Bobilbo had been walking for only 10 minutes, but he was already tired. Behind him he heard the sound of what seemed like mechanized spiders walking towards his group. When he looked backwards, the nightmare was true, a group of what seemed like a modified version of the Hazaka Union's Spider Tank was moving towards them. With a city in front of them though, they kept walking, hoping to get to the city before the things behind them got to the group. The city Bobilbo saw would be counted Tiny if it was in the Hazaka Union, cities in the Hazaka Union where built far away from each other but they where all made huge. Even with this, the city looked great, with the curving arches and the beautiful buildings, Bobilbo wondered what Jyasa would do if he got the message and came to the planet.

Jyasa was not happy, being forced to fly across the universe to get a small captain. Being forced to bring an Armada with him for what might just be a tiny rescue mission. This, paired with the fuel wasting of the trip, already put Jyasa in a bad mood. But the thought of there being hostile life on the planet made it worse. Jyasa had plans to destroy anything that stood in his way, but now, he might already have a war on his hands if they kill the Captain. Jyasa then thought of the benefits, if these things are peaceful, then he could try and forge an alliance with them.

Jyasa stood looking at the window in the royal class Speed Ship, a ship meant to go fast in a short amount of time. The ship was built like a small city though, having enough space to hold 1000 of Jyasa's closest friends if they ever needed to evacuate.

Soon, Jyasa got another message from Bobiblo, stating the threat of these Walker things that seemed to be hunting down the group and a city made to look like heaven. The message also gave a frequency they sent the message to, saying that Jyasa should send a warning to the frequency.

Planet L-1
Near the City_____________________________
The walker regiment had already passed the crashed spaceship; a single general combat walker and a troop transport had been left there, searching the wreckage for anything. The Varren in orbit kept picking up messages, and while the TInkerers tried to decipher their meaning, there was no way of reference to ever establish a translator. They were, naturally, confused and frightened with everything; there was an extremely small chance of them meeting so many people at the same time, and they currently had no way to translate with the newest ones.

On the ground, the walker regiment was actually only slightly faster than men moving on foot. Each walker was heavily armored, as per their standards. While other races' walkers might be fast and powerful, these were slow, strong, and heavy. Take a fighter and crash into it from Mach 5; you'll just knock it off its feet for a moment, and maybe knock some stuff around. Both GCs stayed close to the remaining transport, and the railgun walkers had already taken position.

After 15 minutes of chasing [5 minutes after being sighted], they got really tired [and their buddies had yet to show up], and so they called in so help.

The Varren, in orbit and just now passing overhead, was watching the entire thing. They received permission from Command and from the ground team to fire a warning shot on the unknown entities who were currently marching on their city.

About a hundred feet in front of the unknown entities, foreshadowed only by a momentary whistling sound, one of the very few giant trees scattered here and there abruptly exploded.

That is to say, a supersonic railgun shell came down from the heavens, broke through the canopy and hit the tree trunk a short distance from the bottom. The result was the shell continuing towards the ground, tearing the tree in half and completely demolishing the lower sections of the tree. Very, very slowly, the tree began falling on a perpendicular course, falling in a way that still left the path open to the nearby city, but still was a great warning:

You are much, much smaller than this tree.

Eternal Union Response
"This is Grand Vessel Garama'kum of Sazkarjhia. We have considered your offer after some time and we are more than willing to help establish this in order to bolster our economy. We have some of the best engineers and researchers this side of the cosmos, and our excellent metallurgical and fissile materials industries will provide greatly in development. We will, however, have to increase military presence in the area lest we encounter security concerns."

PNSS Might of a Thousand Suns

High Marshal Surek'sum led Captain Reynald through the catacombs of the destroyer, making important emphasis on the many gundecks that adorned the sides of the ship. There were two purposes for doing this: Impressing the primitive creature with advanced technology in order to develop fascination, and to send a message, "Do not cross us."

They eventually reached an elevator close to the fore of the ship, which took them up multiple floors to a sealed bridge. Out in the bridge, where officers were working on ship maintenance, a sprawling view of the mountain range was laid before them. Captain Reynald had stopped and the Marshal strode around him, doing an about face and making a small curtsy.

"While I'm sure there is much you want to ask of us, I have only two small requests to make. For one, I want to know where the capital of this world is, as I'm sure my superiors would be very interested in speaking to your own. Alongside this, I was wondering if you would be able to accept my soldiers, whom have not had shore leave in many weeks and would wish to stay for some time here on Nouvelle."

