The Romanova shot out of the wormhole into empty intergalactic space. The ship groaned and popped as thermal and structural stresses sorted themselves out. Ionizable materials leaked out of a hole where the ship scraped on something in the wormhole. The thick gas crystallized into a pale blue snow in the vacuum of space. One of the external lights illuminating "C.C.C.P." flickered.

The bridge wasn't roomy. The Romanova had been built in space, and, with exception of the small corner to shoot propaganda videos, every surface of the bridge was covered with storage compartments, green-tinged computer screens, blinking lights, diagrams, dials, toggles, valves, wires, pipes, and reels of magnetic tape. Collapsible acceleration seats - little more than metal poles and fabric - jutted out wherever Soviet engineers could cram them in. Most of the storage compartments were on what would be the floor when the ship was under acceleration, but that was the designers' only concession to a concept of "up" or "down".

Kapitan Venera floated near the central status display, two of the four color monitors on the ship that displayed an aggregate of radar and magnetodynamic sensors. The central status display had the monitors placed perpendicular to each other to provide a facsimile of 3D space. Next to the displays was a diagram of the ship full of LED's - red for damaged, off for nominal.

There were a lot of red LED's at the moment.

Venera pushed a toggle. A rounded vid-comm monitor came to life near her head. It was linked to the engineering section of the ship. Dr. Gregor Zelinsky was talking to someone offscreen, signing something with a pencil before turning to the monitor. A spaceman in the background was spraying something with a fire extinguisher, feet hooked into straps along the wall.

"Comrade Commander! Hello," Zelinsky said.
"Comrade Zelinsky. You have five minutes to get the weapons systems online," Venera said.
"No, Commander, I'm afraid that's quite impossible; we don't even know the extent of the damage to the ionizable materials tanks-"
"Do it, or find someone who can." A large fuse exploded in a shower of sparks in the background. The technician working on it ducked, and then gingerly began taking it out.
"But, Commander, I really must protest; there are several more important-"
"Comrade, you may have had leniency back on Earth. Now you will function in a military chain of command. This ship is like a pyramid. Take out one block and it all falls. I will not repeat this lesson, Doctor."
"I- alright."

Venera cut the video feed. Somewhere to her left, down a narrow, twisting corridor of equipment and consoles, a phosphorous green radar screen pinged.

"New radar contact! Ship emerging off the starboard bow," a spaceman said.

Venera let out a frustrated growl. This was exactly what she was afraid of. The Romanova's tesla coils were offline, leaving only the point defense cannons (never before tested) and inaccurate missiles. She didn't have a choice, really. She pressed the vid-comm switch to the cosmonaut ready room. The image immediately faded out with a small pop. Great. Another vacuum tube blown.

"Comrade Commander!" Volkov's disembodied voice said. "Is it time?"
Venera repressed a sigh. This is what she'd come to.
"Da. Two flaks only, comrade. Defensive formations. Eight hour rotation. And inspect the hull for damages."
"Hahaha! This is wonderful news!"
"Two flaks only, Volkov. ...Volkov?"



Below the bridge, just above the crew quarters, two flaks of ten cosmonauts each sealed up their suits, checking each other over for missed seals. It was a noisy affair; they were singing the Soviet national anthem at the insistence of Boris Volkov, cosmonaut commander. Volkov stood on a podium at the front of the room. His face was obscured by glare on his helmet, and he was conducting the anthem with his rifle, waving it wildly in the air. The men strapped on their personal, one-use missile launchers, and proceeded to the airlock, fueling their maneuvering packs from a port in the passageway.

The first flak cycled out, led by Volkov, still singing over the tightbeam maser comms that linked the cosmonauts together. The second flak got stuck in the partially-depressurized airlock due to a slightly bent restraining bolt. They couldn't use the manual repressurization lever due to the bulkiness of their suits, and, only being equipped with tightbeam masers, they had no way of radioing for assistance until someone noticed they were missing.

Volkov's flak rapidly spread out in the local space around the Romanova, insignificant against the background of space. When Volkov attempted to contact flak two through a relay on the ship's exterior, he was assured that the busy engineering crew would make the Lieutenant's request for an airlock repair their top priority.



On the bridge, Kapitan Utkin, XO, finally handed Venera the crew status report.
"At last, thank you comrade," Venera said, taking the clipboard from him.
"No casualties reported, comrade Commander."
"Good."
"I took the liberty of conducting basic psychological assessments. The crew is content to follow ordres, despite the extreme circumstances. However, I do not recommend we stay at high alert for much longer."
"Thank you, comrade. Zelinsky is working on weapons repairs; see that he accomplishes them."
"Da, comrade Commander."

Utkin snaked his way back down the ship's central ladder. Now that the repairs were off her plate, she could finally worry about the other vessel. Venera pulled her way to the propaganda corner, motioning for the communications man to follow. A desk with a wooden facade and oversized red leather swivel chair was bordered on either side by flags of the U.S.S.R. A large portrait of Premier Romanov hung above the desk, bordered on either side by a picture of Stalin and the ship's nameplate. It was all designed to look like something out of the Kremlin. She buckled herself to the chair, checking to make sure that the wires holding the flags in place were taut. The commsman fiddled with the wires going into the back of the camera. A red light lit up on the front.

"Greetings from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. I am Commander Venera Romanova," she paused as the commsman shuffled cue cards. Her message was being recorded on tape before broadcast. "We were on a mission of peace and love before being thrown through a passage in spacetime. Make no mistake, however, this ship is armed, and we are capable of defending ourselves." She tucked a stray black hair back into her regulation bun. Hopefully the camera wouldn't pick up the hair waving in the lack of gravity. "So. Prove yourself friendly, and we shall be friendly in kind. Prove yourself hostile, and we will bury you." She emphasized this last sentence with her fist against the table.

It wasn't quite on-script, but it was definitely on-spirit.

Capt. Melchizedek Godfrey, Final Entery.

A large fleet of both Capitol and Dreadnaught class ships numbering near 50 drifted slowly and cautiously through the vastness of space. There was a small moon in view enough that you could begin to make out its geological structures; each valley and peak distinct where is sits, but paled in comparison to the overall make of the moon itself. The fleet of large ships served as escort to an even larger structure that was shaped like a skinny, but long, tube with a shaft through the middle. The middle part was large enough that any one of the escort ships could easily pass through it, if not for the shaft. The inner wall of the tube was lined with particle accelerators numbering 10 in all. This was a weapon of the like that had never been seen before; a Worm Hole Engine, and it was made for a single purpose; Destroy the main stay of the L1Z1X to force a surrender.

The moon in the distance was the last rendezvous for the United Factions Fleet where the Capital Ships would break off escort and be partially replaced by Dreadnaughts, and from there they would close the rest of the distance needed to fire the WHE. It was a two week journey they needed to complete through L1Z1X territory, but thanks to some earlier planning the trek should go uneventful. It was what they had prepped for that made them lax and over-look the true threat, but I would not blame them for they were not ready to go against such a cunning foe. Amidst the UF Fleet my ship follows in Ghost Impulse, and we are ready to strike. After running the calculations, and simulation thereof, at any moment the UF will have to start the Particle accelerators so that once they reach safe firing distance they are ready to commence the firing sequence. It is at this start up, during the swapping of ship escorts that the Forward Spear shall initiate its final assault causing the WHE to collapse forming a temporary singularity that will destroy most if not all the UF escort fleet.

I have no regrets, and I do not fear what is to come.
Capt. Melchizedek Godfrey, End log.

The Forward Spear came careening out of the singularity much like a log jutting out of the water after being fully submerged. A great rush of speed threw them and bits of metal from other ships out into the empty space of this new uncharted territory.
“Stabilize speed, come to a halt and engage Ghost Impulse!” Captain Godfrey ordered as the crew came to after breaking the daze left by the singularity.
“Captain, Engines are at only 40%, and the Ghost Drive is on cooldown.” One of the deck officers replied as he began to assess the entirety of the damage. “We have minor hull damage from derbies that traveld with us, decks 8 and 9 in C Block are losing atmosphere, and weapons system are resetting due to a power overload, presumably from the singularity. Reactor is operating at 75%.”
“Casualties are being reported for the breached decks,” another crewman called out. “Ten in all and twenty-four injured, Captain.”
“Have Medical prepped to receive them, and focus what power we have on restoring weapons.” Looking down at the screen on the arm of his chair he pressed one of the buttons labeled Eng Comm “Kaz, I want two teams to begin repairs.”
“Aye Captain, Where to?” The Chief Engineer called back as he waved his had around relaying nonverbal instructions to his crews.
“I am sure you are already aware and sending a team to the breached decks.”
“Affirmative, we also have a few men working on some spot repairs for around the engine rooms.”
“Good, always thinking on your feet. Send a team to check weapons as well. I want a report in 20.”
“Aye Captain, Will do.” The Comm cut and Mel stood next to his chair for a moment thinking through what else needed done. They didn’t really have a protocol for post singularity travel so Mel was simply treating it as a post battle situation.
“Captain, we have contact at our aft.” A crewman called out from the Radar Station with a hint of questioning his own discovery. Next to him was the general communications officer who was looking rather confused at what he was attempting to decipher.
“Is it the United Factions?” Mel asked making his way to the terminal where the crewman sat.
“Negative, unless it is a life boat of sorts, it is putting off some odd signals.” Mel and the crewman looked intently at the data coming in from the radar.
“What is their position, and how much can they see?” Mel asked now noticing the Communications Officer.
“They are almost directly to our Aft, and far enough away that they would not be able to judge size.”
“Captain, I have a… I guess you could call it a communication… it is very-“
“Communications, report!” Mel was getting impatient with his stammering.
“Sir, I will out it up for you to see!” The Communications Officer pressed a few buttons on his screen and keyboard before a low resolution image and audio began playing.

"Greetings from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. I am Commander Venera Romanova," she paused as the commsman shuffled cue cards. Her message was being recorded on tape before broadcast. "We were on a mission of peace and love before being thrown through a passage in spacetime. Make no mistake, however, this ship is armed, and we are capable of defending ourselves." She tucked a stray black hair back into her regulation bun. Hopefully the camera wouldn't pick up the hair waving in the lack of gravity. "So. Prove yourself friendly, and we shall be friendly in kind. Prove yourself hostile, and we will bury you." She emphasized this last sentence with her fist against the table.

“Ready Shadow Squad, once at a stop come about Starboard side and hold position.” Mel was not a man to act rashly, but he would not be threatened by a ship and crew that came up just larger than the derbies that followed them.

“Dropping out of hyperspace… in just a sec now.” Said the young navigator with an almost goofy smile.
“Good, dial the gate as soon as we drop out.” The colonel replied.

The blinding light of the accretion disk around the black hole illuminated the segments that made up the circular gigantic structure.
Barely visible, a small blue flash of light in the distance. Out of the hyperspace window emerged the Helios.

“Twenty thousand meters from the gate.” Luna added while punching in various algorithms into the holographic display in order to set course for the gate. The colonel, in the meantime entered his authentication code into the pad on his armchair which was required in order to dial the supergate. It wouldn’t be much of a security measure if anyone could dial the gate at any time.
A few motions of the hand later, Luna’s display had a schematic of the supergate in front of her and she initiated the dialing procedure.

Bolts of energy spread from one section of the gate to the next while the gate drew power from the black hole itself. The glow of pure energy spread in circular motion until the whole ring was brightly lit up.
A few seconds later a wave of blue energy expanded from the ring towards the center and then outwards in another massive wave extending to certain distance before retreating back to the center of the gate. The inside of the ring now contained the event horizon of the wormhole, which looked like a massive but calm puddle of water.

“We’ve got a connection.” Luna said.

The weapons officer, Major Fields suddenly spoke out. “Colonel, I’m detecting two hyperspace windows. Wraith signatures.”
“Raise shields!” The colonel spat out.
“Two hive ships, bearing down on our position.” The major clarified.

The deep bangs of the weapons-fire hitting the shields began resonating throughout the ship. They hadn’t had time to properly patch up the power grid from their last engagement. Despite having shields at almost full strength sparks began lighting up the bridge as circuitry overloaded, indicating the power grid was struggling to keep with the energy absorbed by the asgard shields.

“Transfer all power from weapons to shields and engines. We can’t fight them in our condition. We just have to make it through the gate.” The colonel ordered.

Lights flickered on the bridge, as the ship gave it all to accelerate towards the gate.

Bombardment on the shields suddenly stopped and Major Fields quickly gave sit-rep.
“The Hive ships switched target, they’re firing on the gate.”
From the knowledge they had, attempts to destroy supergates had been made in the past, unsuccessfully, and therefore gave no further thought to, continuing with their current effort to make it through the gate.
Moments later the ship passed through the event horizon and the same time the puddle began flickering.

