not now... We will give it some time"
Satin's Angel - The unmarked
The unmarked was looking out at the stars deep in thought when she was interrupted. The crew member bowed sightly then went on to speaking "You are wanted in the conference room" The unmarked turned her head and just stared at her. The crew member was shaking and stiff in the shoulders. The unmarked pushed her self off of the floor before slowing to a stop and waved the crew member off.
When she entered the conference room she had to enter a lock before hand to drain all the water. As the water left the enclosed room she steadied herself on the floor before entering the room. It was dark only the faintest bit of light that made a track to a circle that was above the ground. As she took her place in it she logged in her code before a cylinder of light lit up around her and the room before her was filled with holograms that stood in a semi circle around her. They all hailed her and they waited for the last one to come on.
As the last hologram appeared it was a Great One. All unmarked her silently. Then the Great One spoke. "As all of you know, you have been sent on a mission for the Skrien empire." They all stood in silence "This is of diplomatic means, you are not going to destroy a target, but to ensure the safety of our Ambassadors." she paused "We have received information that there is sentient beings other than us" The uninterested faces suddenly started listening "Your top priority is to obtain recordings of the sentient beings speak, after that is to try to build a relation if you possible could, the coordinates are being sent to you, as well as the video com that we picked up from the transmission we intercepted"
((sorry i have to speed this up from its already sloppy writing, because I have to study for the impossible final coming up))
Lavivrus entered the bridge and sent the coordinates to the pilot and said "Go... Now!" She looked around the bridge and before commanding on last time "Turn on the Cloaking devices as we near our destination" Everyone was in a hurried and confused state as they were preparing the ship. She waved at one of the crew members and asked to be put on coms. After a few seconds of waiting she was ready to go. she thought for a moment of what to say "This rising, we have been told Sentient beings have been found in space... We are heading into the Unknown. The empire its self does know what we are heading into, we may come unto a Friendly ally in which we will gorw a strong bound for the cycles to come, or we will find a dangerous enemy. More ships will be coming in but it could be hours before a sufficient fleet arrives. Prepare for travel, and prepare for a fight, for it will be the greatest moments in Skrien History!"
Essem heard the call of one of his officers. "Sir, the aliens are trying to cut through the air lock door." He said to the ship AI "Habgin, analyse path of the alien guests and open all doors possible in their path." Habgin then replied "Alien life forms assumed to refer to life forms currently in the airlock. Now giving full automatic access when possible."
The doors in the airlock opened, revealing a small girl. She was of a dark red color and was wearing a green dress that split around her legs to avoid blocking movement. She did not have any black on her that could be seen. At the sight of the aliens her antenna perked up and she scurried away into the nearest hallway. The lights in the room seemed to have been smashed. In the light this room would have lead into multiple hallways, none with a door. There was also a magnetic elevator at the other end of the room.
Planet Hyluees, Oataar star system,Sigma sector , Capitol city Tyuls, 21 May 2550 CE, imperial date 500 E8, 7:45 GMT
Yseet-Galts was ranked number 24 of the imperial Vyseelaa, one of the few groups that train since young children to use their psychic senses in their profession. They are trained almost their entire lives for these professions and for passing down this knowledge to the younger generations and to help them progress. The Vyseelaa were trained as diplomats in case of a point where communication through normal language would not work. They mostly trained with animals, usually by finding the connections of certain images to commands they have been taught. They usually progress to finding the meaning to made up languages in a person.
Yseet heard his apprentice say "Wait up, you always walk so quickly!" to which he responded "Vleen, if you would hurry up and grow maybe you would not have this problem." Vleen-Fyaal was a eighteen year old girl, and short for her age (Note equivalent to a thirteen year old). She got a little angry at this, her red flowers swishing as she shot him a look. "I blame you old man. You always sneak little remarks into the training that mess me up." The amount of energy she used in that remark showed she was angry.
Finally Yseet reached the job desk of the Vyseelaa complex. Vyseelaa received jobs from either the government or anyone who could pay the fees for their service. Yseet said "Hello Neelk, any jobs?" The man behind the counter said "Yes actually, you and your apprentice are going on an exploration service, funded by the Intergalactic Trade Initiative." The ITI was a group of trade companies that tried to find alien life in a hope of trade. "Great, free money." "Is it really that boring?" Vleen chimed in. Tseet replied "Usually, most explorations end in disappointment in finding more sentient life." Neelk passed the orders to him saying "Better luck this time, maybe you will finally be able to use all that training. Also you leave in ten hours."
Ten hours later they were on the exploration vessel Caatiiq and setting course towards the Xeel solar system.
((Would go into more detail, but running out of time.))
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Gnonan Vriszh'aion (Honor of Vriszh), Magnus Vermes-controlled sector Bridge
Admiral Draszk stood, gripping the edge of the map table, sneering. Counter Admiral Gal stood at his side, concerned about how the Admiral was treating this.
"Admiral, I don't think you need to be so..."
She was cut off. "Listen, Irizhi, you need to understand something. Certainly, we'll be getting the survivors of that ship back, but at what cost? We're allowing the enemy, and no matter what they say, they are our enemy, directly in to our ship. Fine. Since we have this opportunity, we take the survivors on board, and send them to medbay immediately. I don't care what they say, they aren't fit for active duty. We need them to take psychological examinations, and no matter what the results, keep them in there until we can get a ship back to Vriszh. In fact..." The Admiral stopped and thought.
"Admiral?"
"After the preliminary exams, get them on Nok Gua'ka, which is, if I'm not mistaken, the smallest ship capable of independent travel and send them back to Vriszh for some rest before we get them ready for active duty again."
"It sounds like a very reasonable plan, Admiral. And as for the Magnes Vermes?"
The Admiral sighed. "Perhaps we should give them a parting gift. We're still under orders from Fleet Command."
"With all due respect, sir, I think at this point we have no reasonable evidence that they are involved. Even if their story doesn't add up..."
"If your idea is to defy my orders, I have no place for you on this ship. Or in this fleet, for that matter. I am carrying out the orders of the Admiral of the Fleet, and they have not been changed, even after having been informed of the situation. If Fleet Command wanted us to make peace with them and have a seafood dinner with the aliens, they'd have told us. We've been given no such orders. As soon as the transport ship leaves dock, if it isn't rigged to explode or full of poison gas, open fire on them. If it is rigged to explode or full of poison gas, we have no reason to wait."
The Counter Admiral sighed at these orders, and finally, wearily, said "Very well, sir. I'll inform the gunnery captain to get his men to battle stations and inform the rest that we're on standby."
"Actually, someone else can take care of that. You seem like the perfect person to say hello to the Ambassador. We're officially at war, so you can kill him, or if you can't stomach it, I can get someone else to take care of that as well. Any questions?" He didn't wait for any. "Very good, now get off of the bridge."
The Admiral resumed looming over the strategy table.
Gnonan Vriszh'aion Docking Port, A minute later
Counter Admiral Iriszhi Gal stood watching the alien ship dock with theirs. She was nervous, but not quite in the same way the Admiral was. But his words did stick with her. The things he suggested about the people she was about to meet were leaving an unpleasant feeling in the back of her head. She cringed as the ship made contact. There was a slight jolt, followed by a variety of mechanical noises. The docking wasn't perfect, as it was an alien ship, and not made to be docking with a Vriszh'kai one, but there was a workable connection, enough so that the returning crew members wouldn't be sucked into the vacuum of space. It was unknown whether the Magnes Vermes ambassador would be safe in the ship's climate, however.
Once the distinctive sounds of docking ceased, the Magnes Vermes-side airlock opened. Since the docking port was sealed, Iriszhi opened the airlock on her side, and entered, flanked by two lightly armed guards. She said nothing.
The Ytterbolikabalimony-uugihkonwhat-eerby, currently moving away from Seltaandi, in the Sigmus system
The Ytterbolikabalimony-uugihkonwhat-eerby was silent. Throughout the boring gray corridors, devoid of architecture, lacked the sounds of feet as well. If you passed through one of the automatically opening doors, you would have passed through into one of many rooms containing near-unbreakable pods of an elliptical nature. But you wouldn't have even been able to do that, because a living thing hadn't disturbed the ship's nearly Argon-specific atmosphere for years. A click was suddenly heard on the bridge, which was usually devoid of sound. A whirring sound, and the controls paused completely for a moment. Purple and orange lights stopped blinking, and the usual rock of the ship stopped utterly. The ship was analyzing new data, which provided some fascinating light to it's expedition to revive it's cargo... It had been going in CIRCLES.
Decades of missions, scouring what it thought was an infinite universe... And it was all a waste of time! A glitch, a glitch had been interrupting progress for years. The very thought seemed to be inconceivable, but the computer didn't waste any more time. Immediately it set a new course for space it had not dared to go through, and almost felt smug at solving this problem. The thrusters flared to life, and the ship slowly moved farther and farther away from the planets, into deeper space.... Though the ship decided to purposefully ignore the fact that it isn't technically deeper, just farther away from this sector. The whirring of FTL was heard, and soon the drive jumped to life, and the ship jumped, making it's way farther north (well, from a top down universe perception), filled with a greater sense of progress and, dare it say, optimism.
-Interstellar Space, near the Nova System, Noviran Socialist Federation- -May 21, 2550 CE-
Admiral Ban Zare placed his helmet back upon his head "Do not count out the might of the Wu Empire expedition fleet, may honorable death find you in battle."
Alchemists working comm station cut the feed "Same battle planes, a single ship each is to ram the class B targets then detonate all nukes aboard to take them out, fighters are to focus on the class D targets, and boarding crews are to attempt access to the class C targets, prepare my personnel fighter, I have a commander to deal with."
Admiral Ban Zare went grabbing shield, plugging it into plug on back of power armor then sword sheathing it on waist, the admiral then made his way off bridge down corridor to head to hangers.
Flagship comm operator "Do not destroy bridge of enemy command class B ship, repeat do not destroy it, Admiral Ban Zare wishes to deal with enemy fleet commander himself."
The Wu Empire expedtion fleet began to move into battle positions, fighter craft and boarding craft would begin to launch out of hangers aboard warships, and three warships would change course to ram the three battle cruisers.
Commander Opkov, expecting such a response, nodded.
When the video feed ended, he said, "Fire all weapons."
The Catopian fleet opened up like so.
First they launched the tremendous volley of their entire nuclear arsenal, over 2,250 nuclear missiles directly at the enemy fleet. This was The small turrets located across the bodies of the ships began firing at any fighter aircraft that drew close, as well as the enemy ships themselves if they had no other targets.
Secondly, they opened up with their main ship weapons, with a volley of high-speed explosive plasma shells. The battlecruisers in particular unleashed their six MAC cannons apiece, which would tear through ships' hulls with relative ease and then explode with a burst of plasma once it had reached the ship's interior. Noticing the approaching three warships to ram them, the battlecruisers attempted to destroy them, but if they moved fast enough even destroying them wouldn't stop the collision.
Essem heard the call of one of his officers. "Sir, the aliens are trying to cut through the air lock door." He said to the ship AI "Habgin, analyse path of the alien guests and open all doors possible in their path." Habgin then replied "Alien life forms assumed to refer to life forms currently in the airlock. Now giving full automatic access when possible."
The doors in the airlock opened, revealing a small girl. She was of a dark red color and was wearing a green dress that split around her legs to avoid blocking movement. She did not have any black on her that could be seen. At the sight of the aliens her antenna perked up and she scurried away into the nearest hallway. The lights in the room seemed to have been smashed. In the light this room would have lead into multiple hallways, none with a door. There was also a magnetic elevator at the other end of the room.
The cosmonauts were somewhat surprised when the door opened, but they took it in stride.
As it opened, they noticed a small alien girl, not obviously infected, who immediately ran away when they saw her. They walked slowly in, looking around. The smashed lights gave the room a very creepy appearance. The party's leader gestured down the hallway the girl traveled down, and they followed, keeping alert for any others.
Gnonan Vriszh'aion Docking Port, Magnes Vermes Space
When gestured to shake hands, Counter Admiral Iriszhi Gal gestured to the cadre of armed soldiers at her sides. "We were under the impression that you were coming under peaceful pretenses, so you have no need for your weapons. Whatever you're here for, we're not allowing you on board with them. So if you want to come here and talk about peace, Nar Shadaa, I want these men disarmed. Now." She turned to the captain and the returning crew, saying, "You're wanted in the medical bay for a full medical examination, by the order of the Admiral and the Chief Surgeon. After that, we'll take your condition into consideration as we get you back to work."
Then speaking specifically towards the offer of a handshake, Iriszhi replied, "My position on this ship is military in nature, and as I'm not a diplomat, I'm in no position to represent the Vriszh'kai Collective in this situation." Her expression was not of disgust, but of thinly veiled contempt.
Meanwhile, across the ship, the ship's engineers and gunners were getting into their battle positions. The targeting systems were being calibrated, damage control teams were getting into their ready positions, civilians were called to their quarters, and the Admiral took his place on the bridge, preparing to give the order to put up the shields and take aim. The bridge technicians gave the Admiral a status report on all of the ships systems.
"Ship's reactor is running efficiently, and we have enough stored power to last us for..." The power officer was cut off by the impatient Admiral.
"Yes, give me everything on the weapons and shields." He said.
"Getting reports from the weapon stations. We have plasma cannons manned and ready to fire, missile stations getting a target lock as we speak, and they're currently priming the beam laser."
"Excellent. Shields?"
"Operating at 25% to avoid suspicion. We'll boost to 75% upon your orders, sir."
"Good. Contact the other ships and tell them to get to full battle readiness, and to prepare for a synchronized barrage on my mark."
"Yes sir."
The other two dozen ships in the fleet received the orders almost immediately. The ships, some of them quite old, had a combination of both old and new weapons. The smallest and oldest ships, of which Kolok'til had been one, were armed with railguns and several nuclear warheads. The newest were shiny and detailed, boasting newer plasma and beam weapons. Plasma weapons were used to take out larger targets, whereas the weaker beam weapons were usually used for taking out mobile targets, such as single-manned fighters and possibly small, fast corvettes.
The little girl ran down the hallway. There were a lot of open doors, that seemed to be jammed open by some kind of black gunk that could be found on the infected. A few brood worms climbed upon the ceiling, ready to pounce down onto their victims. There was also an infected hiding in one of the rooms, not making a sound nor moving. The brood worms and infected communicated with each other. The plan was to have a brood worm drop down on one of the engineers when he passed by the entrance and have the infected swipe him into the room, disguising the wound the brood worm made with a small cut. It was not a perfect plan, but it was the best they could do without guidance. Once the brood worm was in it would quickly knock out the host. As the group got closer the plan went into action, aiming for the last one in the group.
Exploration vessel Caatiiq
Yseet sat in one of the public gathering areas of the ship. They were still in subspace, but their destination was quite close so it should only take a couple of hours. Exploration happens in a couple of short bursts of subspace travel only interrupted to scan for radio waves and mapping. Yseet sat with two friends that he had worked with before on similar missions. Bylaa-Otseel was ranked 17 of the Qwaalmvee, they were xeno-biologists whose job was similar to Yseet's but studied and tamed alien animals, they always had a pet with them that they had with them since they were apprentices. Haavu-Bsteel was ranked 30 of they Cstaalhee, they were trained to manipulate electronics through subtle electric signals, their purpose is to study alien technology and are pretty good to have around if your door is on the fritz.
Yseet placed down his glass of water on the circular table they were all sitting at. The lights above provided some energy similar to a star's. It was not as good but it was good enough. Bylaa spoke up first "Are we really going to find anything on this trip? I mean, I may be stuck with some work but you two will just be doing nothing."
Haavu chuckled and said "Don't worry too much. Who knows maybe we will not find anything living."
Bylaa "How about a bet. We have not bet on something so trivial since we were all apprentices. If you lose Haavu you have to finally confess to Wvsii. Yseet if you lose you have to finally adopt Vleen. If I loose I will paint my arms and do a rendition of a Vysiir's mating dance right on this table. I place my bet on the chance we do find intelligent life."
Yseet "I bet we find only wildlife. Have fun with the paperwork Bylaa."
Haavu "I guess I am stuck with there being no life, and Bylaa if you do that I am going to record and share that with everyone in the Qwaalmvee."
Just then the ship exited subspace travel and the roof became transparent, allowing real sunlight in. "Feels nice." Yseet commented. The crew started on their work.
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Ata first told the Captain, "All of you get a move on. We can talk about dinner later. Go."