Carrier Li Wen, Pearl Fleet Vanguard Squadron Flagship, in docking alongside STC Acheron

Captain Hign and Admiral Hei had been among the Alarai who found themselves suddenly flopping on the deck, struggling to upright themselves in an environment without the buoyancy provided by water. However, Captain Hign's forsight had proven immensely valuable as the aquagills, small, miniture water packs to be worn on the gills, comparable to breathing apparatuses land walkers wore when going underwater, made sure that even as they were disoriented, confused and a bit silly, none of them were dying from a lack of oxygen.

As the Septonians raced in to aid the Alarai, the Alarai quickly managed to right themselves, sitting on their tales and embracing the sensation of not having the water of the ocean on their skin and scales. Captain Hign, the Alarai that Commander Zilicin had raced towards and helped, looked up at him and waved his hand in a declining fashion, with the crew after all having been trained in the possibility of sudden drainage. "It's alright, It's alright," Captain Hign said to Commander Zilicin, not sure if he was guessing his intention to help correctly but assuming so anyways. "We're fine. We're fine." he said, his voice artificially replicated in the speakers of his aqualung to sound the same as if it was spoken underwater to prevent the sudden change in sound from causing confusion with the language.

Sitting up straight on their tails (which made the Alarai look a lot shorter than the Septonians), the Alarai looked at the species they had encountered. They had legs, which was perhaps the most surreal concept to them. They had no shortage of such creatures on Atlantis, but they were primarily unevolved apes who lived in the forests of the planet. Did they live on the surface of their planets? Where there no Alarian-like creatures on their planets?

Admiral Hei managed to make his way to the front and faced Commander Zilicin, looking at his uniform and the accumulation of awards and badges to decide that he seemed like the alien in charge. As such, in the half flooded passageway with the Alarai sitting awkwardly, much of the Septonian food completely ruined and their uniforms completely drenched, Admiral Hei extended his hand to Commander Zilicin.

"I am Admiral Hei of the Alarai," he said, unsure if the aliens had managed to translate their language - their own officers were still hard at work on translating Septonian - "and on behalf of all Alarai, we come in peace."

Uncharted System: Surprise attack

As the missiles collided with the partially shielded arms, the field broke and the plates splintered off, whirling into oblivion. Now the Temple had no armor, and was being slowly picked apart by the warship. The cruiser got a shot off with it's Entropy Cannon, and then did something unexpected: Something shot out of its center, ripping through the body of the Ethereal vessel and continuing onwards to the Explorer, smashing through the hull where the beam had hit. It ripped through two decks, before coming to a standstill in the top center of the enemy ship, a perfect sphere still smoking from it's high velocity impact. The Battered cruiser seemed to be offline now, and both Sisters and Matrons were leaving it in the dozens, flying towards and crawling around the outside of the Valkian ship.

Meanwhile, The Conduit Ship's micro gravity minefield intercepted most of the shots, destroying some of the Matrons supporting the field. Others around the moved to replace and extend the field as wide as possible, defending the cruiser as best as they could. Three or four of the slug rounds hit various armored points in the Ethereal vessel, blowing off chunks of it's armor. The light it produced from it's high energy signal flickered, but then regained strength. It was getting weaker, and still had no response from the Home Fleet.

Halls of the Devout, Aratha
Final World of the Holy Arathian Empire

The Arathian knelt down before the hierarchs, and spoke slowly "We have failed, the city has fallen."
"Rise. Prepare our ships, we shall leave immediately" The hierarch said, turning towards the door. The officer spoke quickly as be raised from the floor
"The parasite has captured the shipyards, the Commander led them to your ship. He gave them the access code for the Halls of the Devout." He said, pointing towards the view screen as it displayed the over run ships
"Impossib..." The heirarch paused and glanced back towards the officer, hesitant "Call for aid...
"The commander has shut off our communications array, we're deaf and dumb"
"And soon to be dead" Came a sharp voice, as the door to the room slid open to reveal a horde of infection forms, which flooded in. "All bridges tumble down! And now your knowledge is ours!"

Space Port, Aratha

"We have what we came for, Commander." The thinker rasped, drawing closer to the commander, who raised his weapon to stop him
"Then leave parasite. It is time for you to uphold your end of the agreement." The Commander said cooly, powering up his weapon to prove he would back up his threat
"We shall take your ships and leave... May our paths never cross again"
"If they do, I shall cleanse you with holy flame." This time the thinkers only reply was a laugh, as the L'Er moved towards the space ships to leave the world.

