Opporunity II Orbit, Faira’Hexus, two days later

Libra has been at a screen for the last two days, going over the many suggestions on how an alliance between their species would look like. The facts were that while their military contingents seemed to work well with each other, fond of it even, the civilians were an unknown. The Faira had little information about how they went presented on Naris prime.

It was that what shaped her thoughts on the alliance and how it should work. It would require some changes to the structure of their society, but they would be worth it in the end. Now though, she was interested what the other side came up with, as she impatiently waited for a transport from the Alchemist.

When the airlock opened, a quartet of Narix, exited, if a little bleary-eyed, entered the ‘Hexus. In the weeks she’s spent at Opportunity, the layout of the ship was firmly engraved into Runa’s memory and they found the meeting room with little effort. She remembered the day she first set foot into the room, full of barely masked uncertainty at the prospect of being alone on an alien ship. It almost seemed like a lifetime ago.

“Good morning, rear admiral. Please excuse the delay, technical issues with a maneuvering thruster.” she greeted as she took her seat, setting her tablet that contained whatever she might need in front of her. “Lord-commander Zorea’s troops treating you well?” She was initially a little frightened at the thought of four Warlord-class destroyers and their battlegroups, headed by the Ira herself, present at a system that was designated as military-free as possible in the first peace treaty.

“Greetings. I have actually had little contact with the world outside my quarters in the last two days, I imagine it was much the same to you.” the faira shared, rubbing her forehead. “Please, pick a seat, Admiral Lira should arrive shortly.” she noted, looking like she needed a recharge.

“Yes, I think I’m going to sleep in my office for the next few days, my quarters have become a little stale in the past day and a half.” she noted the rear admiral’s appearance. This would be a productive day. Fortunately, not everything looked as bad as they did, as the Faira oracles got an all-clear to survey Naris for a node, aided by the NSS Privateer, the construction of the Singularity was going along nicely and with the alliance being negotiated, the council was already clearing more workers to be deployed to that project. Unbeknownst to anyone but minister Ertanax, several shipwrights were contacted by the council to draft a Narix design of similar function to see where that would go.

“I hope at least the admiral got some rest.” minister Ertanax more or less collapsed onto his chair, “This can’t be healthy for either of our species.”

“If this all works, than at least in the military there might be a couple of redundant officers so that I could take a leave for the ‘Dea for a while. I would like to get out of this frozen coffin and warm up on a sundeck.” Libra agreed readily. “I do not suppose it would be too inviting given our homeworld is a city ship, but if you need a vacation, you are most likely free to visit after today.”

Lira chose that moment to arrive, wearing her uniform. Unlike the exo suits, it seemed to be a blue and grey dress uniform with red ranking insignia and golden wire embellishments. “Greetings, sorry for the delay, we’ve had a problem with the jump drive.”

“This is shaping up to be quite quite the day.” Ertanax noted grimly.

“No need to apologise, admiral. Some things are beyond control. Shall we begin?” Runa woke her tablet, displaying the footnotes of what the Narix wanted to go through, briefly reading through them and drawing a deep breath.

“No doubt you are aware the problem at hand is twofold. Fortunately, it would appear our militaries work well together, something made much easier by the OEP, so cooperation and any level of integration shouldn’t be difficult to organise. As a civilian with nought but civic guard experience, i will defer to minister Nebiros when it comes to that. The more troublesome side would be everything else. Worried they might be perceived as misusing their power and not reelected, the councilors commissioned a survey of opinion among our people.” She displayed the results on her tablet and handed it to Libra.

“As you can see, in the face of the Nightmare threat, an overwhelming majority of our people thought an alliance is the best course of action, with around 48 percent agreeing this federation of sorts should last even after this threat subsides. The problem with democracy is that any idiot has to be heard, and you have do doubt noticed the 4 percent that wish to do away with your species. Fortunately, that number is much lower than I had feared, therefore ay threat of extremism can be managed. That means two things: One, this alliance has the support of around three quarters of our population, meaning there is now nothing stopping us from seeing it through, and two, the majority of that final quarter is indifferent, which gives us time to sway their opinion. The four percent are insignificant and thus can be ignored for now.”

“For obvious reasons, we were initially skeptical of your idea of unification.” Minister Kandros took over. “When Narix hear ‘union’, we think of complete integration. That being said, our side would like to propose a sort of federation, where both our species’ governing bodies remain independent in governing our respective peoples and home systems, but would decide as one ruling body on matters of other systems and military. That would also entail joint research and development, exploration, as we’ve seen that can work, and exchange of knowledge and information. Given time, maybe even unrestricted travel to our homeworlds, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves too much.” he finished, eager to hear what the Faira had to say.

The Faira looked at the Narix delegation in bewilderment. “A four percent would do what? Is there a brain present in those individuals? This can not be ignored, I’m sorry, with your system who’s to say the next elections will not be dominated by them? This needs solutions, people!” Lira demanded.

“Unless said federation includes free travel of people, that system will not work in my book. You run into the same problem we had when Opportunity and the systems beyond were concerned. We do not even have laws as you understand them, would any Narix wanting to settle or even cross enlist in our military? Surely not.” Libra put that thought to rest.

“After much deliberation, I can only suggest that we merge our militaries. Given that for us that is synonymous with our state, it solves the civilian issue from our end. You would however have to allow us to enforce your laws upon your people much like your own forces would. In return, we are prepared to give you overall command of such joint force, you have more experience managing massive fleets than us in any event.”

“Four percent claim to want that. That doesn’t meant they would do it themselves nor does it mean they would actually have someone else do it. And although elections dominated by people like that are certainly possible, I can’t imagine what manner of terrible things would have to happen for that to be the case. I cannot imagine how four percent of witless hicks from Longus Mons or some other armpit of the universe could grow to be the majority.” Nebiros cimed in. “Sixteen percent of our population calls for reverting the Republic to a federation of pre-unification nations, that number has been steadily declining since the end of the Unification war, where it peaked at 43 percent. And still, they couldn’t do anything.”

“This is exactly why none of us are keen about complete integration with your species.” Runa explained. “You are bewildered by these statistics, did not understand the concept of crime, by your admission have no laws as we know them. We simply don’t see how two species so different to one another, not in terms of biology, but the way we think and behave, could exist in a single body. The problem is made more difficult by different understanding of civilians. That is why we wanted to keep our homeworlds separate, with the rest of discovered space administered jointly. Of course under such a system, your forces would have authority to enforce laws upon our people and vice versa, I thought that goes without saying. Same when it comes to free travel between systems. Naris and the Faira Nebula were excerpt from it for several reasons. I can see many civilians getting lost in the Nebula or stumbling upon things they are not meant to see. The latter issue applies to Naris as well.”

“Merging the militaries is possible, and would certainly bring some order into the cluttered mess coordinating is now.” Nebiros continued. “Pray tell, by ‘merging’ do you mean a single command structure, or unifying equipment, doctrines and the like?”

“Pardon me, but last time no one could imagine, an ethnic group of your people was eventually wiped out, if I recall. But I’m willing to let this go if you keep us aware of the tendencies in the population.” Libra said, obviously not happy with their way of handling it, but there were more pressing concerns to address.

Libra continued: “Seeing as the nebula might be the only way out of our region of space, that might not be doable. For what it’s worth, we would be willing to move the cvillian fleet to Terminus, it seems more defensible and is not in the first strike vicinity of the Ancients. That would potentially solve that issue. Regarding the military, merging command structure for now. I imagine the rest will follow on it’s own whether we like it or not, there is no denying that we do some things better, and you others. Doctrines first as we are unavoidably exposed to one other’s, equipment as our engineers start to understand it.

“At the time of the Dark Ones Purge, our most advanced piece of technology was steel plate armor. Things have changed since then.” Nebiros snorted, “Then merging the militaries is something that is within our grasp.” Nebiros finally brightened up a little, “By comparing your and our designs, it seems your ships are geared for attack where our ships are designed for defense. Tell me, admiral, would you and your peers prefer to have specialised ships, or would you rather have ships that can do everything with reduced efficiency.” he turned to Lira, trying to get an idea of the way Faira commanders thought.

“Wouldn’t it be better to move the civilian fleet to Opportunity?” Runa inquired, “If we were attacked and overrun, you’d have nowhere to go from Terminus. By basing your fleet here, wherever the threat comes from, you’d have two nodes to retreat through.”

“Of course we would keep you informed, that falls under exchange of knowledge and information, not to mention keeping...” she took a moment to calculate, “...two percent of the population safe.”

“You are right, if there turned out to be a way out through one of our home systems, then free travel through these systems would be necessary. But so far, that isn’t the case. Should it happen, and I hope it does, securing that free travel deal would be the first thing we’d get onto.”

“I’d rather have the framework thought out now rather than when tensions are going to be high and heads hot.” Libra said, worried about the four percent growing in popularity for that reason. “It would also be applicable should we assign ownership to entire systems within the alliance rather than individual celestial bodies. What are your views on that? I think it is rather redundant when both our forces are going to be policing both our peoples, but I understand that you might view it differently with your traditions.

“You misunderstand our design philosophy then.” Lira answered the minister, “Our fundamental requirement is that all our ships need to be able to focus all firepower forward, but at least 50% to any other direction. In our opinion, their defensive capabilities are good enough, and considering the first line of defense is a node blockade, we seem to have that covered well enough. Albeit, even on defense, we intended to use our good FTL maneuverability to nano jump facing forward to an attacking vessel and open up with full barrage, like the Curious did in Terminus.”

“Since we are already assigning ownership to individual objects, why talk of changing it? We are going into this alliance with the intent to share anyway.” Unsure of how the Fiara would view such invasion of privacy, she did not share the amount of information Narix government kept about people that would in worst cases allow them to forbid specific people or groups from leaving Naris, minimizing the possible damage they could cause directly. She wasn’t even sure if Libra took the possibility of ideologically driven attacks into consideration. “We’ve managed with tensions before, but although I think even the most absent-minded of my comrades realize we cannot alter the way the fifth dimension operates, I agree tempting fate is not good. There is one thing we can do to see how the people would react: The oracles coming to Naris. We can observe the way people treat the news of their arrival, or the Faira directly in any personal interaction, and work from there. If the reactions are negative, we’ve our work cut out for us. If not, all the better.”

“They will be delighted to hear that. Do tell: How was your general population informed about us? And anything else the team would need to prepare for that might not be usual in our regions of space? They are not trained diplomatic personnel. If it is your wish, they will be comfortable not talking to anyone outside of the military chain of command, but I’d still like to know.” Libra asked.

“Aside from descriptions of what you look like and that it’s not your apparent intent to kill or enslave us? They have been told that you are a race that has come to the stars seeking colonies, much like we have. Since then, Naris was getting regular declassified updates on the progress of our work, such as the treaty, the OEP and the engagements in Terminus.” she looked up an example article on her tablet.



“Given our situation, most people sympathise with the need for a new colony, although they haven’t yet been told why exactly your home can no longer support you. We weren’t sure you’d want this out just yet. When commander Astra told the primarch, he sent a direct message to me so we could make sure on our respective ends it didn’t spread.”

“As for the lack of diplomatic training, that’s a good thing. We need to know how our common people interact with each other. As for any unusual situations, you already know about our careful approach to artificial intelligence and our hatred of religion. If they keep that in a sack, there should be no major problems. Also, one of our major holidays is coming up, so if they happen to see many people with flags painted on their faces, tell them to pay no attention to that. That’ just our way of remembering the fallen of wars long past. If they come to contact with someone directly, say someone they’d be cooperating with for some time, they might be told they can refer to that person by their first name. They don’t have to oblige by it, just tell them it might happen. Also, despite being briefed, some might call them by their name by a slip of the tongue. Mistakes happen. Anything our people should be made aware of before the oracles arrive?”

“We appreciate the effort, but we have chosen full disclosure. You can post that information or any other that you see fit, such as our technological schematics to your shipwrights and the like. As we discussed when setting up the non aggression treaty, the ship we send to your home system will be void of any AI, although I believe now there will be no need to strip it of weapons? If that is not possible, I’d ask the lord commander to temporarily assign one of his small ships to the task, it won’t be longer than a few days.” Libra answered the questions.

“As for what your people should be made aware, should any get within reach, tell them to keep their hands to themselves and especially not mess with any Faira’s antennae, the whole mentioning of homeworlds, supernovas and the like. If anyone wants to pose questions about our military, the Oracles will tell them to go through proper channels anyway.” Libra commented on the issue of possible faux pass. “Although, with the names thing, do mention it is a sign of affection for us, so that they aren’t too surprised if they make that mistake on some more liberal of us.” the admiral smirked.

“No, the ship may stay armed. Also, there will be a Privateer-class frigate waiting for them to act as another pair of eyes and their guide through the system. I made sure they didn’t send the NSS Nova. And touching someone else’s head is a WMD as far as insults are concerned, so that shouldn’t be a problem.” Runa wasn’t sure how not mentioning a homeworld was possible AT the Narix homeworld, but she would try to get that message across.

“Very well. Back to the Alliance proposal, we would like to discuss the economic side of it. While between countries barter trade might have worked, we are looking at entering into your monetary system, it would be easier than developing one of our own, since the system we used pre-exodus would probably not hold. Would that be acceptable? We will of course submit to any regulations you deem fit so that your own economy is not destabilized. I imagine your private enterprises would be interested in raw materials like everyone else, and possibly our military technology for non-military use, which we would sell licenses to. From our side, the only entity in that trade would be our government. Would that be acceptable?”

“That would work.” Runa nodded, “While our economy should be able to take a hit and stand, we’d rather be on the safe side, I was never good at economy. Not to mention if we don’t have to adapt to accommodate you, we’ll avoid arming the four percent with arguments. So far all they have is xenophobia and fears of what could be, let’s not give them anything solid.”

“This is of course something that shouldn’t be rushed.” Kandros chimed in. “There were some grim moments in establishing our post-unification currency I wouldn’t wish on anyone else. As for the private enterprises, unpredictable little bastards, they are, but tech licenses are going to be a high-prized commodity. But they might also be interested in direct cooperation in developing new technologies and products. Do you think that’s possible, given, say, four to eight years?”

“We would want to enter the market slowly ourselves, since we are not too experienced either. Initially we would likely enter with resources to get some currency to operate with, then perhaps buy in or establish our own company. As for joint research, I do not see it happening in military technologies, those we feel should be government controlled. As for civilian research, perhaps. When we know the Ancients will not slay us all.” Libra noted.

“Do you have any other points to discuss? The finer details we can hammer out after a good rest.” Libra said, massaging her remples.

“That is in the hands of admiral Cygnus, lord-commander Zorea and the men and women under their command now. All good hands, as far as I know.” Nebiros nodded.

“A good rest and a good meal for some of us. Rear admiral Libra, admiral Lira.” Runa stood up, bowing her head. “Farewell for now.”

---

Narix National Newscast: Formed from many, now as one?

Following two days of restless work, Narix and Faira delegates have prepared the bedrock of a solid military alliance. Furthermore, lord-commander Adrihen Zorea took four battlegroups of the First Fleet to meet the Nightmare threat alongside the Vanguard fleet led by admiral Cygnus.

Following the popularity polls, the delegates have also agreed on the basics of a loose union of our two peoples.

“This is not a complete integration. Rather, it is a loose union that will allow both of our species to coexist without unnecessary delays and obstacles in dealing with one another.”
- Ambassador Runa Taranis, Narix ambassador

The Faira have also hinted at the formation of their own currency. They have expressed the desire to enter our market!

”We would want to enter the market slowly ourselves. As for joint research, I do not see it happening in military technologies, those we feel should be government controlled. As for civilian research, perhaps. When we know the Ancients (Nightmares - journalist’s note) will not slay us all.”
- Rear admiral Libra, Faira ambassador

One day after alliance formation


“NSS Ira, ECR Durable. requesting permission to traverse the Opportunity - Naris jump node. Sending the dispatch orders for confirmation now.” Lieutenant Val, CO of the cruiser in question, hailed the massive ship parked at the jump node. “Ugly boats, aren’t they? At least the things they call cruisers have a bit of color.” her XO, Specialist Lindos shot from her position helming the ship. “Aye. I hear the girls at Vanguard are calling all Narix ships ‘flattops’. When you see it, it makes sense.”

“How did that ship pass into production?” the Ira’s comms officer wondered out loud. “It looks like something my son would paint.” before sending the transmitted orders for Zorea’s approval.

“Durable, this is the Ira. Cleared to proceed, and welcome to Naris.”

“Copy Ira, we will enter the jump in T-60. Whom do we report to on the other side? I’m told to expect an escort.” Val asked, not yet being given a name of the frigate that was to be their shadow for the duration of their stay. Whatever the name, she could not believe how ugly the ship class was. It looked like somebody kicked it in the chin.

“Received, Durable. The NSS Privateer will be waiting for you on the other side.”

Naris

“ECR Durable, this is the NSS Privateer, adept Lindelt speaking. We’re here to be your guide, as well as make sure you don’t get lost and stumble somewhere you’re not meant to be. Do you need to dock first, or do you wish to start right away?”

“Privateer, Durable. We will be ready to go in ten minutes once our drives cycle. We’ll start our scan here while we wait, no sense wasting time.” Val said, turning around in her seat to point a thumb up to the leader of the oracle team on board. “Did anybody bring a pack of cards?” She grumbled to herself, not noticing her finger still on the transmission control.

“I’ve one right here if you feel like coming aboard to get it. Otherwise, I humbly suggest you handle internal requisition orders on a different frequency.” Lindelt quipped dryly, several chuckling crewmen heard in the background. Who knew the presence of Faira could boost morale?

“EHM! Sorry Privateer, we are commencing our scans now!” Val said a bit quicker and in a higher pitch, earning a chuckle from her XO as well. Fifteen minutes later the scan in the area was completed. “Privateer, Durable. We are sending over a travel plan for your revision. One of the stops takes us to the moon you use as a training base, is that alright by you? We’ll only need four jumps to complete the scan that way, otherwise we will have to do one more, as highlighted by route B.”

“Not an issue, Durable. Proceed according to plan one.” Ignis’ orbit was kind to them, the faira would mostly see a barren desert. Had the moon been 35 degrees ahead, the Durable would’ve been right over the main armor R&D compound. They might still get a glimpse of something, weather on that side of the moon was clear and the base was s hot spot compared to the rest of it. He could now see why the Faira were sent here. Scanning the entire system in four jumps was truly impressive. “We’re ready to jump when you are.”

“Proceed to point two. We’ll wait with the scan until you catch up, just in case something comes up.” Val said, terminating the channel. “Helm, initiate jump. Engineering, best speed, let’s tear their hides.” she said, the grin obvious in her tone.

Waiting for the Faira to jump, the Privateer arrived about three seconds later. “How long did you say your ship needs before it can jump again? Ten minutes, or shorter now? Hold up, what was that, sensors?”

A tiny jump window appeared some 600 meters off the two ships. Nothing happened for ten seconds, then a tiny vessel, about the size of one of the discovery’s crew modules, painted olive green and sporting a massive spherical pod, clearly containing cameras.

“Oh what in the, really?” Lindus hissed, forgetting to switch off the comms, “Who let someone like that have a jump capable ship? Get red section into the tubes and wave them off.”

“Privateer, Durable. Shall we engage EW suite?” Val asked, her tone telling that she has been briefed on what to expect.

“Negative, Durable, hold. Red section, clear for launch.”

Two Marauders shot out form the launch tubes at the frigate’s chin, moving closer to the journalists’ ship, telling them off on a different channel.

“One of the joys of a free state.” Lindelt spat. “Self-professed truthseekers. Note that emblem on their ventral hull. This particular group is known for seeing military black projects in everything. Quite the read, one surely can’t doubt their vivid imaginations. Sadly, they have the right to be here, as we are in a region of space accessible to public.”

One of the fighter pilots joined the conversation. “Sir, they are adamant in their requests to speak with the Faira, no doubt about to ask when they are planning a takeover of our government or somesuch. Do we get more persuasive or let them play sixteen questions?”

“Up to you lieutenant. Fancy meeting our little intruders?” Lindelt asked the faira CO.

“They’ll be sorely disappointed, but I don’t see the harm. We do not like them, yes?” Val asked, wanting to be sure.

“Don’t let me tell you what to think.”

“Then yes, let us form an opinion.”

The pilot sighed. “Now this is something new.” she logged off the channel to talk to the invading journalists before logging back. “I’m bouncing their comms off my fighter to you, lieutenant. You may speak to them through me.”

“Hello, Faira. What’s the reason for your visit?” a new, slightly noisy voice came over.

“ECR Durable to private ship, this is a military channel. Unless you have an emergency, please vacate the frequency.” Val said in a flat and ever so slightly arrogant tone of voice.

“What’s your rush, nothing bad is going to happen here, the First is keeping order, what’s a few questions do? Are you really here just to search for subspace nodes, or is there something more to it? The people want to know the truth!”

“We are here with the knowledge and approval of Narix authorities and command. If you want more information request it on proper channels.”

“We didn’t scramble here to hear their side. We came to hear what you have to say about it. Do you treat your journalists the same way, or is there more to your silence?”

Patching back to the Privateer, Val has had enough: “Would even allowing them to follow us be enough or are they on a hate trip?”

“Damn it, lieutenant, I’m good, but I’m no moron charmer. I don’t know what they’re on, but whatever it is, they’ve done too much of it. Unless you let them stare over your shoulder the entire time, I doubt they’ll be happy.” He knew what he was talking about, his colleagues at the NSS Starlight had the misfortune of having them sent on board. “Red section, feed them a polite story and send them home.”

The small ship turned and jumped away with considerable delay and the pilots turned to land. “Sorry about that, Durable. Twenty years earlier, civilians weren’t even allowed to own spacecraft. Good times. Hope they didn’t leave too big of a stain on our species reputation. Where are you on those scans, anything interesting?”