Once she was certain the crew was en route to the medical bay, she turned to Nar Shaddaa, saying bitterly, "Frankly, I don't care who they are, and I'm not about to defy orders and let you onboard." She then turned around, as if she were leaving, but stopped at the airlock control panel, touched its screen, and moved her hand in three swift motions. The first of these motions merely accessed the panel's door controls. The second sealed the interior airlock door, the third sealing the exterior, effectively cutting off the Magnes Vermes ambassador, as well as his entourage, from both the Vriszh'kai ship as well as their own. The door was rather thick, so she then proceeded to communicate using the terminal, which had a link to a speaker within the airlock.
"Now, Ambassador, perhaps now you'll be a little more cooperative now that I can easily depressurize the room you're in." The Counter Admiral briefly reflected on the things her superior had told her. "Who really attacked our ship?"
The Wu Empire expedition fleet followed suit firing a volley of every nuclear weapon they had loaded to fire at once for a total of 49,082 nuclear missiles, while A.I controlled laser turrets on warships went to action to try and shoot as many N.S.F nuclear missiles before they would reach targets. All ten thousand in total fighters made the distance to enemy ships quickly, those that made it close enough without getting shot to pieces focused fire on small turrets with front mounted rail guns and rear mounted gunners fired at turrets as well. While the fighters hopefully were drawing attention of defenses the four thousand boarding craft of expedition fleet went right for hangers of enemy ships if they had any, each boarding craft carrying crew of twenty which sixteen were ready to jump right out rail gun rifles ready to fire.
Warships hit by the volley of explosive plasma shells would take the initial fire as entire first layer of armored hull in areas hit would be blown clear off by the explosion, leaving ceramic plate second layer exposed in large gaping holes in first layer of the ships hit. The three ramming warships ships would put engines to maximum thrust as they continued on collision course, all of nuclear arsenal aboard each ship would be armed as ships hulls were torn into by battlecruisers, crew aboard the ships would die as fires spread and explosions racked inside of ship but A.I would continue to operate the three warships that were now more like giant missiles, however the ramming warship on course would lead ship of enemy fleet would have nuclear arsenal set to blow soon enough to hopefully just to cripple without outright destroying.
The deep space telecommunications identification system was scanning the stars around them. This system had no planets that could support life and were therefor not inspected by the vessel. The crew was taking this time to relax as the automated functions of the system did it's work and searched for anything over the star's interference. At this time many of the apprentices were practicing their craft. The system stopped scanning and started amplifying a particular signal. The signal was not natural and was presumed to be alien in origin. The captain quickly got this information and set course for a star fairly close to the star the signal was found from. If the aliens had subspace technology they would easily be able to colonize the system. The captain came on the intercom "Everyone, prepare for subspace warp. We have found a possible alien signal. We are going in to a closer system for investigation. Prepare for possible confrontation scenario." Soon after Yseet got a message from Bylaa simply saying "I win."
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((I'm cutting it into parts in the name of continuing the RP.))
Grand Executor I'Klani Vandnaal Council Chamber, San'Kassimir, Beta Tyrannis 14 May 2550, 20:42 GMT
Maranhii caught up to I'Klani in a few long strides, the studs in the bottoms of his metal boots cracking the stone floors of the Council Chamber wherever they made contact.
"So, what if we are lost," he started, "that is no excuse to not even try to hold out until morning!"
The persuasive effect of Maranhii's inspirational speeches was lost on I'Klani.
"No, it isn't. But we should not delude ourselves." he snapped, effectively ending the argument. He swung his head back to face in front of him, wishing (for not the first time) that his species didn't have such elongated heads. Maranhii still followed, but in silence.
They soon reached the barricades, and hopped over the roughly chest-high walls, made of overturned tables, sandbags and the occasional military-grade portable cover. Maranhii readied his own blade, Kor'taanais, and I'Klani kneeled behind a sandbag wall, resting the barrel of his rifle in a groove between two bags. He flipped the switch above the intake valve of his rifle, and the bulkier segment of it extending to the left of the main body started humming as it ionised the air taken in. A few seconds later the first of three small red lights just below the scope turned from red to orange, and he flipped the lever next to the ionisation chamber, sending the gas into the gun's systems. The first light (farthest to the left) turned fully green, and the second went orange. He flipped yet another switch, and, over the next minute, the metal strips that lined the outer barrel of the rifle turned orange with heat, turning the second light green and the third orange. I'Klani pressed one final button, this one on the front (facing the barrel) of the trigger guard. A few small discs between the heat strips and the barrel began spinning. The third light turned green.
"Ready!" he yelled to no one in particular.
The Heretics who had been gathering outside the doors to the chamber chose that moment to begin their attack, presumably having heard him and taking it as a challenge.
A door creaked open to his left, and a small, violet crystal rolled inside. A few seconds passed, before the crystal suddenly exploded into a purple mist, shrouding nearly half the entrances to the chamber. He heard the magnetic coils of heavy plasma guns suddenly start up, and a few soldiers breathe in deeply.
For a brief moment, it seemed like nothing would happen. No shots were fired, and the only thing that moved was the shimmering curtain of purple mist.
Three seconds later, all hell broke loose.
He didn't know who started it, but at one moment all was still, and the next moment there was superheated plasma flying back and forth, green lasers slicing glyph-like pattens into the mist, and the sudden smell of ozone mixed with burning flesh and molten steel. He couldn't tell how many of the Heretics fell in the first few seconds, but few of his troopers were hit (though one lost the top of his helmet to a laser).
The crystal gas, having been mostly incinerated by the plasma volleys anyways, fully dissipated. Roughly 60 comms-pack antennae were barely poking out over the seats that the High Council would sit in on better days, some hundred metres away. He noted that since they probably hadn't killed all that many of them yet, it was safe to assume that this was the entirety of the vanguard force.
"I don't think they're fools enough to move from where they are yet." he commented to Maranhii.
"Neither do I. It seems we shall have to go and get them." Maranhii replied, his usual casual stance towards killing showing up full-force.
"After you." Maranhii added as he removed Kor'taanais from its magnetic sheathe on his back.
I'Klani glared at Maranhii, but remained silent, instead opting to leave his rifle where it was, and draw Dur'endnaal. He quickly hopped over the barricade, with Maranhii following close behind. The pair began slowing their pace at about the halfway mark, trying to quiet their footsteps to prevent their enemies from hearing them approach. They were making fair progress, and had a mere ten metres to go when, just his luck, someone shouted,
"LOOK OUT!" from the seats above. Maranhii and I'Klani had time to exchange terrified looks before sprinting the last few metres to the wall, the place they had been standing moments before suddenly a plasma-burned crater. Maranhii began breathing deeply, as I'Klani had somewhat predicted due to how long it had been since he was in combat (Maranhii had nearly lost his dextral cortex to a plasma missile some time ago, and had only recently returned from rehabilitation). He looked back at the barricades, and said, without looking at Maranhii,
"You may want to duck." before doing so himself. Maranhii gave him a confused look before asking,
"Why? What is i-" he threw himself on the floor as three closely-packed rockets sailed over their heads and into the seats. The lack of an explosion suggested that they had been kinetic rounds, but the ground shook enough that it had still probably killed several Heretics.
I'Klani rolled over onto his chest and pulled himself off the floor. He quickly picked up Dur'endnaal in his left hand, and pulled Maranhii to his feet with his right. Maranhii retrieved his blade, and they wordlessly sheathed their swords before leaping into the air and latching onto the rim of the railing above. With some difficulty (despite the numerous gadgets they had, neither of their armour sets were truly powered) they hoisted themselves up and over the railing and into the seating area, quickly looking around to make sure that the Heretics hadn't regained their footing after the rocket attack. I'Klani removed one of his pistols, and handed it to Maranhii, who took it and set it into the magnetic field around his right hip. As the first few Heretics regained their footing, some thirty seconds after the impacts, the pair began the butcher's work of hacking, slashing and stabbing that each had down to a science.
While Maranhii took the stairs to flank them; I'Klani grabbed the backs of the front row of seats, and, with all his considerable strength, launched himself high into the air, pulling his sword out as he did so and holding it above his head with the blade pointed behind him. As he fell, he swung downwards, his sword impacting before his feet did. A metre and a half away from his landing point, a Heretic trooper was trying to retrieve his rifle from behind one of the seats. Disregarding the fact that there was a corpse split all the way to the torso stuck on the tip of Dur'endnaal, he swung left, dislodging the body and slicing straight through the decidedly-not-sword-proof midsection of the second unlucky trooper. Rivulets of green, copper-filled blood ran down the blade of Dur'endnaal as I'Klani dislodged the blade once more, the soldier's goggles hiding the look of pain and terror in his eyes as they slowly glazed over.
I'Klani looked over to his left, and saw Maranhii slowly creeping up behind a small group of Heretics, two rows up. He immediately vaulted over the two rows and got in front of the soldiers, who, although they had already been firing at him, redoubled their efforts to kill him. Once he was sure he had their attention, he started vaulting over more rows of seats, constantly trying to evade the torrent of plasma following him. When the firing suddenly ceased, he turned around once more, and, holding Dur'endnaal in his right hand, drew his pistol and put a high-velocity chunk of metal into the abdomen of the nearest Heretic, who crumpled to the floor. I'Klani took a moment to collect himself before holstering the gun and finding his net target, this time with more impunity (as Maranhii was now the focus of their weapons).
Roughly fifteen minutes after they had begun, the two warriors slowly walked back to the barricades, blades affixed to their backs and pistols at their sides. Maranhii's black, heavily spiked armour, as well as I'Klani's sleek, silver-and-orange suit were both spattered with green blood, which slowly dripped from their hands and chestplates. Neither of them could feel particularly proud of what they had done (though in earlier days they would have been competing for kills), but it had been necessary.
"Who is the highest-ranking person here who isn't one of us two?" I'Klani asked the group of soldiers upon their return.
"I am." a young-looking soldier with a Field Master's glyph on his breastplate, most likely fresh out of the Naval Academy, announced, standing up straight from his previously kneeled-down position. I'Klani quickly decided that he didn't like the officer, and asked to follow up,
"Who has had the most combat experience, still excluding Maranhii and I?"
A slightly taller soldier, fully encased in a heavily dented CQB combat skin, stood up.
"You," he began, "I want you to lead them. Find somewhere more defensible, and leave nothing behind. Hold out as long as you can. If you survive until morning and Maranhii and I haven't returned, demand to be taken to Executor Z'Vani and show her this." he ordered, and removed a small, ornate metal glyph from his chestplate, depicting a Shanaar's skull, mandibles and all, with a large hole in the side. The soldier accepted it, and placed it in a hardcase mounted on his shin.
The same soldier, removing his helmet, revealed himself to actually be a she, before replying,
"Yes, high one. We will await your return in the morning. We will send up a green flare at 8:00."
"Good. May the Gods be with you." he finished with the traditional Shanaar goodbye to those who are likely to die soon.
"And may they favour our victory tonight, Grand Executor." I'Klani hated not getting the last word, but he had already started walking away, having picked up his rifle earlier. Maranhii gazed back over his shoulder at the woman, an uncertain look about him, before facing forwards again and walking marginally faster to catch up to I'Klani.
"How do you plan on escaping the complex?" Maranhii asked, walking alongside him.
"We're not, yet. In case the planet falls, we need the bulk of Jestocost to remain with us." he replied.
"Ah, yes. The giant mass of floating shards under the Citadel. How do you plan on transporting all of that?" Maranhii asked, slightly bemused, slightly annoyed with I'Klani for producing such a silly-sounding directive.
"Those are just a tourist attraction. Jestocost itself is the size of a Verrsukt ball." he replied, inwardly happy that there was finally something he knew that Maranhii didn't.
"I see. Lead the way, then." Maranhii admitted, falling silent.
The duo walked at a slow pace through the massive, once-hallowed halls of the Ministry, their footsteps echoing off of the impassible stone walls and ricocheting off the vaulted ceilings some 100 metres above either of their heads. The floors, though covered in dust and sediment, still retained the natural swirls of the stone, and still shined with an inexplicable lustre. Not even the blood slowly seeping from the corpses they passed could match Centurion Marble in shine, no matter how clean or dirty it was.
They walked in silence for the better part of an hour, until they arrived at a small hatch in the floor, made of heavy iron and with rusted hinges.
"This will take us to Jestocost?" Maranhii enquired, his voice expressing a justifiable scepticism.
"More or less." I'Klani replied, before heaving the hatch open. He quickly restarted his impact boots, and jumped in feet first. Maranhii did the same, and jumped in after, giving I'Klani a fifteen-second head start to give him time to move out of the landing zone. He didn't bother to close the hatch behind him. No one would follow them down it and live.
The drop-shaft was dark, dank and smelled heavily of mould. If either had turned on his shoulder lights, he would have found, to his horror, that the sides were also covered in lichens, and the air was so filled with spores that light was only half as strong in the shaft as in clean air. Neither had respirator gear, so they had to simply hold their breath long enough to make it down.
I'Klani hit first, the clatter echoing all the way up the shaft, and prompting a loyalist soldier passing by to wonder if he should throw a grenade down the tube, before wisely deciding against it.
I'Klani quickly dove out of the way for Maranhii to land, unsure as to how much of a head start he had. Unfortunately, he had fully debased some three cubic metres of fungus with his chest alone and come to a full stop before Maranhii hit the ground. He picked himself up off the floor, and tapped the switch on his shoulder to turn on the small electric torches mounted their; casting a piercing, blue-tinted light upon the tunnel.
The landing tunnel was considerably wider than the one they had fallen down, and seemed to connect numerous shafts into a main stream for disposal elsewhere, presumably for drainage purposes (though how they got the current to move one way or another over a flat surface was anyone's guess, in his mind). Picking a direction at random, they started walking. To his surprise and mild disgust, the flooring was blanketed in lichens and sludge to the point where no noise came from the footsteps of two half-ton Shanaar walking heavily.
"You never answered me, you know," I'Klani commented, "what was the real reason you came here?"
Maranhii dwelled on the question for long enough that he mentally debated whether on not Maranhii had somehow not heard him, even as loud as the echoes (that were still going, even then) were.
Finally, Maranhii spoke:
"I returned because there are a few things in the galaxy that, no matter how hopeless they are, are simply worth fighting for. San'Kassimir is one of them." his voice had a reflective, almost faraway quality to it, as if he was thinking of other things.
"And why is it one of those things?" he pressed. Maranhii once again stayed silent for a while, but after they had been walking for several minutes with no response, I'Klani began to get the impression that it was a question he wouldn't be getting an answer to anytime soon. He dropped the topic, and they continued walking in silence.
Soon, they came upon a large hole in the floor, through which they not only found that the surface they had been walking on for the better part of a half-hour was actually an old form of brick, but that they were directly over the entrance to the "tourist attraction" that supposedly housed the aeons-old AI known as Jestocost (or "Cruelty" in a language long forgotten). They dropped down the last floor, and unslung their weapons of choice: in I'Klan's case, his stiff-running pulse rifle; in Maranhii's case, Kor'taanais.
"I will lead this time, brother." Maranhii declared in a hushed tone. I'Klani stepped aside to let him brush past, before shouldering his rifle and following him in, slightly crouched down. Maranhii moved quickly and quietly down the hallway towards the guard booth at the end of the hall, sword drawn and held in front of him. He quietly knocked on the window of the guard station, and found it empty. The two climbed over the turnstiles, and continued into the cavern beyond.
The chamber that most members of the Sin'Shanaar knew as "Jestocost" is a massive cavern filled with floating blue-and-purple crystals, with beams of light constantly flitting between seemingly-random pairs of the neuron-like crystals. The entire area is well lit, and has a large circular platform set into the middle of the chamber, the presence of which both of them had before had to hand-wave away as an "ancient decoration" when in the presence of civilians and lower members of the military. It was this platform that they moved straight for upon entry.
The platform itself was circular, with a circular depression in the middle, and a raised dais with golden siding and a blue crystal centre in the centre of that. Around it were four depressions, each with a small crossbeam, equidistant from the centre. Above the platform hung a massive purple spike of crystal, extending up into the shrouded reaches of the upper room, possibly hanging from the roof almost a kilometre up.
"How do we retrieve it, then?" Maranhii asked, with understandable confusion.
"Stand on the blue pedal." I'Klani commanded in a way that could be interpreted as a reply.