The Helios did not emerged from a singularity but rather simply materialized out of thin air. It was due the way stargates functioned. They dematerialize something before sending it to the other of the wormhole and did not require a singularity for the creation of a wormhole. The instant the ship and crew was rematerialized, they knew something was wrong. The Helios was subjected to G-forces which not even the inertial dampeners could compensate for. The hull creaked violently under the immense stress and power throughout the ship failed, lights going out with it.

Everyone on the bridge was on the floor, some unconscious, others groaning in pain. The colonel cumbersomely pulled himself up, using the commander’s chair for leverage. He instinctively pressed his hand against his lower chest trying in vain to stop the pain. There were definitely some broken ribs. Seeing Major Luna on the floor he immediately went over to check on her. She was unconscious and bleeding from a head wound. Major Fields was in better shape and also stood up looking around trying to assess the situation. The few other officers at the back of the bridge around the holographic map slowly got up as well and the colonel motioned two who seemed in the best shape.

“Get her to the infirmary.”
He and one of the officers lifted Luna off the ground and then the other took over. While Luna was being carried away Colonel Mills sat in the navigation officer’s chair. Timing couldn’t have been better as lights flickered back on.

Fields sat back down and gave a quick rundown of the situation.
“Shields are completely depleted and we’re venting atmosphere. Asgard beam weapons are offline and I can’t even get a reading on the missile tubes, sir.”

The colonel nodded and went through the status of the propulsion systems. “Looks like Hyperdrive is completely shot and sublight is offline. We’re down to maneuvering thrusters and we definitely did not arrive at our intended destination.”

“Comms are down throughout the ship and we’re picking two additional vessels on our sensors… one looks like variation of a Saturn V rocket? It’s also broadcasting video and audio on UHF and VHF rather than using a subspace comunique. In addition there are a number of individuals in space suits stationed around the vessel in what appears to be a defensive formation. Lifesigns are human. The second seems to be a frigate sized vessel.” Major Fields further reported.

The colonel gave the major a confused look as he mentioned the first being a traditional rocket.

“Let’s hear the transmission from the rocket.” The colonel said as he stood up from the navigators chair and sat back down in the commander’s chair.
A central holo-display played the recording.

"Greetings from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. I am Commander Venera Romanova," she paused as the commsman shuffled cue cards. Her message was being recorded on tape before broadcast. "We were on a mission of peace and love before being thrown through a passage in spacetime. Make no mistake, however, this ship is armed, and we are capable of defending ourselves." She tucked a stray black hair back into her regulation bun. Hopefully the camera wouldn't pick up the hair waving in the lack of gravity. "So. Prove yourself friendly, and we shall be friendly in kind. Prove yourself hostile, and we will bury you." She emphasized this last sentence with her fist against the table.

At the end the transmission just looped back to the beginning and also left both the Mills and Fields with incredulous expressions on their faces.

“Soviets?” Fields asked.
The colonel glanced at the major and gave it a moment’s thought.
“Open a channel on the same frequencies to the rocket ship and also broadcast it to the frigate as directed comm bursts on all frequencies. Additionally have F-302 squadrons Alpha and Beta on stand by just in case that frigate tries to pull something. They haven't stated their intentions yet.”
“Yes, sir.” Major Fields complied.

“This is colonel Darius Mills, commander of the United States Air Force Vessel Helios. We do not wish to engage in any form of hostilities.”

The colonel then muted the channel.
“As soon as ship-wide comms are back online, notify Dr. Rose and Engineer Foley to meet in the briefing room for debriefing.”

“Ship wide announcement, This is your captain, We are currently approaching the Alpha hejalinas-99B system. Our ETA is roughly 200 seconds, have a good one.” He turned off the shipwide comms and turned to his XO “Get Haines, and his deputy up here as soon as possible, I’ll see what I can get from our sensors.” miles nodded and left via the elevator. “Comms, What have we got so far on this system?” Cara brought up the system on the screen with a spacetime field underneath. "This is the celestial object, It's roughly the same size as your average neutron star but about 4 times more dense." she paused, "Theoretically it’s impossible, the Star is practically a giant atom.” The helmsman spoke up “ Raiden we’re dropping out of Intra-system in 5. 4. 3. 2. Dropping out” The bridge went silent as they saw the object that was causing this gravitational anomaly. Alexander and Miles came aboard the bridge, ignoring protocol as was the norm on the oblivion. “ Helm Bring us into a stable orbit around this thing” He turned to the scientists beside him in their Sterilised lab coats both of whom had already started taking readings “So then Ms. Kora How long do we have before this thing ‘degrades’” she hesitated before she spoke, “Well, my simulations suggest any time around--” she was cut off by a flash of white light so intense it made the sun’s rays look like specs of dust. "Jesus Kora, did your simulations expect that?"

The light dimmed and the screens darkened. There wasn’t a star left, at was as if a water droplet just replaced where the star was, space was distorted around it. There were many things in Raiden's head at that moment. The main thought, 'What the hell is that thing' At that moment Cara Spoke up “Sir our orbit isn’t holding. I’ve giving it full thrust , but nothing I can do is moving us.” The Raiden stopped thinking about probabilities, he didn't have long enough to discuss it with his XO. But a rash decision could end up with the death of the ship and the entirety of its crew. "cut engines and focus power to shields I have little hope we can outrun whatever this thing is, so let's make sure we get through safely." the bridge was filled with an eerie silence. with all eyes directed at the captain. "Let's get to it people, I've got a call to make" He pulled Haines over to the back of the bridge "Any ideas?"
"Only one I'm afraid. It's a mathematical improbability. But it's exactly we're experiencing. If my calculations are correct, this is a worm-hole." Raiden didn't have anything to say. he dismissed Haines and retired to his Captain's chair and opened the comms "This is an announcement to all Crew onboard, this is your Captain. We're are currently on a collision course with an unidentified celestial object in the Alpha hejalinas-99B system, we believe it is a wormhole. I ask that all non-military and nonessential personnel go to their quarters. Thank you." Raiden cut off the comms and spoke to Haines, "Are you, ready doctor?"
"about as ready as one can be when going through a wormhole for the first time"
"5 LS sir"
"hold fast bridge We're going into the unknown. for the second time in this ship's lifetime, Comms Fire up all sensory equipment we have. Let's see what we can do"
"1LS Entering the surface in 5. 4. 3. 2. 1."
the ship lurched in acceleration as if it was going into an FTL jump. the bridge powered down, not on its own accord, a tunnel was formed, of stars and space. It was as if time itself stretched space, changing the dimensions of perception from 2d to 3d to 4d, A strange feeling came over the crew. "Sir my controls are unresponsive, if something comes in our way, We'll be in trouble" He stood from his Chair and looked out the port viewing hole, shapes of all sorts some could be mistaken for ships. as he moved over to the other side as power came back, but as it did, the passage had reacted. It seemed that the tunnel started collapsing on itself. more shapes emerged and one or two hit into the sides of the ship damaging it. "Damage report engineering!"
"We've got two holes on the starboard side but they were in an unoccupied section of the ship, The areas are sealed off they're not integral but they'll need repairing"
"What happened to our shields?"
"I don't know captain."

The tunnel finally collapsed on itself and they appeared back into reality. The oblivion still carried on at the velocity it entered the Wormhole. "captain we have three pings on radar. Inertial dampeners have kicked in, but our momentum is going to carry us past them" "understood, Activate port and starboard sensor arrays, let's see what we can learn from these ships. Any update on our location?"Kora spoke up from her tablet. and the main holo-screen changed to a stellar map. "Sir, We've jumped nearly one and a half million light years"
"Captain message is coming in"
"Bring it up"

"Greetings from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. I am Commander Venera Romanova," she paused as the comms man shuffled cue cards. Her message was being recorded on tape before broadcast. "We were on a mission of peace and love before being thrown through a passage in spacetime. Make no mistake, however, this ship is armed, and we are capable of defending ourselves." She tucked a stray black hair back into her regulation bun. Hopefully, the camera wouldn't pick up the hair waving in the lack of gravity. "So. Prove yourself friendly, and we shall be friendly in kind. Prove yourself hostile, and we will bury you." She emphasized this last sentence with her fist against the table.

"Was that the damn Russians? I never thought I'd be so happy to hear a Russian accent. I knew that the Russians had been pushed out to the edges of the galaxy, but this just doesn't make sense," He paused for a moment "Cara, bring up a scan of their ship." The scan was brought up. "Odd, The ship looks prehistoric, This is twenty-first-century tech. Keep defences up. Once we reach a full stop have our Main sensor array aimed at the Russian ship, I want a report on it ASAP. I'm going to my office. Miles and Haines come with me, we have things to discuss. Cara, you have the chair, try not to cause a diplomatic incident this time, and when you get a moment Send up Dr.T to my office"

Miles and Raiden made their way to the captain's office, an extension to his quarters, soundproofed, with a quantum entanglement comm system for lag free long range communication. Raiden poured everyone a glass of whiskey. "Well, I suppose it never stops for us." He took a sip of his whiskey. "I suppose it's time to introduce ourselves Raiden, Calm collected, and remember ROE, don't insult unless insulted first" and went into the communication chamber and proceeded to start a local broadcast on UHF.

"My Name is Raiden Korten, and I am the current SOSCOM commanding officer of the Heavyweight Research ship codename:Oblivion. We are a research Vessel. and intend no harm. our ship shall remain open to communications, Good day to you."

"Miles; Go to engineering make sure our structural integrity is up to scratch, and tell Dr.T to hurry his ass up"

UEGNC Battlecruiser Paramount (BRC-404)

OCTOBER 26, 2852 (MILITARY CALENDAR)

The footsteps of the captain's rubber soled boots resonated on the metallic floor of the bridge. He leaned over central command controls and stared into the blue and black void of a RIFT tunnel, watching several streaks of blue light pass by. He sighed, and leaned over to look at the bridge crew, each one manning a holographic terminal. "How long till destination?" He asked.

An ensign looked up. "Around half an hour, sir." He said. Captain Powers looked back out the viewscreen. "Good to know.” He nodded as he walked back to his perch up above. It had been more than a year since the decisive battle of Tribute, a battle where humanity would finally push the hostile alien race known as the Vaskrans back to their own little corner of space, a battle where the Vaskran War would finally come to an end after more than eight years of blood, sweat, and tears.

On the bridge of the Vengeance-class battlecruiser known as the Paramount, a man dressed in standard UEGNC Navy officer's uniform of a crisp white, gold, and blue, leaned on the guardrails on the central command platform, a platform raised in the air above dozens of bridge officers working at their stations. The platform only had several command consoles, and a medium sized holotable. The man gave a sigh, staring into the black emptiness of a RIFT tunnel, watching as several streaks of light few and far in between passed by. The Relative Intra-dimensional Field Travel, or RIFT, is the UEG's answer to Faster-Than-Light Travel. It works by basically making an incision in the fabric of space and time large enough to fit in whatever ship it needed to. The ship would then enter this incision to an alternate dimension known as the RIFTVOID. This dimension contains mostly nothing. However, the physics in this dimension work completely differently than in realspace. Objects in it can go at nigh-impossible speeds, making a ten-thousand lightyear journey in as little as ten days. You could say it is like a wormhole.

The man turned, showing his ID plate. His name was Captain Leonard Powers, the captain of the advanced four-kilometre long starship. He was middle-aged, at around fifty or sixty years old, seventy at max. He had served in the war, all eight years of it. He was used to these kinds of travel. Still, Powers gave an empty stare at the tunnel ahead of him.

“Oh, is something troubling you, commander? No worries. You can drown your sorrows with vodka!” A drunken Russian-accented voice loudly spoke behind Powers, causing him to turn around. A small red hologram of a man wearing World War II-era Red Army clothing was standing on the commander’s holotable, chugging from a flickering bottle of vodka. He was Nikolai, the advanced Artificial Intelligence that had been assigned to the Paramount. These kinds of A.I.s could control whole fleets of ships and oversee most of their functions. The Paramount was no exception.

It was a pity he was just so annoying. Powers sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Really? Again with the vodka?” Nikolai belched. “Why yes! Drink is the joy of the Rus!” He held up the bottle, which soon disappeared into several particles of light. Powers opened his mouth to say something, but klaxons and alarms suddenly sounded all over the ship, along with flashing red lights as the bridge officers down below scrambled to get to their stations. “What’s going on?” Powers questioned.

The drunken look on Nikolai’s face had disappeared and was replaced with one of horror. “Something is interfering with the RIFT tunnel! It’s… My coordinates are going haywire! We’re getting transported to another location!”

“Emergency RIFT exit, now!” Powers commanded as the whole ship began to shake. Nikolai frantically tapped on his holographic console. “The RIFT drive is not responding!” The area in front of the ship began to rip open, and the last thing Captain Powers heard was Nikolai’s screaming before he lost consciousness.

“Fuuuuuuuccccccckkkkkkkk!”