“Negative Privateer, both on the image and on the scans. We are almost there, couple more minutes. Does this happen often? I can not imagine Admiral Cygnus not giving them a few words.” Val hinted.

“Only whenever we forge an alliance with another intelligent species. Outside of that, they mostly stay on the ground or near Ignis. And I doubt few choice words are going to cut it.” It was clear Lindelt did not know the Faira admiral. “Some of these people got monthlong public service sentences for trespassing private or state property, invasions of privacy, hearsay, you name it. Apparently, spending 16 hours a day cleaning sewers for a month isn’t enough to make one reconsider their ways. But I suppose it could be worse. Rather deal with them than a Nightmare battlegroup. Would you happen to know anything about the derelict our brothers and sisters in arms found together? We’ve seen pictures, but nothing about what they found inside. Any useful tech or something of that sort?”

“They should be sent to help us survey the nebula. If anything can give you ‘nightmares’, that place can. Shield fails, you cook. Navigation fails, you’re lost forever. And don’t get me to the fact that the nebula gas conducts sound. It is one thing to have audio alarms loaded for when the ship’s weapons are firing, it’s another to hear a P-15 tear through something. I swear that weapon sounds like a child screaming.“ Val hinted at what the poor sods in the fifth fleet were getting into. “Hold on, let me share our fleetnet to your ship…”

Faira FleetNet News

Reverse engineering the Great War derelicts
The progress on reverse engineering the technologies of the Unknown race falls behind plan with the hunt for Ancient fighters still being conducted in Terminus, however, several of new technologies are already being reverse engineered and tested.
The first technology encountered by the Marine group were nanofluid conductors. While nanotechnology is employed by our fabricators, manufacturing the nanobatteries necessary for the power storing capabilities has thus far turned difficult.
The armor materials employed by the Unknowns are stronger than what either the Faira or Narix have developed. The material appears to be a non-magnetic nano-engineered crystalline growth with interlinked crystal grids. The material is extremely resistant to kinetic force and moderately resistant to heat and other radiation. The production method thus far eludes us, but our fabricators were able to replicate the crystalline matrix from native materials. With other advances suggested to our armor technologies, we are looking at doubling the survivability rate of our next generation of ships compared to current hardware.
It has proven difficult to hunt down the Nightmare fighters in such a manner that doesn’t result in their total destruction. The main appeal to the admiralty appears to be their miniature jump drives.

“Everything else is beyond my clearance. Did you see the records of that fight though? That little cruiser the Ancients brought could stand up to almost as much as the Corvette. No doubt they are looking into it’s armor as well. There’s also been a lot of hushes in the fleets about the computer systems of the Unknown derelict.”

“Yes, the Lilith class, right? At least it’s easy to tell from its flimsier sibling. Though if a shielded ship managed to get most of its turrets busted, we might be looking at a very grim future. With the volume of fire we can put out, we may be able to do the same to them, but as far as actually crippling the ship an any way, I’m afraid we’ve wasted our resources on the Privateer class. What bothers me is that we haven’t seen any more of them yet. A species so advanced, you’d think they would have caught wind of three of their ships getting destroyed and came to see what happened, but there’s nothing. Why? Think this lance got isolated when the node collapsed?”

“Well, the commander busted her ship trying to ensure they didn’t escape to tell the tale. Perhaps she succeeded and the rest do not know. Or, as we shall soon enough see, maybe there aren’t any more of them left here and they have no way to get to this area of space. We’ll be told when we need to. Anyway, it doesn’t seem the Lilith class is a standard on armor toughness, so there’s that. And considering the superdestroyer we found on our… we found, we are lucky their vessels are not shielded. Now that, that would be a bother. Ready to proceed to point three.”

“I know they attacked first and all, but still, the thought of possibly driving a species extinct… Confirmed, see you at point three.” Lindelt finished, the Privateer departing.

“Us or them, Adept. Us or them. Helm, engage the drive.” Val ordered and the Durable sunk again into the red and white vortex. As they Emerged at point three, Naris prime and it’s Marine filled moon came to view. “Oy, the planet looks like… a wound gone bad.” the XO frowned as she looked at the visualization. “Aye, so much brown, looks like rust.” Val agreed readily. “Any areas you want us to avoid, Adept?”

“The other side of the moon.” He didn’t specify further, as he knew very little himself. “Nothing secret on the - on Naris.”

“We’re concerned about space, Adept. If there is a Jump node close to the surface of the moon, let the Ancients come, more wreckage for us to sift through.” Val said with a smirk.

“In that case, no. Though if what I’ve been told is true and a large number of people in one place can be detrimental to you, you might want to avoid the New Frontiers.” the Privateer sent the coordinates of the orbital complex of stations, berths and ships at Naris high orbit. “And the asteroid belts at the outer edge of the system are full of various mining and security outposts once we get there. Where security is concerned, just the first gas giant. Pardon my curiosity, but how does this ability of yours work?”

“Imagine a parallel universe running along what you would perceive as Normal space.” One of the Oracles answered the question, “Normally inaccessible, due to it’s hostile and violent nature. Take the worst explosion you have ever seen, multiply it by ten and throw in gale force winds. That’s the standard. Now, gravity has a stabilizing effect on that bundle of mess. If one is looking for a ship, you would be trying to look for a slightly calmer spot in the noise. A jump node would, translated to geometry, be basically a tornado in permanent space, usually between two objects of high gravity, stars or gas giants. Same effect on a smaller scale is temporarily generated by in intrasystem jump drive, hence how we are able to tell where a ship is jumping. The Tornado creates a tunnel of relative calm that is safe to travel through, you can even see it on the appearance of the jump corridor. Do not worry about the station or the belt, they are merely a footnotes in what we can sense, if we can sense them at all. That would be more of a speciality for our Marines, but we are nowhere near close enough for their ranges.”

“The Gas giant is actually an object of high concern. If you can give us precise point and a spherical radius or even tighter fit, we can exclude the smallest zone. Not that we would be able to tell anything about it other than ‘there’s something there’, to which you basically just admitted, but eh.” Val noted, “Generally the Oracle needs to have felt a ship class at least several times to distinguish it from the others.”

“You’ll be told what lies there, sooner or later. The gist of it, anyway. Low-ranking commoners like you and I are rarely shown the full picture.” The Durable would then receive three sets of coordinates and their given radii. “Everywhere else is a go. We are certain there are no nodes at those coordinates. The orbit of the gas giant Artorias houses the main shipyards of the Narix Republic. If there was a node, no intrasystem travel could be achieved in a 2500 meter radius around it with Narix drives.”

“That is interesting. I’m certain the engineers in the OEP will figure that one out. Might be something connected to the fact our drives use different channels.” Val shrugged. Some time after the scan of the area finished. “Alright, next one on the list. Will your drive need a cooldown?” the Faira asked.

“As far as intrasystem travel is concerned, the Privateer can jump seven times in a row without suffering any damage to the drives. We’re ready to jump.”

“Alright, one more scan and we’re out of your antennae. Hair. Whatever.” Val said, nodding to the XO to take them through. The last point would take them on a polar orbit perpendicular to Naris’ ecliptic, with their point of emergence right on ‘top’ of the star. “They all look so tiny from up here!” Val smirked, zooming in on the planets with the ship’s telescope, the large celestial bodies little more than specks of light.

“Dead end so far, I assume?” he guessed by the Faira silence. “Here’s hoping for number four, but I’m skeptical. No disrespect to you abilities, but we’ve been over this system at least two times. Granted, eighty years ago and with much worse equipment.”

“Wait a minute. What is…?” the sensors officer perked up in his seat. Reorienting one of the ship’s telescopes at the small object, it revealed a probe. “That wasn’t there eighty years ago.”

“Durable, can you see it? Vector one-three-three inc six eight, range eight thousand.”

“Yes. What is that? It’s moving insanely fast, must have come from outside the system.” Val noted as she took a look at the instruments. “It’s so tiny the Oracles can barely sense it, but with all our minds put together, we just might be able to hold the ship together long enough to jump close enough to make a grab for it, should we?” The Faira asked, deferring to the owners of the system.

“Go get it if you can, lieutenant, but don’t do anything too dangerous. I don’t think it’s ours, I don’t recognise the shape. And given it’s speed, i don’t think it possibly could’ve been launched from this system. Can you take it on board, or should we clear some space? Our cargo bay is mostly empty, you’d have a big margin for error if you jumped it there.”

“I don’t think we can jump it here, we’ll have to go and get it ourselves. Do you want anyone on board for that? It is going to be a bit of a bumpy ride though, fair warning.” the Lieutenant said, her tone slightly challenging, but with an undertone of worry.

“Scrambling two marine technicians to help secure it.” Lindelt sent. “Approach the port side docking ring that matches yours, 5 or 15 meters diameter. We’ll turn the ship to make the airlock face you.”

At the airlock, the two engineers waited for the ships to dock, large bags with various tools at their feet and thruster packs attached to their suits. “Away team standing by.”

“Pressure matched, you’re good to go.” Val said, waiting for the Narix team in the cargo bay. The iris of the airlock opened. She was a bit disappointed that the Patrol fleet got the short end of the stick with the OEP, but now her curiosity was about to be vindicated. Giving the two technicians a salute, she beckoned them to follow. “Hope you brought magboots and pressure suits, we’ll be receiving the object here. Buckle up, there are marine positions here.” she said, taking one of the seats herself, intending to stay with the guests.

The engineers jogged onto the Durable with their stuff slung over their shoulders and arms across their chests in a salute. “Both aboard, suits check, boots check.” the marines secured their equipment in place and took their seats as instructed. Locking their feet to the floor and palms to the harness, they both locked the joints of their suits to keep them as stable as possible.

“Set.”

“Set!”

“How bad is it going to be, sir?” one asked with curiosity rather than worry, although the way the Faira told them to buckle up was a good indication.

“I don’t know, from experience, something like 7 to 9 Gs. But we have a bunch of Oracles to guide us and we were given some extra personnel to make the jumps in case the drive failed for whatever reason so we would finish the job. Between them, even this far out of the system they should be able to smoothen the jump. Here goes!” she said as the chime came in. The ship could be felt accelerating slightly before it sank into the jump window. It started as a bump here and there, but as they went further out of the system, it took a second to go from vibrations through shaking to hits as if the ship crashed into another. Finally with a massive kick, the ship emerged back to normal space. “Ow.” Val groaned, her antennae crushed when her head was rattled around in the helmet. “All crew, report!”

“You know what? I take it all back. No offense, lieutenant, but I no longer feel bad for getting my OEP application denied.” the younger engineer hissed through his teeth as he stood up, leaning against a wall. “Ow. Suit reporting force trauma all over. Nothing but bruises though.”

“Same here. Tools seemed to live to tell the tale.” the other reported. “All jumps can’t be this bad, can they?”

“No. Our ride gets better the stronger gravity field we are in. You would barely feel we jumped in the inner star system. Oracle, where are we in relation to the object?” the CO asked, having received the positive report from the rest of the crew.

“We’re approaching now, set up for zero-g zero-atmo.”

Checking her seals over, she locked her boots to the ground and looked at the Narix technicians in question.

Fastening the toolkits to their suits so they didn’t float off, the engineers switched to closed-circuit breathing, engaged their magboots and gave the lieutenant thumbs up in silence, eager to see what the unknown object held. Finally they would get to see something first instead of the Fifth, and they didn’t have to travel unfathomable distances to do so. And hopefully, they wouldn’t have to fight an ancient species over it either.

The airlock opened after the bay depressurized again, and as the cruiser rose, the object gently floated inside. Raising her arm, the Lieutenant pointed an omni sensor installed in her palm on the object, revealing which branch she came from to command. “It’s… primitive, by any standard. The tech base seems closer to yours than ours, what tech there is, I am mostly guessing form material compositions. There is a large concentration of gold on one point, can you see it?” the LT asked, reading further into the scans.

“What’s this? Year 3675?”

“Pretty much spot on. I think I see the gold.” he pointed to a disc at the side of the craft. “It looks like there are some symbols, but it’s, well, eroded. Maybe it passed through a nebula, or a dust cloud? I can’t make any of it out. Think it still has power? Can’t see any obvious solar panels.”

“This looks like cameras.” the engineer pointed to an assembly mounted on an arm. “Like someone taped a museum to a dish and sent it to space.” he came upon some letters that weren’t worn beyond recognition. “Definitely not ours. And it doesn’t look like any other debris we’ve found, Nightmare or Ancient.”

“Oi, the gold plate is loose. Should I take it off, or do we leave that for later?”

“There’s hardly any propulsion, just maneuvering thrusters really! How did it get here in the time it had in this universe?” Val groaned, unable to crack the mystery, “Navigation, plot the reverse trajectory of the object, see where it meets the closest star, please.” She asked, wanting to see if the Narix didn’t have neighbors. “Be careful. I don’t think there could be anything as sophisticated as a boobytrap on this piece of recyclable waste, but let’s not get cut on something sharp with it’s crude manufacturing...” Val snorted, approaching the object herself.

“Steady as she goes.” he whispered, removing the plaque and leaving it floating beside him. “What do we have here? Lieutenant, does this look at all familiar to you?” he pulled out a golden disc with circular grooves on its face. Upon closer examination, one could see it was actually a spiral, not rings. “There’s another one in there.” he handed the strange disc to the lieutenant. “More of those glyphs, letters, maybe.” he pointed at the center of the disc.

“Huh… there are some pictograms on it, a message perhaps?” Val said, examining the discs. “Should we bother trying to guess what it’s for, or do we just hop on home, give it to the blackyard workers to brain over and go do something fun… huh.” She said as she noticed the engraving matched the looks of a part of the machine. “I think it goes in here. It has no power though and I am a bit skeptical about plugging it in without a thorough documentation on how it works.” she frowned.

“So what now, pack it neatly, finish the survey and drop it off at the Opportunity outpost for someone smarter to lose sleep over? Weird they put all of this extra mass on but neglected to include schematics.”

“You think it might be some kind of a message? Something like “We live here, and this is how to kill us, come quick?” Val snorted. “I am wondering whether we can pack it neatly enough to survive a jump anyway. This thing looks like it would disintegrate if you move around it too quick.”

“CO? I’ve plotted the course. As it is, it would have intersected with a star some hundred fifty thousand years ago.”

“Come again Navigation? My instruments are telling me this is five hundred years old tops.” Val said, surprise on her face.

“I’ve no intent on eradicating a species, but to each their own.” the engineer quipped, “No, I am more interested in what wire connects to what capacitor and for what reason. Since this thing doesn’t have any proper propulsion, it couldn’t have left a stable orbit accidentally. That leads me to think it was supposed to be far away from its point of origin. And if you’re sending something this far out someone may indeed find it one day. Unless religious people are launching satellites now. Can’t speak for other species, but our freaks believe they are alone in the universe.”

“Shows what they know. Hey, lieutenant? What about the immobilizing foam they told us about? Can’t you use that to keep it in one piece during transport?”

“Or we could wait until we get back to the Privateer by sublight means and they could tow you to the node. This ship’s small enough to allow that. If that’s the case, we might need that deck of cards.”

“Hold, on, I am still trying to process the impossibility of this object.” Val snorted. “Uh, yeah, the foam would fix it, but the vibrations are still an issue. Engineering, any ideas?”

“We could shunt all coolant into the engines and haul ass into the system on sublight until it is safe to travel through FTL. Depending on how much air the Narix have, we’d need most of the other systems off to have enough sink to cool the jets. We’ll need about eight hours.”

“Right, that’ll be a problem, we’ve about 54 minutes of air left.”

“I can give you life support if you can go without gravity and navigation.”

“Braining our way home? I like the sound of that. Been a long time since anyone flown one of these things by the sticks but let’s go, there’s nothing here we can possibly crash into.” Val said and popped her fingers. “Okay, let’s bolt this thing down and foam it so it stays in one place as we accelerate. Then you are invited to the bridge gentlemen.” Val grinned, checking into a tool locker and bringing out a few pieces of flat iridium to hold down to the legs of the alien probe and a welder to fix it to the floor.

“If you’re worried about us wasting too much air, the consumption drops by a certain margin when we sleep. If we can connect our suits directly to an air tank good enough to last a few hours, it’d do. Can’t believe I’m suggesting a nap to an alien superior officer as means of conserving air. That, or any way to refill would do.”

“We can gather up the air before we go. Shame, I wanted to drive.“ Val pouted.

Several agonizingly long hours later

After the very short in distance but very long in time trek through normal space and nearly melting the engines, they reached well into the system to jump safely, and emerged by the Privateer’s starboard. “Privateer, Durable. We’re ready to hand over the object and your crew. And to go for a recharge.” Val grunted.

“Durable, Privateer. Received, standing by to transfer crew and cargo, port side airlock. What is it you’ve found? We’ve logged the discovery with command, anything we should be aware of before getting it on board?” He couldn’t wait to see the probe, even if he wasn’t particularly good when it came to engineering. “Your guess, was the time at least worth it?”

“Disappointment.” Val snickered, “There is more interesting on how the thing got here rather than on the thing itself. You’ll see for yourself. Most important thing though, we detected no jump node, and I received communique that the fifth fleet found none in Exodus either. That leaves the Nebula. I don’t know whether to wish for one to be there or not to.”

“Damn, what a crap day.” First journalists a now this. There better be some good news too, however insignificant. “At least you don’t have a set lifespan. Is it at least in decent condition, or just scrap for salvage?”

“It’s surprisingly intact for being hundreds of years old. We’ll see what the brainiacs figure out, We are ready to depart for Opportunity, our mission objectives are complete.” Val said, sounding tired.

ED Explorer, Terminus system

“I think we’re done!” Casei hollered form the bay she was occupying, shutting down the paintbrush and looking over her work. Since the formation of the alliance, the OEP on the Explorer has grown a few heads, mostly Narix pilots and engineers. It was then that the two groups started an unofficial arms’n’tech race, each using the combined technological base to develop prototypes of each class of strikecraft, interceptor, superiority and heavy fighters, as well as tactical and strategic bombers. And Casei and her engineers have just finished work on the last one.

Walking out of the walled off rack, she looked on the visualizations of the Faira designs and couldn’t wait to see what the pilots could do with them.

“Almost done.” Lindus hollered over the paintbrush. “And finished.” he came out of his evil genius’ workshop. “Might have to refill your paint stores, there’s a reason we’re not allowed to customize our ships too much.”

Since the alliance was formed, tensions dissipated and tech sharing fully started, the Explorer’s hangars looked someone let children run a candy factory, much to the dismay of the engineers swamped by requests and wishes of the pilots. Now, he stood among five strike craft, weird bastard children of Narix and Faira, all five of them. He’s just finished painting the heavy fighter.

“Well, shall we go all at once, or one by one to get the tension up? Should there be betting?” Casei grinned wildly.

“What have you to bet? Last I checked, you still don’t have a currency of your own, your food’s bloody awful, and I still don’t understand your playing cards.” Lindus returned fire with a toothy grin of his own. “Unless the Meteors come equipped with a stash of edible livestock no one told me about?”

“You can take me to see your home and I’ll whack a few of the colossal monsters you eat for you!” Casei challenged. “So, shall we ascend the weight scale then?”

“What’s colossal about waist height? But now that you bring up home, I do need a new fence around a property I bought last year. It’s just 900 meters of corrugated steel and razor wire. Sure, interceptors first. It’s your ship, let’s see what you’ve come up with.”

Smirking and tapping the controls on the first rack, the door slid to the floor and a hydraulic arm extended forward a craft that would have been a bit similar to the standard Faira fighter drone, only a bit elongated and with a bit more armor on. “Yeah, this one is a win for you in sophistication no doubt, I don’t even need to see it, but this thing costs nothing to build, can be built in two hours from raw material, and what better way to escort a large ship and shoot down bombs than having many, many of them?” Casei explained her thinking behind the design. The entire thing was compactly packed, and yet still modular enough to be serviced by the support ships. It had fixed mounts, but was agile enough to target even the smallest and dodgiest of missiles.

“And you expect me to cry out in joy at the mention of the ship being buildable in two hours and its strength being numerical superiority?” Iris half chuckled. “While I see the point, your description of the ship certainly doesn’t inspire confidence. Perhaps this role would be best left to the drones?”

“I’ll be honest, I have an AI capsule in it rather than the cockpit variant.” Casei smirked knowingly.

“We’ve come up with this.” the rack opened, revealing a small fighter with a joined wing at the back. “Wing is there for mounting ordnance and heat radiation. Big engine in the back for accelerating, RCS in every direction for maneuvering, translation and precise movement, such as docking. Cockpit in the middle, with the front housing most avionics as well as four fixed weapon hardpoints, accessed by these hinged panels.” He pointed out a marked panel beside two large holes near the nose. “Life support is integrated into the pounchout capsule, main drive and power core are joined in a sort of a power pack. Little back heavy.” he finished.

“It looks like… a sports shuttle.” Casei smirked, “Don’t get me wrong, I want one, just not for getting shot at. The wing doesn’t seem to be too structurally sound under fire though.”

“In a way, it is. We built it for speed and maneuverability. The wing lived through some small calibre fire, AP munitions and two or three plasma bolts from your drones, but disintegrated when hit with a 75 mm. No wonder, those are meant for bombers and turrets.”

“We tried to go for internal hardpoints, but we’re still getting our bearings straight with your reactors, they take up more space than we’re used to.” one of the Narix engineers explained, “Also, heat management was a problem, hence the wing. Hardpoints were an afterthought and could be changed.”

“I solved the heat by using a small reactor and a large battery.” Casei smirked at the cheekiness of her solution, “I thought, Interceptor’s combat deployment is only about thirty minutes anyway, but even then, it can last on the battery for forty. And then, the battery is a module like all other subsystems. Just dock with the mothership or a support ship, swap in ten seconds, go go go.”