Maranhii stood on the pedal, and I'Klani strolled over to one of the four crossbarred holes. He bent over, reached down, and pulled the crossbar out of the floor several centimetres, and turned it anticlockwise. He did the same with the other three, before stepping back several metres.
"So, what no-WHOA!" Maranhii yelled as the pedal suddenly sank into the floor ten centimetres, causing him to lose his balance.
The pedal slowly sank into the floor, while Maranhii quickly looked around to see what would happen. The stone around the pedal slowly pulled away from it, with the four crossbars seemingly sliding on rails away from the pedal. The massive crystal above also moved downwards, making it seem like it was the floor that was rising, not the two sinking.
I'Klani walked over to the hole in the floor, and saw that Maranhii had stopped moving.
"GET OUT OF THERE!" he yelled, and reached down with one arm, holding onto the rim with the other. Maranhii took it, and he pulled him up as the tip of the crystal sank into the hole. As they watched the titanic mass of gem sink into the floor, Maranhii suddenly asked,
"Does an AI named 'Cruelty' live up to it?" it took I'Klani by surprise, but he reminded himself that Maranhii had yet to meet Jestocost.
"You will see in a minute." he settled on replying, not sure how to tell Maranhii about Jestocost's actual state.
As if it had been waiting for them to finish talking, the crystal stopped moving. A soft clink was heard, followed by another.
And another.
And another.
Finally, they saw a crack appear in the top of the visible crystal, racing downwards at extraordinary speed. Without even stopping for a moment, the crystal shattered into several trillion microscopic shards, covering the floor of the pit in a mound of dust nearly three metres tall. Suspended in midair for no apparent reason was a small cylinder, about 30cm in diameter, with a small, vaguely spherical device set into it.
The device had three small circles in the front face, positioned equidistant from each other. In between them was a small glyph of sorts, which was understood to read "cruelty". Small pieces of ornamentation and geometric figures covered it, and what appeared to be a spike of pure light seemed to be stabbed through the centre of the device from the top.
Suddenly, the circles around the glyph began glowing a pale blue, flitting to red at random times, but remaining predominantly blue. I'Klani kneeled down, and waved Maranhii to do the same.
"Lord Jestocost, the Heretics have arrived." I'Klani began, sounding ridiculously formal to Maranhii's slightly more crass disposition.
"I am aware." a deep, resonating voice -that, if a Human were present, would have been classified as a baritone if the AI suddenly wanted to start singing- answered.
The outer ring of the front face of the device suddenly spun around a few times, and two jets of white light appeared from the bottom of "Jestocost". Slowly, as if testing the waters with a toe, the orb lifted off of its pedestal, the largely ornamental spinning components on its "face" whirring loudly in what the two guessed to be the machine equivalent of a grunt.
"Ahhh, you will not believe how good it feels to be off that thing! I mean, look at it! I've been on that thing so long the plating's broken in three places just from me sitting there!" Jestocost said in an uncharacteristically friendly and nonchalant voice as it rose into the air. Maranhii gave I'Klani the mother of all confused looks, which was met with another loaded facial contortion by I'Klani that undeniably meant "LATER."
Seemingly undeterred by Jestocost's apparent insanity, I'Klani announced in a loud voice,
"We need to get you somewhere safe, Lord Jestocost. The Heretics will try to destroy you at every chance they get." it was apparent that it was a much-rehearsed line.
"So? Let's see them come at me while THIS is going!" Jestocost yelled, before spinning its "face" plate around several times and, from no apparent source, firing a massive laser beam from its "face" at a nearby wall, the blue lights seeming to contract as it did so. The wall emerged partly melted, and charred around the damage. Maranhii's confused expression somehow got even more perplexed-looking.
"While you may have your own defences, the Heretics are many, and will eventually overpower you." I'Klani countered, his stance changing subtly to show his preparedness for a long argument. Thankfully, Jestocost acquiesced at that.
"Guess you've got a point there," it admitted, "so what ARE we going to do?" it then asked, it's "face" pivoting on an unseen ball-and-socket type connection inside the machine, giving the impression that it was rolling its eyes, but somehow without the negative connotations of doing so.
"We," I'Klani began, "are here to escort you to a safer location."
"Then why are we still here? We should get moving." the deep resonance and formality was suddenly back in Jestocost's voice as if it had never left.
"We were awaiting your approval, Holy One." I'Klani ended the exchange at that, and started towards a white-painted metal security door opposite the main entrance. Maranhii, still looking confused followed, with Jestocost hovering in place for a few seconds, but quickly speeding ahead to catch up to I'Klani. The interfaces of any of the three's armour (or body, in one of their cases) was able to unlock the door wirelessly, so they wasted no time in shoving the heavy, riveted alloy inwards to move past it.
"Where am I to hide until the battle has ended?" Jestocost enquired, seeming to still be stable.
"The entire planet is occupied already. The only safe place is out-of-system." I'Klani replied in the confident-sounding, mildly authoritative voice he reserved for dealing with his few higher-ups.
"So you are taking me to the Isengraf Facility," Jestocost began, still holding off the strange "other" personality unbefitting of a war AI, "nice place. The food is awful, though!" madness once again crept into its voice.
"Calm yourself, Holy One. Idle chatter can kill on the battlefield." I'Klani ordered.
They reached the end of the hallway, which happened to have the doors of a magnetic lift set into it. Jestocost needed no assistance riding the current (though it later commented that it would damage its short-term memory banks), but the other two had to strap on conveniently-placed magnetic harnesses that had been hanging on hooks by the door, disused for years.
Nearly half an hour later, they reached the top, to find that Jestocost had beaten them up with its thrusters (only to find that it couldn't open the door). I'Klani removed his harness, dropping it on the metal floor with a low thudding noise. Maranhii muttered something about additional armour, and apparently chose to keep his.
The only lights in the room at the top came from the many-times-refracted light of the lift and a small green half-circle about five metres away. Jestocost, while present, had turned off its face lights, for its own reasons. I'Klani slowly walked to the green light, taking his time to walk quietly in case there were Heretics beyond the door.
He reached towards the circle, and, grabbing an invisible (in the darkness) handle, gave it a quarter-turn clockwise. Several overhead lights flickered, but did not turn on. He turned the handle back to its original position and tried again, but still the lights remained off. He sighed, and, with a mere thought, activated the small, but powerful lights mounted on his shoulders in small arrays. Maranhii defensively threw an arm up to shield his eyes from the sudden light, and slowly lowered it as his eyes adjusted. Jestocost was hovering less than a metre from Maranhii, lights still powered down.
He looked around the room, illuminating several locked shelves of weapons. He slowly made his way to the nearest one, and waved a hand over the small sensor next to the handle, unlocking it with the FEI tag in his gauntlet. He pulled it open, and, hesitating for a moment to locate what he was looking for (his had randomly spasming while he did so), selected a scattergun, which he placed in a magnetic lock on the left side of his torso, after checking that there were the right types of shells on the racks on the side of the weapon. The weapon automatically compacted, the stock collapsing, the barrel telescoping to almost an eight its normal length, and the grip assembly connecting to the frame of the weapon on small sets of rails. I'Klani looked at the other shelves, and saw Maranhii removing a multi-barrelled spin cannon. Noticing I'Klani looking at him, he shrugged, the weight of the gun making this slightly more difficult.
They made their way back to the switch. I'Klani quickly looked at Maranhii, who nodded. I'Klani turned the handle a full half-turn, and turned off his shoulder lights. Several hermetic seals suddenly hissed, and huge gouts of steam blew past them before a section of wall suddenly blasted outwards, flying a decent way before skidding to a halt. After waiting a few seconds to see if anyone was going to investigate, he stepped out into the hall, with Maranhii following him, and Jestocost in the rear.
"How do you plan to get out of the Ministry? There's no way we can make it through the City." Maranhii asked, already knowing what I'Klani's response would be on some level.
"We can't go through it, so we simply go over it. The Heretics stole their gunships from us at Misrah, and we are going to reclaim one." he answered.
"Fair enough. How do we find a ship?"
"Simple. Kill an officer, request extraction of wounded, and kill everyone on board. The Heretics use the same armour we do, so until we are on board, they won't realise who we are."
This seemed to satisfy Maranhii.
"Let us go and kill an officer, then." he said, and began walking down the hallway. I'Klani got his scattergun out, and followed.
Officers were not in short supply. While they had been busy retrieving Jestocost, standard infantry had been sent in after the troopers they had personally killed stopped responding, and now the Ministry was crawling with Heretics. They only needed a Major's radio to call a dropship, and it so happened that the first squad they found was led by on.
"Wait here, Holy One." I'Klani ordered as they approached the Heretics. Jestocost dropped to the floor, hovering a centimetre off the ground before gently alighting behind a column. I'Klani and Maranhii slowly walked towards the Heretic squad, weapons held in one hand, pointing at the floor. One of the Heretics suddenly spotted them, and raised the alarm. Suddenly, there were fifteen-odd gun barrels pointing at them. The leader of the squad seemed to be saying something, most likely into a radio.
"Calm yourselves! Our radios were damaged by a missile!" I'Klani yelled, beginning to make up a story. Neither stopped walking.
"Where? Are there more of the Infidels than the ones slain in the middle of the building?" at this, they both tried to not look visibly crestfallen, barely pulling it off.
"Only a few. We disposed of them, though." I'Klani answered. Under the guise of scratching his unarmored back, he grabbed a grenade and held it in his left hand, mostly obscuring it from the Heretic's view.
"And the rest of your squad?"
"Slain by the ones we killed." he answered. At this point they were mere metres from the Heretics. He once again put his scattergun away.
"Good work, then. When we have burned this world, I will make sure their families are notified." They reached the Heretics, and stood a mere metre from the Major. He pressed the small button on the grenade.
One.
Two.
Three. He mentally counted, steeling himself for what was about to happen.
I'Klani lunged forward, planting the grenade on the back of the Major's neck. Maranhii began firing indiscriminately into the squad, turning many into bloody mist and scraps of metal in the first second of angry buzzing. I'Klani grabbed ahold of the unfortunate Major's helmet in the back, where the small "fin" emerged to cover the neck, and pulled. The Major's hemet came off easily, and he started back-pedalling furiously. The Major gave him one final confused and furious look before he was replaced by a rapidly-expanding ball of fire that knocked I'Klani off his feet and blinded him for a few moments.
When he recovered, he was laying on his back, facing his left hand. He experimentally curled his fingers together, balling them into a fist. His ears were ringing, but he wasn't injured. He slowly regained his feet, and inspected the helmet in his right hand. The transceiver mounted on the left side was intact. He gently removed it from its holder, and swapped his own with it. Mentally, he turned it on, bending down to try to find a name on the major's (largely intact) combat skin. He found it.
"This is Major Sanski, requesting evacuation of wounded, clear." he said, motioning for Maranhii to remain silent.
"Granted. What is the severity of injuries, clear?" a slightly garbled voice answered.
"Unknown as of now. Both were hit by Rodingian Jungle rounds about two minutes ago, clear." he replied, silently regretting naming his preferred type of ammunition.
"Understood, stand by for evacuation. Estimated arrival in one minute. Dismissed." the operator replied. I'Klani turned off the stolen radio, and replaced his original unit.
The minute passed quickly, and in silence, except for the occasional cough.
Suddenly, a shadow appeared over the massive window that spanned the length of the hallway in front of them.
"Prepare yourself, Holy One!" I'Klani yelled.
The window suddenly shattered, and a large Lich-class gunship flew in, only managing to fit the prow of the vessel into the hallway. A gravity lift activated in the prow, which they made for. Jestocost, in a burst of speed, flashed past them and halfway up the lift in roughly three-fourths of a second: too fast for a camera to see; and the two walked into it, clutching their sides as if wounded. They sailed upwards, Jestocost resuming his ascent as they reached him.
The prow of the ship was empty, save for them, the two dim lights set into the walls casting strange shadows on the metal walls, which were curved with the shape of the outer hull. The two doors led to the same place. They quickly readied their weapons, and proceeded into the large main cargo bay of the Lich. They entered onto the prow balcony, to find the ship empty. They felt the ship start moving backwards, and soon upwards. The door to the cockpit was between the two doors to the gravity chamber.
I'Klani cycled the bolt on the scattergun, and opened the door. A short ramp led to the raised platform that the pilots inhabited, carving a long, deep crevasse in the floor of the cockpit. The pilots had their headsets on, meaning that they could take them by surprise. I'Klani drew his other blade: a combat knife with a fifteen centimetre blade. He held it in front of him, the mirror-like edge of the knife showing the reflections of the two men about to die. He saw Maranhii draw a similar knife in the corner of his vision. He nodded, and pointed at the left-hand pilot. A nod from Maranhii confirmed the plan.
Slowly, they approached the pilots, knifes held in icepick-grips. He started counting the steps, the remaining metre-and-a-half from him and the death of another. He had long since abandoned his qualms about killing, but he still thought it better to die fighting than helpless, as the pilots were about to.
He almost didn't realise that they were right behind the pilots. He nearly tripped trying to stop short.
Maranhii nodded, and he took a deep breath in before grabbing the pilot by the top of the head and slashing his neck from shoulder to shoulder, moving quickly to avoid the inevitable geyser of blood that follows those sorts of attacks.
But there was no blood. Horrified, he turned the chair around.
A mannequin, wearing a pilot's uniform and with a radio strapped to its chest, greeted him. The radio burst to life, and a high male voice spoke:
"It's cute that you think you think you're the heroes of this war -the grand saviours of all Shanaar, even-" he knew that voice! But from WHERE?! "But... You're not." Suddenly, the shrouded corners of the cockpit burst into hundreds of rapidly-blinking red lights.
"WELCOME TO HELL, KIDDOS!" the voice yelled triumphantly.
An impossibly loud roar filled I'Klani's ears, and all went white.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
We did not invent the Algorithm. The Algorithm consistently finds Jesus. The Algorithm killed Jeeves. The Algorithm is banned in China. The Algorithm is from Jersey. The Algorithm constantly finds Jesus. This is not the Algorithm. This is Close.
-Interstellar Space, near the Nova System, Noviran Socialist Federation- -May 21, 2550 CE-
In response to the larger bombardment, the Commander ordered that all ship turrets target the incoming missiles, while the fighters, who would undoubtedly be greatly outnumbered at 2,500, would attack their counterparts from the enemy side. The incoming boarding craft would simply harmlessly bounce off of the hangar covers, which were electromagnetically reinforced using the ship's energy systems. It would require that the protection's energy be depleted first before the boarding craft could get through.
As many of the enemy ships were torn up by their weapons, three larger ships continued flying forward, now evidently to ram the battlecruisers. They all gave the order to utilize their nuclear laser cannons on the incoming ships. The lead ship had the most powerful cannon, so hopefully it would disintegrate the ship nearly entirely in order to minimize damage, but there was a chance the other ones would not be strong enough or miss. Either way, it would be a very close call.
As the party made its way down the hall, suddenly one of the aliens, apparently infected, ran out and attacked one of the engineers. In shock, they all looked around and up and would shoot at any sort of creature they saw. The lead cosmonaut went and looked at the engineer. He had passed out, and had a cut from where he was hit by the alien. He would bring him back to the party, and one of the soldiers in power armor would carry him.
The Ytterby, near a small moon on the distant borders of Orion and Sigma.
The ship's bridge was filled with activities. After picking up a small series of radio broadcasts, which was exciting enough, it finally had something else to do. Drones were scurrying in and out of the room, moving chips of the hard data of the broadcast to a physical cache for it, far enough away from the virtual data storage base that in the event of an attack, they'd be safe from one blast.
Meanwhile, the ship had to rewrite the translator-program, this new language was so different. They seemed to talk out of some kind of different hole, and use a much less specific language. The Heeltale language, highly tonal and situational, simply doesn't match with this alien language... And of course, the A.I. only had a limited amount to work with. But the A.I. was making slow but steady progress towards a breakthrough. A few loops of the transmissions floated around the room, played forwards, and backwards occasionally.
"Oi? Anyone there? ... Look, if you're a pirate, you can just give up now! ... Alright, don't think it's a pirate. Anyone there?" A tapping sound is heard here. "Listen bud, no mind games, speak up!" After an awkward silence, "Alright, you have the right to remain where you are, if you arm a single weapon we're blowing you up sky-high. I'm getting the commander, all the weird crap happens out here..."