"...tain... ers... Captain Powers!" Powers awoke with a start and jolted upright, feeling the cold metal floor on his body. Nikolai was looking over him, concerned. "What... what happened?" He rubbed his forehead, feeling a warm and wet sensation on his fingers. He drew his hand back and was surprised to see than his fingertips were red with blood. The captain groaned as he stood up, looking over the command platforms. Bridge officers down below were doing the same, some still lying on the ground unmoving as other nursed their wounds.

"I don't know. Something interfered with the RIFT tunnel." Nikolai answered, examining a holographic representation of the ship. “We’ve got damage to several decks, Particle Cannons one and two are offline, drone compartment A-6 has sustained EMP damage and is inactive, and Sector 3 of A Deck isn’t responding. The shields took the brunt of the damage, and are at seventy-seven percent and holding. We've got no reported deaths... yet.” Nikolai stopped tapping his holographic interface and turned, an uncharacteristically worried look on his face. “But the RIFT drive is heavily damaged. The trip must have interfered with its dimensional quantum transportation matrix. As of now, I can't say how long we will be stuck here, commander.”

Powers took a deep breath to calm himself down. “Okay. Get the engineers and maintenance drones to repair damages ASAP. Right now we need to find out where we are.” Nikolai nodded. “Already on it. Wait… Give me a second. Oh, that can’t be right.” The little A.I. disappeared from his place and reappeared a second later. He flashed orange for a brief second, before reverting to his usual red. “We are in void space in between the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxy.”

Powers' breaths quickened. "What?! How? The RIFT drives can't take us that far!" He exclaimed, not noticing that his head wound had dripped and stained his crisp uniform with little drops of red.

Nikolai shrugged. "I don't know. According to my calculations, I assume that we must have travelled too close to a dimensional wormhole. It's plausible, but I can't be sure." He turned and pointed to Powers. "Also, you're bleeding quite a lot there."

The captain blinked and touched his forehead, noticing that it had indeed been dripping without him noticing. "Right." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, dabbing his skin and turning most of the material red. "See if you can get primary functions online."

"I am on it. However, sensors picked up several objects emitting radio signals several thousand kilometres from here." The A.I. disappeared and was replaced by a blurred hologram of what appeared to be several ships. Powers furrowed his brows and leaned on the holotable. "Have they hailed us?"

Nikolai's voice continued to he heard. "Why, yes, in fact. I'll play the recording right now." A two-dimensional hologram of a woman in clearly ancient naval wear appeared. The recording was a very low quality one, in grainy, blurry imaging.

"Greetings from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. I am Commander Venera Romanova. We were on a mission of peace and love before being thrown through a passage in spacetime. Make no mistake, however, this ship is armed, and we are capable of defending ourselves. So, prove yourself friendly, and we shall be friendly in kind. Prove yourself hostile, and we will bury you."

She emphasised the last part by banging her hands on the table.

Powers' eyes widened. "They're... human?" He then raised an eyebrow. "The... Union of Soviet Socialist Republics? What's that?" Nikolai suddenly reappeared with the most offended look Powers had ever seen. "Commander, how could you not know what the Soviet Union is? It was the glorious superior government of Mother Russia!" The captain gave a confused look. "What?"

Nikolai sighed. "Oh, never mind." Powers gave an annoyed grunt. "Look, she threatened to 'bury' us if we proved to be hostile, and I'm not taking any chances. Bring weapon systems online and warm up Cannon 3. Put Warhawk squadrons Amber and Cranium on standby. As for me, I'm going to hail them." He tapped a button on the table, making sure his message was broadcast on all channels.

"Unidentified contacts, this is Captain Leonard Powers of the United Earth Government Naval Command battlecruiser Paramount. Please identify."

Powers' rough voice resonated through the hail. Next to him, Nikolai looked rather gleeful. "I can't wait to meet these fellow communists! The ship is within viewing range of onboard cameras. I'll show you." A much clearer hologram to the ship appeared. Come to think of it, Powers realised that the 'ship' looked more like one of those ancient moon rockets made by that equally ancient space travel organisation, NASA, if he recalled correctly. The captain rubbed his chin in thought. "That can't be. That rustbucket looks like those rockets humanity first used more than nine hundred years ago!" Nikolai reappeared, sitting on a miniature ballistic missile painted red and yellow. "Correct. That is what is so interesting. Commander, I think we have met some true Soviets!"

"Oh Valinos, the holy star of our unity, our binding home within the void of space. I swear to protect the children born of your warm glow, and to carry your light with me through the vastness of space. To our guiding Arche-Councilors, I am to be both their shield, and their blade when it is required of me. As shall my vessel become their lance, to be the first, and the last to strike against those that would threaten our way of life. For my crew, I shall be their guiding figure, just as the Arche-Council is to me. May they believe in me, just as I have believed in you. In times of dire, we shall commit to our fullest. As their captain, I shall accept the consequences that follow and learn from them. I shall bear the burdens of leadership.

Oh Valinos, with the Arche-Council as my witness, I swear to you; I will return our people to their rightful home."
-The Valtorian Oath of Naval Command.

---

Violent, destructive, harrowing, grim.. these are a few ways one could describe the 'final moments' the Pale Quiver's last patrol. What followed was an eerie calm. Something only the dead would truly expect after such a traumatic encounter, but as the light Frigate was ejected from the wormhole, this fracture in space.. they would find out that they were still very much alive. The ship groaned, the lights flickered for sometime, slowly but surely she would come alive once more. Aboard the bridge, the room was heavy. Perhaps most were going through shock brought on by the ordeal, or maybe it was just the simple fear of the unknown. Whatever the reason, it was clear that they needed a leader, now more than ever. Unfortunately for Taris, the man knew that nothing he could ever say would bring a tremendous amount of light to the situation, but he still had to try. As his hand hovered over the intercom panel on his command chair, his thoughts would be interrupted abruptly by a shout.

"Asha!" the Helmsman shouted as he leaped from his seat, hurrying to her side. The young navigator had collapsed to the floor, blood had been draining slowly out her nose. "She's.. she's just unconscious I think.. sir. Sir!?" He called back to his captain. Taris heard the words, but he felt a thousand light years away. Everything was still sinking in for him. The heavy thuds of metal boots would fill the bridge as the tall Battlemaster came through the sliding door. He'd quickly shoot a glance towards the unconscious Star-Seer, and snap his fingers towards the two riflemen that accompanied him.

"Get her down to the infirmary. Now!" Gregor barked through his gruff, dry sounding voice. The two soldiers gave a quick nod to their commander, and rushed to the aid of the Star-Seer. They hoisted her up and carried her deeper into the ship. With that dealt with, the Helmsman returned to his post, doing his best to not attract the gaze of the veteran soldier. Gregor however would return his attention to the captain. "By the holy light of Valinos, this would have never happened if we were still under Jeckin's command." The Battlemaster glared towards his supposed 'Captain.' This remark seemed to bring Taris back to reality.

"If you wanted Jeckins in that chair instead of me Gregor, perhaps you should have been by his damn side!" Taris yelled back towards the tall man, quickly shooting up from his seat to face him.
"I was fighting his battles.. That's more than what can be said for you Taris.." A growl escaped the Battlemaster, his hand clenching into a fist.

Zarwen continued to keep his eyes forward at the several screens in front of him that were broadcasting different angels around the exterior of the ship. He wanted no part in the heated argument going on behind him, so he kept himself looking busy as he monitored the several screens and panels before him on the dashboard. Lights were starting to turn on again, indicating that systems were coming back online, so Corvin must have been doing something right down there in engineering. By this point, the lights had stopped flickering on the bridge, and it was safe to assume that would be the case throughout the ship. Suddenly the monitor displaying local sensors came back online, the pulse displaying several unidentified vessels around them.

"Captain. Multiple unknowns on the radar!" Zarwen excitedly stated behind him. The Captain and the Battlemaster seemed to be at each other's throats. Taris had a tight grip on the hilt of his sword, ready to unsheathe his blade. At the sound of his helmsman, his grip loosened. "Multiple unknowns..?" The captain replied, a hint of worry in his voice. "Have we managed to get everything back online!? Weapons, engines, shields..?"

Zarwen shook his head. "Just engines sir, I think commu-" Before he could finish, sure enough communications had come back online, and the bridge filled with the audible broadcasts coming from the surrounding vessels. The crew within the bridge went quiet as the listened to the several local broadcasts. Once the messages ended, the bridge crew turned to face their Captain, who let out a heavy sigh.

---

"It sounds as if they come in peace.. By the divine star this could be the blessing we were looking for-" Taris began, before he was interrupted by the Battlemaster. "Come in peace? Bah.. You know full well what outsiders are capable of! Peace is the last thing on these barbarians minds. You'd rather coat your sword in pen ink rather than bloody it in combat wouldn't you!?" Gregor loudly interjected.
"You'd have me compromise the safety of this vessel just to uphold your bloodthirsty honor?" The captain scolded back. "I know full well what outsiders are capable of.. which is why I ask that you leave this bridge and organize the soldiers in case not everyone is in favor of peace.." The Battlemaster gave one last cold glare towards the captain, before bowing his head and turning towards the exit.

"Helmsman, open up a local channel.. it's time to contact these outsiders." The captain ordered. Promptly after, a channel was opened, and ready to broadcast his message.

"Attention outsiders, this is Captain Markurio of the V.V. Pale Quiver. We are the true loyalists of the Valinosian Pact, and we hear your messages of peace. So long as you refrain from committing acts of barbarism, you have my word that my vessel's weapons shall be powered down. I have hopes that you outsiders are different, but make no mistake; We will retaliate if you prove to be just like the rest of them."

Zarwen would mute the channel, his eyes still on the monitors before him. "Helmsman, you're in charge for now. I'm going to check on Asha, and see if we can figure out where we are exactly. Do your best to not throw us into another war please." The captain stated to the Helmsman with a weak chuckle before heading off.
"Aye Aye Captain.."

The Intrepid was on a deep space mission to build a new resource satellite, fully stocked with enough raw materials to complete its mission and a full compliment of staff in order to work around the clock. The ring ship was only about half way to its destination when Albert Pegg, the head scientists started making the noise he made when he was excited and had something to say. Captain Parker turned her head and looked at Albert, "What is it? You seem to have something to say."

"Uh, oh, yes!" Albert said in response, "I'm getting some odd readings, it may just be sensor malfunction, but it could be a-"

Suddenly the heads up display flashed bright white as it displayed what was going on in front of the rotating ring ship. Before anything could be done The Intrepid was pulled into the flash of light. The scientists and Engineers in the room were all working on their machines looking at the readings, meanwhile Tucker Knoll looked at Albert, "Is this what you were trying to tell us?"

He nodded sheepishly. Knoll rolled his eyes as he turned his head to the next voice, it was Simone Sayer, "Captain, based on these readings, I would recommend closing up the ring and shutting down every system except for life support systems and the shields. Nothing else is going to make it and thrusters are not going to do us any good in this situation."

"Why, what do you mean?" The light streaked all around them as they drew in closer to the center of the flashing light.

Albert was the one to answer, "Oh, well, thats because this is a... now this is only theoretical, but I think this is a wormhole!"

"I would have to say this is more then theoretical at this point," Captain Parker said, "Make it so, but if at all possible keep some sensors running to record what ever it is that this is, if we make it out alive we might need the data."

Tucker Knoll got on the comms and announced to the crew to pack up and button down in preparation for hull modulation. In a matter of moments the six rotational thrusters stuttered off and the ship was left to its own inertia keeping gravity for a few minutes more as it the ship accelerated towards the the worm hole entrance moved only by its own gravity. Just as the ship crossed the threshold of the event horizon it had managed to close its hull down into a ball instead of the large ring making it appear only a third of its normal size.

Streams of light and shapes of prismatic color danced around the nearly blind ship as it was flung through space.

"Captain," Albert said, "We are experiencing something that no Valori has ever experienced before. Perhaps that anybody has ever experienced before! "You'll have to allow me to view all of the data collected by any device, any experiment running during this time. If we could learn how to detect worm holes, we can learn how to navigate them and use them for interstellar travel, something impossible to us at this time. This could be a world shattering discovery!"

"Aye, if we make it out of this alive-" The ship was shook suddenly, "Was that an impact? Status report!"

"Hard to say with all of the sensors offline that are not crucial to life support. So I don't think we have to worry about anything as the "life support systems read that they are all within normal tolerances. We'll know more when we are out."

"If we make it out of this alive, you can assemble a team of people to work on it," The captain finished her statement to Albert.

Only another moment more and they were out. Nearly as soon as they were clear of the wormhole they started re-initiating systems.

"I need those status reports, folks!" Captain Parker called out. Tucker Knoll was already at the comm station looking at all of the readouts. "Sir, satcomm isnt able to get us any images yet, but we aren't alone out here."

"Pirates?" Sarah asked.