The engineer nudged Iris in the ribs. “There’s a method to her madness.” the Narix shared a chuckle. “It would reduce mass a bit as well, but the drive is still a beast, even at half burn. Perhaps we can try that with the next prototype and see where that takes us. Shall we move on?”

“Enter, number two. Dedicated space superiority fighter is a new thing to us, so don’t spare any criticisms.” The fighter was larger, with a small profile from the front and sides and boasted four full engines, two facing back and two forward. “More power for the reverse thrusters granting it better maneuverability along the Y axis as well as shorter braking distance. Cockpit roughly between the reverse thrusters, followed by the reactor and engine assemblies. Again, liftless wings to aid in cooling it down, with a variable tilt so it doesn’t take up as much space when stored. Three pivoting primary hardpoints, one internal missile bay on the bottom. As with the previous ship, life support is part of the punchout capsule as they share the same module. Avionics in the front, fuel wherever we could fit it, granting it long flight time. Missile bay can be removed and replaced with additional fuel or a sensor pod for recon.”

“Superiority is the middle way to go, something you would give a rookie to learn, and something a veteran would pick if intel was hazy. I would have put a dual secondary weapons system on it myself, this means that if you want a sensor pod, you can’t get missiles. I don’t know how to feel about that. How did you solve maneuverability, and how many degrees of freedom does it have?” the faira engineer inquired.

“The ship carries its own sensor suite, the additional pod is a poor man’s AWACS or long-range recon. With the pod, it can also function as a dedicated electronic warfare ship. Also, none of your current fighters have missiles, so I’d still call it an upgrade. It can move in six directions and rotate along three axes using maneuvering thrusters, is that what you’re asking?”

“Yes, full range then, good. How fast can it accelerate with the thrusters, is it docking speed, or can it be used, say, to dodge?” The Faira asked, hinting a little at what her design would contain. She spared the remark about an upgrade no thought, they were told to build the best machine they could come up with, and so she did.

“Dodge what and at what range? Nothing with a pilot in it is outmaneuvering a missile. Main drives are of course enough to get you out of trouble, the maneuvering thrusters will do about 4 m/s2.”

“Dodge what you have that will leave you the smallest reaction time at optimal range. My turn.” the Faira grinned, revealing their fighter. It was a slim thing still, albeit larger in height than the Narix counterpart. The cockpit was sunk back, with four engine pods in a plus arrangement extended forward, each sporting a ball mounted thruster that could point in any direction. On the X-line of symmetry were four smaller missile banks, with the guns mounted on the same planes but closer to the center axis. “My thinking was, if you can accelerate the same amount in any direction, you could dodge most incoming fire without needing to turn so much that you would lose target lock. That reacquisition could cost you up to three seconds. Other than that, we went for maneuverability over integrity still, focusing mainly on primary gun fire.”

“What was it you’ve said on day one? Something about thrust vectoring being unnecessary?” Lindus said, pointing at the thrusters. “Easier to hit, too. Heat management and ordnance?”

“It is unnecessary when coupled with other means of reorientation. This design relies on the thrust vectoring to do everything. Ordnance is tailored to anti-fighter role, but secondaries can catch an interceptor after some training and primaries have enough punch to kill a heavy. Heat management has been balanced carefully though, we’ll have to see how an actual flight test will do. Might need to enlarge the sinks a little, they are on the back.” Casei pointed to two fins sticking out of the rear. “There is a LN2 tank for short bursts of overcooling.”

“Like the armament. The nozzles may be a little problematic for deck crews, but we’ll see. Move on to your heavy fighter?”

Casei looked at her engineers proudly and with a big shit eating grin, and the engineers grinned right back. “Oh well…” The door slid down and revealed what initially looked like an enlarged version of the interceptor in general shape. On second look, one would notice two small scale torpedo banks on the rear, albeit they looked like they were facing sideways rather than forward. There was one smaller bank under the nose for conventional rockets, and the thing had eight primary mounts, four on the sides of the nose, and four in two pivoting pods to the side. The thing was clad in heavy armor on top of a shield, that when looking on the number of emitters was geared to be very powerful in the front quadrant. The most bizzare thing was a large superstructure underslung under the fighter. All in all, the thing looked hideous, but menacing.

“What?” someone uttered.

“There’s a lot of stuff going on here. And what’s the scaffolding beneath it? An OTH radar?”

“Show them!”

Casei was happy to oblige. Tapping the controls, the fighter came to life. The superstructure beneath unfolded into a set of reverse-bent legs, the pivoting pods extended out a little and the torpedo tubes hinged to face forward, turning the fighter into a mech. Before she said anything, Casei wanted to see the look on the Narix faces.

“Someone get a dictionary and explain what a fighter is. Of what use is this going to be, really? It’s complicated and serves little purpose than perhaps a tech demonstrator. Even if you get it planetside, these vehicles are horribly unstable, we’ve tried. As for space, just dead mass.”

“Oh, believe me, we simulated against everything you have, and against everything we have come up with, and this thing always came on top if used properly. We’ve designed a special missile for the pods, we’re calling it the longbow. It outranges anything you supplied twice. In the initial salvo, one wing of these can wipe out two squadrons or disarm an unshielded cruiser. The two pods act as turrets in fighter mode, giving you more survivability if you are outnumbered and your two is busy. Finally, eight primary mounts will strip off an Ancient fighter’s shield in one or two hits.” Casei boasted, “And trust me, I’ve seen your exo suits before you met us. No wonder you couldn’t hack it. Watch.” she said as she climbed into the cockpit, running the mech mode strikecraft around at reasonable speed, making it jump off of a few walls and jet over a distance quickly. “Couple this with a re-entry level frontal quadrant shield, and you have something that can fight on the frontline in any area, and all of them at once. Situation on the ground going bad? Nevermind, just reroute some fighters form the orbit to support the troops. They can even do their own CAS if piloted by a psychokinetic trained for it.”

“And they’re done for once something hits a leg. Or you run into bad terrain. That’s the reason we didn’t field any walkers in the end, even the quadrupedal ones, along with the aforementioned complexity. Plus they make a big target for any schmuck with a PAVS, although the shield changes that to some extent. At least this seems to be easy to control.”

“And by your own admission, they require a special type of missile you have to supply or produce on-site. Removing that missile also removes one of the apparent major selling points. Its simulated effectivity also depends on your use of our equipment, specifically your correct use of it. And on the subject of reentry-level shield - can it then get back up on its own and have enough fuel left to still be useful?”

“As for rerouting fighters from orbit, normal fighters can do that as well, and...” the engineer paused, “...who was it that said something along the lines of ‘I wouldn’t bother with atmospheric capability’?” He snapped his fingers. “Right, you.” The engineer was not fond of agreeing upon design guidelines and than breaking them without changing the specs. “Even the Halberd, the space superiority ship, could be easily modified to fly in the atmosphere, just switch the liftless wings for ones producing lift, add control surfaces and modify the flight control software that is already in place to aid with stability. Same goes for both of our bombers.”

“Well, the Positron actually isn’t atmosphere capable, it wouldn’t turn, just fly straight, preferably straight up. As for hitting legs, you can make the same argument for tank tracks or just about anything really. If you hit something enough times it will fail. Missiles we didn’T use previously because it wasn’t cost effective, but with mining operations beginning in earnest in Opportunity, that ban has been lifted. Or should be, any day now. And regarding the fuel, while in atmo, it can plasmatize the atmosphere, see the intakes here, so the return to orbit is actually quite efficient on planets we would be likely to deploy it to.” Casei explained, berthing the fighter, “Speaking of bombers… your heavy first.”

“You got me with plasmathising the atmosphere. The biggest difference between tracks and legs are: one - tracks are smaller and two - the tank will not fall down, maiming the pilot. Right, heavy.”

“Enter, the Flail.” The open rack revealed the ugliest thing that, to Narix knowledge, ever left a production line. Words failed to describe the general shape, with six primary hardpoints and three secondary bays and four primary engines. “Two secondary banks up top, one bottom. Four main drives, two reverse thrusters and enough armor to put the Guardian to shame. Excess power allows for a shield, meant to boost the front for attacks or back for running. Follows the same internal layout as the previous ones. No atmosphere for this one, no matter how hard you try. Translation along Y and Z axes facilitated by thrusters, although it is a bit sluggish. Rotation is handled by gyros.”

“Hm… okay.” Casei passed it off. ‘Bland’ was what she said, and everybody knew it. “Now, we didn’t have any prior experience with bombers, so bear with us.” she said, revealing the first of the Faira strikecraft. There was a long, thin, and distinctly secondary deficient thing to be called a bomber by the Narix frame of mind. In the rear though were powerful engines, and the thing had a hard-built massive hypervelocity kinetic cannon, and a snub-nosed version of it mounted in a turret. “It doesn’t carry many torpedoes, but is extremely fast. Armed with a variety we developed for attacking systems of a capital ship, and a cannon that could punch through the lilith’s armor and completely wreck it with one mag, we feel it fits the role, what do you think?”

“Hard to hit and hard hitting. I’ll have eight.” one bomber pilot commented. “Just one pilot?”

“How does that keep the temperature down? Small core and batteries again?”

“One pilot, one turret aiming AI. Cue the booing.” Casei snorted. “And no, actually. The drive is laced with cooling lines that use phase-changing coolant, and it recuperates part of the heat in a turbine. Then, there is again a phase changing heat capacitor for afterburner, which can either be cooled down over time, or simply ejected. We do not expect the heat to build up too much though. This thing is equipped with two jump capacitors, eliminating the need for a recharge. You jump in, gauge the situation, perform the attack run if you deem it possible, and jump out. You will need to rearm anyway, might as well land on the destroyer for that and let another wing take their shot.”

“Jokes on you, because we messed with AIs as well.” the rack opened, revealing the Narix light bomber. The craft had a twin-tailed hull, again featuring liftless surfaces to radiate heat and main drives in two directions. “And this thing looks like it may come to a relative halt within our lifetime, too. Single primary hardpoint, two revolving torpedo bays, two turrets, one dorsal, one ventral, usually controlled by an AI. Again shielded and relatively easy to refit for atmosphere. Two crewmen, both have full control over the ship and the turrets, allowing them to spread workload. One flies the ship, the other manages shields and countermeasures, leaving the AI to man the guns. No jump drive, sadly, didn’t fit even with a single crew setup. Wings fold backwards to save space in hangars. Turret weapons interchangable, of course.”

“It looks fightery still.” Casei noted, “I am not sure how I feel about tactical bomber that is not jump capable. They need to be highly mobile in my head to be deployed quickly when a tactical advantage presents itself. Alright, go with the big beast.”

“This one has eaten too much, so it got a little fat.” The rack opened, light falling upon the smooth hull with two massive engines in the back. "Flying wing design, two crew members, subspace motivators, three safe jumps, four seconds charging time, 20, 50 and 80 seconds for complete cooldown respectively. Possibly could jump four, even five times, but we won’t know what sort of damage that will do until we find a pilot braindead enough to try. We expect melting components and cables, leading to loss of systems and power spikes. Four revolving banks, 12 torpedoes each, two turrets at the wingtips, again AI controlled, 220 degrees pivot main drives, that’s 110 up and 110 down. Maneuvering with gyros. Ship this size, shield goes without saying."

“You were saying about vectored thrust?” Casei smirked. “Well, the design is pretty i’ll give you that, but I like this better.” she said and revealed her own brainchild. It was a conventional Faira layout of a hull with rear engine pylons, and around it were wrapped modular torpedo bays. The bomber had no primary guns, but four defensive turrets facing each to one side, and one in the rear. “The beauty is not with any aspect of the craft you would usually consider, but with it’s fire control system. This thing is capable of swarm-firing all of it’S ordnance within two seconds, guiding it up to five targets in a full sphere around it. We have even designed special munitions taking advantage of the feature, having smaller, more numerous torpedos where they arrive time on target in groups aimed to the same spot. That way, you basically intercept a fraction of a single big warhead if you only shoot down some of them, and the sheer number should in theory overwhelm the point defenses and escorting fighters.”

“Unless the defense system works on a canister-shell basis, in which case anything short of a plasma or laser-based weapon will fail. Also, why is the craft responsible for guiding the munitions? Wouldn’t it be better to have the craft designate a target and feed it into the torpedo’s guidance system, therefore allowing for as many targets as you have ordnance left?”

“Frankly, the size of the warhead. By removing an internal guidance system form the torpedoes and deleagating them to the fighter, we have made half sized torpedoes with three quarters of the punch. We calculated that none of the nightmare ships we encountered so far save for the superdestroyer could survive an attack by a wing of these, with no losses on the bombers’ part because they deploy all of their munitions quickly and jump out as soon as the salvo hits. Of course, they have to stay to guide the missiles through, but considering a conventionally firing torpedoes would only fire four at a time from this thing, then they would have to wait for several dozens of seconds for another to fire, the total deployment time is still lower.” the engineer explained the theory.

“In theory, nice, but have taken fighters and AA fire into account? And with every lost bomber, that’s a lot of ordnance that is not going to hit the targets. Perhaps they could cooperate with larger ships or even fighters to designate their targets? It’s not going to save the pilots, but it’s a step to ensure a hit.”

“We have. Just like the Positron, the forward shield is augmented, and the same energy allocation macro as we use on the Comet class frigates have been added to the systems, allowing for quick power reallocation in need, only with this thing not being underpowered in the first place. Furthermore, with the high volume of fire, even counting on interception because of longer flight time, enough ordnance should make it through, if we are talking about Nightmare ships. Against yours, well, I do not want to guess which of the missiles would be more agile, but I imagine the defending one would be at advantage. And our PDS is laser based, so depending on the ship and the number of it’s turrets.”

“Well, cards are on the table. Someone put the pilots on a leash. Do we torment the poor souls further and go get some rest, or do we move straight to test flights?”

ECR Enlightenment, Terminus’ comet cloud

“Deploy the drones! All guns fire at will, single on target!” the commander of the faira cruiser scrambled to issue orders as the ship emerged in a particularly dense formation of comets and other chunks of space material. Unlike the larger ships, the Nebula class had a weaker hull not reinforced by the fiber mesh. The drones unclamped and raced to shoot down the rocks that threatened to impact against the hull. At the same time, the shield was evaporating the ice of the comets, soon turning the place into a soup of water vapor and debris. “So much for visual confirmation. It will be an hour before this cloud scatters enough to see through. Oracle, any news?”

“No, ma’am. Dozens upon dozens of small echoes consistent with rocks, but nothing that would indicate a ship or strikecraft.” the oracle reported.

“Oh well, recall the drones and let’s jump to the next location as soon as the drives are cycled. We’re meeting with a Narix scouting party on the next one to share logs. This mess of a place makes transmitting them nigh impossible.”

The Narix frigate has already been waiting by the time the Faira cruiser arrived. Some of the swarmer defensive turrets were still reloading, the hull bore marks of impacts and the dorsal fore turret was split open. A Pillager was circling the ship, unloading spare hull segments to replace the damaged ones. Several Narix engineers flocked around the worst dents with EVA packs, getting their ship in order.

“Enlightenment, Zenith. Good to see you, had any luck on your end so far?” the frigate’s commander sent her static-filled greeting to her Faira comrades. “Hold for transmission, we’ll have to unfuck our main comm array. Give us a few minutes.” the Narix offered an apology, drawing attention to the stump of the Zenith’s transmitter as it was being replaced.

“Zenith, Enlightenment. Your oracle can give us a tether and we can hop aboard, if you’d rather be done with this. Holding otherwise.” the CO answered, directing the comms officer to prepare the data package for download.

“Very well, we’re expecting you in the back of the CIC. Oracle, if you would.” the crew then started to clear the back of the deck to give the Faira some place to jump to.

“Evening. Sorry about the complications, a bigger chunk of rock whacked us over the head upon last jump. Decapitated one of our 2 meters, as you may have seen, and more.” the Narix aspirant greeted them, towering over everyone on the deck. The navigation officer grabbed a 10 by 20 cm data drive and handed it to the visiting Faira.

“Evening, sir. All of our logs since we reached Terminus, including the AWACS Pillagers.”

“Not to worry, Aspirant. We’ve lost a couple of drones ourselves in the last jump. This place is as hostile as they get. Are you heading to the node for repairs?” the CO asked, taking the drive and providing the Narix with their own, so that their navigational data would update and the map could be labeled with areas already scanned. “Since you’re here, I imagine you didn’t have any luck finding our prey either?”

“No, we’ll seal our hull breaches, restore full communications and continue the search. Fortunately, it’s only the turret that’s gone, we’ve saved most of our munitions for when we find the little bastards.” the aspirant shook her head. “Nary a peep, it’s like they’re made of smoke and mirrors. Eh, it just doesn’t feel right, how could eight ships just disappear like that. It’s possible they are laying in wait in the asteroid field, latched onto a chunk of rock big enough to hide them. Except as we’ve seen, we can’t stay there long enough to look. Maybe if we grabbed one of the two-seater jump bombers, put an oracle into the co-pilot seat and have them take a look?”

“No thanks, I like being in one piece. I’m not getting into those deathtraps.” the Oracle snorted from her station.

“I agree, we need a better detection method, but what can we do? Fighters are too small to detect to most shipboard oracles and the Marine oracles do not have the range. Our engineer is thinking of using large drone patrols to search for engine signatures, the adjustments to their sensors and AI would only take few days. But it’S two days we could be mapping the Nebula.” the Co frowned, not quite sure what to do. “Any word from other ships?”

She shook her head. “Naris and Equinox have completed their patrols and returned to the node. They’ll refuel and run their course again. The Halberdier reported all clear about an hour ago and then went silent, but we’re still reading their IFF and thermal signature from all the way out there. Oracle didn’t note anything odd either. They’ve not moved for the past twenty minutes, maybe they are in a similar situation to us. Since you’re asking, I assume it’s the same with you?”

“Pretty much. The Explorer group only has six cruisers to send out, and with the OEP we’re all in all short on Oracles that have a chance of spotting the little insects. What yo say is worrying though, surely the Lord-Commander would have sent someone to investigate already and take inventory of spare parts that would have been needed to deliver?” the CO inquired, not really comfortable with the thought of being stranded for an hour before someone noticed. She was fairly certain the Admiral would never do that.

“We have received no indication of problems, else they would have called. Between two comm arrays, the subspace array and their strike craft, there’s a slim chance of not being able to contact anyone in time of need. Sensors, how far away is the Halberdier?”

“Some 800 million kilometers in direct distance, no obstructions between us and them.”

“Do we bother them? Mian array reported operational.” the communications officer realized why the commander asked, getting a nod in response.

“Halberdier, Zenith. You’ve not moved for almost half an hour, is there a problem?”

The response took a few seconds. “Zenith, Halberdier, I hope you’re having a better day. We’ve lost contact with one of our Pillagers. We keep pinging them on short-range and have sent the remaining Pillager and two Halberds to run their course with regular reports, but they haven’t found then yet. I’m afraid they might have been hit by a rock and lost propulsion or power, or worse.”

“Damn it, we need to lure them out. We could be looking for them in this comet cloud for decades!” the CO exasperated, “But last time they came to check us out and we sent them home in body bags, no way they’ll just jump us. They would have been on us or the Halberdier already. Why did they jump the Curious in the first place? It couldn’t have been random.” the commander continued their makeshift strategic sesion.

“Well, we can be certain they’re not coming to the node, That’s where both the Explorer and the Ira are parked. Maybe they’re saving fuel? Waiting for someone to come help them? Or the Curious beat the fight out of them, wishful thinking?”

“Perhaps they came to rescue their kin from aboard the derelict?” the gunnery officer offered, “And since we punched them square in the face, they’ll think twice before showing their ugly heads again. If anything, I’m surprised they didn’t jump us before you arrived, we’re a turret down and half our swarmers were empty. A perfect opportunity, really.”

“Yeah, perhaps. I’ll make the call upstairs, see if they might relinquish one of the captured specimen as bait? They have plenty of corpses to study. How in the light did the universe produce something as deformed as them though?” the CO frowned in eternal mystery. “Very well, if you require no more assistance, we best be on our ways, just in case we stumble onto something.”

“Time we moved as well, see you back at the node. Hopefully, all of Halberdier’s crew will join us as well. Stars guide your way.”

ED Explorer, Terminus - Opportunity node

“The theory may have some validity to it, Lieutenant. Good work. I’ll contact the Lord-Commander and we’ll see what we can do. Dismissed.” Cygnus said form her desk without once looking at the Enlightenment's CO, busy as she was. The crews of the faira cruiser along with one of the Narix frigates came up with a genius solution to their predicament really. All that would be required was to get the brainiacs to relinquish their one living specimen of the ancients. Something the rest of the admiralty probably would not be keen on doing, despite the fact that nobody was able to even approach the ancient with an instrument or personally without being killed or destroyed. Even the dead bodies were well beyond anyone’s understanding.

Tapping into the comm suite, she contacted the Ira. “Ira actual, Explorer actual. I assume you have been briefed by the crew of the Zenith on what they cooked up?” she asked, hoping that Zorea might agree with executing this. With the COs of both their attack fleets requesting the specimen, there would be far less naysayers.

“Aye, I have. Don’t you love it when two great minds stumble upon each other? Give them a few decades and they will be sitting in our seats. The problem is getting the specimen AND getting it into position. I hate to call for family favors, but isn’t your daughter your chief scientist? Maybe she could help sway their minds? If that does not work, we could enlist the help of ambassador Taranis, she has a certain way with words.” If the combined efforts of those failed, Zorea would have to admit defeat. Although he despised the idea of having the special activities division raid one’s own bases, it would not be the first time that’s happened in Narix history. But there was no need to bring up that idea just yet.