Ever since then, there's been nothing but silence over the transmitter. The A.I. did its job and supervised all possible channels, but apparently this was the only one that was highly clear. That meant that there was potentially, some kind of alien colony nearby! Once again it activated its scanners and re-scanned the entire area, to no effect.
The A.I. however, was unfazed. There was no reason to assume that the colony/base/home planet was a planet, they could quite possibly live on the nearby moon, it certainly had an easier environment to build on than the rather hostile planet soil, soft and difficult to build on most likely. It had sent probes down, to retrive samples of soil, but from images captured, it did not seem that there would be much fruition in the form of life from the returning drones.
Then, the radio crackled again, and a voice appeared over the channel. "This is the commanding officer of this station's millitary force, you are currently trespassing on a private area of space, and are in violation of more codes than I care to name. You either haul alien tail and get out of here, or we board you, take apart your ship, a- Murmer murmer... What? What do you mean they might not know English? Oh for go- You konw, fine, you're the better strategist. You try and reason with this..."
The ship took in this new data eagerly, if a ship could do anything eagerly, and rapidly added it to the archive for decoding. It was still working on the previous entries, but with new tonal imputs, and possible meanings for the current situation, it had a feeling that its work would soon be done.
The brood worm finished the connections of his on the the infected engineer. He then started to block all signals that would lead to the worm's discovery and awakened the engineer, granting the engineer full control of the body. He would not be aware of the brood worm when he wakes. The brood worm would also use subtle signals to get the engineer to follow his orders.
Exploration vessel Caatiiq
The ship left subspace and entered the new system. The system was uncharted to them. The radio signal heard before was stronger and there was a hospitable planet floating around the star. Probes were let loose to search the surface of the planet for any signs of sentient life.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Warning, Care not given. Click it, cuz I am bored:
Introduction to the planet
((Probabily a lot of this part is unrealistic, so tell me and I'll change it))
(you can find a brief introduction of the story and a bunch of other stuff like the clones here. This is just an extension to the app including other things I didn't mention in the original story.)
Solar system
The system this planet is on is called Janis and the system consist of the following:
The main star here is a yellow-orangeish star (Sun is white) which makes a planet to be rendered inhabitable to have a year of 200 - 250 days. It is about the size of the sun and it will fortunately burn out and become a red giant about 10 billon years due to it's smaller size.
There are only 3 planets which only 1 are habitable and the other two are just planet-sized rock balls. The closest to the sun, Ajinae, is the size of Mars and on the side of the sun is 700 Celsius hot, making rivers and entire oceans of lava common. Due to pull of the sun, this planet rotates fast, at a rate of 8 hours. The planet has absolutely no atmosphere which makes it -100 C on the nighttime. To explain this, at first, the planet's year was 100 days. However, a star passed by billons of years ago which put it's brother, Nijinish on it's current orbit and almost send both planets in a collision course but thanks to the speed and the angle, Nijinish survived and Ajinae was sent in a collision course with the star. At first Ajinae was going to crash in a few hundred years, but it's brother slowed him, but failed to stop it's collision course. It is now expected, with it's orbit of 50 days, that it will crash in a milenium.
The second planet is the harbor of life of the solar system which is called Nijinish. This planet rotates around the sun 225 years and it's rotation is about of 30 hours. This is the only planet with earth-like conditions, but it has some other biomes based on chemistries, such as quimical forests, lethal for Earth-life, but some of it's species also have the requisites needed for Earth animals. It has a moon, much like the Earth, minus that this one is like Titan as this is a planet was captured by it's now father Nijinish and was previously a planet on it's own that could easily harbored life on it's own. This moon is also closer to it's adoptive father than the moon, as much as it doubles the size on the sun when you compare them on the sky (if it's unrealistic, then 1,5). The section below the last paragraph will tell you all about the wildlife and the rest will tell you even more about the settlers.
The third and farthest from the sun is called Janisom. This planet is 2,5 times the size of Earth, and the planet is just way too cold for life. It's orbit is about 100 years, and it has a lot of ice oceans but for the most part it is just a rocky wasteland with some minerals on it.
Wildlife
To explain the sudden burst of life Nijinish planet had some time after the star passed by, the planet has a slightly weaker magnetic field than Earth's and that the planet harbored a frozen ocean but thanks to the attraction of Ajinae the water liquified and some of it melted like Earth's water, and this allowed protobionts to form in an airbone medium and some of them along with materials needed for protobiont life fell to the water and the others remained high into the skies. Those who remained later on evolved helicopter wings when they became heavier and adapted to the radiation, and those who fell followed the path of the ancestral life on Earth. These, like their Earth counterparts, began mass-producing oxigen, which endangered the airbone species of the time and these became the polar opposites. The helicopter-like species of plants used oxigen to create the quimics needed from their own life even now to this day. The anaerobic species settled high in the mountains and other zones where the oxigen is lacky but others chose to have a nomadic life in the skies. These are a threat to the aerobic species that fly high as the anaerobic species that fly lower can simply eat them and use their materials. This is also a big threat to anything that flies around such as airplanes or spaceships as they can experience severe damage on their walls due to bacteria, but fortunately most die on landing. On the sky there are all kinds of creatures, from bacteria or lonely insects to entire elephant-sized creatures which harbor a lot of plants on the surface, and some small creatures, creating a microbiome in their surfaces with entire animals.
The big issuse to aerobic species is that the kingdom introduced many plants such as wheat, maize, cocoa and others, and animals such as dogs, cats, horses, fishes, monkeys, farm species such as cows, sheeps and pigs and many other species which endanger the native ones. These had been brought in 2 separate spaceships in a style similar to Noah's ark (instead of one male and one female, they brought two male and two female, and each of the species were enclosed in a small enviroment that was similar to their old ways).
Society
There is only a town that the biologicals live on named Asijonia and the town is settled on a large hill with a good view to the river and a nearby forest. This is a typical small town without many inhabitants, but due that it's the capital, it includes stuff that a capital normally includes such as a minter, banks, and other stuff, and a large wall that surrounds the whole hill made with plasma-resistant armor (the armor itself does not resist the plasma but there are powerful coolers inside it that minimize the plasma damage). There are also many clone towns but these are just residences with many apartaments. There are also some hermits who are just here for the freedom that Earth or other human-colonized places don't provide them and also because they want to live along the native species. There are about 20 of those. The highest concentration of these are 5 and is basicaly just a small buddhist monastery on the middle of the alien woods.
The clones are better and worse in certain aspects. There are about 800 clones that chose to stay in the society, but these are only those whose parents chose to keep them. The clones which are segregated from the society live in nearly slavery conditions and are divided into: The farmers (50%), the miners (15%), the army (10%), the manufacturers (10%), the builders (5%), the programmers (5%) and other primary sector jobs such as ganadery, forestry, etc. However, the nearly enslaved clones can only own 30 meters for a house, it must be 1 floor high (minus for apartaments), and they can only carry on basic needs, except for programmers whom have 40 meters of land.
It's calendar has 11 months with 10 having 20 and the last one having 25. These are called (in order) Charlemagnus, Orwellia, Tertiary, Cuarteria, Justinianus (not Justin Bieber, Justinian I), Churchimus, Williamus, Octavis, November, December and Zeusio. However, the goverment and many other people still use the traditional Earth time. The planet's year is measured in AKF (After the Kingdom Foundation) and any other date previous than that is said as: BKF (Before the Kingdom foundation). The hours are counted from when the first red zones of the skies are seen, so, for example, 15:00 on the planet would be the equivalent of 8:00 PM on Earth.
The old spaceships where the people arrived still remain, but only one of them, the main captain's ship is fully functional and has the only element of FTL surviving, the communicator, which can communicate using the alternate dimension. The others need major fixing and there are only 5 spaceships adapted for militar situations, and they are useless to fly and are more useful for civil operations such as housing.
There are a lot of atheist people (15%) in the city, but most of them are hindus (40%, mostly Vaishnavists), buddhists (20%, mostly Tibetan), muslmins (20%, mostly Sunni) and jews (5%, mostly Reformists). The clones are, however, spared from those religions and they are taught that the emperors are gods and the house of Asijon sacred. The house of Asijon is mostly Hindu, with only 3 muslmins and 2 buddhists.
Army
There are 800 people in total in the army, 400 infantry, 200 tank operators, 50 heavy infantry (rocket launchers), 80 artillerymen, 30 pilots and 40 engineers. main weapon on the army is the PMDWFA101 or, in short, P101, a plasma assault rifle, then other weapons are the YK54 (plasma handgun), the RakPlas33 (plasma rocket launcher), it has 10 fighters, 7 helicopters and 2 bombers only. The main heavy tank it the John 51, the medium is George 37 and the light one is Eli 43. All of these have plasma weaponry, and the main plasma artillery is the RL Ronald, a large weapon with several plasma launchers that can damage a lot a specific part of a spaceship in wasting it's 18 slots, and it's main field artillery is the 371 mm Fer and an anti-spaceship 542 mm James. The main anti-air weapon is a 231 mm Homer. However, most of it's eqquipement is adapted for 2490-2510.
Time on the planet: 15 Octavis, 14:54, 161 years AKF (After the Kingdom Foundation). Real time: 25 May, 12:43 AM, 2550 CE. Time for communication
Prince William I was watching from the window of the palace the landscape from where the sun was setting with his cat. The landscape was hilly but had some trees on it which made it a nice view. The palace was very large and was built on a gothic style and overcame the city walls. It was filled with renassiance culture, and it had 50 rooms which 40 were to sleep. It had two pools, one for children above 4 years old and other which was for grown up people, which was 3 meters deep. Because of this, the backyard was very large and was filled with exotic plants from Earth and many native plants. Then, after a minute of watching the landscape, he began to read a book named: History of the Shamides and Asijon, Vol. 3 at the chapter that mentioned the exile. He began to get intrested in space travel as the fading rays of the sun were hitting him. He read the last lines:
"Ever since the exile we lost contact with our brothers that settled into the outer space. We don't have any idea of what they did or where they are and now we can only contact with ourselves. I hope we can meet them either in the afterlife, or as the wheel of life moves and we reincarnate with them."
This was a jump of intrest for the young prince. When he went to take the fourth lunch of the day with the whole royal house, he told them:
-I was reading a book, and I saw something that really intrested me. It talked about the past and how we lost our brothers in the exile and I got intrested on communicating to them. Who's intrested?
King John II said to his son:
-I am not sure. We are too short on population and we could attract foreginers that don't have good intentions. I for one am not intrested on communicating with other species. What if we fail to impress them? What if they decided to invade us?
However, the queen told the king:
-Last time I checked a book about the 1900s-2000s the humans...
-The humans are a bunch of idiots! They are just a bunch of racist idiots who don't care about nothing but getting rich! - The brother of the king, Johnatan, screamt.
-Just let her finish telling me what he wanted to tell me! This is not a fight of who's less racist and who's more! Besides, I read a lot of books about the Shamides and many humans were nice to us and wanted to end discrimination against us! Now continue my dear
-Thank you. As I was saying, last time I checked a book about the 1900s-2000s the humans didn't fear if they were invaded after sending the Arcebio message or sending the Voyager satelites outside the solar system. There were a bunch of movies where alien invaders were featured but aliens sure aren't just barbarians who love war and destroy entire worlds with laser weaponry. We might even find weaker species whom will be easy to conquer even with our 800 men army. As of you, Johnatan, I'll speak to you later.
-You just beated me - The king replied - William, if you wish, you can go to the old spaceship of the captain. I heard that it has the technology of communication that, somehow, is faster than light itself. However, not now as many dangerous animals are out there and the owner is sure closing his house to visits. You may visit tommorow. First, you'll go to the city outskirts, and then you'll pick up a horse from our personal stables along with the guards. I don't know if it still works though as it's years since it was actually used as a way of communication between the ships. We don't even know if it even worked at all since it was never tested on FTL distances when actually on space. Maybe the microbes or the decay might had damaged the spaceships. However, I hope the spaceships still have their speakers on since at least you can hear from those if the microphones are broken. - And the people began to talk around the topic of aliens and spaceships for about two hours before leaving to their rooms and the king and his son to their duties.
Sigma sector, Tarsis system, inner asteroid belt time and date N/A
The Ko-Sept-Rin were gone, forever stuck on a world, multiple attempts were made to retrieve them, such as sending comets to simply skip across the edge of the planet, but it would burn and break in the atmosphere and the gravity makes it too great to jump to. The KTP remained together continuing to construct the gravitational highway between and across planets of the system, making sure not to get to close to the star.
Ko-Sept-Rin(those who live on worlds)
Sigma sector, Tarsis system, planet Tarsis II, ocean floor, 1/1/1
The Icen colony easily found several places to live along the ocean floor as they contained high concentrations of food sources, they froze the water around them as they walked toward cold seeps in the ocean floor. As they kept on freezing the world around them it became less and less habitable for the local lifeforms who evacuated the area. The Icens decided to carve the ice structures they created around them into organized buildings and structures. But the thing on everyone's mind was how to return to the stars and rejoin thier brethren.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Arguments happen, they just do, you can't stop it, no matter how much power you have, even if it takes years to settle, when it does, everyone is stronger for it. Rivalries can be made into friendships if you let them.
Some ideas are meant to be made into reality, but most need to be burned at the stake.
Hating the things you love
We kateq’an puwi’jum ri’j k’isis we katopan pa ri utza’m ri uq’ab kawilo chi ri uwächulew man naj tl k’o wi che ri kaj. Pa chuwitz’ap katkuwinik kachapo.Yaj, xyajik Ri ik’ are ri jun nimalaj ja t’uyul puwi’ri uworachak ri juyub’ Are chi’ru nutat kinnuyajo Ri we in kin’e pa ri ik’ Chila kinwar wi.
Bridge
Admiral Vonn Drazhk stood on the bridge, asking the communications officer to replay the clip over and over again. Counter Admiral Gal stood near him, concerned.
The Admiral banged his fist on the command table, temporarily dimming a square on the grid. "What do they take us for!?"
The Counter Admiral looked at him, puzzled. "Whatever do you mean, Admiral? It seems perfectl..."
Drazhk turned to her, barely controlling his strange, combined sense of fury and confidence. "It's obviously a trick. Firstly, how plausible is it that we've made contact with three alien races just so soon after one another? It's mathematically implausible. And if that's not enough for you, allow me to replay a few rather interesting things he said in his transmission. Lieutenant, rewind to the beginning. The first thing he says could easily be interpreted as a simple linguistic blunder, but what does that say about the transmission as a whole? I am referring to where he says 'the the' Kolok'til. Secondly, he misinterprets your rank, Gal, referring to you as Admiral instead of Counter Admiral. Knowing the Captain, I find this a rather odd mistake for him to make. Then, notice how he refers to the fleet as 'your fleet' instead of 'our fleet'. Lastly, he says that the crew of the ship was only lightly wounded, whereas the ship's final distress signal suggests otherwise. It was on the second-highest level of distress when the signal was issued, only to be given in a dire emergency. Lastly, if they were just kindly taking care of our troops after the battle, wouldn't they have the sense to contact the huge fleet the ship had sent a distress signal to earlier that they were in fact taking care of the troops? Wouldn't that make sense?"
The Counter Admiral looked at him, impressed with his reasoning ability, but doubtful about his extrapolations. "What do you suggest it is, then?"
The Admiral smiled in an unnerving way. "It's simple, my dear Counter Admiral. He's been tortured and was probably forced to say this at gunpoint. If he were too overtly nervous, they might have just killed him and started a new message with a different crew member. But he let out almost invisible signs of his apprehension. Very curious for Vroszh'mai. I'd have thought he'd have committed ritual suicide or something by this point. Nonetheless, the evidence is there."
The Counter Admiral wasn't convinced. "With all due respect sir..."
"Enough of this. If my evidence isn't enough for you, let me remind you that we have orders from the Admiral of the Fleet in Naval High Command. Disobeying his orders would be mutinous, would it not? Inform High Command that the enemy has taken prisoners, and send this message to these 'Magnes Vermes', if that's even their real names. They have our prisoners, and they can draw pictograms or something to communicate what I'm about to say to them."
The Admiral prepared himself for a moment, and cleared his throat.
"This is the Vriszh'kai Collective. Return all prisone... ahem, lightly wounded crew members, to our ship immediately, or we will open fire upon orders of Fleet High Command. The troops need a full medical and psychological examination with medical equipment of their own race before we can determine whether or not they are indeed stable."