Somewhere
"We have the information, it will be most useful in our future endeavours..."
"We can build it"
"Given the right resources... But first, we must acquire them..."
"Let us turn our attention to that..."

Nouvelle
Two of the guards left and returned to the shuttle, while the diplomat and remaining two guards joined up with the soldiers meant to escort.

"Thank you General, we would indeed like to meet your Queen. Lead on." said the diplomat.

Sol
"Sometimes I wish you Terrans were just a tad bit more subtle. As you have guessed the other Immortal's actions have already started a chain reaction that is leading to a civil war. The people rallying against them have already chosen me as the leader of the movement. However for reasons I cannot let you join in on the civil war. I was also like those two divisions you currently have as prisoners, they are loyal to me and trained by me after all. I also need Fergus, but I will leave it up to him if he wants to come or not. Almost all on both sides of this civil war still do believe him the Hero of Gliese, he could cause those on the other side to join me and the remaining undecided to join me as well." said Aaliyah.

New Condia: Ground
The Stealth fighters were to fast and nimble for the shrike fighters. While they don't have the same firepower as other fires, and lacked the green-and-orange fire that hadn't been used anywhere on the ground of New Condia, they compensated by being fast and annoying. One did go down though, however only after the pilot's cloak had accidentally failed. The rest focused on taking out the bombers. A new wing of fighters also joined the battle, however these were not stealth ones. They had massive amounts of rail-guns attached to them, and began focusing on one bomber or gun-ship at a time, not letting them damage the ground forces.

One mage had managed to fall after a few soldiers had ganged up on him, as well as another two that had fallen to the various point-defense guns, although it had come at severe lost. Before one of them died he detonated the gems within the finger-tips of suits, causing a massive explosion of purple energy. The rest redirected themselves back to the perimeter and projected a massive shield over it, combining whatever energy they were using to strengthen it. The perimeter had suffered quite a few causalities, as in the distance various AA-Guns were placed down, and began rapidly firing up at the enemy's fighters and gunships.

New Condia:Space
Unfortunately for the Septonians the green-and-orange fire did not start out as goo. Destroying the missiles warheads caused it to explode still and cause damage to whatever it touched, but it did spread over a much wider area, causing less damage to single ships but more damage to the fleet as a whole. The space forces had a bit more luck in taking out the fighters and bombers, however most still escaped because of their stealth. The dreadnought and battlecruisers moved out in front, unleashing a massive payload of missiles, lasers, and rail-gun fire. The amount of missiles released must have been the entire ship's stock of them, as it was such a huge amount that at least a few would get past the Septonian's point defense.

As soon as the Lahai class vessel had appeared behind the fleet the rear-guns unleashed a massive amount of kinetic weapons on it. It did get away however, but many of the mines had been impacted, which should cause them to explode.

Message to the Sazkarjhit
"For obvious reasons you will not be allowed to station military forces at any of our planets or stations, excluding those that Seegson has setup as apart of the mining deal they have setup with you. The R&D department's labs, offices, and facilities will be located in a system we scouted close to your colony that is near Sol. We already have construction under way, and are requested that you send resources to help finish the facility."

Message to Eternal Union
"It's not a matter of debate. Sazkarjhia is quite a distance from your planets and if you will not allow even a single spacefaring vessel to patrol those routes of space, you can forget doing further business with Sazkarjhia. This will include the destruction and relocation of all facilities and staff belonging to your Seegson corporation. We emphasize security, and if you do not recognize dangers in space how Sazkarjhia does--regardless of how powerful or advanced you may be--then, simply put, there will be no further contribution."

STC Inrilk ( A-237)
Captain La’jue

“ The Admiral has issued the retreat order” Captain La’jue said “ Call our troops back and begin charging our jump drives for immediate retreat”. The space battle had hit a slight lull after that last salvo and it seemed that more alien ships were on the way. This was a defeat in La’jue’s book, their first combat action against an enemy force was a resounding defeat and resulted in quite a few casualties. The concordant learned a few things about their own military, realizing that they were behind the curve in space. If they lived long enough to get home the drums of war would sound for the Jaques and third fleet’s dead crew.

“ arm all missile tubes and cannons with smoke canisters, target no mans land by the crash site”. The vibrations from the weapons leaving the formation could be felt as the smoke rounds flew down towards the planet. Captain La'jue also deployed canisters of IR smoke in the space between the two fleets to mask his movement and hide the thermal signature of the evacuation force.

