“Unknown”

Came the inevitable answer from the ships AI. “Thats not good enough Valerie.” Rhea said with a stern edge in her voice. “Find out.” The hologram of Valerie shot an indignant look at her captain before flickering out of existence. No sooner had she done this than the image of her face on the rightmost of the bridges three forward screens spoke again. “Captain, we are in orbit of an unknown planet, and we are not alone. There are a number of other ships of various unknown configurations also in orbit.” Rhea rested her head in her hand as the report came in. It was going to be one of those days it seemed. “Is there anything in system that doesn’t fall under the qualifier ‘unknown’?” Rhea had a feeling she’d be hearing the word a lot for the rest of the day, but there had to be at least [i]some[/i] points of similarity that the ship could identify.

The AI glared at her from the screen for a moment, she was a scout ship, and being called out on an inability to quickly gather information was like calling the AI of a Glorious Heritage class heavy cruiser a coward. Annoyance was evident in her voice when she spoke again. “Yes, in fact there is. A number of the ships are hailing us, all of them are speaking English.” Rhea sighed then, she’d hardly managed to pick herself up from being thrown across the bridge and already the unknowns wanted to talk to her. “Alright, put the first one through.”

[i]"Unidentified vessels. By the power given to me by the Supreme Emperor of the Galactic Empire, I hereby order you to declare yourselves immediately and to stand down and enter formation with the nearest Cruiser. From there, you will be boarded to ensure that you do not pose a threat to the peoples of Coruscant. Do you comply with these orders?"[/i]

Rhea just stared at her AI’s face with a deadpan expression for a moment after the message ended, before finally breaking the silence by speaking, in a semi-sarcastic voice “Well at least the Nietzscheans didn’t win.” The AI responded quickly though, having already returned to the conversational tone she usually delivered news in. “It’s not the Commonwealth either. I haven’t discovered where are, but I’ve discovered where we aren’t. Constellations and Stellar expansion charts indicate that we are no longer in the known worlds. I have compared our positions with Commonwealth exploration charts as well, and there was no match. We aren’t even close to known space.” That put a damper on things. Barring time travel, there was no way Rhea could get the Valorous Intent back to the fleet for the battle now, assuming she could even get back to the known worlds at all.

Rhea’s initial thought was to allow the locals to board. They didn’t seem like they would be very happy if she denied them that, but there was no way they could easily dock a shuttle. The drone bays were quite full and cramped at the best of times anyway, and the Valorous Intent did not have the cavernous port and starboard docking bays that an XMC had. No, allowing them to board would mean docking with one of their ships, which would both put her in easy weapons range and allow the larger enemy ships to easily overrun the small crew of the Intent in a massed boarding action. she would have to deny them, but perhaps she could do it in a way that would keep her options open and avoid being fired upon immediately.

“Valerie, hail the ship that sent the message” A quick sideways flick of the eyes was all the response she got before Valerie announced “Channel is open.” Rhea didn’t know if these unknowns were able to receive the visual feed or not, but she acted like they could, standing straight and tall in her black High Guard uniform in the center of the bridge, the very image of an officer of the Systems Commonwealth. “Galactic Empire vessel.” She began, choosing her words carefully. “This is the Systems Commonwealth starship Valorous Intent, we do not intend harm to you or the planet below, and would like to submit to your request. However, our airlocks have been damaged -” An outright lie, but it was likely these unknowns would be unable to tell “- and it is currently be impossible for you to board.” Their response to this would give Rhea some indication of what kind of an Empire she was facing. If they just fired on her, she would have to consider them an enemy to be avoided, but if they offered aid, then at least they might be reasoned with. That or their leaders were not brutish thugs who solved everything by shooting first. Either way she’d have to pay them more heed and watch for traps.

Moments after the hail was cut Valerie’s face scrunched into a frown and she spoke, a degree of concern in her voice “Captain something unusual is happening…” Rhea immediately turned to face the representation of the AI. “What is it now?” In a whole day of unusual events, now apparently there was one that was more unusual than the rest. “Something is trying to get in.” Valerie said indignantly. “Another AI just attacked me. He didn’t stay long, but I think he was searching for files on the ships specifications. I traced his signal, he came from [i]that[/i] ship.” She said, highlighting one of the blips that indicated the vessels surrounding the Intent. “Did he get anything?” Rhea’s response was slightly alarmed, she wasn’t used to fighting people with AI’s, and she didn’t look forward to the experience. The hologram of Valerie appeared then, next to Rhea and looking pleased with herself. The face on the screen looked at the hologram with a scowl as the three dimensional image spoke. “Please, no AI can out-do me in my own body.” The image only smirked before disappearing again.