"Judging by all of these transmissions going out in every possible frequency, I would guess not..." As Knoll said that the heads up display came active as the hull cams came online. Spread out over quite a distance were five other ships ranging in style and size. Everybody stood there in absolute awe at what they were seeing. This was first contact. Only the Valori were in their system. They had never found any proof that there was another life beyond bacterial life in the universe.

Albert started clicking away at his controls and suddenly the transmissions started coming in over the speaker. "Judging by what we are seeing, it looks like all of these collected ships are here the same way we are. There was a request to state intention and remain peaceful that has been sent out on a loop from that needle like ship over there. Most of the ships are remaining peaceful, but it looks like some of these ships are starting to arm."

"Orders Captain?" Tucker asked.

"Get our ship up to snuff, once we are ready to continue operation we need to be ready to move. Pegg, can you get one of your scientists on telemetry to figure out where we ended up?"

"Already on it."

"Sayer, can you get your engineers to figure out if there was any damage? What about that bump we experienced while in the wormhole?"

"Reports are already coming in, Ma'am. The hull is sound, looks like the only major system damage at this point is that one of the repair arms is stuck, but that will be easy enough to fix."

"Good, get on it."

"Tucker, you check on any casualties and see to getting the modular hull back to normal."

The former soldier nodded his head, gave the warning over comms and pressed the command keys needed to return the hull back to the ring. Outside, the other ships would see a small round orb triple in size as it opened itself up into a large ring. It was still tiny in comparison to the shear massive size of some of the other ships already gathered.

"This is Captain Sarah Parker with The Intrepid, we are friendly and will be able to offer emergency repair services once we have our own ship in order. If any one is in need of assistance, we are happy to show good will and assist." The Captain had SatComm broadcast in all of the methods used that they had received messages on.

Aboard the ECV Spirit of Wind, in a dead galaxy, in a forgotten time.

Unit One stood at the one of the most well protected rooms of the Wind, gazing upon the large square. One hundred eighty three years ago the last star had faded into death, and the process of digitizing every entry from the Library of The Endless began. Just hours ago they had finished, every letter and number now documented into the square database, encased in the hardest metal they could forge. The Library once spanning hundreds of kilometers, now was a metal cube. No taller, wider or longer than 10 meters. He sighed, wondering what they were to do now. All was lost, the light had gone, empires fallen and people starved. The last few remaining species had gone mad, entering a dark spiral into their destruction. How much longer until they were to lose their minds? He played with the thought of being the last species, standing amongst the ruins of a countless number of dead. In only a hundred more years, he wagered, that would be the reality. Their reality.

He gazed upon the new Library of The Endless, hundreds of his people were in the massive chamber. Bowing to the newly made artifact, all of them had prayers on their minds. Praying for what, Unit One had no idea. He was not praying, he was thinking. Not bowing, nor kneeling. Standing. Thinking. When exactly did The Endless leave? ...And how could they have left? How was the word that preyed upon his mind. He remembered small Endless children playing with him, draping necklaces of flowers over his neck. He remembered caring for the Endless whenever they were ill. He remembered their weddings, so full of color, of so many cuisines and art works. He remembered a woman cleaning his chassis after he and a few dozen others had worked 30 years maintaining the power conduits of a city. He remembered attending her funeral. Seeing her children and loved ones cry tears of sadness. So how? He felt a tightening behind his breastplate. How? Were they not vigilant enough? Did he and his people mean nothing to The Endless? A ping halted his train of thought. He tore his sight away from the artifact and walked out of the room. Giving one last thought to the matter, was their departure voluntary?

He arrived onto the bridge. The other three leaders were here. Unit Two, the Healer. Unit Eight, the Warrior. Unit One Thousand, Three Hundred and Forty Two, the Traveler. The instant Unit One stepped into the room he was updated on the situation.
Why was I not notified? He asked,
You were busy overseeing the transport of The Library, we had assumed you entered prayer afterwords. Unit Two replied,
I was not in prayer. He plainly stated, he saw through the Wind and looked at the anomaly. There was silence on the bridge. Something like this happening naturally should be extremely rare. And the remaining sentient species were in no condition to create something like this. How could a wormhole just appear? Only a kilometer away, in front of their ship? This anomaly first appeared when The Library had been completed? And only expanded when we brought it aboard? Unit One asked them. Unit Two nodded. This was far to coincidental to be a natural occurrence. Unit One concluded, he stood for a tense minute. It was almost like something, or someone wanted them to come through.

Unit One sent the data to every Forged in the ship. My brothers. Long ago I asked you to follow me on a quest to find The Endless. For centuries we traveled, finding nothing. We all knew it would not be an easy task. I ask you this once again, will you follow me, Brothers? Into this strange wormhole that has appeared before us. There is no way of knowing what is on the other side, or who. We may be going to our doom, we may be going to our salvation. I will not force any of you to come with me, so I ask, will you follow me? Not a second later, 3,874 acknowledgement pings appeared. Everyone had said yes. Unit One felt pride in his chest, replacing that tightening feeling of unease that had gripped him earlier. Then we go as one mind, with one purpose. For the Wind carries us to new horizons.

Unit One felt the vessel shudder in anticipation, and her engines rumble. Unit One kept his eyes on the wormhole, hopeful that it was leading them to a new dawn, but dreading that it was actually their doom. Unit Two suddenly fell, confusion flashed through Unit One's mind, then all he saw was black.

---

Aboard the ECV Spirit of Wind, in Intergalactic space, current time.

>...
>Rebooting
>Reboot successful
Unit One's vision flashed, he slowly got up, finding himself on the ground. Wind was in a panic, sending him scores of status updates. He saw his Brothers on the ground, shut down like he was. The shields were offline, the power generators were offline, weapons offline, most systems were. Wind, prioritize The Heart of Castra, then The Reliquary. What are power levels, and our location?
>Power Levels at 32.543%
>Location: Intergalactic Space
>Rebooting Power Generators...
>Rebooting Shield Generators...
>!
>Incoming transmissions.
Unit One looked through the Wind, seeing only the distant galaxies... And the numerous vessels that were nearby. He noted their differing sizes and technologies. This is not heaven. Unit One grumbled. Small screens appeared and audio played. Each ship had broadcast a transmission. He listened to each transmission intently, he knew every language in his galaxy, and had come to the conclusion that he had no idea what these new aliens were saying. Soon, his people began to wake up. To bombardments of status updates and situation updates. Unit 1,342 looked to Unit One.
I will decipher these languages. The Traveler spoke.
Be swift, we must know what they are saying.

The darkened ship, 2,332 meters long, was effectively dead in the water. This made Unit One anxious, but in the past The Forged have been known to appear invisible on lifeform scanners. This would buy them a few precious minutes, as organics tended to be curious about a pristine ship with 'no crew'.

"Where are we?" Shipmaster Nilu stared up at the Guidesphere, trying to find The Bridger's silhouette. The foggy nutrient and oxygenated protein liquids sloshed about, sparkling like emerald glass from the lights within.

"You feel my answer, yet you still ask." It was hard to tell whether The Bridger's voice came from the Guidesphere or his mind. The neural link that bonded everyone to the ship was still something he had to get used to.

"Because it does not make sense," The dark orange cracks on Nilu's brow deepened. "How is our fixed point no longer within the known void?"

Another female voice, Ideen, pinged into his brain; this one was more gruff and to the point, but still as highly intrusive as The Bridger's. "The ship's hyperdrive, or whatever the hell its equivalent is, wasn't given set coordinates."

Nilu was about to ask for an explanation, but Ideen wasted no time. Through the neural connection tethered by The Bridger, Ideen's thought process fed into his. He quickly learned that when him and his crew of lab rats fled onto The Wayward Step, it created a big rift between the Bridger and the Ship's consciousness. One mind became eighty-seven. Among the smorgasbord of panic and fear, the consensual need to leave their galaxy became powerful enough for The Bridger and the ship to register.

"I believe the exact coordinates The Bridger and the ship managed to decipher from the chaos were: Anywhere but here." Ideen made a frustrated sigh, but not because of what she said. With some concentration Nilu could pinpoint that she was in what could be best described as the ship's stomach. The designated Chief Engineer, along with a handful of other clueless saps, were scoping the area trying to make sense of things. Nilu gathered their collective thoughts and surmised that the stomach was the ship's secondary power source - the first being the neural core, his current destination. Rather than ask Ideen what was specifically wrong, he peered into her thoughts. He felt wrong and guilty for do so without her consent. He also was afraid, scared of how long it would take before he no longer had those feelings. When sharing themselves completely without keeping secrets, will their original identities stay intact, or will their collective consciousness meld together into a uniform hive mind?

"Well?" Ideen said, her irritable tone transferring into the neural stream. She sensed Nilu's hesitation to respond and groaned. "Do you see the problem we're having? How unqualified any of us are to maintain...whatever this is?"

"Yes." Nilu stared up at the Guidesphere. "Bridger..."

...You are all afraid. I understand. We, understand. Before the interstitial quantum displacement, you were fleeing for your lives from the sullied hands of my makers. From the implosion of our galaxy. Now you stand within a living vessel, an unconventional anomaly compared to the standard starships you've grown accustomed to. You have escaped trauma within trauma, and now you are subjugated into sharing your thoughts, pain, and fears with people whom you barely know, without consent or discretion.

If you are wondering why you haven't been driven to insanity yet, it is because I have maintained a level of calm by tapping into your physiology to increase your Oxytocin levels. I have also been feeding you all a knowledge stream with regards to the ship and its functions. Forgive me for..leaving you in the dark, so to speak. You each have a unique alien body habitus and it requires a more concentrated effort on my end. In approximately 60 minutes and 20.4 seconds counting, you will know all you need to know in order to keep this ship running. In the meantime, I will assume all ship duties...

If there was one thing Nilu hated more than being in the dark, it was having no control. The overwhelming feeling of vulnerability saturated the neural stream like clogged pipes. Rather than agitate it further, he quietly exhaled and stepped forward.

"I know what you're all feeling." Nilu closed his eyes, concentrating so that he could peer into everyone on board. A sea of alien faces rushed into his mind. He generated an open field, a geographical landmark from his homeworld on Anari, simulating a sunny day cast down from paired suns drifting overhead. The entire crew looked around in awe. Nilu himself was surprised that he was capable of such a feat. What other things could be accomplished while on board The Wayward Step? "That saying has a whole new meaning now, given our current circumstance. It is an uncomfortable revelation that we've been exposed to, but it is nothing compared to the trials we've faced in the past. We've survived the torture camps of the Exalted Hand, we've survived the decimation of our known galaxy, and we will survive this. You heard The Bridger. We now have less than an hour until we gain all the information needed to run this ship, and I intend to lead you all the best way I can. Until then, let us enjoy this moment of freedom that has been kept from us for so long."

The realm that Shipmaster Nilu created within the neural stream became an open canvas. People began experimenting with their own thoughts, projecting them into tangible moments. Some shot up into the air in full flight, while others rode on all sorts of beasts either inhabited from their homeworlds or their own imaginations. Others crafted images of loved ones they'll never hope to see again, reliving old memories. Nilu sat down and crossed his legs. He closed his eyes and took in the soft winds of Anari before looking up at a newer manifestation of his mind. A dark red capital class ship hovered in the sky, its alien graffiti decals translated to the word: Wargiver. Each letter was designed after a traditional war blade of his people. His shimmering blue eyes gazed at it longingly as it disappeared into the sky above. Madrafala-ungazi-na... A sudden jolt grabbed everyone's attention as a cloister of words and sentences rained into the neural stream.



"What-" The Anari sky was soon filled with ships of all sizes and designs, swirling about with impractical flight patterns.

My apologies The Bridger's voice hailed down like a god. I've picked up a cluster of heat signatures and wave forms from various unidentifiable objects. What you are seeing is a psychic projection of what is currently outside of the ship, within the field of my thought radius.

"They don't sound too damn friendly." Ideen said. Her worrisome tone echoed throughout the neural stream.

Unable to decipher intent. Currently deviated by initiated protocol.

Nilu clicked his tongue. The Bridger was still preoccupied with downloading information into the crew. Between that and single handedly running the ship, he wasn't sure if she'd be able to access weapons and defense systems - if in fact there were any.

"Bridger, ETA on your information download."

10 minutes and 14.2 seconds counting...

"Maintain relative distance from the UFOs until the download is complete." Nilu turned his attention to the crew. "Everyone, standby at your stations and be ready to take action by my command." At an instant, the cluster of people within the manifested terrain vanished in a giant puff of smoke. He could feel his crew clambering throughout The Wayward Step like tiny insects now, getting into their positions (or what felt like where they belonged) and awaited orders. The next course of action weighed heavily on the success of The Bridger's download.

The message rippled through the Unity in a wave. Diminished though it was, the network that linked the minds of (most) of the Advent still functioned as it should, and now it served to send a distress call, a warning that one of the many far flung colonies of the Advent itself was under attack by hostile forces. almost immediately ships had gone on the move, military forces shifting to deal with the attack.