STC Jaques ( BH-44)
Crash landed on New Condia
Cmdr. Deaxja ( KIA)
Lt. Cmdr Sinidas Kalai ( Now in Command)

The sound of shells coming in from orbit was unmistakable, a shrill high pitched whine followed by a roaring before the shells impacted the ground. Smoke instantly started providing a visual barrier, completely blanketing the space between the two forces. Sinidas knew what was happening “ RTO!, get the gunships to assemble around the ship, the crew, dead and wounded leave first followed by the marines”. he yelled running up to one of the barriers along the perimeter. The Gunships quickly reacted to the orders and dropped in around the ship while the crew, carrying the dead and wounded began running to the landed ships while being covered by the marines and fighters. Once the crew was loaded into the transport gunships the loaded transports left, escorted by half of the fighter squadron. “ Make sure the salvage team destroys what they cant take, Nothing gets left behind” he said towards the marine captain before turning away and running towards the bridge. The combat casualties were already gone and the bridge was stripped of all of its tech, the plastic explosive C-12 was placed on each station and the star chart had been smashed with the butt of a rifle. It looked eerily empty, a far cry from what it was not too long ago. Satisfied by the salvage team’s work he quickly ran back down the halls towards the exposed engineering deck to supervise the marine evacuation. “ Get down sir!” was all Sinidas heard before being tackled to the ground followed by an ear shattering explosion. One of the enemies projectile grenades had arced over the barrier and exploded in the air, raking the recoilless rifle team with shrapnel and destroying the weapon. Sinidas wiggled his fingers in toes to make sure they were still attached before looking to see who saved his life, it was the Marine captain. “ Im hit…..” the captain said in a weak tone, slowly rolling off Sinidas. The back of his powered armor had been blown apart by the blast, his spine and ribs were exposed under the armor where the flesh had been blown away. The marines corpsmen hurriedly ran over and looked over the captain letting out a quiet curse before looking up at Sinidas and shaking his head. “ Ill stay behind, give me the dead-mans switch” the captain said weakly, tearing off his helmet and throwing it over to the side. Sinidas and the corpsmen dragged the wounded captain back into what used to be the engine room where twelve warheads were connected to a small switch, placing him on the wall next to the collection of warheads. Sinidas placed a hand on the captains shoulder and nodded opening his mouth to speak before being cut off by the captain “ Get off this planet and don’t look back commander, make sure my marines get out alive” he said before pushing Sinidas away.

The second group of gunship transports had landed and the marines were bounding back towards the ships, throwing nine banger stun grenades and frags before finally getting on the ships. Sinidas was the last one to board the transport, before it abruptly lifted off into the air and made for orbit at full speed, escorted by the other half of the fighter wing. They dodged AAA fire and anti air defenses for a while before moving out of range, the second they cleared the airspace the ship detonated, engulfing the ground below him in a dome of bright white fire. Even as they pulled into orbit, the explosion was still visible below them.

The space battle didn’t look like it went well either, the third fleet look like it had taken a beating, each ship was pockmarked and some parts of the hull was exposed. He understood why they were so eager to leave, this was their first major defeat in a while. “ Never forget what you saw here, remember those who fell in battle today. Remember this day as the first battle of the war, so when you are fat and old you can tell your grandchildren that you fought on this unknown planet and saw the beginning of another great war. You have seen our enemy marines, now it is time to learn and train, so when we come back to his bloody portion of the galaxy we can kill them all”. Sinidas’s speech was met with cheers from the weary marines, they were all hungry for revenge. Sinidas caught a glimpse of the corpsmen, who was sitting against the wall towards the back of the gunship transport. His head was hung low and his helmet dangled loosely in his hand between his legs. As Sinidas walked closer the corpsmen lifted his head in surprise before nodding slightly. " I know that was a hard thing to do" Sinidas said " He was a good leader, from what I saw". The corpsmen nodded and looked back down towards the ground before speaking " He was a newly wed, married the governor of Chicarus's daughter three days before we left. I going to have to tell her...". A long sigh escaped Sinidas's lips before he patted the corpsmen on the shoulder " Strength and honor marine, we will be back". With all of the surviving fighters and gunship transports docked, the third fleet made a full burn towards the dark side of the planet before jumping out of the system, eager to get back home.