“Good, you approve of the operation then. I do not know of how much help the Commander can be, as she is not assigned to that project, and I’d hate to have her shame the rest of our collective scientists into giving up the Ancient. The ambassador might be a good help, if she and the Rear Admiral Libra have given up on communicating with these insects. I believe our best bet is to go to them with a good plan though, preferably one that assures the return of the specimen to their hands. The Curious gave them a broken nose, so I think they will be weary of jumping a Faira ship again, much less if they do not have adequate ships available to take it on. Could you spare a Privateer class or a Vanguard for this? I think if we ferry the specimen via ship to the shipwreck, it would look convincingly enough like we want to run some tests on it there. They might jump in for a grab if the target is weak enough ship. We will of course have ships with drives hot and ready to jump to assist.” The Admiral shared the general outline of her plan.

“My thoughts exactly, aside from using the derelict. We’ll use the NSS Naris to get the specimen there and lay in wait. If they swallow the bait, we’ll jump to catch them in crossfire. Worst comes to worst, the Naris can jump away given its drives. As there is so few of your people, its Faira personnel can be offloaded before this mission. First, we have to acquire the bait though. And hope they don’t have a Lucifer hibernating in this system. I’ll call the Alchemist so the ambassador can start cooking up a way to get the beast. Another problem is getting the beast back to the scientists. We cannot guarantee what it will do.”

“It’s hard preparing without knowing what they can and can’t do. Try to imagine yourself in their position. You’ve sent a rescue party to a ship of an old enemy of yours to recover some of your men. But someone’s gotten there first, blown your ships from the sky, routed your surviving fighters and captured your people. And now they return with one of your own to that wreck. What would you do?”

“Honestly, if I was left to my own devices with naught but a few warships for eight thousand years, I would have already put a plasma bolt through my head.” Cygnus snorted, “Can your ship simulate a drive or power failure to give them some extra incentive? I will also jump the Explorer as far out of the system as I can, hopefully they take it as a jump node exit.” Cygnus thought up further. “In any event, the Ancient we have in captivity now has thus far proved unable to break through the containment shield we put it in. A similar cage, if you will, could be constructed in one of the Naris’ cargo holds.”

“Even without said cage, the cargo hold is quite durable. Although if it does break free, the crew will have to do without provisions, munitions and toilet paper until the ancient is subdued, that’s not a happy thought. They could cut engines mid-maneuver to have the ship tumble a bit and increase the core output for a short while. That temperature increase might be enough. For extra effect, they could do so upon exiting subspace, but it would have to be executed carefully.”

“Only if it’s safe, lord-commander. We already lost one Pillager, no need to add a Vanguard. Very well, make the call to the ambassador, I’ll get hasty clearing out my forces to the edges to the system, make them think we think it’s safe. You should stay at the node, just so they do not attempt to break out. We’d never catch them until they made contact with the rest of them, and, well, that isn’t a though I want to entertain.” Cygnus signed off, happy with the Narix putting a competent man in charge. For once.

“Don’t forget the rest of my fleet is currently camped in Opportunity. We won’t let them through. And the Naris is manned by the best frigate crew in my fleet. You could only find better men and women in the First Fleet.” he turned to make the proper arrangements. There was quite an operation in the making, acting, not reacting. Right where they should be.

NSS Naris, Terminus - Opportunity jump node

“For the record, I am SO not okay with this plan.” the Naris’ XO fumed at the sight of a security feed from their cargo hold. “A live Nightmare aboard our ship, are they mad? Let the saps from the Zenith carry this out since it was their damn idea.”

“Stow it, it’s not gonna help. Take solace in knowing they picked us for the job because they thought no one else could hack it.” the CO barked. “NSS Ira, this is the NSS Naris, we are go. Engaging drives in T minus sixty.”

“Received, Naris, stars guide your way.”

“Engineering, is everything prepared?”

“Feint prepared, ready on your go.”

The Naris lurched forward and a subspace window swallowed it. Five seconds later, a subspace window appeared 1000 meters off the ancient wreck. Upon exit, the Naris seemed to have an engine malfunction, firing the forward-right RCS thruster, sending it into a leftward spin.

“Ruse is a go.” the frigate broadcast along with an authentic crisis signal. All that was left now was wait for the Nightmares to come.

They didn’t have to wait for long.


A massive Nightmare ship of destroyer proportions have arrived form subspace on a parallel course. Strangely, the behemoth didn’t open fire itself. Instead, it started spewing wing after wing of fighters and sortied two transports.

“Restore drives, swarmers loose, load frag twins! Helm, heading 3-1-3 inc 1-9, jump when ready!”

“All forces, beast took the bait, we’re pulling out!”

The swarmer turrets spat missile after missile, soon joined by the 750 mm twin turrets ripping into the fighter formations, creating an almost perfect wall of fire behind the frigate, covering its retreat.

Above and to the sides of the Nightmare destroyer, about 1500 meters away, several groups of jump points formed. Soon, the destroyer was besieged from two sides by the First Fleet’s three Vanguards, their fighter and bomber wings appearing not long after. Among them were a few prototypes of the jointly-developed fighters - the Dagger-class interceptors, Halberd-class multirole fighters and Flail-class heavy fighters.

The nightmares would only have seconds before the first salvo of torpedos from the Vanguards, 16 per cruiser, reached the destroyer’s hull.

Far away, at the Terminus - Opportunity jump node, lord-commander Zorea stirred in his seat. Three cruisers against a destroyer. His soldiers on the line and he had to sit at the node and let the battle take its course. But the risk of the Nightmares reaching Opportunity was too great.

Alongside the Vanguards, two Pulsar class corvettes detached form the Explorer group made the jump, with orders to take out the engines on the destroyer as soon as the target data became available. Cygnus had to fight not to jump in the Explorer immediately as she looked at the image of the monster sieging the small Narix ship. But on second look, the ancient destroyer, wherever it was hiding, suffered damage (or was it inflicted as far back as the Great War?), making her hold her own destroyer in reserve after all.

“The bastard jumped! It’s headed for the node! One of it’s heavy plasma cannons made a hit on the Naris’ main engine!” sounded form one of the corvette COs. “Either they are after the Zenith or they are trying to run. Helm, set course for the node. This ends here. Launch the Muons before we jump, have them target the engines again!” As she ordered it was done, the sleek and fast tactical bombers recently developed launching, a pair of them, and jumping ahead of the destroyer.

Terminus-Opportunity jump node

“The fuck was that?”

“Hit to the stern, main drive’s gone!”

The ship rocked violently before it left subspace, nowhere near the jump node it was headed to and far away from the Ira’s protection.

“We’ve jumped short.” the navigation officer called. “Still have about 200 000 kilometers to the node.”

“Reload ATAFs and see if you can sort out the drive.”

“No good, sir.” the chief engineer reported, “Half the engine’s melted, we’ll have to make due with secondaries.”

“Cut power to main gun batteries, just muster enough power to limp back to the node, we can work from there.”

“Incoming!” the sensors officer shouted, his voice a mixture of disbelief, annoyance, fury and dread. “Right on our arse, too.”

The massive warship emerged just a few hundred meters above them, as if trying to pull the frigate close in a hug.

“Crisis, crisis, this is the NSS Naris, our jump drives are down for the moment and we’re in knife range of the Nightmare destroyer. ANy available units, please render assistance.”

A salvo of twelve torpedos was launched, directed at what appeared to a Narix eye to be a fighter bay. The Naris still had twelve more torpedos, but reloading them would take time. The gunnery control officer took the initiative, giving the order to load armor piercing munitions into the 750 mm guns and worked with the dorsal astrogation dome to target any apparent turrets on the destroyer’s belly.

“Naris, Claymore wing!” sounded a Faira voice form the comms suite. “Put yourself on a perpendicular course and go full sublight, we have orders to disable that ship. ETA 30 seconds!” the pilot sounded frightened herself. No wonder, they have ran into the cockpit without so much as proper weapons training for the recently developed craft. Just their luck to have a Faira capsule mounted on them, so neither an AI or a trained Narix pilot could take the job. Fortunately, they at least had the OEPs pilots whispering good stuff in their ears over the comms.

As soon as the bombers came into range, they opened up with the hypervelocity cannons, the rounds punching through the destroyer’s armor and wrecking it’s single engine cluster, causing it to float forward uncontrollably. Seeing the success of the cannon, the two bombers retargeted their EMP torpedoes onto the largest turrets they could see, letting loose before veering off course lest they collided with the large ship. “Naris, Claymore lead. Target disabled and the main armaments are disarmed. Hold tight, help is on the way.” they signed off before jumping out, just as the Ancient fighters were closing in on them, effectively drawing them away on the other side of the destroyer form the Narix ship.

“Much appreciated, Claymore.” the comms officer thanked as the ship turned quite nimbly for its size, burning as much as its crippled drives would allow. With the largest armaments disabled and fighters held mostly at bay by their defenses, the Naris’ commander felt like they might actually live to tell this tale, despite the hammering the ship was going through on the account of the fighters’ primary weapons and several forgotten turrets.

“Sir, we can’t muster enough power to make the whole jump, the secondary motivators have taken a beating when they hit the main drive, though if we disable life support, we’ll do with three hops.”

Throughout the ship, the sound of ventilation died, gravity disengaged and lights switched off in the halls and habitation sections. The Naris broadcast their expected jump points to the rest of the ships involved in hounding their unexpected prey in case the Nightmares didn’t need main drives to jump and executed the first one, slipping away, at least for the time being, from the Nightmare’s grasp once more.

As the Naris ran, the Second Fleet returned in a wedge formation, fighters clamped to the Vanguard’s radiator wings, and let loose another barrage of their main armaments. Space was once more filled with colorful flashes of light as weapons fired and ships fell.

With the Naris safe, it was merely the case of pecking the Ancient destroyer to death and dealing with it’s strikecraft. The first task was about to become a lot easier though, as the Faira destroyer finally arrived. “Explorer to all ships, stand clear of the Ancient destroyer. All guns, engage the main target!” Cygnus called on public channel, and the four P-15s bit savagely into the Ancient warship, gutting it from bow to stern and melting everything in their path. The P-5s have targeted the remaining turrets, blowing them clean off on most accounts. The glows on the ancient ship flickered with the second hit from the Explorer’s main armaments, before the entire ship went up in flames and flashes of nuclear detonation when the torpedoes finally arrived. “All ships, Admiral Cygnus. Return to base if your integrity falls below medium. There is plenty of us to mop up the fighters, let’s all get home alive.”

Turning to her XO, she nodded: “Launch the prototype fighters and drone squadrons A through D.”

“Red wing standing by for launch.” Having the control of his fighter taken away from him for the launch was still something Iris hated. Once out of the bay and with the ship back in his hand, the interceptor took off, seeking the closest thing that in any way resembled a bomber, intent on turning it into several smaller ones. It was much the same with any of his comrades, some even remembering the strafing runs of the Exile Rebellion. Some might’ve found it odd how detached from reality an emotion their voices seemed despite sitting in a metal coffin filled with fuel, ordnance and other combustibles while under fire.

With the destroyer meeting its doom, something changed in the behavior of the remaining Nightmares. Where pilots struggled, suddenly, they came out on top. Even at the node, in the Naris’ cargo bay, the beast struggling to get out of its prison seemed to have lost some of its elan. The crews of the cruisers started to calm down as the tension slowly faded, replaced by collective exhaustion.

Upon hearing the news, lord-commander Zorea finally sat down after pacing around his CIC in circles since the Naris misjumped. Mere days after its hasty formation, the alliance has scored its first major victory. Losing a destroyer was no small defeat to any side he could imagine.

Faira FleetNet News

Terminus secured
Today at 2242, a joint operation conducted by the second fleet and Vanguard fleet elements saw an end to the Ancient threat in the Terminus system. After conducting extensive patrols bearing no fruit, the crews of the NSS Zenith and ECR Enlightenment came up with a scheme to lure the remaining Ancient fighters out. What we expected to be a few fighters turned out to be a destroyer class ship hiding in the comet cloud, now designated Demon. After a brief chase, the Explorer was able to land the killing blow, while the second fleet’s cruisers annihilated it’s fighter complement.

Combat trials of new strikecraft
During the engagements, several new strikecraft prototypes were tested. The fleet has decided to adopt the Electron space superiority fighter and Muon tactical bomber following great performance against the Ancient capital ships and strikecraft. The Antiproton interceptor has been rejected, instead the current Proton drones will take over the interceptor role after slight modifications. The remaining craft designed by the Faira are still undergoing trials.

Jump nodes
There is now confirmation of no system other than the Nebula having a jump node leading outside of our local cluster. The Fifth fleet is now being upgraded at Faira’Karte to be able to assist us in scanning the Nebula for further jump nodes.

Narix national newscast

Awakening
Mere hours ago, lord-commander Zorea’s battlegroup,in conjunction with the Vanguard Fleet, enacted a cunning plan, devised by the command crews of the NSS Zenith and ECR Enlightenment, to hunt down the Nightmare fighters. What was thought to be eight stray fighters turned out to be a Nightmare destroyer, now designated the NID Demon. Despite taking damage, the NSS Naris adapted to the circumstances and helped a wing of Faira pilots disable the destroyer, allowing elements of the Second and Vanguard Fleets to destroy the ship and mop up the remaining fighters. Finally, the Nightmares have been slain and all can wake up and breathe freely again.

Partial field tests successful
While the newly developed bombers have not yet been tested, the council has agreed to adopt the Halberd multirole fighter into service following its retrofit to full atmospheric capability. Further assessment of the Flail heavy fighter is pending to see how it compares to the standing Raider-class. The Dagger interceptor has been rejected, but Ausira Dynamics have announced the stiletto, a civilian two-seater version, will become available early next year.

The Nebula
All eyes now look upon the Faira Nebula as the Fifth Fleet ships are undergoing retrofits at the Faira’Karte that will allow them to survive the harsh environment. The council has not yet made any statement regarding alternative methods of reaching distant stars should no jump nodes be discovered.

EFG Curious, being repaired at Faira’Karte

It has been some time since the Commander visited her ship. The refits were still undergoing, mostly because of a quick but large change in the design spec done after the recent engagements with the Ancients. Both the Studious as the only reconstructed ‘block B’ Comet class, and the Curious were classes in their own now, the former spotting improved reactors and one extra unit, along with double barreled P-5 turrets, and the latter with an entire modular section added over where the docking port and second P-15 used to be, the extra gun sacrificed for a hangar. Even now though a replacement class was being drafted, all but ensuring the two modified Comets would be the only examples of it’s class that would ever fly.

Reaching the break room on the Morale sector, she found the victim she was looking for, having not seen the man for a week once she was stuck with the engineers on the ‘Karte. “Good evening XO, how’s the ship?” she smiled at prefect Linsis.

Truth be told, he’d expected to be kicked out at Opportunity when the Curious limped back to the system along with the rest of the OEP personnel. Seeing the Faira work together on such a large scale was truly quite something. Since he had no engineering background, let alone knew anything about Faira technology, he’s been swamped in various logistics, requisitions and similar paperwork, had there been any paper involved. During this time, he gave the break room a new purpose, opposite of its name. Though working on Faira calendar meant shorter days and therefore sleep more often, the monotone nature of his work took its toll. It was for that reason he was glad for any diversion, and even the sight of the commander didn’t sour his day, though she certainly had her moments.

“Evening, sir.” he stood up with a salute, “It almost looks like it’s supposed to again, save for the modifications. Looks like they were busy back at Terminus without us. Have you had time to follow the news?”

“Enough bled through the paperwork to paint an image of complete insanity. That and few of our countrymen making a name for themselves. Lieutenant Caliri of the Enlightenment has been bumped to receive command of one of the corvettes to be attached to the Singularity once she’s finished. The Curious will need a new CO by then as well, although that might happen far sooner. I will probably be leaving to work on the Superdestroyer.” the Commander sighed.

“Enough about work though. I hear you ruined the break room for everyone with it so they have to party at command and control. Come on, you need a break too!” the commander said, pointing to the door, “You up for a game, or perhaps some news from the blackdocks?”

“I do take breaks, I’m just trying to find a better environment for when I am working. And I did what now? Didn’t realize sitting in the corner was so obstructive, they need only ask and I’d be on my way.”

“I was speaking figuratively, but even if, they do it out of respect for your personal space. You are nowadays responsible for their well being, and believe it or not, the crew took well to you. Aurigae is a good person, but she couldn’t make a decision if her life depended on it, much less everybody else's, the woman takes no risks which leaves her in a dead end. You took charge and made more or less the correct call after being here for a couple of hours. Thing like that impress people.” Astra said encouragingly.

“Now get off that bench, do you want me to show you what we came up with or not?!”

“That’s nice to hear. Truth be told, the phrase ‘cooking out of water’ doesn’t come even close to describing what that engagement was, but I’ll take the results. Just glad that wreck was there to provide cover.” the Narix launched himself to his feet. “Lead the way, and tell them to pick up all the bottles when they’re done.” the Narix grinned.

“Aaaaw, see? You know them so well already!” The commander grinned as she lead out of the breakroom, where one of the Stonemasons was juggling still full bottles and another one od Virgo’s squadron was showing off tricks with chips, all with an ‘about time’ face on them.

One visit to a transport room later, the commanders of the Curious were on a berth observation deck on the ‘Karte, with the Curious and Latanos sharing the two klik berth. “My poor ship. It grown a tumor.” Astra whined, seeing the unshapely hangar module.

“Have you seen the bottles adept-legionnaire Solaire was carrying? That stuff has hallucinogenic properties, don’t be surprised if some of them start reporting nonexistent targets tomorrow morning.” he chuckled. “Only if one of them were to drink an entire bottle in the matter of a dozen minutes on an empty stomach.” he quickly explained to clear up any possible misunderstanding.

“I thought that hangar was your design. Could have been worse, look what they’re doing to the Latanos.” he pointed to the hexagonal shield projectors. “It’s got a rash. With the general shape of the ship, you’d expect they’d have the common sense to make the projectors rounded. There’s an adage: ‘Do you know what happens when you quit the Fifth? You get your brain back.’ I think I now understand.”

“Hah! Good thing you’re here then!” Astra laughed. “An, well, you can only do so much with the armor technology the Curious uses and a hull designed for something entirely different. It is always better to integrate stuff from the beginning. As to why it is happening, well… The Vanguard is being turned form an exploration fleet into a full fledged combat evaluation. I mean, it makes sense, between us and the Explorer, Vanguard has the most combat hours logged.” she shrugged.

“Note the armor on the module though.” Astra said summoning a camera output window and zooming in over the viewscreen. “We developed our own version of the crystalline armor the unknowns used. It’s nowhere near as tough, but still an improvement. We’ve added a slat armor over it with an electric charge. None of ours use ion weapons, not even the Ancients do, but it could still help one day. We set the control system to default to negative charge to eliminate the charge of cations, which are somewhat more dangerous in plasma weapons than the electron part. In addition to that, jet vents for coolant have been installed along the plates, both to cool down and disrupt the incoming bolts.” she noted, encircling the small turret like vents on the ship.”

Linsis nodded in silence, the commander’s words passing right over his head. He knew the words and their individual meaning, but combined, they were just noise to him. Perhaps he should stick to his supply manifests.

“Funny thing, if the Curious had a hangar in the first place, the turret that hangar replaced might have still been there. The circle of life. How many craft can that hold?”

“It will fit about sixteen craft plus a Pillager. It’s no destroyer still, but you put in there eight superiority fighters, two tactical bombers and six heavy bombers and you can take on one if you’re on the attack. Defense… Well, better leave that to the Meteor. It will help tremendously with the scouting though, especially once we couple in the last piece of the puzzle. I’ve been pouring almost non-stop over the Ancient strike craft jump drive. So far I made one small enough to equip the hangar with a jumpgate so we can launch the fighters through FTL at least.” the commander explained.

“That should make the mapping of the nebula somewhat more bearable. Not for the pilots flying recon, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

“There aren’t going to be any pilots flying recon. One of the lightning bolts in the nebula would vaporize anything short of a cruiser, shielded at that. I don’t know how I feel about even the Guardians, and it’s a good thing the Fifth doesn’t have any Partisan, or it would have to stay behind, shield or not.” Astra frowned.

“Guardians are staying behind. We don’t expect to be ambushed by fighters or bombers in the Nebula, so Ascari is leaving them home. Not to mention those things are so small and their reactors so flimsy they don’t allow the mounting of shields. Though I overheard an engineer from the Fifth spewing fire and smoke at the task of mounting shields on the Privateers. Something about removing turrets.”

“They will stop bitching as soon as they get hit by the yearly output of their powerplant concentrated to a fraction of a second and live. If not, I will remotely power off their shields and then we’ll see how long they last.” the commander grunted, not liking her technology to be dissed in any way.

“Whoa, blue on blue. Their problem is the small size of the ship. They had to figure out a place to put the projectors, not to mention the extra power output. It’s worse because even the high ups don’t like it, seeing as the Privateer is our newest class. Has the Fifth been told what to expect, or did you not want to spoil the surprise for them?”

“They have been told alright. I don’t want blood on my hands. Or whatever charred remains of it are there among the cloud of plasma that used to be a ship. Normally we’d ferry those ships through under our shield, but since we are in need of fanning out…” the commander sighed. “Come, let’s hit the breakroom here. Those on military ships have nothing on the civilian fleet. I want to see how you improved your game since last time!” she said, referring to the Faira space combat simulator games.

“Eheh...” the prefect laughed uneasily, remembering the royal beating she referenced. “Although I did take breaks, most of them consisted of food and sleep. Sometimes mixed.” he shook his head to banish the memory of waking up over a half-eaten ration pack. “Best not hold out much hope.”

“Come on, don’t be an Ascari. I told you that I am soon leaving the Curious, and there’s no way i am leaving the Captain in charge. What reason could I possibly have for trying to drill ship movements into you?” Astra dropped as she lead to the game consoles. “Like it or not, you are the only other person available with hands-on experience commanding a frigate. Suck it up and learn, I’ll give it to you as an order in writing if you need.” Astra smirked as she launched the game, choosing the Ancient fleet to play.