One of those ships was the Vorascant, flying through space at the head of a small fleet of ships. They were some distance away, but the presence of a nearby wormhole meant that they could significantly cut down on the travel time. It would be nice if they had a more dedicated combat force, but they would have to jump in and hold the line to make sure that the combat forces had time to arrive in the first place.

Aboard the bridge of the ship Carina frowned slightly as she took in the message and sent off a quick response. "We hear the Unity's call. We shall respond as rapidly as we can," she reassured those who were under attack before turning to those who served with her on the bridge. "Alera, show us the path."

The woman with white eyes nodded before facing towards the front of the ship, outstretching an arm as she let the PsiTech that was utilized by the Unity go to work. Her mind swelled, psychic abilities clearing the path ahead, showing them the route that they would have to take to reach their destination.

"Course laid in," she announced at last, lowering her arm as she kept her gaze forward. "We are ready to proceed at any time."

Carina nodded as she took in status reports from across the ship, everything functioning normally and prepared for the fight ahead of them. It would not be easy, but she was confident that they could succeed. "Proceed." That said, she turned to the other woman seated on the bridge. "Lorana, make sure all stations are ready for combat action. The enemy may have a blocking force at the other side of the wormhole."

"Already done," Lorana reassured her from her own seat, the Psintegrate always ready for a battle. "But I don't think there will be a problem. I just hope we get there in time."

"We will," Carina reassured her with a nod and a burst of calm emotion. "The bombardment of the planet has yet to begin, and the population have been moved into shelters. These fools will know what it means to strike at the Advent."

In a burst of light the Vorascant vanished into the wormhole ahead of its escorts, ready to take the fight to all of their foes.

---

When they emerged on the other side, it was to a strange scene. Most of the time such wormholes were within a star system, but this one was in a black void, the only light from far off galaxies that were out of reach. He ship itself seemed to shine, catching that minimal light and reflecting it, practically glowing as the elegant design cut through space like a wave.

But none aboard needed to see the space they were in, the sudden power fluctuations and threat of antimatter core overload to know that something had gone wrong. No, there was a much easier way.

"I...I can't hear them," Lorana said with a tremble in her tone, eyes wide. Even Carina could tell as much, the sudden deafening silence where once the multitude of voices that comprised the Unity could be. There were still those on the ship, of course, but it paled in comparison to the sounds of an interplanetary civilization.

Carina could feel, hear the panic spreading through the ship. Indeed she was feeling it herself, a worry as to what had happened to their people. "Remain calm," she said in a firm tone, letting that message go out to the entire ship. As the Coalescent, she couldn't allow the Unity to fall into, well, disarray. Once she was sure the crew were listening to her, she looked to Alera. "Where are we?"

Alera frowned as she expanded her view once again, confusion growing at the same time. "We are...nowhere. There are other vessels nearby but I can't identify any of them. Some of them are beyond primitive in fact. As for our location, it appears that we are in the space between galaxies, if my eyes do not deceive me."

It was bad, but something they could work with nonetheless. Carina quickly activated the communications unit to attempt contact, and quickly managed to get a multitude of messages from the various ships floating nearby, none of which seemed to broadcast their identity as the Coalition. It appeared that they were indeed unknowns, as Alera had suggested. In the meanwhile, commands were given out to begin repairs, before their situation degraded any further. No one needed a reminder what uncontained antimatter could do.

While the crew remained at a ready position and initiated repairs, she turned to the radio herself, communicating much as she would with the Coalition or the Vasari, without intruding upon their minds. "Greetings unknown vessels. We are the Advent, and we come with no ill intentions towards those who mean us none in return. To those who do, know that we will not hesitate in defending ourselves as we deem fit."

That said, she looked to Alera. "Scry what you can of the other vessels here. Should we come to blows, we will need every advantage we can get." It seemed things would be interesting, and less hopeless, than Carina had previously believed.

"New radar contact!" the radarman said. "It just... appeared!"

“This is colonel Darius Mills, commander of the United States Air Force Vessel Helios. We do not wish to engage in any form of hostilities.”

Venera eyed the transmission incredulously. Was it possible that the United States had sent up a rocket covertly before the war had ended?

"Seal the bridge," she ordered. Venera turned to the commsman. "The identity of the aliens is now a Particularly Important state secret. Burn all relevent tapes in the document handling room." More loudly, she said, "Anyone failing to adhere to procedure will be shot."

What sort of Imperialist trickery was this? Undoubtedly they had no intention of peaceful contact with a Soviet ship - not if they had come from Earth. Not after the U.S.S.R. turned on the sleeping Imperialists and crushed their weak and corrupt forces to install benevelont leadership. But if they had launched before that, when the two superpowers had united to destroy the evil traitor Yuri, then it was possible that they were serious.

On the other hand, what were the odds that a ship from the same planet just happened to end up in the same chunk of space that the Romanova had been thrown into? Perhaps they were the ones responsible for dragging the Romanova here-

"New radar contact!"

"My Name is Raiden Korten, and I am the current SOSCOM commanding officer of the Heavyweight Research ship codename:Oblivion. We are a research Vessel. and intend no harm. our ship shall remain open to communications, Good day to you."

Apparently aliens spoke... English. That was unnerving, but at least most crew on the Romanova could speak it. English was a necessity when half of the ship's technology came from-

"New radar contact!"

Venera growled. A spaceman handed her a report from cosmogation. They weren't in known space anymore. As a matter of fact, they appeared to be outside the galaxy. She immediately classified this, too, as a state secret.

"Unidentified contacts, this is Captain Leonard Powers of the United Earth Government Naval Command battlecruiser Paramount. Please identify."

'United Earth Government'? Impossible! The only Earth government was the Soviet governement, and we speak Russian, not English! Again with the English!
"Commsman, broadcast the following message at the-"

"New radar contact!"

"VV Pale pendet operam magistratus Markurio foris. Foederis Valinosian verum boni sumus, et audite verbum tuum in pace. Quamdiu nolueris perpetrando barbare habeo quod naviculas elit. Dabo varietate aliena arma humili virtutem spei non est errare; si iusta vindicta sicut ceteri erit."

...Venera had no idea what that meant. At least they weren't American.
"...as I was saying, broadcast the following-"

"New radar contact!"

Venera sighed, and waited for the communication to come through.

"Keia luna o ka Intrepid o Sara Parker, aole he poe hoaaloha a kakou i ko kakou mau moku e hiki ia ia ke kaumaha i ka hookahi-manawa pilikia? Aiiio lawelawe. Ina oe e pono ai kekahi kokua, aole he poe olioli, e hoike maikai makemake, a me kōkua."

She glared at the spaceman manning the radar station. He steadfastly stared at his screen, risking an occasional glance back. Venera kept waiting, shaking her head with annoyance.

"Commander, two new radar contacts!"

She waited. No communications came through. Fine.

"Broadcast the following message at the Paramount," she continued. "Attention-"

"New radar contact!"

'To hell with it,' Venera thought. "-Paramount. Whatever 'United Earth Government' you claim to represent-"

"Greetings unknown vessels. We are the Advent, and we come with no ill intentions towards those who mean us none in return. To those who do, know that we will not hesitate in defending ourselves as we deem fit."

Venera's head hurt; her brain was telling her they spoke Russian while her ears heard... something else.

"-either has or will be crushed under the heel of the Soviet Union as the rebellious upstarts that they are. There is only one government, and it resides in Moscow. ...however, given our obviously extraordinary circumstances, we will overlook your identification 'mistake' in the spirit of goodwill."


The central status display finally updated itself, line by agonizing line. A spaceman flew between sensor stations, updating which ship was which via grease pencil on the screen. Suddenly, Venera was very glad to not further antagonize the Paramount. It dwarfed the Romanova.

Time to try her luck on a completely different gamble.

"Re-aim the dish at the Helios," she ordered.

"Romanova to the Helios. In the spirit of goodwill, we would like to send an envoy to discuss our situation."

If they accepted, at least she could confirm if they really were American. A spaceman handed her a note. Apparently Zelinsky had managed to get the tesla coils online, although there was triple underlined, "Ionizable materials tanks will blow if used at present; you get one shot!" Better than nothing, anyway. Possibly she could sneak Zelinsky over to re-appropriate some of their technology.

"Finally, broadcast this to all ships:"

"Romanova to all ships. We propose a meeting on a any other ship to discuss our situation and confirm our present location."

Powers felt his fists tighten at this... this 'Soviet's' woman's words. How could this woman not be aware of what the UEG was? It was a massive interstellar empire, for god's sake! But at the same time, he wanted to laugh. Did she actually say that the UEG would be crushed under the heel of the Soviet Union? By what - ancient guns? Not happening. Nonetheless, he still opened up a COMM channel.

"Romanova, I don't know what you're playing here, but should you prove to be a threat, then you shall be dealt with accordingly. As for now, be thankful you are protected by Federal Law Code 2247 paragraph eight line twelve. It dictates that I cannot attack without being attacked first."

Nikolai gawked at him. "You memorised all that, commander?" Powers gave the Russian A.I. an annoyed scowl. "Of course. The UEGNC made all commissioned officers remember that one line after the conclusion of the war." The A.I. scratched his cloth-wrapped head. "Oh. Makes sense, then." The battlecruiser's captain sighed. "Yes. Yes it does. But right now, we still have some diplomatic issues to solve."

Nikolai's arm immediately shot upwards. "Ooh! I know! I will speak to them!" Powers nodded at that. "Go ahead." Nikolai returned the nod with a smile.

"Greetings, comrades. I am Artificial Intelligence Construct Nikolai serving on the United Earth Government Naval Command battlecruiser Paramount. My associates mean you no harm. The Paramount will be within viewing range shortly. Perhaps we can sort this out over a drink of fine vodka, eh? Until then, goodbye."

He then repeated in Russian.

"Приветствую вас, товарищи. Я Искусственный интеллект Построить Николай служить на единой земле правительство военно-морское командование крейсера первостепенное значение. Мои соратники не причиню вам вреда. Первостепенной будет находиться в пределах зоны обзора в ближайшее время. Возможно, мы сможем разобраться в этом за бокалом любимого напитка тонкой водки, а? До тех пор, до свидания."

An unsure look overcame Powers' features as soon as Nikolai finished delivering his message. "Are you sure this is going to work?" The A.I. nodded rather confidently, reassuring Powers ever so slightly. "Of course! They are Soviets, like me!" The Captain's palm met his face. "Right, who could forget that? Are the particle cannons back yet?" Nikolai nodded. "Yes. Cannons 1 and 2 have just finished rebooting and the drones are back online with minimal damage. Sector 3 is back, with all personnel reporting." Powers allowed his arm to fall back down to his side as he stared out the viewscreen. "That's a relief."

"Yes, but I am getting more radio signals from the other objects." Nikolai said. "I'll play them right now."

“This is colonel Darius Mills, commander of the United States Air Force Vessel Helios. We do not wish to engage in any form of hostilities.”

If Powers recalled correctly the United States Air Force was the air defence force of the United States, an old government on Earth that was absorbed into the UEG centuries ago. So it was impossible for a vessel to claim to be the USAF right now.

"My Name is Raiden Korten, and I am the current SOSCOM commanding officer of the Heavyweight Research ship codename:Oblivion. We are a research Vessel. and intend no harm. our ship shall remain open to communications, Good day to you."

Powers didn't know what this 'SOSCOM' was, but he had a feeling that he would find out soon enough.

"Attention outsiders, this is Captain Markurio of the V.V. Pale Quiver. We are the true loyalists of the Valinosian Pact, and we hear your messages of peace. So long as you refrain from committing acts of barbarism, you have my word that my vessel's weapons shall be powered down. I have hopes that you outsiders are different, but make no mistake; We will retaliate if you prove to be just like the rest of them."

The Captain had no idea what the Valinosian Pact was, either. He didn't exactly want to believe that the ship's weapons were powered down. He had learnt to trust nobody during the war.

"This is Captain Sarah Parker with The Intrepid, we are friendly and will be able to offer emergency repair services once we have our own ship in order. If any one is in need of assistance, we are happy to show good will and assist."

Sarah Parker sounded human enough. Powers wondered if they were. At least this one wasn't immediately threatening.

"Greetings unknown vessels. We are the Advent, and we come with no ill intentions towards those who mean us none in return. To those who do, know that we will not hesitate in defending ourselves as we deem fit."

Another faction completely unknown to him.

He gently massaged his temples as the massive ship continued to boost its way forwards, its repulsor engines glowing blue in the starless void. Hundreds upon thousands of artificial lights dotted the ship's bulky shape, and sensor arrays jutted out here and there. Occasionally, several flocks of maintenance drones flew out to repair any structural damage. On the ship's starboard side was the word PARAMOUNT in huge, white letters that were illuminated by several spotlights. It brought some colour to the Paramount's drab grey paint job. Most of the ships were now in viewing range of the ship's powerful onboard cameras. The sensors counted nine in total.