STC Acheron
Making contact with Pearl Fleet
Deep Space, Alari Abyss
Lt Cmdr. Zilicin

The Aradites had pulled the translation packages out of their powered armor before coming aboard so when the alien spoke a rough translation came out of the speaker on his hip. Zilicin couldn’t help but smile as the alien sat upright and spoke, a moment ago he though he had killed the entire room by accident. After hearing the Alarai’s rank Zilicin slowly stood up and offered Admiral Hei a crisp salute before speaking “ I am Lieutenant Commander Uai Halcyron Zilicin of the Septoninan Navy, its an honor to meet your people sir” he said, offering a hand towards Admiral Hei. “ We had more offerings to bring but, our entrance seemed to have washed them away, apologies for that”. Zilicin waved the rest of his officers over and quickly ordered them to attention “ These are the officers of the Acheron sir, I am sure you will meet each one of them as the day goes on”. Each one of the officers carried a rather large glass jug with varying colors of liquid inside. “ we have offerings of wine from the finest houses in the Concordant, shall we go somewhere more comfortable for you?”

New Condia
"Do not pursue, let them retreat. There still might be a chance for peace yet."

The message sounded across New Condia's defense network, as the fleet began seeing what damage had been done. Freighters flew in and recovered the scraps of alien technology left by them, jumping off to no doubt Facility A-5 so they could be researched. The fleet seemed mostly intact but on the ground however most of the forces had been destroyed by the nuclear blast. More freighters rushed in and brought in terraforming supplies to rid New Condia of the radiation before it could cause trouble to civilian populations.

In New Condia's capital a few diplomats and military personnel gathered to discuss the situation. They had finally translated the alien's language perfectly, after a few hours of hard work. The diplomats, being the bubbles of optimism that they were still hoped for peace, however with how aggressive the aliens had been the military personnel doubted it, with what was recovered of the alien's tech already at Facility A-5 under-going study to find its weaknesses. Only time would tell what would happen.

Shipyards, New Alas
The Overseer of the Shipyard had thought it odd when Ironbones sent in ship designs. These new ones were for the 9th and 8th fleets, however they lacked a lot of weaponry. The plans had shown them with weapons slot but Ironbones said he was waiting on something for these to be filled in. It had taken him a while but the Overseer had finally learned that the slots were for Plasma Weapons. He wished such research had not have been carried out, but with a increasingly amount of hostile aliens it was necessary.

Message to Sazkarjhia
"I think you were mistaken, we merely said you could not station ships at our planets or stations. Your ships still may patrol, just not within our space. Your ships also may escort trade ships and freighters up to the station, and if in need can dock to receive repairs and supplies."

BOOM!
Bobilbo stepped back, waving at the ship that just shot the giant mortar at them. He did the Hazaka Union Symbol of Peace, but of course that probably would not work on what seemed as savage creatures. He pulled out his messenger and gave it one last shot, he turned on the translate all button and hoped that one of the languages would work on them. ((OOC thing here, these guys know a bunch of different languages, they've heard messages before, but none to them, they copied these languages and started learning them)).

Jyasa was nearing the planet Bobilbo's signal came from, out side there solar system at most, this meant Jyasa had to be ready for anything, so he turned on the shields of there ship just incase an attack was awaiting him. Jyasa sent one more message to the savage beasts.

Uncharted Space: Returning Fire
As the enemy buzzer things close in, armor plates shift, creating momentary, tiny weakspots as they extend out and begin rearranging themselves, moving to cover the breached spot before further damage could be done, or before the enemy swarm could reach the ship. At this point, they had already closed the gap between the two ships, which was more fortunate for the Valkians than for the Etherals. Despite having a hole punched in the ship, the rearranging armor allowed for it to be covered up and contain both air and hull integrity before any major damage was received.

As the incoming swarm approached, the Valkians waited anxiously for the Swarmer turrets to reload. It was a simple process: A grid-like piece with the same amount of open spots as the turret, filled with more missiles, would simply slide them in. The problem was that it all moved rather slowly. Coming to a decision, many of the Engineers and their Hunter guards climbed onto the turret's base, to protect it from whatever was out there so that it could fire its payload, and head back under.

As the two doors above began opening, swinging out to slowly clip onto the surrounding armor, and the base started rising, they could see the strange things flying over. When one, surrounded like blades like the one that had screeched at them some time before, an Engineer, armed with an energy assault rifle, let loose. A burst of nearly transparent blue lasers lashed out, many of the lasers missing, but three of them scoring hits on the strange enemy. It promptly burst, dead or dying, and the rest of the half-dozen Engineers raised their weapons, scared and with the a bad case of the trigger finger. The four Hunters around them had their shoulder-mounted weapons ready, and their blades were out and ready for action. They were all just as scared as the Hunters, and would surely admit it some time later. At the moment, they focused themselves.