The Vriszh'kai'aion Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tonoetade City, Planet Vriszh, System Vriszh, Vriszh'kai'aion Collective
Ata explained "The reaction has been very mixed, just as the contact itself was. The people of Vriszh, from what we have seen, are fairly warm to the idea of intergalactic relations, and are pleased that we will be working with you in the future. The news organizations are run by a committee here in the capital, so are free from any unusual interpretations of what's been going on, or blatant lies. It was like that in the Imperial days, I was told. On the other side, however. The attacks on the Exploratory Fleet have everyone up in arms."
The Prime Minister then said, "I fear a group of xenophobic individuals have confused the situation, and have been against diplomacy with alien races. There were a couple idiots with signs at the steps of the Ministry earlier. I believe the guards made them leave the premises."
Ata raised her head for a moment, and it seemed perfectly like the kind of moment where a lightbulb would go on above one's head. "That reminds me, even if its a bad reason to be reminded, have you any interest in establishing an embassy here, so that we can continue our interactions and diplomatic endeavors into the future? I fear the vastness of space will make diplomacy a bit awkward otherwise. Our parlay over the ansible didn't have the same feeling of real communication as we're having here, and I'd hate to have to do that all the time when we chat."
The Prime Minister smiled, and said, with much pleasure, "Perhaps we should wait before talking about that, I think the food is almost here."
UM! YAH! YAH!
-Interstellar Space, near the Nova System, Noviran Socialist Federation-
-May 21, 2550 CE-
"Sir, they appear to be scrambling fighters and sensors detect their weapons are arming. Should we initiate fire?"
"No, wait." responded the commander. "Let us see if they respond. We will not fire first."
After a few seconds, the communications officer said, "They're responding to the hail in Catopian. They say:"
The commander, after thinking for a minute, said, "They must be some sort of splinter Karteriean faction trying to regain the throne." The several Karterieans in the room nodded. "Arm our weapons and scramble fighters. Then open up the video feed."
When he could see the black-scaled Karteriean's face, he said in Catopian, "I am Commander Zivast Opkov of the Noviran Socialist Federation. You have no right to claim the emperor's sword. The Nawu'Rawu Empire is the true and only recognized Karteriean empire. If you continue on this violent and determined yet futile attempt to claim the imperial sword, you will be destroyed."
---
-Planet Vriszh, System Vriszh, Vriszh'kai'aion Collective-
-May 14, 2550 CE-
The admiral nodded as the zenophobes were mentioned. "There are a few like that in every society."
The foreign commissar, in response to the second question, said, "Yes, we can resume later. An embassy is an excellent idea, however." "We will have to make provisions for that before we leave."
Admiral Ban Zare placed his helmet back upon his head "Do not count out the might of the Wu Empire expedition fleet, may honorable death find you in battle."
Alchemists working comm station cut the feed "Same battle planes, a single ship each is to ram the class B targets then detonate all nukes aboard to take them out, fighters are to focus on the class D targets, and boarding crews are to attempt access to the class C targets, prepare my personnel fighter, I have a commander to deal with."
Admiral Ban Zare went grabbing shield, plugging it into plug on back of power armor then sword sheathing it on waist, the admiral then made his way off bridge down corridor to head to hangers.
Flagship comm operator "Do not destroy bridge of enemy command class B ship, repeat do not destroy it, Admiral Ban Zare wishes to deal with enemy fleet commander himself."
The Wu Empire expedtion fleet began to move into battle positions, fighter craft and boarding craft would begin to launch out of hangers aboard warships, and three warships would change course to ram the three battle cruisers.
A great one was walking down the narrow the hallway. It was simply a back way that she repeatedly use to get to the ceremonies when she wasn't exactly on time. When people had figure out that she took this way, it was instantly remade from its poor condition. It was repainted with a smooth dark red with beautiful tiles that lay in the floor. A carpet was laid down the entire way down the curved hallway. New lights were also installed all just for the great one. The general populace would usually do so much more but most know that she respect her privacy. The great one stopped for only a second to check her robe one last time. It was a spacious robe made of bright colors off silk with polished metals and the tips of her robe. She wondered if she looked stupid but she new that no one would tell her so. Before she had a chance to start walking once again she was interrupted by a voice that came behind her. She looked behind her to see one of her intelligence officers. She could tell instantly by her tight fight dress that had openings by her gills.
"My lady!" she called out to the great one with a bright expression "We found it!" The great one had a confused expression on her face and waited for the officer tom come closer. When she reached the Great one she was panting and took a minute to catch her breath before speaking. "We found it! Sentient beings!"
The Great one was surprised and didn't know what to say. She asked the questions that came to her mind first "Where? How long ago? Aggressive? How advanced are they? How-" She was caught off by the officer who was still excited.
"We were sending out scouting ships from the Thorien system near sigma when they were in compressed space travel one of the ships came across a signal, that was soon followed after by another. It was 10 minutes after the transmission was sent that we received it. From the looks of it the race looks as advanced as ours if not more, it was hard to tell through the coms though"
The Great one asked the officer if that was all as if she was disappointed in their great find before asking "Could we understand their dialect?"
The officer said sternly "no" before explaining why. "The language sounded surly and the translator programs that we have are old compared to the technology now. We didn't expect to find Sentient life capable of space travel so soon. It will take 2-4 risings before we can vaguely understand the dialect. Because the program is so old it requires hands on work from our people to analyze the language as other will create a new program that should do a more efficient job, and we only got so much from the transmission" she pause a while before speaking "Should I tell the others?"
The great one spoke quickly in response "No" before continuing "Not now... We will give it some time"
Satin's Angel - The unmarked
The unmarked was looking out at the stars deep in thought when she was interrupted. The crew member bowed sightly then went on to speaking "You are wanted in the conference room" The unmarked turned her head and just stared at her. The crew member was shaking and stiff in the shoulders. The unmarked pushed her self off of the floor before slowing to a stop and waved the crew member off.
When she entered the conference room she had to enter a lock before hand to drain all the water. As the water left the enclosed room she steadied herself on the floor before entering the room. It was dark only the faintest bit of light that made a track to a circle that was above the ground. As she took her place in it she logged in her code before a cylinder of light lit up around her and the room before her was filled with holograms that stood in a semi circle around her. They all hailed her and they waited for the last one to come on.
As the last hologram appeared it was a Great One. All unmarked her silently. Then the Great One spoke. "As all of you know, you have been sent on a mission for the Skrien empire." They all stood in silence "This is of diplomatic means, you are not going to destroy a target, but to ensure the safety of our Ambassadors." she paused "We have received information that there is sentient beings other than us" The uninterested faces suddenly started listening "Your top priority is to obtain recordings of the sentient beings speak, after that is to try to build a relation if you possible could, the coordinates are being sent to you, as well as the video com that we picked up from the transmission we intercepted"
((sorry i have to speed this up from its already sloppy writing, because I have to study for the impossible final coming up))
Lavivrus entered the bridge and sent the coordinates to the pilot and said "Go... Now!" She looked around the bridge and before commanding on last time "Turn on the Cloaking devices as we near our destination" Everyone was in a hurried and confused state as they were preparing the ship. She waved at one of the crew members and asked to be put on coms. After a few seconds of waiting she was ready to go. she thought for a moment of what to say "This rising, we have been told Sentient beings have been found in space... We are heading into the Unknown. The empire its self does know what we are heading into, we may come unto a Friendly ally in which we will gorw a strong bound for the cycles to come, or we will find a dangerous enemy. More ships will be coming in but it could be hours before a sufficient fleet arrives. Prepare for travel, and prepare for a fight, for it will be the greatest moments in Skrien History!"
((Sorry for the really quick post))
Essem heard the call of one of his officers. "Sir, the aliens are trying to cut through the air lock door." He said to the ship AI "Habgin, analyse path of the alien guests and open all doors possible in their path." Habgin then replied "Alien life forms assumed to refer to life forms currently in the airlock. Now giving full automatic access when possible."
The doors in the airlock opened, revealing a small girl. She was of a dark red color and was wearing a green dress that split around her legs to avoid blocking movement. She did not have any black on her that could be seen. At the sight of the aliens her antenna perked up and she scurried away into the nearest hallway. The lights in the room seemed to have been smashed. In the light this room would have lead into multiple hallways, none with a door. There was also a magnetic elevator at the other end of the room.
Planet Hyluees, Oataar star system,Sigma sector , Capitol city Tyuls, 21 May 2550 CE, imperial date 500 E8, 7:45 GMT
Yseet-Galts was ranked number 24 of the imperial Vyseelaa, one of the few groups that train since young children to use their psychic senses in their profession. They are trained almost their entire lives for these professions and for passing down this knowledge to the younger generations and to help them progress. The Vyseelaa were trained as diplomats in case of a point where communication through normal language would not work. They mostly trained with animals, usually by finding the connections of certain images to commands they have been taught. They usually progress to finding the meaning to made up languages in a person.
Yseet heard his apprentice say "Wait up, you always walk so quickly!" to which he responded "Vleen, if you would hurry up and grow maybe you would not have this problem." Vleen-Fyaal was a eighteen year old girl, and short for her age (Note equivalent to a thirteen year old). She got a little angry at this, her red flowers swishing as she shot him a look. "I blame you old man. You always sneak little remarks into the training that mess me up." The amount of energy she used in that remark showed she was angry.
Finally Yseet reached the job desk of the Vyseelaa complex. Vyseelaa received jobs from either the government or anyone who could pay the fees for their service. Yseet said "Hello Neelk, any jobs?" The man behind the counter said "Yes actually, you and your apprentice are going on an exploration service, funded by the Intergalactic Trade Initiative." The ITI was a group of trade companies that tried to find alien life in a hope of trade. "Great, free money." "Is it really that boring?" Vleen chimed in. Tseet replied "Usually, most explorations end in disappointment in finding more sentient life." Neelk passed the orders to him saying "Better luck this time, maybe you will finally be able to use all that training. Also you leave in ten hours."
Ten hours later they were on the exploration vessel Caatiiq and setting course towards the Xeel solar system.
((Would go into more detail, but running out of time.))
Bridge
Admiral Draszk stood, gripping the edge of the map table, sneering. Counter Admiral Gal stood at his side, concerned about how the Admiral was treating this.
"Admiral, I don't think you need to be so..."
She was cut off. "Listen, Irizhi, you need to understand something. Certainly, we'll be getting the survivors of that ship back, but at what cost? We're allowing the enemy, and no matter what they say, they are our enemy, directly in to our ship. Fine. Since we have this opportunity, we take the survivors on board, and send them to medbay immediately. I don't care what they say, they aren't fit for active duty. We need them to take psychological examinations, and no matter what the results, keep them in there until we can get a ship back to Vriszh. In fact..." The Admiral stopped and thought.
"Admiral?"
"After the preliminary exams, get them on Nok Gua'ka, which is, if I'm not mistaken, the smallest ship capable of independent travel and send them back to Vriszh for some rest before we get them ready for active duty again."
"It sounds like a very reasonable plan, Admiral. And as for the Magnes Vermes?"
The Admiral sighed. "Perhaps we should give them a parting gift. We're still under orders from Fleet Command."
"With all due respect, sir, I think at this point we have no reasonable evidence that they are involved. Even if their story doesn't add up..."
"If your idea is to defy my orders, I have no place for you on this ship. Or in this fleet, for that matter. I am carrying out the orders of the Admiral of the Fleet, and they have not been changed, even after having been informed of the situation. If Fleet Command wanted us to make peace with them and have a seafood dinner with the aliens, they'd have told us. We've been given no such orders. As soon as the transport ship leaves dock, if it isn't rigged to explode or full of poison gas, open fire on them. If it is rigged to explode or full of poison gas, we have no reason to wait."
The Counter Admiral sighed at these orders, and finally, wearily, said "Very well, sir. I'll inform the gunnery captain to get his men to battle stations and inform the rest that we're on standby."
"Actually, someone else can take care of that. You seem like the perfect person to say hello to the Ambassador. We're officially at war, so you can kill him, or if you can't stomach it, I can get someone else to take care of that as well. Any questions?" He didn't wait for any. "Very good, now get off of the bridge."
The Admiral resumed looming over the strategy table.
Gnonan Vriszh'aion Docking Port,
A minute later
Counter Admiral Iriszhi Gal stood watching the alien ship dock with theirs. She was nervous, but not quite in the same way the Admiral was. But his words did stick with her. The things he suggested about the people she was about to meet were leaving an unpleasant feeling in the back of her head. She cringed as the ship made contact. There was a slight jolt, followed by a variety of mechanical noises. The docking wasn't perfect, as it was an alien ship, and not made to be docking with a Vriszh'kai one, but there was a workable connection, enough so that the returning crew members wouldn't be sucked into the vacuum of space. It was unknown whether the Magnes Vermes ambassador would be safe in the ship's climate, however.
Once the distinctive sounds of docking ceased, the Magnes Vermes-side airlock opened. Since the docking port was sealed, Iriszhi opened the airlock on her side, and entered, flanked by two lightly armed guards. She said nothing.
UM! YAH! YAH!
The Ytterbolikabalimony-uugihkonwhat-eerby was silent. Throughout the boring gray corridors, devoid of architecture, lacked the sounds of feet as well. If you passed through one of the automatically opening doors, you would have passed through into one of many rooms containing near-unbreakable pods of an elliptical nature. But you wouldn't have even been able to do that, because a living thing hadn't disturbed the ship's nearly Argon-specific atmosphere for years. A click was suddenly heard on the bridge, which was usually devoid of sound. A whirring sound, and the controls paused completely for a moment. Purple and orange lights stopped blinking, and the usual rock of the ship stopped utterly. The ship was analyzing new data, which provided some fascinating light to it's expedition to revive it's cargo... It had been going in CIRCLES.
Decades of missions, scouring what it thought was an infinite universe... And it was all a waste of time! A glitch, a glitch had been interrupting progress for years. The very thought seemed to be inconceivable, but the computer didn't waste any more time. Immediately it set a new course for space it had not dared to go through, and almost felt smug at solving this problem. The thrusters flared to life, and the ship slowly moved farther and farther away from the planets, into deeper space.... Though the ship decided to purposefully ignore the fact that it isn't technically deeper, just farther away from this sector. The whirring of FTL was heard, and soon the drive jumped to life, and the ship jumped, making it's way farther north (well, from a top down universe perception), filled with a greater sense of progress and, dare it say, optimism.
-Interstellar Space, near the Nova System, Noviran Socialist Federation-
-May 21, 2550 CE-
Commander Opkov, expecting such a response, nodded.
When the video feed ended, he said, "Fire all weapons."
The Catopian fleet opened up like so.
First they launched the tremendous volley of their entire nuclear arsenal, over 2,250 nuclear missiles directly at the enemy fleet. This was The small turrets located across the bodies of the ships began firing at any fighter aircraft that drew close, as well as the enemy ships themselves if they had no other targets.
Secondly, they opened up with their main ship weapons, with a volley of high-speed explosive plasma shells. The battlecruisers in particular unleashed their six MAC cannons apiece, which would tear through ships' hulls with relative ease and then explode with a burst of plasma once it had reached the ship's interior. Noticing the approaching three warships to ram them, the battlecruisers attempted to destroy them, but if they moved fast enough even destroying them wouldn't stop the collision.
-Outer Neruu System, Noviran Socialist Federation-
-May 14-
The cosmonauts were somewhat surprised when the door opened, but they took it in stride.
As it opened, they noticed a small alien girl, not obviously infected, who immediately ran away when they saw her. They walked slowly in, looking around. The smashed lights gave the room a very creepy appearance. The party's leader gestured down the hallway the girl traveled down, and they followed, keeping alert for any others.
When gestured to shake hands, Counter Admiral Iriszhi Gal gestured to the cadre of armed soldiers at her sides. "We were under the impression that you were coming under peaceful pretenses, so you have no need for your weapons. Whatever you're here for, we're not allowing you on board with them. So if you want to come here and talk about peace, Nar Shadaa, I want these men disarmed. Now." She turned to the captain and the returning crew, saying, "You're wanted in the medical bay for a full medical examination, by the order of the Admiral and the Chief Surgeon. After that, we'll take your condition into consideration as we get you back to work."
Then speaking specifically towards the offer of a handshake, Iriszhi replied, "My position on this ship is military in nature, and as I'm not a diplomat, I'm in no position to represent the Vriszh'kai Collective in this situation." Her expression was not of disgust, but of thinly veiled contempt.