“I’m not an Ascari, I can see over tables when I’m standing straight.” he took a shot at the primarch’s height, or lackthereof. “And I believe that would be the first time in our history someone’s been ordered by his superior officer to play, and our military has a few weird orders on record.” he took a seat, selecting the Faira fleet. “Is the humpback Comet already in, or is that just a sideline project?”

“Oh don’t you dare call it that!” Astra hissed, “Oi damn it! You’re just trying to distract me… and it’s working.” Astra huffed as she missed a few seconds on setting up her resourcing. “You have to research interspecies technology exchange first, then branch into the fighter line with any class, that unlocks the hangar refit for the comets, you can find it under the Curious class.” Astra noted, herself going first for capital ship building research, followed by bombers.

He decided to take the frigate branch of research for practice’s sake, though he was tempted by the Meteors. “What’s wrong with the name? I know: There is a jolly bunch of marines on board who would no doubt offer a plethora of fitting names. Especially now since they’ve ingested unknown amounts of several types of liquors.” he teased as the first corvettes and multirole fighters of his imaginary fleet formed around the resource operations.

Astra has meanwhile been busy sending her interceptors to peek on resourcing spots, and mining those still unoccupied, but close to Linsis’ base rather than her own, her fighters keeping an eye out for any scouts and her single Demon hanging back. She didn’t bother with advancing to the Superdestroyer branch yet.

Creepy crawlies started popping up around his mining ops as the sensor range of his fleet increased with each expansion to new resource sources. Finally, a pair of cruisers with the oracle upgrade enabled were complete and set out, charting the playable area, each with a wing of fighter drones attached to its hull. A lone Pulsar with eight drones of its own lay in wait to the side, away from the main forces. Eight more minutes and the research necessary for the frigates would be done, but a lot could still happen between that and the first frigate’s arrival.

Astra was playing a dangerous game, but she wondered how Linsis would adapt. Her scouts have no doubt been detected by now, but she dared to send them closer to see what kind of defenses his resourcing operation had. Then she pulled everything out courtesy of the jump capable strike craft, and sent a large force of fighters into the sensor range of the Narix’s civilian fleet, feigning an attack run on the harbor ship.

That was indeed a lot of fighters, which could mean the commander neglected large capital ships. He scrambled the defenses of a half-spent resource op, a fighterless Pulsar and Nebula, and jumped them in range behind the strikeforce using the Nebula’s drive, putting them between the commander’s fighters and his harbor ship. Finally, one of his scout cruisers reported a large contact, but disappeared from the map before it could be further identified. He set both the backup Pulsar and his Meteor to aggressive behavior, waiting for the commander’s reaction to the two ships in her fighters’ back yard.

A flash of metal smile came from the other side of the table as a duet of Liliths jumped upon the unprotected Nebula and Pulsar, while a Moloch jumped to the resourcing operation. Astra tasked the Fighters with disabling and disarming the Faira ships. With their numbers it shouldn’t take long for the two ships to be dead in space, but if push came to shove, the Liliths would finish them off quickly unless the XO had something up his sleeve. Astra was trying to bait Linsis strike craft away.

And there was the catch. Using the Pulsar’s jump drive, he moved the two ships behind the Liliths, setting the pulsar’s torpedos and largest turrets to target the Liliths’ engines while the Nebula, reinforced by the Pulsar and it’s eight drones he originally held in reserve to aid the oracle cruisers, bit into the fighters. He left the resource op to its own devices, the reason for choosing that one was its near-depletion. Its fighter complement should tie up the Moloch for a minute or two. Neither of their two destroyers have so far been deployed, but to his knowledge, the Demon was outclassed by even the unupgraded Meteor in firepower. The remaining cruiser has not found anything new and now lingered close to where the large contact was reported by its unlucky brother.

The ruse worked, mostly. Astra tasked the Moloch to ignore the few pesky fighters that were doing sum zilch to it and focused on the economic vessels. Even if the fighters disabled the moloch (their weapons could do little more), it would repair over time. Just replenishing the resourcing ships would take five minutes of build time. It would be a loss anyway, either he didn’t build bombers or capital ships for five minutes, giving Astra a head start even with her bomber research, or he would not replenish his economy and she would bleed him dry in the long run. Speaking of which, her last heavy bomber wing has finished building.

Abandoning the liliths to their fate, she waited half a minute later for one of her resource drops to have the resources for the jump she was about to execute. She started with jumping all of the fighters form the fight straight to the Meteor in two groups, sicing them onto the P-15 turrets. In the same thought, she carefully placed the jump of the heavy bombers, setting them to appear inside the Meteor’s shield for a quick delivery. Somebody was going to get hurt.

Letting the engagement with the Liliths to play out as it would, he turned his attention to where the oracle cruiser perished. Grabbing the two freshly arrived Comets, he set them to jump to the large contact’s last known location. He then set the Meteor to jump some distance away from them, on the other side of the presumed Demon. As the resources for the jump arrived, a sneak attack at the Meteor took place. Aided by the Comets, it should hold against the Demon even with a few dents. Though jumping the Meteor would leave another resource op, this one slightly bigger, open to attack with just two Nebulas and the ships that were fighting the Liliths to defend it, once they were finished. Screw it, they’ll be done soon enough, he thought and jumped the Meteor.

The one redeeming quality of an awful design like the Demon was that there was no safe approach. Even from behind it’s missiles and a couple of heavy plasma cannons could still reach you. Not as good a layout as a Meteor or anything else the Faira built, but with the insanity it called armor, it made it work. The fighters have managed to disable one of the P-15 turrets and some of the bombs have landed, directly on the hull courtesy of Astra’s precision jumping. Speaking of which, she needed to do that again, her budget taking a bit of a hit with that jump. She tasked the Fighters with protecting the Demon just in case Lindus had enough resource points to launch a torpedo strike, and routed the bombers to go for the other P-15.

It was still there, and right between the Meteor and the Comets. Perhaps gods existed after all? Shame the torpedoes did not fit into the budget. At least Astra’s fighters left the resource op alone. If he could keep the Meteor alive long enough, that would cost her. Unfortunately, she had a nasty habit of bypassing the ship’s shield. Time to see what the fighter AI of the simulator could do. Ordering the capital ships to engage the Demon, the fighter drones began mixing it up with the cheeky bombers. Good thing they weren’t the monsters the Explorer cooked up. If only did the Faira ships have a reasonable amount of point defense turrets. Where was a Warlord when you needed one?

Having finished the two Liliths, in spite of losing the Nebula, the battered Pulsars could still be used. Another thing that needed resources. More ships, or torpedoes? It had to be torpedoes, two Pulsars couldn’t do much against that thing. It was just the matter of keeping the Meteor armed and waiting for the resources. Close, but not quite there yet.

“Come on, come on, COME ON!” Astra growled as she watched the demon’s build bar rise, but the health bar drop. When the demon dropped to 25%, another demon finished building, jumping alongside the battered one, Astra’s production finally catching up with Linsis’.

“Death and taxes, now what?” he hissed at the game sound of a new contact. “Well, there certainly have been better developments in the history of warfare.” The Comets kept pelting the dying Demon and the meteor was, almost miraculously, still operational, albeit the bombers have taken their toll on it. So this is what her resources have been going into. The first Demon was about to fall and he turned the Meteor to shorten the flight path of the torpedoes. Just a little kiss on the cheek and they would be ready. Firing the torpedoes would leave him with empty pockets, but once they were launched, the newly arrived Demon would have a bad time.

“You know what the problem with torpedoes is? Flight time.” Astra said as both her demons were swallowed by subspace windows before the torpedoes crossed the distance. The two ships materialized back in he rbase, where a repair transport was waiting for them. Five minutes Linsis had to find them to finish them off before the first demon was up to full strength. Astra was ahead of resources still, but right now she would have traded that for a few fighters right now. The demons were starting to spew up more interceptors, but now it was down to dumb luck on how fast Linsis could find her. And she still had two minutes on the superdestroyer research, not to mention the actual build time for a Lucifer. One of the demons had to live, she set her goal. “Any word from home? What’s the mood there? The civ fleet is getting sort of restless with all the ships coming to the Nebula, and with being basically on the front line should there be a way through.” she asked, hoping to distract the Narix from focusing on the game.

Fortunately, one of the oracle cruisers was still around, even though it was limited to travelling through real space. And he had a decent idea of where the ships would NOT be - neither of his three remaining resource ops nor the harbor ship could see the two destroyers and any escorts they might have had. Between the Comets, the Meteor, the oracle ship and the two Pulsars, finding them would be rather quick.

“No idea, haven’t heard from there.” he replied to the commander’s inquiry mechanically. “Last I heard, construction of the mother of manned missiles was going smoothly.” he tried whether another verbal attack at Faira ships would provoke a reaction from the commander.

“You mean the greatest thing to leave a berth since the Meteor, thank you?” Astra smirked, “We seem to bi killing the Ancients well enough - on or off the sim, but there’s the big question. Do they have more of these?” she cheekily shown her panel as she queued up a production of the Lucifer. She knew she was revealing her hand, but the chance to snap a picture of the Prefect’s surprised face was worth tossing the game. “One I think the Singularity can deal with. If they have more, well… It’s been a pleasure serving with you.”

“Don’t think the primarch would agree, but you can’t win with the southerners.” his face remained expressionless, as he’s already accepted defeat when the second Demon showed up. “On the offense, the MOM might work, but what will you do when it takes a hit?” he hinted at it’s cast hull. “Ask the Nightmares to kindly take half a decade off so you can build a new one or patch up the one you have? Or when the enemy is behind it?” he snorted. “Mind jumping can only get you so far.” The whole time, the area where the destroyers could be hiding grew smaller and smaller until…

Hostile contact identified

There they were. Why the commander keep them both where they were instead of letting one get fixed and using the other one to harass his units to make him waste further resources? Maybe she was low herself, all being funneled into the superdestroyer? The damage done was at about 60%. His ships could reach them in time, but which one was producing the bloody Lucifer? Reason commanded it be the newer one, but that’s what everyone would think. But the damaged one was an easier target. Fifty-fifty. He set his ships to attack the undamaged ship, ordering a single Pulsar to disable the damaged one.

There it was. The timer on the Demon’s jump drive was still ticking, thirty seconds left. That meant that when she made her jump, she would have about fourteen and a half seconds to slag Linsis’ production with whatever she had left. The healthier demon was packed with all of the fighters she managed to produce, and the one being repaired was positioned to be the first one hit. It annoyed her a little when most ships overlooked the damaged ship and went straight for the good one, the Comets chewing a bit off of it’s health pool, while the crippled meteor could sit back and plink until it’s turrets repaired. What she found amusing was one pulsar trying in vain to disable the older ship - Linsis apparently didn’t notice the small transport still working on it, undermining the corvette’s effort. The newer demon dropped to 70% integrity when it’s drive charged. Astra crossed her fingers and jumped it to the last known location of Linsis’ civilian fleet, leaving the older demon on site to draw the AI’s fire.

For some reason the older Demon refused to yield. Zooming closer to it,Linsis’ face sunk into his palm. “Oh for fuck’s sake, really?” It was then the second Demon jumped, planting itself in the middle of the civilian fleet.

“Tell me, commander, if this battle took place today, how many Faira would’ve been left at its conclusion?” he asked as the harbor ship’s health bar sped towards zero.

“Not as many as I’d like, about as many as could be expected. Game wise, you need to protect your rear slightly little more. Tactics wise, I see improvement though, playing around is not without it’s worth it seems. You’re using your ships well within their design parameters, although you are on the conservative side. If you switched your Meteor to siege mode when you jumped my first destroyer, the game would have ended right there and then. You might have lost the meteor as well to the bomber strike, but, within our knowledge, the ancients’ destroyers count as win conditions, until we see a planet or a city ship of theirs.” Astra said, rubbing her temples, “I was worried form that moment on, you had me on a run and I got by only because you kept the civvies alone. On real deployment, I would compare that to leaving a node behind you without a watch or downright blockade. You would have been cut off from your supply lines.” she said as her old demon finally fell, but along with Linsis’ production ship.

“In real life, jumping a ship doesn’t cost arbitrary resources and a transport craft cannot regenerate a ship’s engines as they are pelted by a corvette either. But still, a loss is a loss.”

“Well, I agree on the engines, though mind this is a civilian issue simulation. On the resources… does it not though? It costs power, that doesn’t magically appear from nowhere. Different resource, but a resource still. Well then… rematch?”

Exodus - Faira Nebula jump node, three days later

The engineer raised an eyebrow in surprise when, upon the shields activation, his instruments indicated numbers that would normally be considered the far red zone. “Good thing we thought to gut the ships and replace the entire power grid.”

The Fifth’s ships were now speckled with shield projectors in hexagonal covers, likely souring the ships’ appearance even further to the Faira. Perhaps worse off of the fleet were the Privateer-class, that had to have their aft dorsal and only ventral 2 meter turrets removed to make space for the shield projectors.

“Command, engineering. All’s well back here.”

The primarch received the message and opened a channel to the commander of the Faira Home Fleet. “Admiral Sola, this is the NSS Latanos. We are ready to go through. Are we clear to proceed?” Though the jump would take about two hours, arriving unannounced could lead to problems.

The message took quite some time to arrive, and when it did, it was quite distorted. “All clear, Primarch. Your escort is standing by at the node exit, in case your shields fail during the transport. We recommend not using the synchrodrive this time, it would be a mess to find you all in case of a desync. I am forwarding a list of ships waiting for you, assign your ships to them by matching class. If their shields fail, our ships will cover for them until they repair theirs. Well… travel safely.” the admiral said with not much confidence.

“Well she knows how to inspire confidence in the troops.” a sensors officer grumbled as the jump windows swallowed the Narix ships.

Faira Nebula, two hours later

“Ladies and gentlemen, the fanatics were right after all - we’ve found the Void.” one of the helmsmen said with a great deal of sarcasm upon reaching the Nebula, momentarily forgetting the presence of several Faira on the deck. The fleet broke formation, each ship seeking the Faira ships that were assigned to them.

“All safely through and all drives ready. Admiral Sola, we may begin once we get at least 2500 meters from the node.”

“Very well, Primarch. I am sending data on the already explored parts of the Nebula, as well as a meteorological software that might give you some warning about an impending neutron flare or a particularly strong gust of wind in the nebula gas. If you hear it blaring, drop everything and crash jump. Familiarize your helm with the sound, there might not be time to give the order. I will leave deploying your ships for maximum sensor coverage to you. The areas the Steadfast group will scan are already marked as explored. The Eternal group is going to be standing by at the node, which is our emergency rally point for this operation. Should you have any trouble, attempt to jump there. Failing that, a ship form the Eternal group will be ready to assist on moments notice. Good luck.” The admiral signed off, her own battlegroup anchored near the civilian fleet also marked on the TacMap, along with an asteroid belt where Faira’Erea used to orbit.

“Right, I immediately see the expected sensor coverage problem.” the sensor officer called, “Range has gone down by about 40%, navigation is going to be a mess. Subspace sensors are completely useless, If I tried to filter the noise out, the DSP would wipe any signatures as well. I trust the good lieutenant and her peers will keep us safe, since you know best what to expect.” he noted, turning to Farsa with an encouraging gesture.

“Do not push the engines. Twice the speed of light is perfectly fine, it will give me more time to feel the path ahead and it will generate less turbulences behind us. It will rattle enough as is.” Farsa said, leaning back in her chair and sinking into a mindspace trance, only allowing Euris to communicate with her telepathically, needing complete focus. “We are good to go.” the latter reported, plotting the Latanos’ course on the map.

“Very well then, others have gone. Let’s not lag behind.”

A subspace window formed and swallowed the ship whole. Intrasystem travel that took more than four seconds was odd at first, but none of the crew had given it much thought, too occupied with bracing themselves lest they be swept off their feet. Still, it was better than when they first tried the slaved drives.

Exit was a little worse, the helmsmen having their hands full for a few seconds to counter the unexpected drift on exit. After a few jumps, they would get the hang of it.

“Sensors, anything?” Farsa said from her station, sounding slow and weak. “I can barely see a light minute in this area.”

Euris grunted from her console: “Zilch, just like everywhere else in this forsaken land.”

“Engineering, the shield just took a massive hit from the lightning and dropped 60%. I could really use more power, do we need to run all of the engines, considering we are not going full gas?” Omicri radioed in, sounding displeased.

“We could lose the secondaries and number two main if it would help. If you need more, disable life support in storage and hangars with prior warning.” the primarch replied. “We’ll wait for the drives to fully cool down before making our next jump, the extra jump might come handy here. Engineering, be ready to restart the Number two main if we need it. Helm, jump when the drives are ready.”

“Drive output modified, we are running without main two. Aux are still running, shield recharge boosted to maximum the conduits can handle.” Omicri called over, “Adept, should we shut down the hangars anyway and decrease the output of the plant to be on the safe side?” she asked the home field engineer.

“Leave the hangars for now, have the power section shut down the storage bays except the refrigerated ones, no need for lights, gravity and ventilation there.” he replied, trusting his Faira colleague to maintain her native technology. Well, semi-native. If they met those the shielding tech truly belonged to, there would be trouble. “Shut down the hangars as soon there’s trouble with the shield though.”

“We can’t shunt any more power into the shield without the pipes melting and liquid voltage flowing freely through the halls is not something I want to clean up.” Omicri grunted, “If we do not have enough power, we just need to raise the output then again.”

“Engineering reports good to go.” Aurigae reported, looking at the TacMap. Their path was taking them to an area the Curious went through once. “Primarch, there used to be strong gales in that area, it is possible some of it will bleed through.”

The primarch nodded. “Helm, you heard. Take that into account on exit. And shipwide seatbelts.”

The ship jumped once more, this time the exit was somewhat better. The XO was right about the gales, as they leaned into the ship with great force.

“Slight X and Z axis drift, compensating.”

“Do you need more engines?”

“We’ll manage.”

“Engineering, how’s the shield and reactor holding up?”

“All taxed but holding, shield, power, engines, gyro is in a twist.” Omicri reported.

“Something’s...” Farsa hissed from her station. She didn’t finish before Euris took over, “Jump! Collision alert, jump, now!” The gales have sent one of the asteroids from its orbit.

Both helmsmen uttered quiet curses of the largest caliber and the ship lurched forward as it jumped. Exit was the worst the ship has ever seen, more akin to a jump drive failure. The cruiser emerged spinning in two axes and the maneuvering gyros strained to bring the ship back under control. Most unsecured things and crew were sent flying.

“Oracle, are we safe here?”

“Terribly sorry about that, this place doesn’t take kindly to crash jumps.” one of the helmsmen called over his shoulder, “Navigation, mind telling us where we are?”

“Not the node, I’ll tell you that much.” the officer sunk into his instruments for a moment before turning back to face the command crew. “Almost halfway across the system, the fuck happened here?”

“Ah, sorry, my bad.” Euris pipped from her station, “Training kicked in, I plotted in a rendezvous point alright, the standard one rather than the node. If you’ll look to the right, you’ll see the Civilian fleet.
I already informed the Sentinel about the hiccup before they started warming the cannons, they are asking if we need repairs. They also packaged in data form the other patrols, adding to TacMap.”

“We’re mostly here.” Omicri reported, “The drive will need to cool down and I think Swarmer two didn’t come out of the jump with us, but we seem to be fine otherwise. Shield had some time to recharge and is holding on full power and this area is stable, we’re safe.”

“How did we lose a Swarmer?” the gunnery officer asked in resignation, “You do realize this ship doesn’t have many of those, yes?”

“Give me a… aha, the logs report a power surge that likely set off one of the missiles, causing secondary explosion of the entire load. Maybe we should put the turrets into loading position until we need them?” the engineer theorized, “Won’t know for sure until I see it from the outside, might as well be a diagnostic system malfunction though. In either case it’s not responding to controls. I’ll send a DC Team to have a look. Other than that, we have to stow every tool and crewman again down here.” the engineer grunted.

“Damn it, that shouldn’t happen. Starboard fore batteries, was that swarmer armed?”

“Affirmative sir, we armed it se soon as we saw the asteroid on screen.”

“Right, safeties on, those disconnect the firing mechanism, that should prevent that in the future. And stowing everything is a matter of the entire ship.” The Latanos’s cooks were getting fairly annoyed at the notion of subspace and Faira together by this point. When those two mixed, the kitchen turned to a mess.

“Pulling them into loading positions just retracts them into the hull, I’d rather not have them go off there. Munitions rack wouldn’t take too kindly to that.”

“If that is all, that is a no with a thank you on the repairs.” the primarch ended that conversation. “Once the drive is cold again, resume our patrol. Any other ships encounter problems?”

“The privateers are getting tossed a lot in the gales.” Aurigae read from the reports, “The Sharlatan has suffered a complete power failure and was towed to Exodus for repairs by the Eternal. No casualties. The oracle assigned to the Hama is a trainee for a vessel of that size, so they are getting rather rattled in FTL, I’m sending them the cookbook we are using. They are reporting surges over the ship as well.”

“It might be the new power distribution system. Our knockoff mystery goo only has the conducting part, not the capacitor function. It might have been a stabilizing feature. Maybe we should install surge arrestors to key systems once we finish here, at least until we get that sludge right.” Omicri suggested.

“Primarch? We have not received anything from the Independence since they left. Displaying their patrol route now.” Aurigae noted, putting up the path on TacMap. By this time, the Independence’s patrol would have been taking them between the asteroid belt and the star. “Hmh, could be nothing but interference, that close to the star is still okay even for a Privateer, but their commsystems might not be able to punch through. Should we notify the Eternal to investigate?”