The turret rose; the strange creatures attacked and were pushed back. After only half a minute, the Swarmer turret fired, unleashing a swarm that began tearing through the swarm around the Explorer; just as before, little could stand in the path of the swarm of missiles [unless you wish to change it]. As the swarm around the ship cleared, the particle cannons at the front of the ship opened fire, attempting to cut the ship in half.

Inside, the Valkians were panicking. They were doing the usual: closing down airlocks, welding what they could shut, and freezing everything that looked to be in danger of exploding or further damage. Generally, they were all extremely frightened because one ship had punched a hole through their armor- their impenetrable armor. Now, they were spraying the strange ball-thing with dozens of gallons of liquid nitrogen, in their attempt to neutralize it. Many bombs couldn't go off if they were frozen, studies had shown.

From the rear of the Explorer, a small drone appeared, jetting back and away from battle. As it reached the edge of what would be designated as a combat zone, it flashed into warp space, and disappeared.

Some distance away, the Varren fired a second barrage, rolling as it did so, and fired a third with the bottom turrets, trying to combine firepower of the different turrets for maximum damage against the unknown shield.

Planet L-1
On the ground, the forces came to a halt a short distance away, the numbered-as-few units watching with apprehension and a tight anxiety. After some moments, the transport caught up, and deposited its several Hunters before scurrying off. The two GC combats also deposited their own diplomats, and they, too, scurried away, hiding in the underbrush some distance away. Looking around closely, one might see the railgun walkers hidden among a hill and a tree, ready to intervene.

As 5 hunters and two Tinkerers cautiously walked forward, pieces of equipment in Tinkerers' hands, the leading Tinkerer put up a hand, as if to say Stop!

Other than that, besides coming to a halt some [safe] distance away, they just stared, unsure on how to communicate. They looked among themselves, and tried to brainstorm on how to communicate.

The other Tinkerer reached an idea, and pulled out his handgun. Instead of aiming it, however, he held it by its barrel, handgrip towards the unknown peoples. It was an awful gamble, but the Hunters' shoulder-mounted weapons, while not aimed at the unknowns, would still be able to fire faster than the handgun, which required a short charge, and was 'matched' to the specific DNA of the user, for security purposes.

In Orbit of Planet L
The Varren was surprised, and quickly began turning its massive bulk. It fired its engines, fired off a message to Command and the closest Explorer, and began dipping into the gravity well, starting to slingshot itself around the planet, out of reach of any weapons.

Uncharted Space: Boarders

Constructs screamed and buzzed towards the defense crews, returning fire with particle decay beams, but most were torn to shreds by the wall of fire. One Matron slammed into the side of the ship, exploding violently and spraying a Hunter with thick black goop, while another lunged at an Engineer, spearing through his torso. Clinging to the blade, horrified, he was flung to the side into the vacuum of space, as it was gunned down quickly into it's constituent parts. The assault was fierce, and the Ethereals were about to overwhelm them and begin entering the ship.

A hail of missile fire tore through the Gathering ranks, detonating violently and sending a storm of debris hurtling to the ship, striking and glancing off the thick armor. There were no survivors of the attack, and had been driven back. The damaged Cruiser, no functions active what so ever, was torn asunder, and detonated int large shards of wreckage. The other Temple's minefield moved to intercept, but were overwhelmed by the wall of slugs, and the cruiser took multiple hits, especially on it's exposed Core. A bright blue explosion eviscerated the supporting Matrons around it, and one asteroid shattered into millions of rocks from the force of the detonating Temple's reactor. Nothing remained at all of the second Cruiser.

On board, the surrounding emergency response crews, thinking it was a bomb, flinched when it cracked open slightly, wisps of grey smoke leaking out of it. Slowly, it rose, unaffected by the liquid nitrogen as it turned slowly, locking it's three lens, red eye onto the nearest Engineer. Watching him silently save for a light chattering coming from it, it split open into four pieces and let out an ear splitting metallic howl, deafening him, before a beam shot out from the center and struck him. He stood there, dumbstruck for half a second, before he glowed white and exploded in a flash of radioactive vapor. The Witch proceeded to clear a path through the Engineers, as they panicked and ran in all directions, four workers falling to the onslaught, before it busted a hole in the side of a ventilation shaft and disappeared, seeking out any computer database it could find.