One appeared to be a giant metal ring with no visible weapons, and resembled a UEG mobile repair/refit station. Powers assumed this one was the Intrepid.

The next was a roughly cylindrical ship around a kilometre long. On the side of the ship was the world OBLIVION in English letters. Normally Powers would attempt to contact the mystery ship, but given what had transpired in the last few minutes, he decided not to.

Another was a grey ship that was of unmistakable human design, and what appeared to be several hangar bays. The ship was only a mere five hundred metres in length, the size of an average frigate. This one was bristling with weapons.

A tiny (compared to the Paramount) ship drifted into view. It was the size of a UEGNC corvette. While small, it was awfully fast, and looked more like a dagger than a ship. Again, this one had no visible weapons.

Possibly the strangest was apparently a giant manta ray that slowly flapped its wings as it cruised through the void. Powers didn't know what to make of it.

What appeared to be an armed human freighter sat unmoving in the distance. This one was somewhere between the size of a heavy frigate and medium destroyer.

Then there was that green ship that looked like a giant wing with engines. It drifted in between the collection of ships.

Finally, the largest one hung all the way in the back. It dwarfed all the other ships, though it was still around half the length of the Paramount. This one looked more like a sword, and appeared to have been built by machines. Strange runes of blue light flowed through its body.

Then the Paramount received another hail from the Romanova just as the battlecruiser neared the odd flotilla.

"Romanova to all ships. We propose a meeting on a any other ship to discuss our situation and confirm our present location."

Powers leaned into the receiver.

"Romanova and all other ships, we accept your proposal. The Paramount has enough docking bays and hangars to house your needs. Hangar Bay Primary, located on the underside of this ship, will be unlocked for diplomatic purposes. Please send a diplomatic team over with armed escort, should you wish. Be warned, however, that you are being closely monitored."

The Captain turned away and back to Nikolai once he had finished broadcasting. "Get Meeting Room A-1 ready. I want all sentry turrets in that area active, but do not deploy them unless these diplomats show open hostility. If we're meeting on any other ship and I have to leave the Paramount, get some security detail and prep a Talon along with a pair of Stingrays. I am not taking any chances."

Raiden Finished his whiskey as Dr. T walked into the room . “We’ve had more entries into our area as you’ve been here“ he loaded up a Holo map on the table, each ship had an initial scan showing the shape size and visible weaponry.

"Unidentified contacts, this is Captain Leonard Powers of the United Earth Government Naval Command battlecruiser Paramount. Please identify."

“The only paramount I knew of was a scout cruiser, If that size is correct, this is larger than the SOSCOM Scar Flagship. I would like a full ship scan as soon as possible, they seem friendly, But It doesn’t hurt to be prepared, Haines try and look in our records for that faction” Thirlwell changed the ship to the pale quiver and loaded up the message.

"Attention outsiders, this is Captain Markurio of the V.V. Pale Quiver. We are the true loyalists of the Valinosian Pact, and we hear your messages of peace. So long as you refrain from committing acts of barbarism, you have my word that my vessel's weapons shall be powered down. I have hopes that you outsiders are different, but make no mistake; We will retaliate if you prove to be just like the rest of them."

“Loyalists, interesting.” Raiden knew not of a “Valinosian pact” The size and shape of the ship suggested a high maneuverability much like a fighter, but he knew it could probably punch a big enough hole in the ship to do some damage. “Okay, Haines, Same with this ship, scan, and research their faction.”

"This is Captain Sarah Parker with The Intrepid, we are friendly and will be able to offer emergency repair services once we have our own ship in order. If anyone is in need of assistance, we are happy to show good will and assist."

Raiden investigated the ship. If not for its size, it would be easily mistaken for a space station, not a space ship, the scan didn't pick up any visible weapons so the chances it would engage were little to none. Raiden considered asking for repairs the hole in the hull, but went against it, He couldn't risk doing any more damage. “Next ship please Doctor”

"Greetings unknown vessels. We are the Advent, and we come with no ill intentions towards those who mean us none in return. To those who do, know that we will not hesitate in defending ourselves as we deem fit."

“Another peacemaker. But by the looks of the ship, it could do some damage. I’d prefer-”

Dr. Thirlwell interrupted “New message coming from the ship Romanova commander”`

“Play it”

"Romanova to all ships. We propose a meeting on a any other ship to discuss our situation and confirm our present location."

Raiden paused before speaking, "our Sensor array, what did we pick up?" Haines stepped forward. And changed the focus of the map to the Romanova. "for starters, we're picking up high numbers of neutrinos from what appears to be the engine of the ship, due to this fact we believe that it could either be running on a fission reactor or possibly is just using it as a fuel source." As you move up the ship you start to see how the ship is armed, It carries missile batteries, although they look small, we predict that the payload could certainly do some damage. There are two devices that seem almost hastily put together a field projector and a machine that could only be described as an attempt at a makeshift FTL drive. further, up we have the living quarters, a rather odd contraption that is pretty much an overclocked magnet, A 'bridge' and finally a region of highly ionised particles that we can assume is used like a 'super tesla coil'. Our techs also noticed a distinct lack of gravity in their area, take from that what you will."

Raiden pondered his options, There were other ships, in proximity those of which had contacted the group, part of his mind wanted to board them to investigate them, but he understood it was too risky to send a ground force without scouting the area before hand. on the other side of the equation, he could allow people onto the ship, to better their situation, after all, it is their mission to find to unknown. He got up from his chair just as another message came through, another from the behemoth of a ship that was the Paramount

"Romanova and all other ships, we accept your proposal. The Paramount has enough docking bays and hangars to house your needs. Hangar Bay Primary, located on the underside of this ship, will be unlocked for diplomatic purposes. Please send a diplomatic team over with armed escort, should you wish. Be warned, however, that you are being closely monitored."

This was a perfect opportunity, an option to discuss the situation with the rest of the ships, as well as keeping his crew out of harms way. "Gentlemen, Ready the ship, Haines, go to your techs, get our main array at the second largest ship, the one that has sent no transmissions, Get me as much information as I can Find. Dr. T, I'd like to be able to get out of a scenario if things get dicey, so I need you to try to fix the ship, I'd like Interstellar flight available as soon as possible." He Called up to the bridge. "prepare to extend a message out on all frequencies I'll be up there soon." He moved into the Comm chamber and pressed record.

"Once again This is the Raiden Korten of the Oblivion. Considering our positions I believe that it is in our best interests to explore our options and talk. My XO and I will travel to your ship and as a sign of good will, I will be able to send Shuttles to pick up other groups to meet on the ship. Once again communications will remain open."

Raiden left the comm chamber, picked up his trusty side arm, and made his way to the hangar and starting prepping a Shuttle. "Kora Myself and Miles will be leaving the ship temporarily, Whilst we're gone you'll have charge, Make sure science has enough power to get the sensor arrays working."

"The Intrepid accepts your offer to meet. We will move our ship in closer, but request transport to and from your ship for our delegates. The way our ship docks can be... Alarming. Our transport dock will be illuminated in green. Your shuttle should be able to get a visual."

The captain sent word to her second in command to prepare for a diplomatic mission and had the hull crew illuminate the dock in question. She would stay aboard the Intrepid, Tucker would bring along either an engineer or a security member. More then likely one of his old army buddies that was on the engineer corps, best of both worlds. She would send them in with only sidearms, but Tucker knew to hand them over before entering what ever room they would go into. He was a seasoned soldier, fighting unarmed was second nature to him. Of course Valori Faunus were never truly without some sort of weapon.

When Tucker received word he quickly went to find his former battle-buddy Tyler Cobb. The two had survived considerably bad situations, and he trusted no one as much as he trusted Cobb. The two would go and get ready and meet back at the dock indicated.

Meanwhile, outside the ship, the hull continued to come to life for any observers as its expanded hull now began to sprout mechanical arms adding another nearly 200 meters of reach from any given point. Three arms immediately went to work on a fourth arm, the one that had been reported as being stuck previously. Two arms gripped the damaged unit and held it in place as the third arm made use of plasma arc cutters to cut away at the arm until it was free. The one of the two arms holding the damaged one now released it to the care of the other arm and movements that were too fine to be seen from a distance began to take place as the arm carefully fabricated and reproduced the damaged and cut out section of the arm. In short order the arm was reattached at the cut away section. Tests were being completed on the arm as the diplomats were loaded onto the Oblivion unmanned craft heading towards the Paramount.

As expected, Tucker and Cobb offered up their side arms before entering the meeting room. Anybody who saw them when they finally took their helmets off were at first relieved to see the human features before taking note of the non-human features. It was just enough to be off putting for most normal people. However, Tucker's lineage of Faunus brought him through that of the White Tiger. It did not take much for people to notice the shaggy white hair the cropped up around his impressive white and black striped ears. It was true as well that he had a tail, sharpened fang like teeth and retractable claws, but beyond that his physiology was extremely human.

Cobb's lineage brought him through that of the Ram. His ears were elongated and adorned by tufts of grey-tan hair, but more obvious then that was the impressive rack of horns that curled from his forehead. His tail was small enough that it was not visible in the space suit.

Tucker and Cobb sat down where they were shown and awaited more people to show up. Cobb leaned over and said to Tucker quietly, "What do you make of their ears, if you can even call them that?"

Tucker would keep his mouth shut and not react to the question.

Paramount Central Research and Development Bay

The Central Research and Development Bay, located towards the upper front of the ship, was a flurry of activity. Scientists dressed in flowing pearly-white lab coats dashed around, some holding pieces of equipment, some with research drones following closely behind, and some clutching glowing datapads. But one was more prominent than the rest. The scientist in question was currently sprinting past rows of tables with holographic interfaces, and carrying a full stack of paper. Occasionally, several slips fluttered out, slowing falling to the floor, forgotten by their holder, for he was too excited to care. "This is so exciting!" The man practically scouted as he narrowly dodged a random engineer working on a malfunctioning maintenance drone. "An alien species- no, a collection of alien species that hasn't tried to attack us yet!" He was Doctor Travesty, the head researcher of the Paramount science team, and, as his name would suggest, had a brilliant mind despite his legendary clumsiness. He ran with a skip in his step.

Then he tripped. Papers flew everywhere as the man fell flat on the polished, marble-white floor. He lay sprawled out there for a while, before he slowly rolled over and rubbed his forehead. "Not again." He groaned and looked over to the spilled papers. Just then, he noticed a metallic hand enter his field of vision. Looking up, he was greeted by the faceplate of the bay's one and only Lab Assistant Research System, or LARS. These kinds of androids were used in hundreds of research facilities all over the Colonies, and several in ships. They were a step up from basic artificial intelligences, programs that would be akin to a regular laptop, though they were still less advanced than advanced constructs like Nikolai. Nonetheless, they were still able to process trillions of complex calculations every second. "Need some help, Doctor?" The machine spoke in a metallic but rather civilised British accent as it stared at the fallen scientist with two pairs of glowing green photoreceptors.

The Doctor stared at the machine's bleached, protective material-plated body before accepting its hand with a sigh, feeling the surprisingly warm metal. "Yeah, I do. I just tripped, that's all."

"Over nothing, sir?" LARS spoke through a pair of speakers on either side of his otherwise featureless face, minus his photoreceptors. Travesty gave the android an annoyed scowl as he brushed a speck of imaginary dust off his coat. "Of course. Even the most perfect floors can have bumps and depressions."

"Ah. Forgive me, sir. Perhaps my best efforts of trying to fix the perfectly smooth floor were all in vain." Even for a machine that was programmed to be serious all the time, LARS had a surprisingly dry sense of humour. Not that Travesty exactly appreciated it, of course.

Travesty grunted as he began to pick up the scattered pieces, but stopped when they suddenly seemed to float up in the air, swirl around for a second, and rearrange themselves into a neatly stacked pile. LARS stood behind the moderately stunned Doctor. "My apologies. I just used my new implemented telekinesis module. It is rather helpful in situations like this." Travesty said nothing, and instead simply nodded in appreciation, picking up the stack and walking away in the opposite direction. He then promptly bumped into a technician, spilling papers and metal parts all over the place.

LARS sighed as his palm met his face. "Oh, why of all science teams was I assigned to this one?"

“One new contact on sensors, larger than the previous two, sir. Also engineering has been able to restore ship-wide comms throughout most of the ship.” Major Fields told the Colonel. A second later a central holographic display showed the newly arrived ship as seen by an external camera.

"Incoming Transmission from the ship." Fields said.

"My Name is Raiden Korten, and I am the current SOSCOM commanding officer of the Heavyweight Research ship codename:Oblivion. We are a research Vessel. and intend no harm. our ship shall remain open to communications, Good day to you."

“Looks like we won’t quite have time for a briefing.” The colonel noted regarding his order to have a debriefing.
He instead brought up a second smaller holographic display and used it to contact engineering. “Foley, I need a sit rep.”