Meanwhile, across the ship, the ship's engineers and gunners were getting into their battle positions. The targeting systems were being calibrated, damage control teams were getting into their ready positions, civilians were called to their quarters, and the Admiral took his place on the bridge, preparing to give the order to put up the shields and take aim. The bridge technicians gave the Admiral a status report on all of the ships systems.
"Ship's reactor is running efficiently, and we have enough stored power to last us for..." The power officer was cut off by the impatient Admiral.
"Yes, give me everything on the weapons and shields." He said.
"Getting reports from the weapon stations. We have plasma cannons manned and ready to fire, missile stations getting a target lock as we speak, and they're currently priming the beam laser."
"Excellent. Shields?"
"Operating at 25% to avoid suspicion. We'll boost to 75% upon your orders, sir."
"Good. Contact the other ships and tell them to get to full battle readiness, and to prepare for a synchronized barrage on my mark."
"Yes sir."
The other two dozen ships in the fleet received the orders almost immediately. The ships, some of them quite old, had a combination of both old and new weapons. The smallest and oldest ships, of which Kolok'til had been one, were armed with railguns and several nuclear warheads. The newest were shiny and detailed, boasting newer plasma and beam weapons. Plasma weapons were used to take out larger targets, whereas the weaker beam weapons were usually used for taking out mobile targets, such as single-manned fighters and possibly small, fast corvettes.
UM! YAH! YAH!
The little girl ran down the hallway. There were a lot of open doors, that seemed to be jammed open by some kind of black gunk that could be found on the infected. A few brood worms climbed upon the ceiling, ready to pounce down onto their victims. There was also an infected hiding in one of the rooms, not making a sound nor moving. The brood worms and infected communicated with each other. The plan was to have a brood worm drop down on one of the engineers when he passed by the entrance and have the infected swipe him into the room, disguising the wound the brood worm made with a small cut. It was not a perfect plan, but it was the best they could do without guidance. Once the brood worm was in it would quickly knock out the host. As the group got closer the plan went into action, aiming for the last one in the group.
Exploration vessel Caatiiq
Yseet sat in one of the public gathering areas of the ship. They were still in subspace, but their destination was quite close so it should only take a couple of hours. Exploration happens in a couple of short bursts of subspace travel only interrupted to scan for radio waves and mapping. Yseet sat with two friends that he had worked with before on similar missions. Bylaa-Otseel was ranked 17 of the Qwaalmvee, they were xeno-biologists whose job was similar to Yseet's but studied and tamed alien animals, they always had a pet with them that they had with them since they were apprentices. Haavu-Bsteel was ranked 30 of they Cstaalhee, they were trained to manipulate electronics through subtle electric signals, their purpose is to study alien technology and are pretty good to have around if your door is on the fritz.
Yseet placed down his glass of water on the circular table they were all sitting at. The lights above provided some energy similar to a star's. It was not as good but it was good enough. Bylaa spoke up first "Are we really going to find anything on this trip? I mean, I may be stuck with some work but you two will just be doing nothing."
Haavu chuckled and said "Don't worry too much. Who knows maybe we will not find anything living."
Bylaa "How about a bet. We have not bet on something so trivial since we were all apprentices. If you lose Haavu you have to finally confess to Wvsii. Yseet if you lose you have to finally adopt Vleen. If I loose I will paint my arms and do a rendition of a Vysiir's mating dance right on this table. I place my bet on the chance we do find intelligent life."
Yseet "I bet we find only wildlife. Have fun with the paperwork Bylaa."
Haavu "I guess I am stuck with there being no life, and Bylaa if you do that I am going to record and share that with everyone in the Qwaalmvee."
Just then the ship exited subspace travel and the roof became transparent, allowing real sunlight in. "Feels nice." Yseet commented. The crew started on their work.
Once she was certain the crew was en route to the medical bay, she turned to Nar Shaddaa, saying bitterly, "Frankly, I don't care who they are, and I'm not about to defy orders and let you onboard." She then turned around, as if she were leaving, but stopped at the airlock control panel, touched its screen, and moved her hand in three swift motions. The first of these motions merely accessed the panel's door controls. The second sealed the interior airlock door, the third sealing the exterior, effectively cutting off the Magnes Vermes ambassador, as well as his entourage, from both the Vriszh'kai ship as well as their own. The door was rather thick, so she then proceeded to communicate using the terminal, which had a link to a speaker within the airlock.
"Now, Ambassador, perhaps now you'll be a little more cooperative now that I can easily depressurize the room you're in." The Counter Admiral briefly reflected on the things her superior had told her. "Who really attacked our ship?"
UM! YAH! YAH!
The Wu Empire expedition fleet followed suit firing a volley of every nuclear weapon they had loaded to fire at once for a total of 49,082 nuclear missiles, while A.I controlled laser turrets on warships went to action to try and shoot as many N.S.F nuclear missiles before they would reach targets. All ten thousand in total fighters made the distance to enemy ships quickly, those that made it close enough without getting shot to pieces focused fire on small turrets with front mounted rail guns and rear mounted gunners fired at turrets as well. While the fighters hopefully were drawing attention of defenses the four thousand boarding craft of expedition fleet went right for hangers of enemy ships if they had any, each boarding craft carrying crew of twenty which sixteen were ready to jump right out rail gun rifles ready to fire.
Warships hit by the volley of explosive plasma shells would take the initial fire as entire first layer of armored hull in areas hit would be blown clear off by the explosion, leaving ceramic plate second layer exposed in large gaping holes in first layer of the ships hit. The three ramming warships ships would put engines to maximum thrust as they continued on collision course, all of nuclear arsenal aboard each ship would be armed as ships hulls were torn into by battlecruisers, crew aboard the ships would die as fires spread and explosions racked inside of ship but A.I would continue to operate the three warships that were now more like giant missiles, however the ramming warship on course would lead ship of enemy fleet would have nuclear arsenal set to blow soon enough to hopefully just to cripple without outright destroying.
The deep space telecommunications identification system was scanning the stars around them. This system had no planets that could support life and were therefor not inspected by the vessel. The crew was taking this time to relax as the automated functions of the system did it's work and searched for anything over the star's interference. At this time many of the apprentices were practicing their craft. The system stopped scanning and started amplifying a particular signal. The signal was not natural and was presumed to be alien in origin. The captain quickly got this information and set course for a star fairly close to the star the signal was found from. If the aliens had subspace technology they would easily be able to colonize the system. The captain came on the intercom "Everyone, prepare for subspace warp. We have found a possible alien signal. We are going in to a closer system for investigation. Prepare for possible confrontation scenario." Soon after Yseet got a message from Bylaa simply saying "I win."
Grand Executor I'Klani Vandnaal
Council Chamber, San'Kassimir, Beta Tyrannis
14 May 2550, 20:42 GMT
Maranhii caught up to I'Klani in a few long strides, the studs in the bottoms of his metal boots cracking the stone floors of the Council Chamber wherever they made contact.
"So, what if we are lost," he started, "that is no excuse to not even try to hold out until morning!"
The persuasive effect of Maranhii's inspirational speeches was lost on I'Klani.
"No, it isn't. But we should not delude ourselves." he snapped, effectively ending the argument. He swung his head back to face in front of him, wishing (for not the first time) that his species didn't have such elongated heads. Maranhii still followed, but in silence.
They soon reached the barricades, and hopped over the roughly chest-high walls, made of overturned tables, sandbags and the occasional military-grade portable cover. Maranhii readied his own blade, Kor'taanais, and I'Klani kneeled behind a sandbag wall, resting the barrel of his rifle in a groove between two bags. He flipped the switch above the intake valve of his rifle, and the bulkier segment of it extending to the left of the main body started humming as it ionised the air taken in. A few seconds later the first of three small red lights just below the scope turned from red to orange, and he flipped the lever next to the ionisation chamber, sending the gas into the gun's systems. The first light (farthest to the left) turned fully green, and the second went orange. He flipped yet another switch, and, over the next minute, the metal strips that lined the outer barrel of the rifle turned orange with heat, turning the second light green and the third orange. I'Klani pressed one final button, this one on the front (facing the barrel) of the trigger guard. A few small discs between the heat strips and the barrel began spinning. The third light turned green.
"Ready!" he yelled to no one in particular.
The Heretics who had been gathering outside the doors to the chamber chose that moment to begin their attack, presumably having heard him and taking it as a challenge.
A door creaked open to his left, and a small, violet crystal rolled inside. A few seconds passed, before the crystal suddenly exploded into a purple mist, shrouding nearly half the entrances to the chamber. He heard the magnetic coils of heavy plasma guns suddenly start up, and a few soldiers breathe in deeply.
For a brief moment, it seemed like nothing would happen. No shots were fired, and the only thing that moved was the shimmering curtain of purple mist.
Three seconds later, all hell broke loose.
He didn't know who started it, but at one moment all was still, and the next moment there was superheated plasma flying back and forth, green lasers slicing glyph-like pattens into the mist, and the sudden smell of ozone mixed with burning flesh and molten steel. He couldn't tell how many of the Heretics fell in the first few seconds, but few of his troopers were hit (though one lost the top of his helmet to a laser).
The crystal gas, having been mostly incinerated by the plasma volleys anyways, fully dissipated. Roughly 60 comms-pack antennae were barely poking out over the seats that the High Council would sit in on better days, some hundred metres away. He noted that since they probably hadn't killed all that many of them yet, it was safe to assume that this was the entirety of the vanguard force.
"I don't think they're fools enough to move from where they are yet." he commented to Maranhii.
"Neither do I. It seems we shall have to go and get them." Maranhii replied, his usual casual stance towards killing showing up full-force.
"After you." Maranhii added as he removed Kor'taanais from its magnetic sheathe on his back.
I'Klani glared at Maranhii, but remained silent, instead opting to leave his rifle where it was, and draw Dur'endnaal. He quickly hopped over the barricade, with Maranhii following close behind. The pair began slowing their pace at about the halfway mark, trying to quiet their footsteps to prevent their enemies from hearing them approach. They were making fair progress, and had a mere ten metres to go when, just his luck, someone shouted,
"LOOK OUT!" from the seats above. Maranhii and I'Klani had time to exchange terrified looks before sprinting the last few metres to the wall, the place they had been standing moments before suddenly a plasma-burned crater. Maranhii began breathing deeply, as I'Klani had somewhat predicted due to how long it had been since he was in combat (Maranhii had nearly lost his dextral cortex to a plasma missile some time ago, and had only recently returned from rehabilitation). He looked back at the barricades, and said, without looking at Maranhii,
"You may want to duck." before doing so himself. Maranhii gave him a confused look before asking,
"Why? What is i-" he threw himself on the floor as three closely-packed rockets sailed over their heads and into the seats. The lack of an explosion suggested that they had been kinetic rounds, but the ground shook enough that it had still probably killed several Heretics.
I'Klani rolled over onto his chest and pulled himself off the floor. He quickly picked up Dur'endnaal in his left hand, and pulled Maranhii to his feet with his right. Maranhii retrieved his blade, and they wordlessly sheathed their swords before leaping into the air and latching onto the rim of the railing above. With some difficulty (despite the numerous gadgets they had, neither of their armour sets were truly powered) they hoisted themselves up and over the railing and into the seating area, quickly looking around to make sure that the Heretics hadn't regained their footing after the rocket attack. I'Klani removed one of his pistols, and handed it to Maranhii, who took it and set it into the magnetic field around his right hip. As the first few Heretics regained their footing, some thirty seconds after the impacts, the pair began the butcher's work of hacking, slashing and stabbing that each had down to a science.
While Maranhii took the stairs to flank them; I'Klani grabbed the backs of the front row of seats, and, with all his considerable strength, launched himself high into the air, pulling his sword out as he did so and holding it above his head with the blade pointed behind him. As he fell, he swung downwards, his sword impacting before his feet did. A metre and a half away from his landing point, a Heretic trooper was trying to retrieve his rifle from behind one of the seats. Disregarding the fact that there was a corpse split all the way to the torso stuck on the tip of Dur'endnaal, he swung left, dislodging the body and slicing straight through the decidedly-not-sword-proof midsection of the second unlucky trooper. Rivulets of green, copper-filled blood ran down the blade of Dur'endnaal as I'Klani dislodged the blade once more, the soldier's goggles hiding the look of pain and terror in his eyes as they slowly glazed over.
I'Klani looked over to his left, and saw Maranhii slowly creeping up behind a small group of Heretics, two rows up. He immediately vaulted over the two rows and got in front of the soldiers, who, although they had already been firing at him, redoubled their efforts to kill him. Once he was sure he had their attention, he started vaulting over more rows of seats, constantly trying to evade the torrent of plasma following him. When the firing suddenly ceased, he turned around once more, and, holding Dur'endnaal in his right hand, drew his pistol and put a high-velocity chunk of metal into the abdomen of the nearest Heretic, who crumpled to the floor. I'Klani took a moment to collect himself before holstering the gun and finding his net target, this time with more impunity (as Maranhii was now the focus of their weapons).
Roughly fifteen minutes after they had begun, the two warriors slowly walked back to the barricades, blades affixed to their backs and pistols at their sides. Maranhii's black, heavily spiked armour, as well as I'Klani's sleek, silver-and-orange suit were both spattered with green blood, which slowly dripped from their hands and chestplates. Neither of them could feel particularly proud of what they had done (though in earlier days they would have been competing for kills), but it had been necessary.
"Who is the highest-ranking person here who isn't one of us two?" I'Klani asked the group of soldiers upon their return.
"I am." a young-looking soldier with a Field Master's glyph on his breastplate, most likely fresh out of the Naval Academy, announced, standing up straight from his previously kneeled-down position. I'Klani quickly decided that he didn't like the officer, and asked to follow up,
"Who has had the most combat experience, still excluding Maranhii and I?"
A slightly taller soldier, fully encased in a heavily dented CQB combat skin, stood up.
"You," he began, "I want you to lead them. Find somewhere more defensible, and leave nothing behind. Hold out as long as you can. If you survive until morning and Maranhii and I haven't returned, demand to be taken to Executor Z'Vani and show her this." he ordered, and removed a small, ornate metal glyph from his chestplate, depicting a Shanaar's skull, mandibles and all, with a large hole in the side. The soldier accepted it, and placed it in a hardcase mounted on his shin.
The same soldier, removing his helmet, revealed himself to actually be a she, before replying,
"Yes, high one. We will await your return in the morning. We will send up a green flare at 8:00."
"Good. May the Gods be with you." he finished with the traditional Shanaar goodbye to those who are likely to die soon.
"And may they favour our victory tonight, Grand Executor." I'Klani hated not getting the last word, but he had already started walking away, having picked up his rifle earlier. Maranhii gazed back over his shoulder at the woman, an uncertain look about him, before facing forwards again and walking marginally faster to catch up to I'Klani.
"How do you plan on escaping the complex?" Maranhii asked, walking alongside him.
"We're not, yet. In case the planet falls, we need the bulk of Jestocost to remain with us." he replied.
"Ah, yes. The giant mass of floating shards under the Citadel. How do you plan on transporting all of that?" Maranhii asked, slightly bemused, slightly annoyed with I'Klani for producing such a silly-sounding directive.
"Those are just a tourist attraction. Jestocost itself is the size of a Verrsukt ball." he replied, inwardly happy that there was finally something he knew that Maranhii didn't.
"I see. Lead the way, then." Maranhii admitted, falling silent.
The duo walked at a slow pace through the massive, once-hallowed halls of the Ministry, their footsteps echoing off of the impassible stone walls and ricocheting off the vaulted ceilings some 100 metres above either of their heads. The floors, though covered in dust and sediment, still retained the natural swirls of the stone, and still shined with an inexplicable lustre. Not even the blood slowly seeping from the corpses they passed could match Centurion Marble in shine, no matter how clean or dirty it was.
They walked in silence for the better part of an hour, until they arrived at a small hatch in the floor, made of heavy iron and with rusted hinges.
"This will take us to Jestocost?" Maranhii enquired, his voice expressing a justifiable scepticism.
"More or less." I'Klani replied, before heaving the hatch open. He quickly restarted his impact boots, and jumped in feet first. Maranhii did the same, and jumped in after, giving I'Klani a fifteen-second head start to give him time to move out of the landing zone. He didn't bother to close the hatch behind him. No one would follow them down it and live.
The drop-shaft was dark, dank and smelled heavily of mould. If either had turned on his shoulder lights, he would have found, to his horror, that the sides were also covered in lichens, and the air was so filled with spores that light was only half as strong in the shaft as in clean air. Neither had respirator gear, so they had to simply hold their breath long enough to make it down.