Uncharted world: A bridge to the past

As the Matron Scout team landed on the surface, they observed and scanned the environment, hoping to find their objective. The Overseer Witch Council had delved deep into their archives, searching for what they believed to be a weapon to use against the newly discovered organics encountered. While they posed little threat for the moment, a uniting of their forces could prove troublesome, especially if they were to push on the Void Expanse. It was here, that maybe, they could find it.

As they hovered over the landscape, it was determined that they had been here. This world was once rich in life, and now they had cleared it of everything. Long ago, it had been revered as a God of Undoing, a warrior sent to consume those who had turned away from the Light. It's name had been Crawling Devourer, and it's presence was felt far and wide, an unholy amalgamation of flesh and bone, decaying corpses and drive to feed. A drive to survive.

The Ol'tiu, during their war with the Yss'Tkuld, had sought to destroy it, and were extremely successful in their campaign. It was fate, however, that they were defeated and destroyed before they could cleanse all planets of the Infection. With luck. it had laid dormant for all these years. And with luck, they would strike upon a deal with the Beast.

Facility A-1: The Raid

They warped in a fair distance from the Research Station, a collection of forty vessels, thirty five Temples, four Amazons and a single Cathedral. Their black coloration marked them out as Black Fleet operatives, and their goal was clear: Blitz the Station. Destroy the Armor. And, most importantly, retrieve Dr. Vahlen.

Uncharted Space: Aftermath
With the external threats, the command crew began to exhale. Being only a deck and three hundred feet away from where the unknown object had smashed through the armor, they felt extremely lucky. While the defense crews on the outside had been halved, the other half being critically wounded or [presumed] dead, and with their armor penetrated, they felt rather lucky. The Varren was celebrating; they took no damage and destroyed a ship, marking down a tally for itself. The Explorer, with some amount of damage to its hull, as being the original ship to fight first against [Darkwolf's] the first unknown contact, now had another kill added to its mark, taking it up to 2. The crew, however, were freaking out. They ALL could see the unknown entity killing them, and they ALL could see it flying through their ventilation.

In panic, dozens and dozens of Hunters, Engineers, and Tinkerers armed themselves from a previously-unused armory, and armed with rifles, carbines, and handguns, began to run out to different decks, somewhat organizing themselves by placing themselves where there weren't many. When the unknown thing flew through the ducts over their head, which were quite small, they'd all start shooting, tearing apart the duct. All Valkians that weren't armed had already cleared the area; there was a concentration trying to move with the Witch, and then everyone else tried to stay away. Eventually, someone thought to close off the ventilation shafts, getting Engineers to weld them shut to try and contain the creature.

Before they could do so, the creature burst out of the vent in a different room, a public communications room, where the Valkian crew could send messages home with the next beacon. Recently added, and up-to-date. About three Hunters followed the thing into the room, intent on feverishly attacking whatever it was with their bone blades, screaming through their door and coming right after it.

There was no order, no real organization, just a crowd consent, and all the officers were as scared or as determined as the regular crew.

Can't escape from a larger force in confined quarters where they can ALL see you.

Facility A-1: The Raid
Facility A-1 was not a normal station, it clearly had more defenses and more well-trained staff for those defenses. It only took a few minutes for the Facility to be in order for defending it. Massive shields projected over the station, as the fighter and bomber wings stationed there went into the air, the non-heavy ones cloaking and preparing to drop their payloads upon the Ethereals. The first wave of weapons were magical lasers, intended to burn through the shields of the Ethereal ships. Next the standard balefire and kinetic weapons were mixed when any of the shields of the Ethereal ships dropped; added to this mix was new anti-matter missiles, contacting with the ships armor and annihilating, creating great explosions. Also a few Plasma turret encampments on the station fired as well, but these seemed to be new and relatively rare amongst the station, but they did damage none the less.

Stealth bombers as well as heavy bombers moved in and deployed balefire and anti-matter on the Ethereal ships. This time the fighters stayed back, and were already ready for any dog-fights against Matrons or Sisters that the Ethereals might deploy. From a different part of the facility two new ships came out, clearly prototype ones for some new future Iscandarian ship design. They appeared to be frigates, but were more elongated, and rather then the standard silver-and-gold coloring of Iscandarian ships, they were a purplish-black. These ships began accelerating towards the Ethereals, and then cloaked, the first Iscandarian frigates to do so. When they reappeared they launched plasma and anti-matter missiles, and attempted to re-cloak before the Ethereals could hit them.