“If they can spare the time, yes. If they ran into trouble here, the Privateer’s ability to hop around might cause more harm than good, as we’ve seen. The loss of the Sharlatan also leaves us without our most experienced frigate crew.”

“No spontaneously exploding turrets?” the gunnery officer wanted to know. “If that’s something that happens often, I’d rather have someone pour over it before such a power spike hits one of our nukes.”

“Might want to unload them. If the problem is in the conduits, I can not guarantee no surge. They are built sturdier than the swarmer rockets though, so it should not trigger them. A hot enough arc might melt through the containing vessels though, I’d rather not have to decontaminate the ship. Next time somebody wants to slapjob a new system onto an existing design in a hurry no less, we should say no.” Omicri shrugged to the camera.

“The entire Eternal group has been designated SAR, notifying them now.” Aurigae said, sending the message. In a minute the answer came through: “Latanos, Eternal. We can not approach the area. It appears there is a neutron flare happening there. We hope the Independence has already made it through, or at least managed to crash jump. I don’t think even a Meteor or Warlord could survive getting hit by that.”

“I did protest this alien shit on my ship, you try arguing with him.” Adaris whispered to Omicri off comms.

“Damn it, Erixa was known for taking unnecessary risks. Too curious for his own good, and his crew.” the primarch growled. “Nothing we can do for them now. Ask them if they can jump a few waypoints ahead and see if they made it through before the worst of it. I’d like to avoid such trouble in the future. Sensors and oracles on high alert. Engineering, are we ready to jump?”

“Thirty seconds. I am going to focus on maintaining the power grid myself. Hopefully that’s enough.”

A week later, Faira’Dea morale sector

“Damn it all to a black hole!” Farsa growled at the table where the Curious crew was having their reunion. The Civilian fleet has become all but home to the Fifth fleet and Vanguard as well. Yesterday the last sector was finally scanned, only for no new jump node to be discovered. Add to that the loss of the NSS Independence, vanishing without a trace, and the loss of everyone on board the ECR Seer, the crew’s lives ended in a lightning storm when their shield failed. The ship was pulled back with all of it’s systems fired beyond repair. “All this and nothing!”

“This is really a miserable week. The upgrades to the Curious have backfired, not even the upgraded reactors can reliably power that thing, and that is without the other main gun. We’ll be lucky to get it moving this month. On top of that, we need to re-equip the fifth again with safer power distribution system.” Astra groaned.

“Do we really have nowhere to go? Have we looked everywhere? Perhaps some recalibration in the sensors…” Omicri suggested, but sounded defeated.

“Well…” Aurigae pipped up, “There are hollow places between the spherical zones where we looked in the Nebula.”

“But a node is a lear vortex or tunnel if you will in the fabric of mindspace. We have covered the nebula in a pattern that it would have intersected another area if it lead outside of the system. And we can not possibly explore closer to the neutron star, that’s suicide. At least, not until the Singularity is finished in, oh, a couple of decades.” Farsa thrown her arms up.

“Yes, but what do we have to lose? All those ships and nowhere for them to go?”

Astra nodded slowly: “Maybe you’re right. We should go over all of the systems with a fine comb. If nothing else, some of the unknown wreckage could have given us a slip. And we should scan Naris in high detail as well, maybe there is an Ancient ship landed there as well. And there is just the person that we need to talk to.” she nodded towards Libra who has just arrived, having been called home to an assembly of the entire admiralty.

The Faira were not the only ones whose mood was approaching the freezing point. Even the Narix National Newscast couldn’t find even the tiniest shred of good news in the fruitless exploration of the Nebula and the loss of the Independence. All but the most optimistic or emotionless individuals of the Fifth have sunken into resigned melancholy, a state that has even infected the Alchemist.

Not only was Runa tasked with letting the families of the Independence’s crew, OEP personnel included, know their loved ones have vanished without a trace amidst a neutron flare, now everyone knew it was all for nought. She couldn’t help but think about a question admiral Cygnus asked some time ago: “If we are stuck in this region of space, what future is there then?” Those thoughts were immediately followed by what she thought of at the time that question was asked: ”An inevitable war over the remaining resources that would allow the victors to endure for a few more years before their unavoidable death.” As more of the nebula was explored without finding anything, she found herself more and more often in such a gloomy mindset. The invitation to travel to the Nebula was almost a salvation. But as she agreed to going, her gaze fell upon the NSS Independence memorial aboard the Alchemist. Since then, she’s been going through dried meat at a rather rapid rate in a futile attempt to ward off her worries about traversing the Nebula. She must have been an amusing sight to the Faira.

“Admiral! Ambassador! A moment!” Astra called over, the Curious’ crew forming a small hush hush circle around the two, with Astra explaining Aurigae’s thoughts to them. “That is going to require a lot of ships, and we have them all lying around doing… what exactly? Guarding against ancients that didn’t show up from within the system in a week, and there is no way for them to arrive form without. None of us are an admiral, we don’t have a voice in the assembly, could you-”

“Done.” Libra said with a nod, “I think I can get all the civ admirals on board with this, and I’m sure admiral Cygnus will join as well. That’s still a tie, the civ admirals only count for one voice… hm…” Libra scratched her chin in thought.

“Didn’t the Nightmares of Terminus only show up AFTER we baited them out?” Runa inquired. “Can we be sure there are no more hibernating anywhere around? And how much do we know about their jump drives? A month ago, mounting subspace motivators onto a fighter and powering them to make the jump was considered impossible among my people. Who’s to say just because we can’t get out that they can’t get in?” She knew a civilian’s opinion wouldn’t hold much water, but keeping silent could be way worse.

“There is no jump node. Not a weak one, not a young one, not a collapsed one like in Terminus. Nothing, just turmoil that would shatter any ship we have.” Farsa moped.

“All the more reason to look.” Astra said, “The Demon managed to hide from us just by staying cold in a concentration of rocks, pretending to be one. If we can find the Ancients and get a jump on them before they activate, all the better, but I am mostly hoping for another vessel of the unknowns, we can not breathe life into the computers of the wreck in Terminus no matter how hard we try, but their tech beats out even the Ancients in the area of subspace. If there is hope, I think it lies with them… Or generational ships, but we are not that desperate yet.” Astra explained.

“So, what is it you’ve came up with? Go over all five systems again, but more thoroughly and looking for wreckage instead of jump nodes? That could work, how can I help? We have the First Fleet dedicated to Naris, I think its 132 ships and their strike craft shouldn’t have much trouble going through the system. We could enlist the help of civilians if we get desperate. As things stand, the Fifth is, barely, our only fleet capable of navigating the Nebula. To be precise, twel- eleven ships of the Fifth. That leaves 66 ships of the Second and twelve Guardians from the Fifth to help scour Exodus, Opportunity and Terminus. Unless you can cover the Nebula by yourselves, which would free up the rest of the Fifth and allow us to start right away since the power grid refits could wait.”

“Details can wait until we have an approval for the operation. We’ll need the Meteors and the Comets for the nebula, the rest can not get into the most hazardous zones, that includes slapjob shielded Warlords. The rest we should send out to Terminus, there is the largest chance of finding more of the Unknowns there.” Astra noted, “Just put the idea in their heads.”

“You forget commander, you have been ordered to attend. You may be able to convince them personally.” Libra said, “Speaking of which, we should go, put that Narix swill down, it doesn’t help us feel any less gloomy.”

“Tastes great though.”

Faira’Dea; Assembly hall

It took two hours for the Assembly to get through it’s regular stuff, before Astra was called in. To Runa, who was invited to attend as a voice from the other party of the Alliance, it was most likely sleep inducing.

“Moving on, I call forth Commander Astra.” Lira, presiding over the Assembly, called her forth. As she was told, Astra walked into the middle of the semi-circular sitting area, standing in salute briefly until she was relieved. She then delivered reports on the research into the Ancient jump drives and the systems of the unknown ship. “As you can see, despite the research providing a tremendous advance in our understanding of Mindspace, it puts us no closer to leaving the local cluster. The only possible route encountered is a collapsed node in Terminus, which we are no closer to stabilizing, despite the successful development of an intrasystem jump gate. Which is why I ask the Assembly to spare every ship we can to search for more relics of the unknown race, including the Home fleet.”

There was quite some murmur, including some disapproval form two of the civilian admirals - obviously Libra couldn’t get everyone on board. Astra looked towards Runa in hopes.

There appeared to be some disagreeing voices. Could she say something? Should she speak up? Talking out of order at such a gathering could at the very least be perceived as rude. Why didn’t she ask Libra about this? She cursed her broken composure since she entered the Nebula. How was she supposed to work like this? Then she caught Astra’s gaze. Though she still wasn’t particularly good at reading Faira body language and facial expressions, in part thanks to the suits, the look on the commander’s face almost looked like a plead for help.

Seeing that nobody was speaking to the assembly as a whole, Runa stood up, clearing her throat to alert the buzzing assembly. “If I may, I’d like to point out that, to my knowledge, neither side has put forward any suggestions regarding our next course of action. While it may not be the best course to take, it’s the only one we have so far that doesn’t have our fleets sitting on their hands doing nothing. Following the loss of the Independence, the Republican Starfleet has 221 warships, 120 science ships and countless dropships capable of reconnaissance at its disposal. In two or three days, most of these could be sweeping our systems for anything that could help us. Aided by your fleets, if there is anything of note in these few systems we inhabit, finding it would be a matter of weeks at most given such a concentrated effort.”

“It bears thought. Are you speaking in definite terms, Ambassador, or can you make that happen on your own word?” a male Faira with a ‘R. Adm. Merkur’ nameplate on his desk shouted over the silence. “If not, I suggest you go make your calls to see if your leaders are actually willing to commit to that. I propose we move to the next item of the meeting.”

At that point, Astra shot the rear admiral a sparkly glance. One could not leave unnoticed that they were the only two Faira any Narix has ever seen to have blue markings.

Lira nodded, seeing the underhanded tactic the civilian admiral used, acting on his foreknowledge of events to come. And wholeheartedly agreed to it. The Assembly has always been divided between the Patrol and the Vanguard, and on the other side the Home and Civilian fleets. And with odd number of voices, was it any wonder it took them hundreds of years to reach out? “The assembly moves to promote Commander Astra to the rank of Rear Admiral as a commanding officer of the newly founded Strike fleet.” And with another admiral settling the tie, we can finally make a decision in one day.

Astra’s mouth dropped. She expected to be given the command of the Singularity, all things considered, but she never thought they would give her the whole fleet to go along with it, rather to be attached to Vanguard. So gobsmacked was she that the admiral had to remind her she had to accept the promotion before they could move forward.

Unaware of the impaired hearing of Faira males, she spoke in her normal tone. “I am but a humble civil servant, rear admiral. However, none of us wish to be stuck here forever. Both lord-commander Zorea and primarch Ascari have already pushed for thorough exploration, as have two out of three military and all three industry councilors.” Though Runa was not aware of the faira political predicament, it was exactly for that reason the council was established with nine members. “Had I not been invited here, It’s likely I would have been waiting for rear admiral Libra’s return with orders to discuss a similar proposal anyway. If your side agrees to it, there is nothing standing in the way of enacting this plan, maybe outside of getting the Fifth out of here.”

The commander’s, or rather the rear admiral’s promotion came unexpectedly. When she was asked to come to the Alchemist, at least the legate telling her had the decency to offer her a seat. And Runa needed it, though Astra was likely made of sterner stuff than she was.

“I accept. What is the build plan? The Singularity itself will not be ready for a while now.” Astra inquired.

“The build orders have already been delivered to the Faira’Karte.” Merkur answered, “The Singularity will, in the interim, act as a flag ship once it is complete, with a slightly expanded assets to a normal fleet lead by a Meteor class due to the Strike fleet’s combat orientation. Six corvettes and two cruisers in the Singularity’s group, and three frigate groups with three corvettes and six cruisers each.”

As if the sparkle in Astra’s eyes could get any bigger. She would command the - one day - largest fleet of them all? An honest to stars battle fleet?

“Until the Strike fleet’s destroyer is complete.”

At this point the fresh admiral was ready to faint, if they physiology allowed for it. Of course, she understood. She was an Ascendant. She was the logical choice.

Lira then picked up: “You need to start picking your personnel immediately. You can choose from the reserves, train new crews, or pick from Narix volunteers. Now, returning to the previous point-”

“The strike fleet stands for the proposal. Ambassador, please convey the decision to your government.” Astra finished with a tug of smile on her mouth as an attendant came to swap out her insignia.

Back in break room

“No… way!” Libra hollered as soon as the door closed beyond them. “I was out of the Assembly for too long it seems, how did I not know about this?!” She said as she tackled Astra in a hug.

“Congratulations comm- rear admiral, sorry.” The ambassador chose to keep her distance out of respect. “If the Nightmares were scared to come out before, I can’t imagine what they’ll do when this news reaches them. You truly received no indication of this, either of you?”

“Thank you. I knew the Singularity would be my ship, I’m the only one capable of interfacing with it’s control systems. But the promotion? No, not really.” Astra explained.

“A PROWHAT?!” The Curious’ crew roared as one as they overheard them as they overheard the approaching trio.

“Somebody’s handing out ranks and we weren’t told?”

“You know what that calls for?”

“NO! No more drinking with you, I still remember the night after the Demon blew up all too well”

“Lucky, you, I don’t.”

“You two are weak.”

“So, what do we call you now? Rear admiral, fleet admiral?”

“And where’s the fleet?”

The break room was filled with a cacophony of voices, questions and words of congratulations.

“Actually, that makes me wonder: Does your fleet have any traditions related to promotions, official or unofficial?”

“Or do you follow the school of lord-commander Eudorian and turn into an android upon reaching the top ranks?” someone jested.

“We go back to work!” Libra and Astra shouted over the cacophony as one. “That said, I do have some opening. A Lot of openings. No ships to put you all on yet, but you can start on training for the equipment. Shoot, I need to create all the simulation programmes for the new classes.” Astra facepalmed.

“Said openings free for all of the Alliance to fill, courtesy of a mountain of paperwork and talking by yours truly.” She pointed to herself and Runa, “You are as of today allowed to ask for a citizenship in our nation and eligible for service. I believe the rear admiral will have a list of vacancies posted on the FleetNet tomorrow?”

There was an excited buzz among the Narix in the crowd.

“Oh no.” Runa half-complained, half-laughed. “I want to sleep when I get back. I haven’t been able to get a good rest since I came here. And that’s just the transfer papers, not to mention the citizenship paperwork. And how many people will be interested. And the public reaction to people getting Faira citizenship, that’s a big unknown. Woe is me and everyone involved. I’d better get on the first transport back to Opportunity so I can sleep a little before it starts.”

“Do you not have any other ambassador?” Aurigae asked, “Perhaps you should ask for citizenship first and give up your old. We do not slavedrive like that… anywhere but in Vanguard fleet.” she snickered, earning a chorus of eyes and raised glasses.

“Words to live by.” Libra said, grabbing one of the glasses to try herself.

“We do, I just happen to be the head of it all. You’re right, I need a vacation.” Runa herself reached for a glass. “I am afraid I will have to reject that offer, I am perfectly happy with my current citizenship, but nothing is without its cons. For example, you were right, this system is, as I heard someone put it, an acquired taste.”

“So, rear admiral,” Runa switched to another topic, secretly hoping both heads bearing that rank would turn, “What’s your first step among the top tier? Designing your own ship? Wait, you’ve done that already. There’s no stopping you, is it?”

“None of them have figured it out yet? Stars, they are all a little bit Ascari, aren’t they?” Astra smirked, causing Libra to facepalm: “No, none of them can think and associate faster than ten of their peers combined. None of us can either, in fact. Stop benchmarking people to yourself, you know you’re the abnormal case here.”

“Figured what out, your status of an ascendant? Can’t see how that would be related to your next immediate actions as the commander of a newly founded, yet unformed fleet.”

“It is related to everything they have me do really. I can fold mindspace the best of us, so what I need to prioritize is researching into artificial jump nodes. Hence why I need all the data on the Relic jump drives, or better yet their knowledge library. They seem to beat even the Ancients in that game. Failing that, try, try, try again on my own, but I won’t rest until I get us out of here or all the stars go dark.” The rear admiral said darkly. “Being a fleet commander will always be secondary to that. The rest of the admiralty won’t have it otherwise. Hence why I think they only promoted me to the junior rank despite giving me an entire fleet.”

“If that’s the case, why give you a full battle fleet instead of maybe a Comet, some Pulsars and a load of Nebulae to fulfill the purpose of science vessels? Barring the fact that, if I understand it correctly, you’re the only one that can utilize The Mom properly.”

“Well, a large crew is able to utilize it properly, although not with such efficiency. Also, ‘The Mom’?” Libra raised an eyeridge at the nickname. “Honestly, this freak designed an interface that would basically integrate her organism into the ship. How long did you say for getting in and out? A week?”

“Give or take.”

“Mom stands for ‘Mother of missiles’. It’s what the construction workers have taken to calling it due to its shape. And I can’t help but hear my civilian mind screaming ‘design flaw’ at the mention of that. What exactly do you intend to do if you have to abandon ship? Jump yourself away with a part of it?”

“If that ship falls, we have nothing to stop whatever killed it. I wouldn’t pay that much thought, since in that scenario we are done for.” Omicri grunted, “With the latest package of upgrades the Comma- Rear admiral issued, the survivability of the hull has gone to the same numbers as the shield, effectively doubling it’s durability.”

“Yeeees, although I would be interested in hearing more about a certain project beginning with H.” Libra whispered to Runa.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think the Seer and the independence were shot out of the sky by a hostile force. To our knowledge, their untimely ends were caused by malfunction and bad timing respectively. Who‘s to say the Singularity can’t go up in flames due to engineering errors or other hazards?”

“Testing before deployment, what do you think, that I am going to entangle myself in a deathtrap of my own design? Give us some credit.” Astra growled.

She leaned toward Libra, lowering her voice. “And how would you know about that, pray tell? I have only been told two days ago. I assume you’re referring to Project 4201?” The designations their military could come up with were sometimes more otherworldly than the Faira. What was wrong about calling it the Halcyon as it would be, if ever adopted, known anyway?

“The bastard child of the Warlord and the Singularity. So far it’s only a paper design, mean to to be able to engage the likes of the Demon-class and come out intact. Given that ship’s armor, some were worried the Warlord might not cut it. And with the Singularity being built in our backyard, people started taking notes.”

“Well, word bleeds through, even if I wasn’t asked for research files on the Singularity’s shielding system and to consult for it’s application.” Libra smirked. “I just asked Minister Ertanax directly. We’re happy to provide the notes, it will go much more quickly if secrecy is dropped at least on the command level.”

“I don’t think it was not kept secret to keep it from you, but rather because we still don’t know if we want to build this thing. If we told you about every such project we had in the past decade, you’d refuse to even let me on board no later than day two. But since they told me, I guess there is hope for it yet. If you want the specifics, I could ask lord-commander Zorea once I get back. Legend has it it would go to his fleet.”

“On the topic of shields, I don’t think you’ve heard the last of that. With the Fifth’s retrofits and all, other fleets will soon want shields too, and not these hurried experiments that are the Fifth’s shields. And with the new fighters using AIs, there are talks of loosening the AI ban, and the military is guaranteed to jump that.”

Hitosrical archive

2177 / II - Beginning of detailed scans of all explored systems
2177 / IV - First four cruisers of the Strike fleet commissioned, ECR Monster, ECR Drake, ECR Nightmare, ECR Enigma
2177 / V - Travel to Naris now possible with a visa following a public vote. 82% participated, 79% voted for visas, 12% unrestricted travel, 7% for official business only and 2% for complete ban.
2177 / V - Commander Astra reassigned to Singularity project. ECV Curious commanded by newly instigated Commander Linsis
2177 / VII - Construction of NSD Halcyon begun
2177 / VIII - First two corvettes of Strike fleet complete, ECV Katla and ECV Karm
2177 / X - Development of fusion weaponry suggested
2178 / III - ESD Singularity’s framework completed
2178 / V - Exodus and Opportunity fully scanned with no artifacts present
2178 / V - NSS Stargazer completed, replacing the NSS Independence
2178 / VI - Hazard level I zones in Faira Nebula explored without any results
2178 / VI - Narix redesignated the “Nightmares” to “Ancients”
2178 / VIII - Debris from NSS Independence recovered and returned to Naris
2178 / VIII - Narix elections see most of the councilors retain their seats with the exception of industry and military councilors of Armiden
2178 / X - Intact Relic destroyer found in Terminus Oort cloud

ECR Durable & NSS Zenith, Terminus Oort cloud

It’s taken years, but now they were looking at it. The Zenith and Durable paired up for easier defense, each scanning a hemisphere rather than a full sphere along the path, jumping twice as quickly. Even then, sometimes the cloud was so dense that the Marines were digging shrapnel form the hull. But now it all paid off. “Look at it! It’s beautiful!”



“Good thing we have the other derelicts to study their hulls, This thing must be beyond repair. Just make sure whoever comes to explore it packs a few psychokinetics, no way we are getting anyone across via shuttle or spacewalk. At least this garbage isn’t big enough to cause major damage to it, besides the hangar. If anything, there might not be any Ancients aboard. This looks like they jumped here to hide or repair battle damage. Maybe we’ll even get their sublight drives this time around”

“We can hope. I think we should start on detailed scans, if we know the internal structure, we can jump straight in. In the meantime, we’ll dispatch a camera drone to get a look into the hangar, see what state it’s in. What do you think would map the internal structure best, RTG, MRI?” Mirai asked of her Narix counterpart and her engineer alike.

“RTG over MRI, considering their materials react very poorly to magnetic field. If one ship acts as a lamp and the sensors of the other as a photo chip, we can have the entire ship done in a couple of hours form two directions, then we can build a very basic model of the internal layout. I’m rather worried how strong the sensor ray would have to be to penetrate though. It probably won’t be safe for the receiving ship. I think we’ll have to go in in either case.” the engineer noted.