I'Klani hit first, the clatter echoing all the way up the shaft, and prompting a loyalist soldier passing by to wonder if he should throw a grenade down the tube, before wisely deciding against it.
I'Klani quickly dove out of the way for Maranhii to land, unsure as to how much of a head start he had. Unfortunately, he had fully debased some three cubic metres of fungus with his chest alone and come to a full stop before Maranhii hit the ground. He picked himself up off the floor, and tapped the switch on his shoulder to turn on the small electric torches mounted their; casting a piercing, blue-tinted light upon the tunnel.
The landing tunnel was considerably wider than the one they had fallen down, and seemed to connect numerous shafts into a main stream for disposal elsewhere, presumably for drainage purposes (though how they got the current to move one way or another over a flat surface was anyone's guess, in his mind). Picking a direction at random, they started walking. To his surprise and mild disgust, the flooring was blanketed in lichens and sludge to the point where no noise came from the footsteps of two half-ton Shanaar walking heavily.
"You never answered me, you know," I'Klani commented, "what was the real reason you came here?"
Maranhii dwelled on the question for long enough that he mentally debated whether on not Maranhii had somehow not heard him, even as loud as the echoes (that were still going, even then) were.
Finally, Maranhii spoke:
"I returned because there are a few things in the galaxy that, no matter how hopeless they are, are simply worth fighting for. San'Kassimir is one of them." his voice had a reflective, almost faraway quality to it, as if he was thinking of other things.
"And why is it one of those things?" he pressed. Maranhii once again stayed silent for a while, but after they had been walking for several minutes with no response, I'Klani began to get the impression that it was a question he wouldn't be getting an answer to anytime soon. He dropped the topic, and they continued walking in silence.
Soon, they came upon a large hole in the floor, through which they not only found that the surface they had been walking on for the better part of a half-hour was actually an old form of brick, but that they were directly over the entrance to the "tourist attraction" that supposedly housed the aeons-old AI known as Jestocost (or "Cruelty" in a language long forgotten). They dropped down the last floor, and unslung their weapons of choice: in I'Klan's case, his stiff-running pulse rifle; in Maranhii's case, Kor'taanais.
"I will lead this time, brother." Maranhii declared in a hushed tone. I'Klani stepped aside to let him brush past, before shouldering his rifle and following him in, slightly crouched down. Maranhii moved quickly and quietly down the hallway towards the guard booth at the end of the hall, sword drawn and held in front of him. He quietly knocked on the window of the guard station, and found it empty. The two climbed over the turnstiles, and continued into the cavern beyond.
The chamber that most members of the Sin'Shanaar knew as "Jestocost" is a massive cavern filled with floating blue-and-purple crystals, with beams of light constantly flitting between seemingly-random pairs of the neuron-like crystals. The entire area is well lit, and has a large circular platform set into the middle of the chamber, the presence of which both of them had before had to hand-wave away as an "ancient decoration" when in the presence of civilians and lower members of the military. It was this platform that they moved straight for upon entry.
The platform itself was circular, with a circular depression in the middle, and a raised dais with golden siding and a blue crystal centre in the centre of that. Around it were four depressions, each with a small crossbeam, equidistant from the centre. Above the platform hung a massive purple spike of crystal, extending up into the shrouded reaches of the upper room, possibly hanging from the roof almost a kilometre up.
"How do we retrieve it, then?" Maranhii asked, with understandable confusion.
"Stand on the blue pedal." I'Klani commanded in a way that could be interpreted as a reply.
Maranhii stood on the pedal, and I'Klani strolled over to one of the four crossbarred holes. He bent over, reached down, and pulled the crossbar out of the floor several centimetres, and turned it anticlockwise. He did the same with the other three, before stepping back several metres.
"So, what no-WHOA!" Maranhii yelled as the pedal suddenly sank into the floor ten centimetres, causing him to lose his balance.
The pedal slowly sank into the floor, while Maranhii quickly looked around to see what would happen. The stone around the pedal slowly pulled away from it, with the four crossbars seemingly sliding on rails away from the pedal. The massive crystal above also moved downwards, making it seem like it was the floor that was rising, not the two sinking.
I'Klani walked over to the hole in the floor, and saw that Maranhii had stopped moving.
"GET OUT OF THERE!" he yelled, and reached down with one arm, holding onto the rim with the other. Maranhii took it, and he pulled him up as the tip of the crystal sank into the hole. As they watched the titanic mass of gem sink into the floor, Maranhii suddenly asked,
"Does an AI named 'Cruelty' live up to it?" it took I'Klani by surprise, but he reminded himself that Maranhii had yet to meet Jestocost.
"You will see in a minute." he settled on replying, not sure how to tell Maranhii about Jestocost's actual state.
As if it had been waiting for them to finish talking, the crystal stopped moving. A soft clink was heard, followed by another.
And another.
And another.
Finally, they saw a crack appear in the top of the visible crystal, racing downwards at extraordinary speed. Without even stopping for a moment, the crystal shattered into several trillion microscopic shards, covering the floor of the pit in a mound of dust nearly three metres tall. Suspended in midair for no apparent reason was a small cylinder, about 30cm in diameter, with a small, vaguely spherical device set into it.
The device had three small circles in the front face, positioned equidistant from each other. In between them was a small glyph of sorts, which was understood to read "cruelty". Small pieces of ornamentation and geometric figures covered it, and what appeared to be a spike of pure light seemed to be stabbed through the centre of the device from the top.
Suddenly, the circles around the glyph began glowing a pale blue, flitting to red at random times, but remaining predominantly blue. I'Klani kneeled down, and waved Maranhii to do the same.
"Lord Jestocost, the Heretics have arrived." I'Klani began, sounding ridiculously formal to Maranhii's slightly more crass disposition.
"I am aware." a deep, resonating voice -that, if a Human were present, would have been classified as a baritone if the AI suddenly wanted to start singing- answered.
The outer ring of the front face of the device suddenly spun around a few times, and two jets of white light appeared from the bottom of "Jestocost". Slowly, as if testing the waters with a toe, the orb lifted off of its pedestal, the largely ornamental spinning components on its "face" whirring loudly in what the two guessed to be the machine equivalent of a grunt.
"Ahhh, you will not believe how good it feels to be off that thing! I mean, look at it! I've been on that thing so long the plating's broken in three places just from me sitting there!" Jestocost said in an uncharacteristically friendly and nonchalant voice as it rose into the air. Maranhii gave I'Klani the mother of all confused looks, which was met with another loaded facial contortion by I'Klani that undeniably meant "LATER."
Seemingly undeterred by Jestocost's apparent insanity, I'Klani announced in a loud voice,
"We need to get you somewhere safe, Lord Jestocost. The Heretics will try to destroy you at every chance they get." it was apparent that it was a much-rehearsed line.
"So? Let's see them come at me while THIS is going!" Jestocost yelled, before spinning its "face" plate around several times and, from no apparent source, firing a massive laser beam from its "face" at a nearby wall, the blue lights seeming to contract as it did so. The wall emerged partly melted, and charred around the damage. Maranhii's confused expression somehow got even more perplexed-looking.
"While you may have your own defences, the Heretics are many, and will eventually overpower you." I'Klani countered, his stance changing subtly to show his preparedness for a long argument. Thankfully, Jestocost acquiesced at that.
"Guess you've got a point there," it admitted, "so what ARE we going to do?" it then asked, it's "face" pivoting on an unseen ball-and-socket type connection inside the machine, giving the impression that it was rolling its eyes, but somehow without the negative connotations of doing so.
"We," I'Klani began, "are here to escort you to a safer location."
"Then why are we still here? We should get moving." the deep resonance and formality was suddenly back in Jestocost's voice as if it had never left.
"We were awaiting your approval, Holy One." I'Klani ended the exchange at that, and started towards a white-painted metal security door opposite the main entrance. Maranhii, still looking confused followed, with Jestocost hovering in place for a few seconds, but quickly speeding ahead to catch up to I'Klani. The interfaces of any of the three's armour (or body, in one of their cases) was able to unlock the door wirelessly, so they wasted no time in shoving the heavy, riveted alloy inwards to move past it.
"Where am I to hide until the battle has ended?" Jestocost enquired, seeming to still be stable.
"The entire planet is occupied already. The only safe place is out-of-system." I'Klani replied in the confident-sounding, mildly authoritative voice he reserved for dealing with his few higher-ups.
"So you are taking me to the Isengraf Facility," Jestocost began, still holding off the strange "other" personality unbefitting of a war AI, "nice place. The food is awful, though!" madness once again crept into its voice.
"Calm yourself, Holy One. Idle chatter can kill on the battlefield." I'Klani ordered.
They reached the end of the hallway, which happened to have the doors of a magnetic lift set into it. Jestocost needed no assistance riding the current (though it later commented that it would damage its short-term memory banks), but the other two had to strap on conveniently-placed magnetic harnesses that had been hanging on hooks by the door, disused for years.
Nearly half an hour later, they reached the top, to find that Jestocost had beaten them up with its thrusters (only to find that it couldn't open the door). I'Klani removed his harness, dropping it on the metal floor with a low thudding noise. Maranhii muttered something about additional armour, and apparently chose to keep his.
The only lights in the room at the top came from the many-times-refracted light of the lift and a small green half-circle about five metres away. Jestocost, while present, had turned off its face lights, for its own reasons. I'Klani slowly walked to the green light, taking his time to walk quietly in case there were Heretics beyond the door.
He reached towards the circle, and, grabbing an invisible (in the darkness) handle, gave it a quarter-turn clockwise. Several overhead lights flickered, but did not turn on. He turned the handle back to its original position and tried again, but still the lights remained off. He sighed, and, with a mere thought, activated the small, but powerful lights mounted on his shoulders in small arrays. Maranhii defensively threw an arm up to shield his eyes from the sudden light, and slowly lowered it as his eyes adjusted. Jestocost was hovering less than a metre from Maranhii, lights still powered down.
He looked around the room, illuminating several locked shelves of weapons. He slowly made his way to the nearest one, and waved a hand over the small sensor next to the handle, unlocking it with the FEI tag in his gauntlet. He pulled it open, and, hesitating for a moment to locate what he was looking for (his had randomly spasming while he did so), selected a scattergun, which he placed in a magnetic lock on the left side of his torso, after checking that there were the right types of shells on the racks on the side of the weapon. The weapon automatically compacted, the stock collapsing, the barrel telescoping to almost an eight its normal length, and the grip assembly connecting to the frame of the weapon on small sets of rails. I'Klani looked at the other shelves, and saw Maranhii removing a multi-barrelled spin cannon. Noticing I'Klani looking at him, he shrugged, the weight of the gun making this slightly more difficult.
They made their way back to the switch. I'Klani quickly looked at Maranhii, who nodded. I'Klani turned the handle a full half-turn, and turned off his shoulder lights. Several hermetic seals suddenly hissed, and huge gouts of steam blew past them before a section of wall suddenly blasted outwards, flying a decent way before skidding to a halt. After waiting a few seconds to see if anyone was going to investigate, he stepped out into the hall, with Maranhii following him, and Jestocost in the rear.
"How do you plan to get out of the Ministry? There's no way we can make it through the City." Maranhii asked, already knowing what I'Klani's response would be on some level.
"We can't go through it, so we simply go over it. The Heretics stole their gunships from us at Misrah, and we are going to reclaim one." he answered.
"Fair enough. How do we find a ship?"
"Simple. Kill an officer, request extraction of wounded, and kill everyone on board. The Heretics use the same armour we do, so until we are on board, they won't realise who we are."
This seemed to satisfy Maranhii.
"Let us go and kill an officer, then." he said, and began walking down the hallway. I'Klani got his scattergun out, and followed.
Officers were not in short supply. While they had been busy retrieving Jestocost, standard infantry had been sent in after the troopers they had personally killed stopped responding, and now the Ministry was crawling with Heretics. They only needed a Major's radio to call a dropship, and it so happened that the first squad they found was led by on.
"Wait here, Holy One." I'Klani ordered as they approached the Heretics. Jestocost dropped to the floor, hovering a centimetre off the ground before gently alighting behind a column. I'Klani and Maranhii slowly walked towards the Heretic squad, weapons held in one hand, pointing at the floor. One of the Heretics suddenly spotted them, and raised the alarm. Suddenly, there were fifteen-odd gun barrels pointing at them. The leader of the squad seemed to be saying something, most likely into a radio.
"Calm yourselves! Our radios were damaged by a missile!" I'Klani yelled, beginning to make up a story. Neither stopped walking.
"Where? Are there more of the Infidels than the ones slain in the middle of the building?" at this, they both tried to not look visibly crestfallen, barely pulling it off.
"Only a few. We disposed of them, though." I'Klani answered. Under the guise of scratching his unarmored back, he grabbed a grenade and held it in his left hand, mostly obscuring it from the Heretic's view.
"And the rest of your squad?"
"Slain by the ones we killed." he answered. At this point they were mere metres from the Heretics. He once again put his scattergun away.
"Good work, then. When we have burned this world, I will make sure their families are notified." They reached the Heretics, and stood a mere metre from the Major. He pressed the small button on the grenade.
One.
Two.
Three. He mentally counted, steeling himself for what was about to happen.
I'Klani lunged forward, planting the grenade on the back of the Major's neck. Maranhii began firing indiscriminately into the squad, turning many into bloody mist and scraps of metal in the first second of angry buzzing. I'Klani grabbed ahold of the unfortunate Major's helmet in the back, where the small "fin" emerged to cover the neck, and pulled. The Major's hemet came off easily, and he started back-pedalling furiously. The Major gave him one final confused and furious look before he was replaced by a rapidly-expanding ball of fire that knocked I'Klani off his feet and blinded him for a few moments.
When he recovered, he was laying on his back, facing his left hand. He experimentally curled his fingers together, balling them into a fist. His ears were ringing, but he wasn't injured. He slowly regained his feet, and inspected the helmet in his right hand. The transceiver mounted on the left side was intact. He gently removed it from its holder, and swapped his own with it. Mentally, he turned it on, bending down to try to find a name on the major's (largely intact) combat skin. He found it.
"This is Major Sanski, requesting evacuation of wounded, clear." he said, motioning for Maranhii to remain silent.
"Granted. What is the severity of injuries, clear?" a slightly garbled voice answered.
"Unknown as of now. Both were hit by Rodingian Jungle rounds about two minutes ago, clear." he replied, silently regretting naming his preferred type of ammunition.
"Understood, stand by for evacuation. Estimated arrival in one minute. Dismissed." the operator replied. I'Klani turned off the stolen radio, and replaced his original unit.
The minute passed quickly, and in silence, except for the occasional cough.
Suddenly, a shadow appeared over the massive window that spanned the length of the hallway in front of them.
"Prepare yourself, Holy One!" I'Klani yelled.
The window suddenly shattered, and a large Lich-class gunship flew in, only managing to fit the prow of the vessel into the hallway. A gravity lift activated in the prow, which they made for. Jestocost, in a burst of speed, flashed past them and halfway up the lift in roughly three-fourths of a second: too fast for a camera to see; and the two walked into it, clutching their sides as if wounded. They sailed upwards, Jestocost resuming his ascent as they reached him.
The prow of the ship was empty, save for them, the two dim lights set into the walls casting strange shadows on the metal walls, which were curved with the shape of the outer hull. The two doors led to the same place. They quickly readied their weapons, and proceeded into the large main cargo bay of the Lich. They entered onto the prow balcony, to find the ship empty. They felt the ship start moving backwards, and soon upwards. The door to the cockpit was between the two doors to the gravity chamber.
I'Klani cycled the bolt on the scattergun, and opened the door. A short ramp led to the raised platform that the pilots inhabited, carving a long, deep crevasse in the floor of the cockpit. The pilots had their headsets on, meaning that they could take them by surprise. I'Klani drew his other blade: a combat knife with a fifteen centimetre blade. He held it in front of him, the mirror-like edge of the knife showing the reflections of the two men about to die. He saw Maranhii draw a similar knife in the corner of his vision. He nodded, and pointed at the left-hand pilot. A nod from Maranhii confirmed the plan.
Slowly, they approached the pilots, knifes held in icepick-grips. He started counting the steps, the remaining metre-and-a-half from him and the death of another. He had long since abandoned his qualms about killing, but he still thought it better to die fighting than helpless, as the pilots were about to.