Facility A-1: Gauntlet

The ships gathered together into a tight sphere, devoting all power to defense and armor, protecting the core Cathedral and Amazons as best as possible. The resultant formation made them much more durable, as the armor faced the outside of the sphere and intercepted much of the incoming fire. The magic based weapons, meanwhile, proved to be the most detrimental, causing three damaged Temples to fly out with no armor of the formation, and the ball grew tighter. These Cruisers accelerated towards the squadrons at various points, and detonated after too much fire, trapping scores of them in the blast. The cloaked enemy bombers, meanwhile, were unscathed.

As the Fleet approached, the front of the formation broke away, and the Cathedral's Collapse Cannon began to charge. Hundreds of Matrons flew from the formation, forming a dense web of fighter craft to intercept and destroy any squadrons who tried to get to the front. This shot, when fired, would hopefully be enough to bring down the shields of the station.

On board the Explorer

As the Witch began trying to access the files, it whirled around at the Hunters, and hissed at them, confused as to how they found it so quickly and floating up. It fired a beam, narrowly missing one of them, and began to try to fall back slightly. It's weapon was not meant to fire quickly, and if they moved fast enough, it could avoid the beam before it fired,

Facility A-1: The Sacrifice
One of the Captains realized that without this station the Eternal Union was doomed, even with the prospect of Civil War. Whichever side won would need this station and its research to allow the growth and survival of the Eternal Union. Thus he and his crew prepared, for the greater good was calling, and it called for a sacrifice for the good of all.

The prototype ship dropped it shields, and sent all of its power to its engine and overcharging it's Manafusion reactors and other powersources. All Balefire was prepped to detonate, as well as the remaining anti-matter missiles. Nothing could stop the frigate as it blared across space, flying straight into the Catherdral's collaspe cannon, intent on taking it down before they could fire it. Fighters fell as they attempted to defend the station, but once the other defensive forces realized what was going on they focused all fire on the Catherdral's collaspe cannon as well. Facility A-1 would not fall.

The prototype ship was nearing now, damaged from taking fire without its shields. The last few minutes as the crew prayed to the Eternal Mother.

Then the ship impacted.

The explosion was immense, as magic, balefire, and the remnants of anti-matter annihilation spread across the Ethereal Fleet. The impact was greater then that of the Balefire megaspells used on the Ethereals so long ago at New Condia. Hopefully the ship's sacrifice was worth it. The 1st Fleet dropped nearby as they immediatly began focusing fire on a single point of the Ethereal ship, not spreading it out. The fleet's fighters and bombers joined those of Facility A-1, as the Admiral Iscancoff was already informed of the Captain's sacrifice. They would not let in be in vain, as they fought harder then ever before against the Ethereals.

Facility A-1: Cataclysm

As the weapon prepared to fire, The impacting frigate set off a chain reaction of wormhole destabilization events that had a far greater detonation than expected inside the Cathedral. The effect cascaded, as the ship grew brighter and brighter, while Temple's broke off, some even warping out. Suddenly, the singularity ballooned massively, enveloping the Cathedral and surrounding ships, before detonating with incredible force. The shock wave ripped through the Station's shields, and the facility took severe damage from both the rending of local space-time and the unstable exotic matter bombarding the station at near the speed of light.

Decks exploded, and parts fragmented off the facility, but was otherwise still functional to some degree. On board, fires broke out, and extensive damage was confirmed to manner core systems. Yet somehow, it had survived the detonation of a black hole, though barely clinging to life. The researched Matron was still functioning, though it was slightly damaged, and many of the crew were still alive, though there were severe casualties and injuries.

Facility A-1:Aftermath
The Facility had mostly lost docking bays as well as few outer security station and defenses. None the less damage was still across other decks, as in the living personnel and repair drones took out the fires and kept the facility stable. Researchers were carted off to medi-bays as the doctors quickly healed them, using the power of magic to do so. It did not take long for support vessels to arrive, quickly preparing the station. When the researchers were stable they headed immediately back to their research, as it had become evident that the Ethereals got more aggressive by they day, and that research would be needed to take care of them. The fleet had been far away enough to not suffer much damage from the explosion, only suffering damage to shields. The Fleet mopped up the remnants of the Ethereals, as freighters arrived and took the salvage to Facility A-1's storage for research. Only a few fighters and bombers made it out, and even then with all the magic used for medical purposes on the pilots of them it was likely they would not survive.

With most of the facility stable the same researched who had entered the Matron last time had a strange device on his head. It used telepathic magic to stabilize the mind, and he had a few cybernetic implants as well that did much the same. He stepped into the Matron, ready to see what would happen this time.