There was silence for a few good seconds before the Colonel and Major heard coughing accompanied by the sound sparks flying in the background through the intercom.
“… Long story short…” more coughing interrupted the chief engineer, “ we’re screwed. I mean pick your poison. Death by freezing, death by suffocation, death by explosion. I don’t even know wh-“

“Foley!” The colonel snapped at Foley, interrupting his nonsensical blabber.

“Let’s start with the hyperdrive.” Mills tried to pull something coherent out of the ships chief engineer.

“The hyperdrive has sustained some damage, though still can be repaired. The real issue is the power conduits that power it. Those essentially no longer exist. We would have to basically fabricate new ones. Not sure yet what’s wrong with the sublight propulsion system, they haven’t really taken that much damage yet are offline nonetheless. I’ll probably need Dr. Rose’s help on those. I could probably have one asgard beam weapon back online in no time, but don’t expect to fire more than half a shot with it. The missile system is still in pretty good shape, though unusable due to the control circuitry being fried throughout the bow of the ship. Should however be an easy fix. The two main issues right now are life-support system damage, the fact that we’re venting atmosphere isn’t helping, and the naquadah generators which are giving out worrying readings. Remember the death by explosion I mentioned?
Our power grid is also just as likely to fail at any moment.”

“Alright we get it. Not the best of shapes. Prioritize the hull-breaches and life support for now.”

While the chief engineer was explaining how screwed they were two more ships appeared.

“Sir, the two ships are also broadcasting messages.” The Major reported after a few moments of silence.

"Unidentified contacts, this is Captain Leonard Powers of the United Earth Government Naval Command battlecruiser Paramount. Please identify."

Right afterwards the Major played the second transmission as well.

"Attention outsiders, this is Captain Markurio of the V.V. Pale Quiver. We are the true loyalists of the Valinosian Pact, and we hear your messages of peace. So long as you refrain from committing acts of barbarism, you have my word that my vessel's weapons shall be powered down. I have hopes that you outsiders are different, but make no mistake; We will retaliate if you prove to be just like the rest of them."

The Colonel nodded and considered his options. He decided not to directly respond to any of the ships. They would have plenty to talk among themselves for now. They needed to focus on their situation right now. Mills then opened another intercom channel. “Dr Rose, it seems we won’t have time for a proper debriefing. I need you to come up to the bridge and give me the short version.”

“Okay. I’ll be on my way.” A calm female voice said over the intercom.

In the meantime another vessel flashed in out of nowhere. It had a ring-like shape and looked more like a space station than a regular ship, however a quick scan revealed it was more than capable of moving independently. By this point the Major assumed this would become a regular occurrence if the number of ships that arrived in quick succession was any indication and therefore simply brought up a local map on the main holo-display, showing all ships in the immediate vicinity of the Helios.

"This is Captain Sarah Parker with The Intrepid, we are friendly and will be able to offer emergency repair services once we have our own ship in order. If any one is in need of assistance, we are happy to show good will and assist."

Before Colonel Mills could even contemplate how to react or respond to the latest arrival, the holo-display displayed an additional ship. Just as before, appearing out of nowhere.

“This is getting ridiculous.” The Colonel commented.

“Sir, this one is different.” Major Fields informed the colonel.

“How?”

“I’m detecting zero life-signs on-board the ship.” He explained.

“Either it’s abandoned or . . .” The Colonel paused. “Replicators?”

He then tapped a few buttons and had another intercom link to engineering.

“Foley! Let’s switch around a bit. Drop any hull repairs that are being made and make sure those missile tubes brought into function. Also do the best you can to not have that plasma beam cannon get fried after one shot. We might have a replicator problem on our hands.”

“How are the ship's weapons going to help against replicators?” Foley questioned.

“They’re not on-board . . . yet.”

“Oh.” Was the only thing Foley added before the colonel could already hear shouting in the background, ordering the few engineers the ship had on-board to get to work on weapons.

“If they try anything suspicious don’t hesitate to open fire with what we have left of the railgun network.” Mills ordered the Major.

“Yes, sir.” Fields responded with a worried sigh.

Two more ships blinked in on the main screen while the few on the bridge waited any form of reaction from the lifeless, possibly derelict ship.
One of them appeared eerily organic on the display. Both the Colonel and the Major stared at it for while without saying a word.

They waited for another transmission, yet none came.

Suddenly both the Colonel, Major Fields and possibly everyone else on the Helios winced at the slight discomforted the psychic communique caused.

"Greetings unknown vessels. We are the Advent, and we come with no ill intentions towards those who mean us none in return. To those who do, know that we will not hesitate in defending ourselves as we deem fit."

“What the hell was that.” The Colonel said.

They didn’t have time to ponder on it as more events followed in quick succession.
This time it was a message directed at the Helios from the Soviet rocket-ship.

"Romanova to the Helios. In the spirit of goodwill, we would like to send an envoy to discuss our situation."

“This should be interesting. Open a channel.” Mills ordered.

“Greetings commander Romanova. We accept your proposition of a meeting, However, due to security concerns, no more than 3 individuals will be allowed on-board. We will wait on a response to our terms of the meeting.”

After the message was sent another broadcast came from the soviet ship. This time it was sent to everyone present in the area of space.

"Romanova to all ships. We propose a meeting on a any other ship to discuss our situation and confirm our present location."

“What are they playing at? Requesting a separate meeting with us? I don’t like it.” Mills remarked with narrowed eyes.

In the meantime the side-doors to the bridge opened with Dr. Rose on the other side. The Colonel glanced at her and simply raised two fingers implying she should give him a moment. Colonel Mills then looked at the Major.

“Open a channel and broadcast to all ships this time.”

The Major nodded and a few taps on a holographic display later, the channel was open.

“This Colonel Darius Mills of the United States Air Force Vessel Helios. We do not wish to engage in any hostilities and we agree to meeting with one condition. The shields of the vessel on which the meeting will take place will be lowered for the entire duration of the meeting provided it possess any.”

“Standard protocol.” The Colonel said to Major Fields after muting the channel.

“Yes, sir. I’ll have the Asgard transporter ready to beam you out at your command if things go south at the meeting.”

After that the Colonel turned to doctor Rose.

"Doctor, what do you have for us."

Dr. Rose went over to the front of the bridge where the holo-display showed all the nearby ships. She waved her hand and holo-interface appeared. The ships were then replaced with the schematic of the supergate they went through prior to their arrival here.

"After we passed through the event horizon of the supergate around P3W-452 we assume the two hive ships pursuing us opened fire on the supergate, somehow causing the wormhole to collapse or jump to a different gate. Normally the a gate is required to re-materialize the matter sent through the gate. We, however, were cut off mid-transit. It is quite astounding the even survived and re-materialized out of the blue." The Doctor explained the holo-display glimmered with the diagram of an active supergate followed by one of the wormhole itself.

"As to the other ships here. I believe they are from alternate realities. SG-1 has had such encounters before. If a large enough explosion is directed through a wormhole and wormhole's path happens to be through a black hole, the wormhole can jump to stargates in other realities. Our situations is rather unique as we did not even reach the destination gates. We are currently stuck between the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy. Such a tear into other realities can be undone with an Asgard energy weapon, allowing us to both return home and close the said tear. The schematic no doubt exists in the Asagard database we have. The main issue here is that we would still need a stargate to reverse the effect." Dr. Rose explained.

"And we don't how to build them or if this reality has any." Colonel Mills finished off her hypothesis to which the Doctor nodded.

It was probably a good sign that the first few minutes of open contact had not resulted in shooting just yet, especially from those vessels who were close to the same size as the Vorascant. Especially the one that named itself the Paramount. Carina had the feeling that a vessel like that could do quite a bit of damage to them before they got out of range or defeated it, and so she was glad instead to hear them offer to use their vessel as a meeting space.

"They are scanning us," Alera noted as she continued to face ahead, seeing beyond the ship itself to the void beyond. Carina wasn't surprised by that, of course, and while they might get some things they wouldn't be able to see everything. Such was the nature of the technology that they possessed.

Carina nodded, looking over the various holographic screens in front of her. "It's alright," she told them with a calm mood. "We have nothing to hide." The Unity did not act through deception, though they could. For the moment it was hearts and minds which would ensure their security in this place.

"I don't like it," Lorana said with a shake of her head. "It could be a trap, and if we lose you then we shall be without guidance in a far off place, surrounded by potential enemies."

"She has a point," Alera noted, now turning to look at Carina. "If we attend this meeting then you should send someone else. Any of us can represent the Unity as easily as you."

Carina shook her head, grateful for the advice but making her decision nonetheless. And with her mind made up no one would contest it. "They will expect to see the Captain of this vessel. To send someone of lesser rank may offend them, even if they do not know how our culture operates." Given the various strange societies and ships present, she did not want to spark a conflict sooner than she had to.

"if that is your decision," Lorana ceded at last, not happy but accepting of it. "If they betray us then no one here will forgive them." Their vengeance would burn the very stars themselves, as the TEC had so unfortunately learned.

Carina smiled nonetheless, nodding. "I know." With that she turned to the radio, once again speaking to those she had addressed before. "We shall attend the offered meeting as well." That done she turned to the other crewmembers on the bridge, ready for anything. "Make sure the ship continues with repairs while I am away," she told them before heading for the hangar bay. She had the feeling that this was going to be an interesting meeting

Something pinged on Captain Powers' command holotable, causing him to focus his attention onto it. Detailed, three-dimensional diagrams of the many ships appeared, and Nikolai was studying each one with utmost attention. Charts, zoom-ins, module displays and even possible cross sections were all present. The A.I. swiped his hands across a floating flat console as a vodka bottle sat by his feet. "Scans are finished, I take?" The Captain asked as he leaned on the glass crystal. "What've we got?"

"Well," Nikolai picked up the bottle and took a swig. "Six of them are obviously warships. I've gathered, decoded, and decrypted enough radio transmissions to know their names." The models of the ships, their names next to them, identified them as the Romanova, Oblivion, Pale Quiver, Helios, Spirit of Wind, and Forward Spear all zoomed in to show weapon emplacements. "It appears that quite a high percentage of these ships use energy weapons." Turrets of varying design and make suddenly detached from the ships and hovered in the centre, rotating a few times before floating next to their respective owners.

First was the flying hunk of junk that was the Romanova. Several sections of the 'ship' lit up. "The Romanova appears to use a modified tesla coil. I detect a weak force field surrounding it. Twenty-first century era nuclear missiles and machine guns appear to be its secondary armament."

The Oblivion was next. "The Oblivion uses a mix of magnetic weapons and energy weapons. So far, it is the only ship that has the same, if not a few years behind, level of technology as us. Their shields are roughly equivalent to that of a Magnitude-class battlecruiser. It has a particle cannon much like ours as its primary weapon system. I detect multiple hangars on it." Sectors of the craft appeared to open up in a simulation of craft getting launched out.

Next, multiple, tiny turrets on the smallest and admittedly most graceful ship were highlighted. "The Pale Quiver. Funny little thing, really. If I am correct, this ship was built for fast pursuit. It has several laser turrets and a single belly-mounted energy cannon, along with two torpedo launchers. It is equipped with shields that only seem to be good for protection against energy weaponry. If it ever turns hostile, I suggest firing a railgun salvo at the target. Missiles and point-defence weapon systems should have no trouble tracking it."

The frigate-looking ship, the Helios, was next, showing quite a few weapon systems. "Here we have the Helios." Nikolai stated, matter-of-factly as he casually sipped his vodka. "This one has railguns and missile pods for nuclear missiles mixed with an unknown material. I will designate it as HE-01. Point defence systems appear to be in abundance. Shields are strong, just slightly stronger than ours. I'm detecting a very basic form of artificial intelligence controlling most of the ship's systems."

He swiped and the odd triangular ship appeared. "This is the Spirit of Wind. By far, this one is the most advanced out of all of the craft here. Many of this ship's weapons are energy-based, along with several magnetic weapons. It holds missiles of varying payload, but a hundred megatons is its most powerful one, if scans are correct. There are several large spinal cannons that fire kinetic weapons a fire rate of estimated eighty rounds per minute, per gun. Its hull is made up of an unknown alloy, for this reason I will designate it as SW-01." Nikolai took a final sip of his drink before gently laying it down on the 'ground'. "I have to admit that this one is quite startling. This one has no life readings at all." To emphasise his point, the words 'NO LIFE SIGNS' appeared after a sensor scan swept the ship. Powers raised an eyebrow. "Is it abandoned? Or is it controlled by an A.I.?" A two-dimensional flat display popped up, showing a pulsing line and flashing numbers of binary. "A.I. controlled. That's for sure. I picked up electronic transmissions only emitted by robotic constructs. From this data, there are exactly 3,874 units on board, excluding the ship, which itself is a gigantic A.I. construct. In a way, it operates much like our automatous Mayfly-class frigates."