“We only have 32 marines on board. If you can get them in, they could at least start preparing a sort of beachhead for when the others arrive. Shall I tell them to suit up so they’re ready when the drone is done? What we learned on the other wreck will make moving through much easier, so two squads should find a suitable access point within a reasonable timeframe. Or they’ll get eviscerated by hibernating Ancients.” She suddenly perked up in excitement. “Since the ship’s intact, do you think we could find any Relics on board, hibernating like the Ancients did?” If that were to happen, there were two drastically different ways that could go.

“I don’t know. The Ancients are species like none other, who knows if another species even can hibernate for eight thousand years. I certainly am not going to try. Have your men shuttle over, we’ll see if the Marines put their heads together if they can come up with a point of entry. Linking the drone footage to you.”

“Hangar’s taken some heat, but some of the doors seem undamaged. I’m not sure about sending out a shuttle through this junk. Swarmers loose, take out anything that would threaten the Pillagers.”

The ships left the hangars, carefully maneuvering through the rocks while the marines and their gunners squirmed nervously. The first ship made it to the hangar without any problems, offloading the marine team. The pilots then used some hook-like objects on the hangar’s floor to secure the Pillager to the deck with anchoring ropes so the away teams could use them to resupply air or as pressurized chambers.

On its approach, a brief flash of light blossomed on the second Pillager’s left engine cluster.

“Crisis, crisis, left engines gone, scythe two losing control.”

The marine team streamed out of the open rear bay, using their thruster packs to make it to the derelict as safely as possible. The pilot, down to only right engines and Z axis translation thrusters, hauled his crippled ship into the hangar, planting it almost sideways just a few meters from the first one. The landing legs bent, left aileron and a piece of the wing broke off and the ship bounced off the floor before the pilot brought it to a relative halt, allowing the marines to secure the ship.

“Scythe two is down, major structural damage and I hit my head against the canopy.” The pilot hissed over the comms, “Hull’s still airtight, but there’s no way I can limp back to the Zenith, Scythe one will have to tow me back.”

The gunner made his way over to the busted engines, pulling out several pieces of rock.

“Found the problem. Almost looks like iron ore.”

“Damn it.” Adept Auraxis cursed, “Tie Scythe two down and start working on finding an access point. Durable, how long until someone else arrives?”

“The Warden is on the way, the Admiral wants this towed to a safer region. We are to proceed though with establishing a landing zone. The Warden is launching a wing of Positrons to help with the heavy lifting. I’m moving the Durable in front of the hangar to provide shield cover for it. If you could launch a wing of interceptors to blast the heaviest rocks that are headed to towards the ship?” the lieutenant asked.

“Got it, we’re scrambling our four Halberds. Give us two minutes to arm them with dumbfire rockets. The marines are reporting the damaged shuttle is secured to the floor. They are exploring two ways out of the hangar, one looks like it leads to an airlock, the other appears to be leading deeper into the ship. We’ll reposition so our swarmers and 750s can help with the big chunks. ETA on the Warden?”

“Two minutes, they are cooling down drives still after translating the node. Have the Marines send engineers to the airlock, start making a list of materials that would be needed to make it structurally stable for docking. I’m having my Marines equip for a heavy Vanguard, just in case there are Ancients hibernating on this vessel as well. The rest of yours can join them and head to the inside, but have them keep in radio range, the Warden is better equipped to scout this out, we don’t have the manpower. The… what do we call this thing?” Mirai asked, not really coming up with anything that could be remotely associated with this ship, shape or otherwise.

“Hammerhead?” the adept offered. “If you extend a stick from the back of the ship, that would be the haft. Can you use a radio beacon to safely jump? The marines could deploy a targeting beacon to guide you.”

“Away team one, we’ve found the airlock, but the outer gate is bent inward, likely by impact, and we can see right through. We’ll need some heavy-duty tools to get it working. Or we could just cut it open, but we’ll defer to your judgement on this.”

“The objective is to secure the docking port, we don’t even know if the hull is stable enough to be pressurized. We’re sending a transport with two fabricators, materials and the fire foam for strengthening internal volumes, the Marines can hitch a ride along. I’m coming too, I want to see if the computers can be powered up on this one. Auraxis, you have the… ‘fleet’.” The CO smirked. She could dream, can’t she?

“Careful, there’s junk flying around.” Scythe two’s pilot warned over the radio, the pain in his head somewhat dulled.

“Very well, we’re cutting through. We’ll try, anyway.” The engineer wasn’t sure how much good their tools would do against something like this.

A few minutes later, the dropship touched down in the Hammerhead’s hangar. The Marines dragged out the equipment before helping to fasten towlines to Scythe two to return it to it’s mothership under the protection of the Durable’s shield. The heavy vanguard marched out to the other door to link up with the rest of the Narix Marines not working on the docking port. Mirai had to admire the architect that built the ship, the halls an almost organic shape, with ribbing on the wall that looked as structural as it was aesthetic. “Zenith, Hammerhead. There is no strike craft here, they might have either jumped here without them or left on them. Bits and pieces of ordnance and weapons in the racks, some I do not recognize from what we found on RD Beetle. Looks similar to our HYVEL cannon installed on the Muon bombers. We’ll see if we can power up any computers.”

“Received, call back as soon as something interesting comes up. Halberds are out, deck crews are waiting for the Pillager. Can you get some of those projectiles into the shuttle before you tow it here?” Now she was definitely hoping there were no Relics on board, she certainly wouldn’t be happy if she woke up after 8000 years, only to find some aliens picking her ship clean and cutting parts of it away. “Keep the marines on a short leash. If there’s trouble, the remaining shuttle can’t get everyone out. Do you think you can jump twenty people out? At least out of the hull?”

“We can hold out for some time in a firefight if Ancients shown up. I’d rather try talking if by some miracle the Relics are still around. There is something else though, something missing in the ether that we recorded on the Beetle and form the captured specimen, we think they communicate with some form of telepathy, I can’t feel any of it here. Failing that, we have the Durable’s airlock in a direction that we can make the literal jump over.” Mirai ensured. “If any ancients show up outside, make the jump to the node, the Warden will arrive soon and this chunk of crystal can hold out for some time under fire.”

“Good thing we don’t have an Ascari around to bog down the talks.” Auraxis took a shot at the primarch. Perhaps a little undeserved, but humor never hurt anyone. “Just because the Ancients are not talking doesn’t mean they aren’t there, be careful in there. We’ve lost a little too many in the past two years, no need to add your names to the list. If anything goes wrong, pull back to the hangar where Scythe one can give you covering fire. And if you decide to collect personal souvenirs, bring some for me too.”

“Well aren’t you the eager grave robber. Don’t worry, I always bring you a gift.” Mirai snickered over a private channel. “Copy Zenith, thanks. Hammerhead out.” Mirai disconnected the link and floated over to the Marines. “Alright people, primary objective is to locate a power core and control center. Stay in radio contact, drop repeaters if you need to venture further. At any sign of Ancients or possible Relic presence, inform us and return to the hangar.”

“Sir, how are we to react should we encounter living Relics without means of retreat? Do we drop weapons or hold fire and stand our ground?”

“Hm… Keep behind the heavies and lower weapons. Their shielding should give you time to escape should you need to. Jumper, take them outside of the hull if you are forced to. Should they prove not to be hostile, contact me immediately, we’ll bring in the Vanguard and Fifth personnel to handle the contact. If you encounter hibernating relics by any chance, do not do anything to wake them and mark their location.”

Terminus-Opportunity jump node, ten minutes later

“I don’t know whether to like or hate the design.” Lira said, swiveling in the chair to face the holo of the relic ship. “It seems to be attack focused, but it is strangely beautiful, in a threateningly terrifying sort of way. That’s eight main armaments on that monster that can be focused on one target. Still not as threatening as the Lucifer’s main cannons, but I don’t see anything but the Singularity and Halcyon surviving an encounter with it one on one. We have sent for Read admiral Astra to help us with the investigation. I am amazed this thing is sound enough to be towed through FTL. Lieutenant Mirai reports no contacts on the ship yet, Ancient or otherwise. Would you like to bring in anyone else, Lord-Commander?”

“We’ve notified home already, a science detachment similar to the one sent to Beetle’s Head is on its way. They’ll arrive in about an hour, one of the Discoveries had a problem with the jump drive, those ships could use replacing. After thousands of years in a debris field, I’m surprised it’s in one piece at all. Have they found anything that would indicate why the ship was where it was? I can't see many AA turrets. Maybe no pilot of its time could approach it without feeling physically sick just by looking at it. Should we dispatch more marines to help map the interior?”

“I would wait for the additional scientists and engineers before we go poke around too deeply. We do not want to accidentally fry the navigation system. If there is a node out of here somewhere, chances are the information is on that ship. Or at least a confirmation that there is none. We have one shot at this, we can not make an error.” Lira shook her head. “So… curious to see it from the inside? I heard the hangar and docking ports are now stable enough and we have installed a power unit and a gravity generator.”

“Tempting. My shift does end in sixteen minutes or so.” the Narix scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Sure, no one will miss the second highest ranking member of the Republican Armed Forces for an hour, or two, or three.” he chuckled. “Zorea to starboard hangar, I’d like a Pillager ready for liftoff in sixteen minutes. And shake the journalists awake, we’re going on a field trip. Admiral, if the Hammerhead crew needs something, I’ve got a supply Pillager waiting. Might as well do the useful along with the pleasant.”

“I think they could use the end of their shift the most. After Beetle, the heavy Marines are shaking in their suits every time they have to go into one of those. No one dares hope though. We need some good news out of this ship-” She cut her line short, listening to the comm suite, “The Enigma has arrived with the rear admiral. Perfect timing. Shall we go?” Lira beckoned to the door.

RD Hammerhead

Though he’s seen the footage and pictures, nothing compared to seeing this in person. He felt as if he had entered the hive of some giant insect. Perhaps he did, who knew? Although a sight to behold, he hoped their shipwrights wouldn’t take inspiration from these ships. For a few seconds, he was too busy examining his surroundings to notice the Narix saluting him or the two waiting Faira.

“As you were, I’m not on duty.” he finally noticed the ramrod straight marines and turned to the Faira. “Good evening, rear admiral. I see you’re wasting no time putting your future fleet to use.” he greeted Astra, still as if taking in the ship with one eye.

“Good evening it is!” Astra beamed. “Two years in waiting, and finally we have a hit. Why am I not surprised it’s those two ships that found it? Admiral, if you could spare Durable’s crew, I feel like their talents are sorely wasted in Patrol fleet. They should be with Strike or Vanguard, with their talent pool. I believe a certain Captain and possibly Primarch might be better suited for you.” Astra said so no one else would overhear.

“I am not happy with sending my people to the front lines, it’s not what they have been trained for for years, but perhaps you might be right. I won’t give them to you unless you give them space to grow though. Have you already picked the crews for your corvettes?” Lira shot back, seeing the merit in such a transfer, but wanting to do good by her crews.

“I did, not for the Frigates though. The first two are due any month now. I will be taking one as my flag ship until the Singularity or the Warrior are finished, but the other could use a crew, and a pair of in-sync commanders.” She said, looking at Zorea as well, “Talk to them about it for me? This opportunity won’t be here for another two to three years until the next batch is ready, I’d hate to waste their talents. Now, shall we?”

“Not sure about frigate people, maybe someone from the Naris and Zenith. And I think a few people from the Erythrita, one of my Vanguards, might be worth your while.” While he was all for extensive cooperation, he didn’t want to send all his best people away, but wasn’t going to suggest someone who wasn’t up for it either. “But when you start looking for crew for the Warrior, or the Singularity, I believe there are some on the Ira that you would like.“ He didn’t think there would be places left on the Singularity herself, but it was worth a try. “Whenabout is the Warrior due to be done? 2183-ish?”

“If we started building it right now, then perhaps, more likely 2185 though. We will first build the third frigate group, it will be worth more in a fight to have another frigate in two years than a destroyer in five. Unless the rear admiral buys us more of your dock time. The main problem though is, we do not want to build another Meteor. The plans for a new class will be complete in about a year with all the advances we had since. Speaking of which, the frigates being built are the refined Curious class, with the third being a Studious class. The Comet has been officially shelved, although the existing ones won’t likely be rebuilt. It’s cheaper to build a new one.” Astra explained.

“And sure, I’ll train you some people for the Halcyon.” she grinned, understanding the eagerness behind it, “I would like to take Linsis with me eventually anyway. Why break something that works? If he proves capable on the Curious, I intend to offer the Warrior to him, unless the crew makes him retire by then. Last I heard he had to evacuate from the breakroom when the news of the Hammerhead being found arrived.” She smirked, missing not being there for the celebration. “And I don’t think the Durable’s CO would accept without the Zenith’s going with them. Those two ships have quite a history.”

“I’ll be sure not to spoil the surprise to the commander, then. If that’s the case, I’m sure he would appreciate to see a few old friends from the Second aboard the Warrior.” the lord-commander paused. “Breakroom? I always thought of Linsis as the ‘work until midnight’ type, what have you done to him?” Zorea inquired with great amusement. “And getting adept Auraxis onto a bigger ship will only do her good. Maybe she’ll stop hitting her head when going through doors, it’s not easy being 228 centimeters tall.”

“Oh, he works late alright… The Admiral sees to that. How often do you get someone who likes doing paperwork to do it for you? He just likes working in the breakroom, with all the risks that entails since more Narix came aboard.” Astra smirked as she walked along their path towards what the Marines identified as a control center. “I can only imagine what it’s like to be that tall. Some of us have the luck to be born a runt. Good luck or bad luck, I can’t quite tell.”

“Good luck as far as working the duct goes, I’m sure any engineer will agree.” Lira smiled. “Very well, I’ll talk to Lieutenant Mirai about the position. I am a bit surprised you are taking on so much Narix personnel. I do not mean to push you, but every Faira you take from the ‘Dea is one more child that can be born.”

“I know, Admiral, and I am taking as many as I can, but I want my command staff to be selected on skill and merit alone, and some roles the Narix are simply more suited to. The Strikeforce will be mostly their domain, there’s no shortage of volunteers, OEP or citizenship requestors. Speaking of which, how are the ambassador and Rear admiral? I haven’t heard from them in quite a while. I imagine they will visit here shortly as well?”

“He hates paperwork, but does it because that keeps the ship working. Especially anything related to crew comfort. Ambassador Taranis has been called back home for some diplomatic project. I suspect they wanted to throw her aide into the water to see how well he can swim. And it’s the first vacation she’s taken since coming back from the Nebula, that place did not sit well with her. She should be back early next week. Have you talked to her about ways we could help with the population issue? Aside from building more ships, of course. I think there are many places in Naris that could use some of your species’ talents, from dockyards through ports to science teams.”

“Oh, what was that about breakroom problems with additional Narix? Any troublemakers?” the Narix switched into a more serious mode.

“Those are jobs, not homes. I do not mean any disrespect, but nowhere on that cold, damp, heavy ball can feel like it. Even a ship is more comfortable than Naris to live on. It is amazing to visit for certain, but beyond that… I was tired just after two hours on the surface. More than after the battle with the Ancients.” Astra shuddered. “Oh, those aren’t trouble at all. In fact most of the crew welcome the lively culture your people brought aboard. It’s just that the Commander has made it his second quarters, and the crew celebrations tend to disrupt his peace when he falls asleep in there. Seriously, I will pull rank and order him to take a vacation soon if he doesn’t let up. His face is wrinkled already in his age!”

“Good, I was worried there for a moment. I’m sure he will be glad for that.” Zorea breathed a sigh of relief, “I didn’t mean the planet, rather the system as a whole. There are numerous stations, from New Frontier through the shipyards orbiting Artorias to small science and mining outposts. Yes, they are jobs, but long-term jobs often come with long-term housing. And working within our economy and learning its ins and outs might be beneficial for your people in the long run, it can be quite a minefield at times. And I’m afraid even the good ambassador can’t help you there, math and economics are the main reasons she got kicked out of her school. Maybe minister Ertanax, he and his comrades have become a common sight in Opportunity.”

“Suffice to say we are happy he retained his post. It would waste two months of pleasantries getting to know another man, but up to six for him to just get familiarized with all the operations we have going on.” Lira said, “Gravity cuts off ahead, be careful. I see they put up iron catwalks for the boots.” she said and tapped her heels together to engage the magnets. “I like what I see of this ship aesthetically, at least inside, but I worry about the general shape. Good when you are on offense, but the armor is thinner than the Beetle’s and I cannot imagine this turns very well. I don’t think we will be adopting much of it.”

“Too dark for my taste, and it feels like it’s caving in on you. The lack of defensive abilities of ships this size is something the shipwrights lost a lot of sleep over when designing the Warlord, not to mention the Halcyon. And the vertical layout is puzzling as well, it’s much easier to build a monorail and halls than elevators. Did they at all try to get anything working, besides pressurization and an airlock, or were they waiting or someone more qualified?”

“The cruiser and corvette do not have the experience with ships this size in the first place, even on our systems it might have been too much for them to put this into working order, the power grid alone would take all of their efforts. Couple that with the fact it is an alien technology and… here I am.” Astra noted.

Lira paused for a little while examining a piece of technology the crew had on the ground next to the road. “We’ve had the same problem, but we chose to invent the cruiser to add more AS firepower. It’s more expensive, but also more flexible.”

“We did the same thing, and now we have 108 Guardians that are scheduled to be scrapped. Not an ideal solution, but the Privateer wasn’t available at that time. I wonder how the Halcyon will approach the problem.”

“So, rear admiral, having everything we’ve learned so far from the beetle and the Terminus debris available, do you have any estimate on how long until you figure out at least the basics of this thing’s navigation?”

“It seems they use good old push buttons, so figuring out the controls should be easy. Knowing how most of the systems are built also helps, but the main problem still is the language. If we can’t figure out how to read the screens, we’ll get nowhere. It doesn’t help that the Relics didn’t ever invent ‘the label’.” the rear admiral frowned. “As for the Singularity, it’s shield is strong enough to vaporize an entire fighter, not just the bombs. I don’t think the Halcyon is going to have too much trouble, and knowing you there are swarmers lining every edge.”

“I sure hope so. I heard it’s going to have about half the Warlord’s crew, I guess they needed more space for munitions, storage and fabricators. Earlier, when talking about the Warior, you mentioned a new class of destroyer, anything specific revealed about it, or is it still in too early stages of development?”

“Maybe the labels are simply worn out?” he offered a thought of hope, “There’s still a lot of the ship unexplored.”

“I put two cruiser berths on the Singularity, if you have anything similar on the Halcyon, yes, it’S going to need some space. And XD-5’s blueprints are almost complete. It is not a radical difference though, merely an evolution of the Meteor. As the development tag suggests, fifth one. The first three we never built, and even the Meteor is not perfect, I only nailed the full application of the design philosophy with the Singularity for the first time.” Astra explained. “Still no news on the fusion weapons. The concept is a promising upgrade to the standard plasma weapons we use, but it is still years from deployment, likely the Singularity will have to be deployed with the proven P-15s, to be replaced later. Good progress on the P-100 though. The dish projector is as stable as a barrel, albeit it takes twenty percent more power to operate. Still, unless I can figure out a way to store ammo in subspace, it will have two, three shots. Good enough to kill a biosphere of a planet, but the Lucifer?” she made a so-so hand gesture.

“No berths, but it will have its own strike craft production facility. As far as ammunition is concerned, I’m skeptical about the 16 meter coilguns they came up with for it. I gather the Comet’s power problems have been solved for both the Singularity and the new frigates?”

“Aye, the frigates are built to Curious and Studious class standards, with the upgraded power generation and distribution. Singularity was designed with power to spare. No point in underpowering that ship, size is not the issue. The less intrasystem jumps that ship has to make the better though. Even with dual drives, it will have to cool down two minutes on the third jump, and it’s better to cool both drives before the next set of jumps. How are the Halcyon’s drives predicted to hold? Any special measures you have taken?” Astra inquired.

“Boffins behind it assure us of four safe jumps, but we won’t know until we try for ourselves. I am quite skeptical of that claim. We might break a few things on the first trial runs, but if the first Guardian survived such treatment, so will the Halcyon. They’re using the same heatsinks as the Privateer, but scaled up, coupled with two-stage cooling. First they get the heat from engines into other, less important systems to cool the drives, then they worry about the non-critical things. That’s still proof of concept, I can’t wait to see in action. I just wish they could figure out a way to beef up the aft armoring. I am delighted it’s designed with shields from the scratch, but most of us are still used to a hard shell.”

“The sheer volume of armor should make it impervious even to a Demon. Have you received plans for the Active armor? That should give us some advantage against it’s heavy plasma cannons at least. It was quite frightening to find out that one of those could melt half a Guardian in a single shot…” The rear admiral hissed.

“Speaking of upgrades, you managed to get the strikecraft jump drive working, but there’s no space on the current fighters to mount it, correct? Have all ships been fitted with the launch gate at least? And what of new or upgraded models that could take advantage of it?” Lira pipped up.

“We have, and I believe the Halcyon will be equipped with it, though I don’t know whether it will be applied to the entire hull or just the weaker sections. No wonder the thing needs so much power output. And I can’t think of a weapon that can’t damage the Guardian, a sturdy toothpick could make a sizable hull breach. I admit our ships are defenseless against energy weapons.”

“We can’t fit the launch gates anywhere, though they are doing their best to fit the Partisans with them. If that doesn’t work, we are considering making mobile jump gates, but even minister Ertanax doesn’t seem to think that’s possible. Both the Trident and Maul bombers can be fitted with the jump drives, another argument for retiring the Corsairs. As for fighters, that’s a problem. But if they can fit it onto the Flail, and so far it looks promising, it will bury the Raiders. Marauders are mainly defensive fighters, so there’s not much incentive to even try. We’re glad we got shields working there, at the cost of a bit of fuel. What of the Muon, any upgrades to that? The Naris’ crew is very fond of that class since operation Clean Sweep.”