He almost didn't realise that they were right behind the pilots. He nearly tripped trying to stop short.
Maranhii nodded, and he took a deep breath in before grabbing the pilot by the top of the head and slashing his neck from shoulder to shoulder, moving quickly to avoid the inevitable geyser of blood that follows those sorts of attacks.
But there was no blood. Horrified, he turned the chair around.
A mannequin, wearing a pilot's uniform and with a radio strapped to its chest, greeted him. The radio burst to life, and a high male voice spoke:
"It's cute that you think you think you're the heroes of this war -the grand saviours of all Shanaar, even-" he knew that voice! But from WHERE?! "But... You're not." Suddenly, the shrouded corners of the cockpit burst into hundreds of rapidly-blinking red lights.
"WELCOME TO HELL, KIDDOS!" the voice yelled triumphantly.
An impossibly loud roar filled I'Klani's ears, and all went white.
-Interstellar Space, near the Nova System, Noviran Socialist Federation-
-May 21, 2550 CE-
In response to the larger bombardment, the Commander ordered that all ship turrets target the incoming missiles, while the fighters, who would undoubtedly be greatly outnumbered at 2,500, would attack their counterparts from the enemy side. The incoming boarding craft would simply harmlessly bounce off of the hangar covers, which were electromagnetically reinforced using the ship's energy systems. It would require that the protection's energy be depleted first before the boarding craft could get through.
As many of the enemy ships were torn up by their weapons, three larger ships continued flying forward, now evidently to ram the battlecruisers. They all gave the order to utilize their nuclear laser cannons on the incoming ships. The lead ship had the most powerful cannon, so hopefully it would disintegrate the ship nearly entirely in order to minimize damage, but there was a chance the other ones would not be strong enough or miss. Either way, it would be a very close call.
-Outer Neruu System, Noviran Socialist Federation-
-May 14-
As the party made its way down the hall, suddenly one of the aliens, apparently infected, ran out and attacked one of the engineers. In shock, they all looked around and up and would shoot at any sort of creature they saw. The lead cosmonaut went and looked at the engineer. He had passed out, and had a cut from where he was hit by the alien. He would bring him back to the party, and one of the soldiers in power armor would carry him.
The ship's bridge was filled with activities. After picking up a small series of radio broadcasts, which was exciting enough, it finally had something else to do. Drones were scurrying in and out of the room, moving chips of the hard data of the broadcast to a physical cache for it, far enough away from the virtual data storage base that in the event of an attack, they'd be safe from one blast.
Meanwhile, the ship had to rewrite the translator-program, this new language was so different. They seemed to talk out of some kind of different hole, and use a much less specific language. The Heeltale language, highly tonal and situational, simply doesn't match with this alien language... And of course, the A.I. only had a limited amount to work with. But the A.I. was making slow but steady progress towards a breakthrough. A few loops of the transmissions floated around the room, played forwards, and backwards occasionally.
"Oi? Anyone there? ... Look, if you're a pirate, you can just give up now! ... Alright, don't think it's a pirate. Anyone there?" A tapping sound is heard here. "Listen bud, no mind games, speak up!" After an awkward silence, "Alright, you have the right to remain where you are, if you arm a single weapon we're blowing you up sky-high. I'm getting the commander, all the weird crap happens out here..."
Ever since then, there's been nothing but silence over the transmitter. The A.I. did its job and supervised all possible channels, but apparently this was the only one that was highly clear. That meant that there was potentially, some kind of alien colony nearby! Once again it activated its scanners and re-scanned the entire area, to no effect.
The A.I. however, was unfazed. There was no reason to assume that the colony/base/home planet was a planet, they could quite possibly live on the nearby moon, it certainly had an easier environment to build on than the rather hostile planet soil, soft and difficult to build on most likely. It had sent probes down, to retrive samples of soil, but from images captured, it did not seem that there would be much fruition in the form of life from the returning drones.
Then, the radio crackled again, and a voice appeared over the channel. "This is the commanding officer of this station's millitary force, you are currently trespassing on a private area of space, and are in violation of more codes than I care to name. You either haul alien tail and get out of here, or we board you, take apart your ship, a- Murmer murmer... What? What do you mean they might not know English? Oh for go- You konw, fine, you're the better strategist. You try and reason with this..."
The ship took in this new data eagerly, if a ship could do anything eagerly, and rapidly added it to the archive for decoding. It was still working on the previous entries, but with new tonal imputs, and possible meanings for the current situation, it had a feeling that its work would soon be done.
The brood worm finished the connections of his on the the infected engineer. He then started to block all signals that would lead to the worm's discovery and awakened the engineer, granting the engineer full control of the body. He would not be aware of the brood worm when he wakes. The brood worm would also use subtle signals to get the engineer to follow his orders.
Exploration vessel Caatiiq
The ship left subspace and entered the new system. The system was uncharted to them. The radio signal heard before was stronger and there was a hospitable planet floating around the star. Probes were let loose to search the surface of the planet for any signs of sentient life.
((Probabily a lot of this part is unrealistic, so tell me and I'll change it))
(you can find a brief introduction of the story and a bunch of other stuff like the clones here. This is just an extension to the app including other things I didn't mention in the original story.)
Solar system
The system this planet is on is called Janis and the system consist of the following:
The main star here is a yellow-orangeish star (Sun is white) which makes a planet to be rendered inhabitable to have a year of 200 - 250 days. It is about the size of the sun and it will fortunately burn out and become a red giant about 10 billon years due to it's smaller size.
There are only 3 planets which only 1 are habitable and the other two are just planet-sized rock balls. The closest to the sun, Ajinae, is the size of Mars and on the side of the sun is 700 Celsius hot, making rivers and entire oceans of lava common. Due to pull of the sun, this planet rotates fast, at a rate of 8 hours. The planet has absolutely no atmosphere which makes it -100 C on the nighttime. To explain this, at first, the planet's year was 100 days. However, a star passed by billons of years ago which put it's brother, Nijinish on it's current orbit and almost send both planets in a collision course but thanks to the speed and the angle, Nijinish survived and Ajinae was sent in a collision course with the star. At first Ajinae was going to crash in a few hundred years, but it's brother slowed him, but failed to stop it's collision course. It is now expected, with it's orbit of 50 days, that it will crash in a milenium.
The second planet is the harbor of life of the solar system which is called Nijinish. This planet rotates around the sun 225 years and it's rotation is about of 30 hours. This is the only planet with earth-like conditions, but it has some other biomes based on chemistries, such as quimical forests, lethal for Earth-life, but some of it's species also have the requisites needed for Earth animals. It has a moon, much like the Earth, minus that this one is like Titan as this is a planet was captured by it's now father Nijinish and was previously a planet on it's own that could easily harbored life on it's own. This moon is also closer to it's adoptive father than the moon, as much as it doubles the size on the sun when you compare them on the sky (if it's unrealistic, then 1,5). The section below the last paragraph will tell you all about the wildlife and the rest will tell you even more about the settlers.
The third and farthest from the sun is called Janisom. This planet is 2,5 times the size of Earth, and the planet is just way too cold for life. It's orbit is about 100 years, and it has a lot of ice oceans but for the most part it is just a rocky wasteland with some minerals on it.
Wildlife
To explain the sudden burst of life Nijinish planet had some time after the star passed by, the planet has a slightly weaker magnetic field than Earth's and that the planet harbored a frozen ocean but thanks to the attraction of Ajinae the water liquified and some of it melted like Earth's water, and this allowed protobionts to form in an airbone medium and some of them along with materials needed for protobiont life fell to the water and the others remained high into the skies. Those who remained later on evolved helicopter wings when they became heavier and adapted to the radiation, and those who fell followed the path of the ancestral life on Earth. These, like their Earth counterparts, began mass-producing oxigen, which endangered the airbone species of the time and these became the polar opposites. The helicopter-like species of plants used oxigen to create the quimics needed from their own life even now to this day. The anaerobic species settled high in the mountains and other zones where the oxigen is lacky but others chose to have a nomadic life in the skies. These are a threat to the aerobic species that fly high as the anaerobic species that fly lower can simply eat them and use their materials. This is also a big threat to anything that flies around such as airplanes or spaceships as they can experience severe damage on their walls due to bacteria, but fortunately most die on landing. On the sky there are all kinds of creatures, from bacteria or lonely insects to entire elephant-sized creatures which harbor a lot of plants on the surface, and some small creatures, creating a microbiome in their surfaces with entire animals.
The big issuse to aerobic species is that the kingdom introduced many plants such as wheat, maize, cocoa and others, and animals such as dogs, cats, horses, fishes, monkeys, farm species such as cows, sheeps and pigs and many other species which endanger the native ones. These had been brought in 2 separate spaceships in a style similar to Noah's ark (instead of one male and one female, they brought two male and two female, and each of the species were enclosed in a small enviroment that was similar to their old ways).
Society
There is only a town that the biologicals live on named Asijonia and the town is settled on a large hill with a good view to the river and a nearby forest. This is a typical small town without many inhabitants, but due that it's the capital, it includes stuff that a capital normally includes such as a minter, banks, and other stuff, and a large wall that surrounds the whole hill made with plasma-resistant armor (the armor itself does not resist the plasma but there are powerful coolers inside it that minimize the plasma damage). There are also many clone towns but these are just residences with many apartaments. There are also some hermits who are just here for the freedom that Earth or other human-colonized places don't provide them and also because they want to live along the native species. There are about 20 of those. The highest concentration of these are 5 and is basicaly just a small buddhist monastery on the middle of the alien woods.
The clones are better and worse in certain aspects. There are about 800 clones that chose to stay in the society, but these are only those whose parents chose to keep them. The clones which are segregated from the society live in nearly slavery conditions and are divided into: The farmers (50%), the miners (15%), the army (10%), the manufacturers (10%), the builders (5%), the programmers (5%) and other primary sector jobs such as ganadery, forestry, etc. However, the nearly enslaved clones can only own 30 meters for a house, it must be 1 floor high (minus for apartaments), and they can only carry on basic needs, except for programmers whom have 40 meters of land.
It's calendar has 11 months with 10 having 20 and the last one having 25. These are called (in order) Charlemagnus, Orwellia, Tertiary, Cuarteria, Justinianus (not Justin Bieber, Justinian I), Churchimus, Williamus, Octavis, November, December and Zeusio. However, the goverment and many other people still use the traditional Earth time. The planet's year is measured in AKF (After the Kingdom Foundation) and any other date previous than that is said as: BKF (Before the Kingdom foundation). The hours are counted from when the first red zones of the skies are seen, so, for example, 15:00 on the planet would be the equivalent of 8:00 PM on Earth.
The old spaceships where the people arrived still remain, but only one of them, the main captain's ship is fully functional and has the only element of FTL surviving, the communicator, which can communicate using the alternate dimension. The others need major fixing and there are only 5 spaceships adapted for militar situations, and they are useless to fly and are more useful for civil operations such as housing.
There are a lot of atheist people (15%) in the city, but most of them are hindus (40%, mostly Vaishnavists), buddhists (20%, mostly Tibetan), muslmins (20%, mostly Sunni) and jews (5%, mostly Reformists). The clones are, however, spared from those religions and they are taught that the emperors are gods and the house of Asijon sacred. The house of Asijon is mostly Hindu, with only 3 muslmins and 2 buddhists.
Army
There are 800 people in total in the army, 400 infantry, 200 tank operators, 50 heavy infantry (rocket launchers), 80 artillerymen, 30 pilots and 40 engineers. main weapon on the army is the PMDWFA101 or, in short, P101, a plasma assault rifle, then other weapons are the YK54 (plasma handgun), the RakPlas33 (plasma rocket launcher), it has 10 fighters, 7 helicopters and 2 bombers only. The main heavy tank it the John 51, the medium is George 37 and the light one is Eli 43. All of these have plasma weaponry, and the main plasma artillery is the RL Ronald, a large weapon with several plasma launchers that can damage a lot a specific part of a spaceship in wasting it's 18 slots, and it's main field artillery is the 371 mm Fer and an anti-spaceship 542 mm James. The main anti-air weapon is a 231 mm Homer. However, most of it's eqquipement is adapted for 2490-2510.
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Time on the planet: 15 Octavis, 14:54, 161 years AKF (After the Kingdom Foundation).
Real time: 25 May, 12:43 AM, 2550 CE.
Time for communication
Prince William I was watching from the window of the palace the landscape from where the sun was setting with his cat. The landscape was hilly but had some trees on it which made it a nice view. The palace was very large and was built on a gothic style and overcame the city walls. It was filled with renassiance culture, and it had 50 rooms which 40 were to sleep. It had two pools, one for children above 4 years old and other which was for grown up people, which was 3 meters deep. Because of this, the backyard was very large and was filled with exotic plants from Earth and many native plants. Then, after a minute of watching the landscape, he began to read a book named: History of the Shamides and Asijon, Vol. 3 at the chapter that mentioned the exile. He began to get intrested in space travel as the fading rays of the sun were hitting him. He read the last lines:
"Ever since the exile we lost contact with our brothers that settled into the outer space. We don't have any idea of what they did or where they are and now we can only contact with ourselves. I hope we can meet them either in the afterlife, or as the wheel of life moves and we reincarnate with them."
This was a jump of intrest for the young prince. When he went to take the fourth lunch of the day with the whole royal house, he told them:
-I was reading a book, and I saw something that really intrested me. It talked about the past and how we lost our brothers in the exile and I got intrested on communicating to them. Who's intrested?
King John II said to his son:
-I am not sure. We are too short on population and we could attract foreginers that don't have good intentions. I for one am not intrested on communicating with other species. What if we fail to impress them? What if they decided to invade us?
However, the queen told the king:
-Last time I checked a book about the 1900s-2000s the humans...
-The humans are a bunch of idiots! They are just a bunch of racist idiots who don't care about nothing but getting rich! - The brother of the king, Johnatan, screamt.
-Just let her finish telling me what he wanted to tell me! This is not a fight of who's less racist and who's more! Besides, I read a lot of books about the Shamides and many humans were nice to us and wanted to end discrimination against us! Now continue my dear
-Thank you. As I was saying, last time I checked a book about the 1900s-2000s the humans didn't fear if they were invaded after sending the Arcebio message or sending the Voyager satelites outside the solar system. There were a bunch of movies where alien invaders were featured but aliens sure aren't just barbarians who love war and destroy entire worlds with laser weaponry. We might even find weaker species whom will be easy to conquer even with our 800 men army. As of you, Johnatan, I'll speak to you later.
-You just beated me - The king replied - William, if you wish, you can go to the old spaceship of the captain. I heard that it has the technology of communication that, somehow, is faster than light itself. However, not now as many dangerous animals are out there and the owner is sure closing his house to visits. You may visit tommorow. First, you'll go to the city outskirts, and then you'll pick up a horse from our personal stables along with the guards. I don't know if it still works though as it's years since it was actually used as a way of communication between the ships. We don't even know if it even worked at all since it was never tested on FTL distances when actually on space. Maybe the microbes or the decay might had damaged the spaceships. However, I hope the spaceships still have their speakers on since at least you can hear from those if the microphones are broken. - And the people began to talk around the topic of aliens and spaceships for about two hours before leaving to their rooms and the king and his son to their duties.
Sigma sector, Tarsis system, inner asteroid belt time and date N/A
The Ko-Sept-Rin were gone, forever stuck on a world, multiple attempts were made to retrieve them, such as sending comets to simply skip across the edge of the planet, but it would burn and break in the atmosphere and the gravity makes it too great to jump to. The KTP remained together continuing to construct the gravitational highway between and across planets of the system, making sure not to get to close to the star.
Ko-Sept-Rin(those who live on worlds)
Sigma sector, Tarsis system, planet Tarsis II, ocean floor, 1/1/1
The Icen colony easily found several places to live along the ocean floor as they contained high concentrations of food sources, they froze the water around them as they walked toward cold seeps in the ocean floor. As they kept on freezing the world around them it became less and less habitable for the local lifeforms who evacuated the area. The Icens decided to carve the ice structures they created around them into organized buildings and structures. But the thing on everyone's mind was how to return to the stars and rejoin thier brethren.
Arguments happen, they just do, you can't stop it, no matter how much power you have, even if it takes years to settle, when it does, everyone is stronger for it. Rivalries can be made into friendships if you let them.
Some ideas are meant to be made into reality, but most need to be burned at the stake.
Hating the things you love