Finally, the destroyer-sized vessel appeared. "At last, this one is the Forward Spear. This one, like most of the ones before, has ion cannons and a single magnetic accelerator cannon, or MAC. It is almost the same as the ones mounted on ships almost two-hundred years ago. However," The ship suddenly seemed to flicker and disappear, the only trace of its existence on the holotable was a light blue outline. "I believe this one has cloaking abilities much like our own stealth corvettes and fighters. I can't be sure."

Every representation blinked out of existence and was replaced by three others. The giant floating wing was the first one to be shown. "This one is the Vorascant. While it has multiple energy weapons on board, it appears to be a colony ship. It is powered by an antimatter reactor with a slightly lower power output than the Paramount's Antimatter Condenser." The area of the ship with the highest energy reading was highlighted in green. "Cold fusion is its secondary power source. I am detecting strange electrical signals coming from the inside, but I cannot perform scans for some reason. I will designate this VO-01."

The giant disk that looked more like a mobile repair station was next. "Here we have the Intrepid. As its appearance suggests, it appears to have been built for resource collection and repair. However, it has a handful of energy cannons on board, likely for defence against stray asteroids or debris."

The final 'ship', which resembled a massive manta ray was the last one to be shown. "This one is the strangest of all. For some reason, I can't pick up any radio signals at all, and scanners are having a hard time with this one. However, thermal scans have shown that this one is an actual living creature." Powers' eyes widened as he took a step back. "But how? How does it breathe? How does it even survive in a vacuum?" While it was true that several alien species discovered on numerous colony worlds could survive in space, most of them only lasted a day or so before expiring. Nikolai turned to him with an equally confused expression. "I don't know. I'll store Data File BS-01 on this 'bio-ship' for further analysis."

The ships faded out, only for them to be replaced with a holoprojection of the Oblivion, which had launched several craft, likely transports. Powers closed his eyes and took a breath, before opening them again. He pulled out a small vial of clear liquid and dropped some onto the fresh bloodstains of his uniform. They disappeared almost instantly. "Right. Launch Stingray and Gladius squadrons, and a flight of Firestorms. Along with that, tell launch Locust fighters. Status on shields?"

Nikolai looked away for a second. "Eighty-six percent and climbing. But don't you think this is too much, commander?"

"I am not taking any chances." Powers almost growled. "Increase security in Hangar Bay Primary, and get two companies of Marines down there, and a squad of Special Security Suits. Make sure all turrets in the area are tracking any and all craft entering the Paramount." Nikolai stuttered for a second, before nodding and disappearing. Satisfied, Powers adjusted his hat and turned around to the elevator. A pair of Marines fully covered in grey, white and blue powered armour signifying their role as security saluted as they flanked Powers' sides. From there, the trio began to make their way down to the hangar.

Outside, two dozen or so fighter craft and gunships flew out, guarding the Paramount like bees around a hive. In the massive hangar bay, a company of Marines, all in powered armour, stood waiting with their weapons ready, along with security troopers in much heavier and bulkier armour.

Footsteps rang out throughout the halls as the crew shuffled between their stations, or made their way to their destinations. Despite the noisy, busy exterior, it was quite solemn within the med-bay. Taris and the Head-Doctor stood over the young star-seer, watching her chest weakly raise and fall. It was clear that she was alive, but the extent of her injuries were still quite unknown to the two. It wasn't a physical injury that put her in this state, that much was clear to them.

"She's unconscious.." Head-Doctor McClain explained. "We believe the violent transition through the wormhole may have been too much for her mind to comprehend. It is unclear if she has suffered any permanent damage from the transition.. only time will tell." McClain shortly glanced over at his Captain, before making his way towards several screens that were projecting the images of several of the nearby ships. "Captain, how have you been?" McClain suddenly asked.
Taris shifted uncomfortably at the doctor's news about the Star-Seer, before turning to him in a rather surprised manner. "What do you- I'm fine." He quickly replied.

"Fine eh? You have an odd definition of fine Swordmaster.." The Head-Doctor jested. "You and I both know that's not true Taris. When you're not busy.. I advise that you come by here again for a check-up. Who knows.. I might be able to prevent your hair from going gray."
Taris offered a smirk to his old friend. With each passing day, the toll of command was taking more and more of a toll on the man. Though he did his best to hide it, it was beginning to slip through the cracks of his facade. He gave a weak nod to the doctor before the intercoms came alive once more.

"Captain, this is bridge. Could you come up here again? We just received some news you should hear."

"That check up might have to wait awhile Doctor. Look after Asha while i'm gone alright?" Taris replied to McClain with a quick salute, who promptly returned it as well. Taris would then turn to take his leave, heading towards the bridge once more.

---

Helmsman Zarwen had been recording most of the publicly transmitted messages, doing his best to keep a log of activity, as well as conducting several scans on most of the larger ships. They weren't very detailed scans, mostly just an attempt at gathering some basic information about the outsider's vessels.
"Have you learned anything of these Outsiders?" Taris asked as he returned to the bridge. Zarwen would glance back at the approaching Captain and nod to him.
"Aye, but not that much.. been a few interesting announcements you might want to hear though Captain. Here, i'll play them for you." Zarwen pressed a button on the console infront of him, which began to playback some of the earlier broadcasts.

"Romanova to all ships. We propose a meeting on a any other ship to discuss our situation and confirm our present location."

"A meeting..?" Taris repeated. "Good.. there might be hope for these outsiders after all."
"There's more sir.."

"Romanova and all other ships, we accept your proposal. The Paramount has enough docking bays and hangars to house your needs. Hangar Bay Primary, located on the underside of this ship, will be unlocked for diplomatic purposes. Please send a diplomatic team over with armed escort, should you wish. Be warned, however, that you are being closely monitored."

Taris rubbed his chin as he listened to the recording. These outsiders were certainly different from the ones he was used to dealing with. Violence wasn't their immediate reply, but he still held within himself a reasonable doubt about them. For all he knew, this could be a trap meant to lure in the surrounding vessels. The Paramount was a large, and powerful looking vessel. One that could unleash a great deal of damage if it so desired.

"Scans also revealed something interesting about the vessel identified as The Spirit of Wind.." Zarwen began. "There's no detected life-signs aboard her."
"None at all?" Taris stated aloud as he pondered the information. "Hmm.. Helmsman, open a public channel, I have another announcement for these outsiders." Zarwen nodded to his Captain, and carried out the request to broadcast a new message.

"A meeting.. how pleasant. I, Taris Val' Markurio, Captain of the Pale Quiver, and Swordmaster of Valinos.. Shall attend this meeting aboard the Paramount. As a sign of good will, I shall come alone, and I shall bring with me Valtorian tea for each of the representatives who attend as well. I however, do request a shuttle be provided for transportation aboard, and would be much obliged if the Paramount, or any other vessel could provide me with transportation."

As the channel closed, Zarwen looked surprised by his Captain's announcement. "Alone sir.. are you certain that's-"
"Yes Helmsman. We need diplomats, not soldiers. The Battlemaster would only complicate matters, and our troops will be needed elsewhere." The Captain replied, clasping both his hands behind his back. "After I leave, dock the vessel alongside The Spirit of Wind and have Hendrick lead a scouting mission aboard the vessel. There may be supplies aboard that we could use, or something we could scrap for later."

"Y-yes sir.." Zarwen replied, still feeling uncertain about his Captain's decision.
"Bring us close to the Paramount, and keep full power to shields until a shuttle arrives for me." Taris stated. "Continue with your observations as well Zarwen.. I need to get dressed for the occasion.." With that, the Captain strolled out of the bridge to presumably return to his quarters. Valtorians never liked to look dull, especially not when they were dealing with outsiders.

"I've got a transmission from the Pale Quiver, commander." Nikolai informed from Powers' ear radio. "They're requesting a transport." The captain paused for a second to contemplate this. He didn't want to trust these people in this 'Valinosian Pact', whatever the hell it was just yet. Any death on his ship would be his responsibility. True, Hangar Bay Primary was big enough to fit a small ship like the Pale Quiver, since it already kept four one hundred metre long Fearless-class corvettes securely fastened to the bay's ceiling. The bay itself was already several hundred metres long, and almost as wide as the width of the Paramount.

Powers put his finger to his ears as the elevator doors opened. "Alright. I'm authorising a Talon dropship to be used as transport. Make sure at least one Stingray is escorting it." The Talon dropships were the newest class of dropship used by the UEGNC, produced just a year before the conclusion of the Vaskran War. Talons were everything the old Vultures weren't: they were hardy, fast, and deadly, equipped with two side-mounted twin-barrelled rotating 25mm turrets, a chin-mounted cannon, and two missile launchers carrying two dozen Falchion homing missiles each. They were propelled by four heavy-duty repulsor engines, allowing increased manoeuvrability and speed. They were able to carry thirty-six fully armed marines, and a magnetic clamp system allowed it to carry a single land vehicle, from simple scout vehicles to main battle tanks. All in all, they were a considerable replacement for the Vulture. "Did they say anything else?"

"They said something about 'Valtorian tea'. If that is anything like glorious vodka, then it would be wonderful!" Powers groaned. "Yes, if it is like your glorious vodka, then the men would surely enjoy it. Just remember to take scans, make sure it isn't toxic."

"You got it, commander." With that, the transmission ceased. Assuming a more formal stance as he neared one of the interior entrances for Hangar Bay Primary, he walked through the sliding metal doors. Immediately, he was greeted by the sight of dozens of workers, both human and robotic, scurrying around and working on vehicles that were damaged in the transit, while other performed maintenance on the many fighter craft. Three Fearless-class corvettes hung to the ceiling, and one had been lowered to the ground as workers conducted repairs. Occasionally, a Stingray returned, possibly from some technical problem, while other fighters launched off. It was noisy, with the constant sound of machinery all around.

A marine company made up of power armoured soldiers each holding weapons for the specialisation stood before the bay. Seeing him, they all snapped to attention, even the bulky Special Security Suits standing behind. "Captain Powers. My men are ready to face... whoever these diplomats are." A marine in white and grey armour with golden shoulder pads and a similar stripe on his helmet said. Powers turned to him. "Major Cornell. Been a while." He stuck out his hand, which the major accepted, and the two men shook hands.

"As it has, sir." Cornell was a marine commander who fought countless battles during the Vaskran War, from small skirmishes to massive planetary battles. He used to be under Powers' command on his previous ship, the One Rainy Day, during the early years of the war, but was reassigned when the war started to get into full swing. As such, the two commanders hadn't seen each other in years. Powers released his grip. "I hope you won't do anything rash."

Cornell chuckled at that. "No, sir. Won't happen this time." The captain nodded, reassured. "Good. I wasn't looking for a repeat of Panorama." He adjusted his crisp white uniform. "How do I look?"

"Like any other good commander." Cornell said after a few seconds of studying him.



In one of the smaller launch facilities, a pilot sat lazily inside his Talon with his feet on the control panel. He yawned as he idly tossed an old ball up and down. His radio suddenly beeped, causing him to drop the ball and put his feet back down. He put a finger to the side of his helmeted head. "This is Delta 556, reporting."

"Mach. It's Nikolai." Realising the signature accent of the A.I. as his face appeared on the interior cockpit of the virtual display, the pilot, Mach, let out a loose chuckle. "Oh hey, buddy. What do you need?" Nikolai looked slightly irked by that. "I told you not to call me that. You sound like that idiot Dusty!"

Mach tossed his hands into the air. "Whoa whoa whoa. Do not call Dusty an idiot. I like him. He's nice." The pilot said as he leaned forwards. Nikolai sighed. "Okay, whatever. Look, the captain of the Pale Quiver requested a transport, and Captain Powers just authorised one. You have to go to the ship and pick up their diplomat."

The pilot looked surprised. "You mean they don't have any sort of transport of their own?" He leaned back again. "Goddamn freeloaders."

"Yes, I know. You'd think a ship like that would contain at least one transport. Even our corvettes carry light transports."

"Tell me about it."

Nikolai crossed his arms. "I think we've talked about this before. Come on, get to the ship. The meeting's about to start, you know." The A.I. vanished a second later. Mach took a moment of pop his knuckles and crack his neck, before gripping the controls. "Well, here we go again." He pushed forwards on the thrust controls with one hand as he gripped the main control yoke with the other. Repulsors on the underside of the craft lit up and glowed blue as the air seemed to shimmer from quantum fluctuations. The Talon lifted into the air as its landing gear retracted into its body and it hovered in place for a second, before slowing moving forwards and passing through the thin plasma membrane that separated the atmosphere inside of the ship from the cold vacuum outside. Once that was done, it immediately blasted off with its four main engines glowing even brighter. A pathway was highlighted inside the cockpit to show the path to the target.

Nearing the Pale Quiver, Mach opened up a channel.

"Pale Quiver, this is Talon Delta 556 acting as a transport shuttle. Requesting permission to dock, over."