“Ah, yes. The Muons work quite well as they are, although with the smaller jump drive derived from the Ancient fighters and if we mount the carousel launch bays you employ, it might be possible to expand the secondary capacity at no cost to performance. I am also intrigued to see what the HYVEL cannon designed by the Relics is like and if it can be used to upgrade our own. If it could punch through Demon’s armor as well as the Lilith’s… I don’t need to tell you what priceless asset that would be.” Astra hinted.

“As for the fighters of our design, we are due for an interceptor upgrade, the Proton drone is starting to show age. The Positron was already redesigned, given a tracked understructure and carousel missile bays, making it have smaller silhouette both on or off the ground. No space for the jump drive either though, so that would likely require making a complete successor, or just using Narix designed fighters. The decision on that is still being made, but the ease of logistical support for combined fleets has a large pull.” Lira grunted, her inner patriot screaming, but the logical side of her seeing the merit.

“How are your support ships working? The support container for the Plunderer turned out to be a success. And because it’s an attachment to the ship, we don’t have to wait for the pod to be rearmed. The pilots just detach the empty one, grab a fresh one and head right back out. Now, all we have to do is boost the power output and put the jump drive in. By the looks of it, we won’t even need to reduce fuel or ammo capacity. Though its success might be for nought if we can’t sort that out. And we lost one of them to an electric fire. Whenever one goes down, it’s best to be far away.”

“We’ve taken a different approach. Rather than to create a competitive class, we made a supplemental one. Smaller ship that can get into hotter zones than the Plunderer can. It has magnetic delivery systems for secondary weapons, but it doesn’t carry any spare subsystems for the modular strikecraft. We fitted it with the fire foam dispensers to strengthen the damaged hulls though, for what it’s worth. It won’t supplement armor, but it will increase structural integrity.” Astra explained. “Ah, here we are.”

They walked into the Relic ship’s command center. It looked as strange as the rest of the ship, arranged in a circle around a raised platform. It looked similar to the layout the Faira were used to, albeit there was a clear structure and hierarchy built into the room, whereas the Faira command centers were flat. The Relics didn’t only use push buttons, but apparently flat screens as well. “Well, at least managing the controls should be easy.”

“Score 2:1, go flat screens.” Zorea chuckled, remembering the ambassador’s description of Astra’s expression when she first saw the screen cluster in the Alchemist’s negotiations room. “This is odd. I’d feel like an actor on a theater stage here. At least they thought to up railing around the podium. Falling off in the middle of a fight wouldn’t be good. Let’s just hope this ship’s not-so-mysterious-anymore mystery goo is not completely shot. Think this thing’s life support might be salvageable?”

“It’s completely dead. Not even a lightbulb. We need to get some power into the system before anything can be done here.” astra noted the lack of any electronic activity. “Bridge to Engineering, how are you looking down there?” Astra radioed to the other team she sent in.

“We are ready. The relic ship appears to be using fusion as secondary power generation, so it should be safe to hook up one of our own reactors. The primary though… I don’t even want to guess at what it’s based on.” The Master engineer form the warden reported back.

“Okay, hook up the cabling and start slowly charging the power grid. We’ll tell you when to lower the output to just sustainable levels. All we need now is control input, let’s not wake any other system, I’d hate to think what would happen if the internal defenses ran on automated AI.” Astra noted. “Admiral, Lord-Commander, this is going to take few days honestly, I’ll report to you once we have something.”

Narix National Newscast

Intact Relic ship discovered!
Mere hours ago, the duo Durable-Zenith, now widely known for coming up with the basics of Operation: Clean Sweep, the plan to weed out the remaining Ancient forces in the Terminus system, have discovered and intact Relic destroyer, now officially named the RD Hammerhead. Courtesy of lord-commander Zorea and Admiral Lira, we have been allowed access to this ship as soon as it was towed to the Terminus-Opportunity jump node. In addition to almost an hour of video footage, we’ve managed to catch a few personnel assigned to the project while they had a few free minutes.

Immediately upon entering the Hammerhead’s hangar, we came across lieutenant Mirai, commander of the ECR Durable.

Q: What state was the ship in when discovered, and what state is it in now? Roughly when will the science teams be able to start fully uncovering its mysteries?
A: The ship was merely towed to the node and the hangar and docking port reinforced. As for the latter, an alien ship this size? We could be talking years.

Q: Have you encountered anything that would indicate ani life form, alive or dead, on board? Should we worry about more Ancients, or can we hope to see a Relic?
A: We have encountered noone on board, although only a small part of the ship has been mapped as of yet. If the Beetle is any indication, any Ancients on board should have reacted already. As for Relics, it seems the ship was abandoned by them, at least judging by the lack of anything that flies in the hangar. The Marines are still looking though, it is possible that the Ancients would just be biding their time with the demise of the Demon rather than attacking directly.

Q: At this point, you were present in two very important events, and many people hold you and the Zenith partially responsible for the Demon’s destruction. Do you think there is a promotion waiting around the corner, and if so, where would you like it to take you?
A: If the Admiralty sees me fit for promotion, I will do what I can for my nation. But that is a question for them.

---

At this point, another major player, adept Galeia Auraxis of the Zenith, found her way into the hangar.

Q: Adept, last time you two went through a similar debris field, the Zenith suffered a few big scratches due to the lack of a shield. Has the Hammerhead been more kind to you, and could diverting resources to this ship impede the shielding refits of the First Fleet?
A: The durable offered to share the patrol route and they were able to extend their shield over both ships in hot areas. A shield system would be a welcome addition, but the Privateer class is built well enough it withstand deployment in an Oort cloud, and my crew is one of the best. As for the upgrade schedule, that is beyond my pay grade. When they call us, we’ll head to the shipyard, until then, we’ll make due.

Q: Similar question as for the lieutenant: Do you think there’s a promotion coming up, or at least a vacation?
A: It would not be unwelcome. Two years of patrolling systems we already seen is not amusing. I would like to stay for some time in open space without a ceiling.

---

Lastly, we scored sulfur. At the end of our excursion, we caught admiral Lira and lord-commander Zorea.

Q: Can you tell us who is going to lead this research project?
A (Admiral Lira): Preliminary search is being conducted by the crews form the Durable and Zenith, although they will be recalled shortly for a well deserved rest. Rear admiral Astra has been recalled from Naris to attend to the Hammerhead for the time being, and a sizeable science fleet is en route from Naris to render aid.

Q: With a force like that, surely no secret can stay hidden for too long. What will the research focus on. General Relic technology, getting the ship operational, or something else?
A (LCMD. Zorea): The main point of searching for an intact relic ship is to decipher it’s navigation systems and pull a node map form them. Fortune has smiled on us and we were able to find a ship which systems may well be operational, unlike those on the Beetle. We will of course conduct research on the rest of the ship, but those objectives are secondary. As for the ship itself, we would like to preserve it in operational status, albeit perhaps not for military deployment, as we do not understand it well enough yet.

Q: As superior officers of both of the commanders responsible for finding this ship AND coming up with the basic principle behind Operation: Clean Sweep, I imagine your sights are set on these crews. What does the future have in store for them?
A (Lira): They have been noticed, that is all I will say on the mater for now.
Q: Lord Commander?
Shaking of a head

Q: is it possible civilian science teams might be hired to assist on this project, or parts of it?
A (Zorea): It is possible, we will see how taxing this will be on the military personnel. The third fleet I imagine can not wait to sink their teeth into this one.

---

As we are currently embedded on the NSS Ira, we will continue to cover this research project as best as we can, and wish good luck to everyone working on it.

Two hours of cards later

“Lights are coming on!”

Astra got up from the FleetNet News and looked over the control consoles. “The engineers examining the Beetle were right. Bitch of a warmup. I’m glad we kept cables alongside the goo.” she snickered, looking at the screen in front of her as it started loading the control software. “What in the universe?” She asked as she looked at the letters that popped up on it.

“What do you have?”

“Contact rear admiral Libra immediately, have her and her linguistic team get here ASAP. This… this is an old dialect of our language.”

“Get out.” one of the Narix yelped in disbelief, “Sir!”

“Don’t tell me this is some lost Faira tribe.”

“Enough!” Astra shouted at them. “Who are you, scientists or mystery writers? For what we know the ship could be learning our language form us just as I did with yours. Until we know for certain, keep your speculations to yourself!” And then the world vanished from her senses.



“Admiral! Sir!” somebody was shaking her up. “I… I’m here. Did anyone see that?”

“Yes, you froze on the spot, looking like you’ve seen a ghost. Are you alright? Maybe some rest?”

“No, I- I’m fine. Something took over me, the ship I think. I saw a… what? History log? Captain’s diary? I don’t know, but I want to see more. Continue with the powerup. And get another inventor in here, in case they can see too.”

“Not to second-guess your judgement, but letting unknown technology mess with your head doesn’t sound too safe.” the Narix looked worried, “What exactly did you see? Images, or text...?”

“It’s… more like a memory? Like I recalled an event or a thought that wasn’t mine. I didn’t see what they were talking about, just what they were thinking about, or possibly looking at at the time? The visual memory didn’t seem related. It was a Relic, describing the first steps their people took to space… They were monsters. Conquerors who either subdued or destroyed races that were technologically inferior to them. I’m starting to think the Ancients did them justice.” The admiral related the memory to the others.

“Right, that rules out peaceful contact. Warn the teams mapping the ship, just in case the old tenants are still around. If they think to ‘subdue or destroy’ us, we’ll give the bastards a good hammering. Who knows what kind of hibernation technology they could possess.” Already, finding the ship was proving to be a sulfur mine. Ancient history and warning? What more was there?

“I think… AW!”



“Damn it! That hurt. I think I should get the hell away from here.” Astra growled, holding her head. “For what it’s worth, apparently they stumbled upon the Ancients and attacked them, only the Ancients have been more than they could chew.” she related the memory quickly. “Jumper! Get me to the Warden!” A while later Astra was jumped off, not trusting herself to do it at the moment.

Several hours later

“You look like you’ve been through a food processor. Are you certain your head is fine?” Libra said, rushing to the room Astra was being looked after in.

“Yeah. Whatever mindspace interface they have is rudimentary, that’s all. It has trouble even connecting. I suppose me being what I am is why it works in the first place. I just need some time to recover, according to all the scans ours and theirs medics ran on me, it just sucked my power really quickly, and my head started heating up more than healthy. One at time, I will be able to view the rest of the archive. How is the progress on the ship?” Astra shared.

“Some additional instruments in the CNC came to life a little while ago, but several doors have gone out in a firework of sparks and electrical fires. Engineers advise against further raising the output until we can look them over in detail. For now, we are going over the CNC to make sure we won’t break anything here. Marines have found what may very well be crew quarters and some sort of device one of the engineers thinks could be a mass data storage device. The linguistic team is making slow progress, but the more they know, the faster it will be.”

“Have you noticed? It’s our language. Ancient dialect, but it’s ours.” Astra said, not yet to her usual speed of thinking.

“Yeah,” Libra nodded, “But it’s so pre-exodus it might as well be called alien language. Even half the letters are not in use anymore. Still, we have gotten the power grid under control. No more fires, but the conduits are mostly damaged. It will take months to repair just those. Fortunately, the key systems can be accessed and powered individually, regardless of the main distribution system. We’ll get a node map, you just don’t take risks with that ship. Do try to remember the Ancients might still be out there, and now the Relics per your own findings are genocidal maniacs. We’ll need the Singularity and you yet. Then perhaps we can look if the ship has any historical data that might explain the connection between us and them. But that’s not important now.”

The next day...



“Great. One more vision I got and then the ship’s pathetic warning device burns out. Well, we know the Ancients wiped out the homeworld of these guys, and that’s it. At least I don’t have to worry about my head cooking.” Astra growled in frustration, looking at the charred console in the command center. “Where are we on the navigation system?”

“Almost there. These guys have taken the concept of a context menu and put it through a cubic power. There’s lists within lists!” Libra groaned, her eyes sore. “Aha! Maybe… Oh stars DAMN IT!” she shoved off of the console, disgruntled. “It shows us the collapsed Terminus node, and one node in Naris that we know is not there! In fact, there’s a chunk of rock now in its place!”

“What? Where? Which one?” there was a lot of rocks in Naris, but maybe there was hope. “Not that it matters that much, since the Durable hasn’t detected any jump corridor anyway. Unless… Let me guess: It’s near the shipyards in orbit of Artorias, where we didn’t want the oracles to look?”

“It doesn’t matter. The node would be felt like a tunnel in mindspace. We wouldn’t need to find it’s exact origin point to find it. There is no sign of anything like that in the system, other than the node to Opportunity.” Astra said gloomily. Libra brought up the node position on her own suit’s display. “There. It’s a pathetic little rock, but… could it’s small gravity has destabilized the node over time? It is stuck in a lagrangian point after all.”

“Well, there’s that, then. Generation ships?” one of the technicians growled.

“No!” Astra slammed her hand onto the console, “There must be more!”

“Uh… sir! The ship is coming alive!”

All around them, the consoles started booting up, and the engineers reported the main power unit starting to cycle into life. “We’ve got to get off the bus!” Astra panicked a little.

“Too late! The jump drive is spooling! It’!s heading to Opportunity!”

Outside, a massive blue vortex swallowed the Hammerhead, with the Ira and Warden following behind it as soon as their crews and commanders shook off the surprise.

Opportunity

The Warden was the first to arrive, followed shortly by the Hammerhead. “Hammerhead, Warden! What is your status!” Lira boomed over the comms.

“We’re here, the ship held! It jumps so smoothly!” Astra reported over, just as the Ira followed into the system. “Lord commander! Clear a path! The Hammerhead has set course for Naris! Let it through, please!” Astra called over.

“Kill it’s armaments as soon as you can, I’m not taking chances with my homeworld.” Zorea relayed before he started marshalling the fleet guarding the Opportunity-naris node on one channel and Eudorian’s First Fleet through subspace comms, trying to explain the situation.

“Can you give us a firing solution for it’s sublight drives in case it tries to start start another genocidal crusade?”

“Weapons are not active, they can’t. The conduits that far outside to the hull are severed. It’s using a gravimetric engine contained inside the ship, that’s the only reason it’s even able to move. You might want to tell the First not to shoot us down though. It seems we are going to outrun both of you though!” Astra called over just before the Hammerhead executed another jump, faster than the Warden could recharge, and at far greater speed than the Ira was capable of.

Opportunity - Naris jump node

As the Hammerhead appeared at the Node, it was met by two Narix battlegroups. “All ships, rear admiral Astra. Hold your fire and clear the way!” The ascendant called over frantically when she saw the mass of ships. She didn’t care for the Relic armor, if they opened fire, the Hammerhead would be shredded. “Libra! Where is it taking us!”

“The rock! Oh stars, if it doesn’t know the node is dead, it’s going to fly straight into it! We need to get off!”

“Alright, gather everyone! Lord Commander, do you copy? We will need a pickup on the Naris side of the node!” Astra called over the system-wide.

“Eudorian himself is waiting there, I’ve got him on the wire. R Verrikan is scrambling all of its shuttles, setting up targeting beacons in its hangars for mindjumpers and Eudorian’s sending another Warlord to the rock in case we have to evacuate someone on that side. I just hope it won’t jump straight to the rock.”

“Thanks. We’ll get off as soon as we can, those mind jump beacons will be a starsend. Libra, everyone needs to get to the hangar, stat!”

Naris

“Damn it, how is this thing jumping so fast!” Libra grunted as she stumbled into the hangar. “This is everyone, can you jump them all?”

“I’ll try my damndest! Every jumper that can, get your own group, as many as you can! This monorail only stops two more times tops before Eternity! We’re coming out of the node, now!”

As soon as the Hammerhead emerged into normal space, the Faira started evacuating the staff, not waiting on the orders. The hangars of the Partisans and Warlord present were fortunately large enough places to target the landings.

“Rear admiral, this is Amare Actual, report once you can.” a voice neither of the Faira have heard so far sounded over the comms. “Did everyone make it off in time?”

“Yeah… All but the jumpers themselves. We have no more power to jump out, and the ship will go any second again, sooner than the shuttles will get here. We’ll be riding this one out. Libra said, having Shoved Astra into the last jump against her will, knowing she would have stayed behind as well otherwise. “We’ll try to jump the ship, our suits are EVA grade, it would be nice to have some pickup, assuming we don’t emerge in that asteroid. Hammerhead, signing off.”

Naris, L1

The Hammerhead emerged close to the rock, but not in it, mercifully. What was strange then was that the ship came close to the asteroid and stopped. The Faira didn’t wait to see what was going on though, bolting out the docking port on RCS as far as they possibly could, emergency beacons broadcasting.

“We’re out, the Hammerhead is just sitting in front of the rock. Maybe it detected the node missing and stopped it’s voyage?” the rear admiral noted. “O-oh…”

The rescue destroyer lay some distance off the asteroid, Plunderers already in space. “We’ve got your crisis beacons, shuttles inbound.” a young voice sounded on the comms, “What? What is it, admiral, what’s going on out there?”

“See for yourselves! And get us out of here before some of that debris hit us!” Libra shouted as she noticed the rock breaking up, sending chunks of rock the size of a cruiser into space. “And track those rock, it would be a disaster if one of them hit a celestial body, even if it’s not Naris, any of the inner planets could create an asteroid ring that would eclipse it’s sunlight!”

The whole ordeal was an unexpected test of the First fleet. As the cursing pilots raced to the stranded Faira, putting their ships between any debris and them to pick them up, the First awoke throughout the system.

Three kilometers away, the Fiduciam’s torpedo tubes flung open, gunners tracking the rocks, waiting for them to get away from anything they could damage. Once they would be far away enough, the volley of torpedoes would break them up into smaller pieces that would be intercepted by the rest of the fleet, hopefully breaking them into small enough pieces to minimize the damage. On the other hand, it would create a buckshot of rocks, speeding through the system along only partially-predictable trajectories.

“Is everyone safe aboard the transports?” the young chieftain-commander inquired.

“We’re here, but what on the world is going on here?” Libra said incredulously as the mere presence of the Hammerhead seemed to be destroying the asteroid. “Is it using it’s engine to do that?”

“No.” Came Astra’s response, wherever she landed, she has made her way to a sensors station. “It’s sending a signal to it! There must be something insid-”

Then with a massive crack and spray of rocks, the asteroid broke apart into three large chunks.


“What… is that?”

“I don’t know, but it’s flooding subspace sensors with all manner of junk. It’s oddly similar to what the Fifth picked up in Terminus. Less intense and… not irregular. It’s not noise.”

The Ramses Verrikan, carrying the recovered research crews, arrived. “No idea what that is, but I believe we have a few dozen unexpected passengers that stand the best chance of figuring out. And the Third doesn’t have to send anyone too far out like this.” The Plunderers changed course for the carrier.

“I think you dropped something.” one of the pilots referred to the jumpers.

Faira FleetNet News

A way out?

Last night, the RD Hammerhead unexpectedly came to life. The ship has left with all hands aboard, heading to a location where it’s navigation systems shown a node out of the local cluster - an asteroid trapped in an L1 point of the system. After a hasty action for evacuating the personnel aboard, the relic destroyer activated what appears to be a Mindspace portal generating an artificial jump node. The node is not stable enough yet for travel, but scientists predict it will stabilize enough in ten years to allow Destroyer sized vessels through.

Largest cleanup in history

The Narix mining fleets and Faira’Capra have collaborated to clear up the asteroid debris in the Naris system caused by the above event in an unprecedented operation. Hundreds of ships had to be coordinated to catch up to and capture debris of various size to be processed before an important world could be hit. The operation is still in progress, but our colleagues from NNN report it looks like it will be successful.

Mysteries of the Relics

There are reports that the Relic ship used an ancient variant of our language in its operating systems. It has been confirmed that the ship possessed no means of learning it from the Faira on board, suggesting our species is somehow connected to the Relics. How is still a subject of study and speculation.

Admiral Astra received visions while residing on the ship, dealing with the history of the Relics. Apparently a genocidal, imperial species, they thought to leave us a message as a warning about the Ancients and their might. If the message is to be believed, the Ancients managed to wipe out the Relic empire which at the time spanned most of the galaxy. The Admiralty is now looking to create a contingency plan to stop an Ancient invasion should we encounter them on the other side of the Node.

Narix National Newscast

Runaway!

Yesterday, the RD Hammerhead was inadvertently activated by the joint research teams. Equipped with an apparently sophisticated AI, the rogue ship took the puzzled scientists and engineers onto a wild ride all the way to Naris before coming to a halt at its L1 point. Thanks to the quick reactions of several admirals, commanders and the First fleet, all of the research personnel were evacuated safely.

The rogue hammer proceeded to shatter an asteroid first documented in 1806 and stripped clean of resources in 2143. How did the prospectors and miners miss a Relic device thought by the Faira to be a subspace portal is yet unknown. The spokesperson for Metallum Ausira, the company that mined the asteroid, refused to comment.

Unsung heroes of the Fourth and ‘Capra

The Narix people owe their endless thanks to the personnel of the two mining fleets as they scrambled to intercept the asteroid debris. Despite missing some, most of the system is safe. While the New Frontier station suffered minor damage and several injuries ranging from bruises to brief vacuum exposure are reported, there were no fatalities.

Hope reignited

The appearance of the subspace portal, unofficially known as “the Ring” has been the much needed blow that fueled the dying embers of hope. In ten years, there may be a way out. Third and Second fleets have moved in on the Ring, keen on studying it and resuming the studies of the Hammerhead.

Opportunity Station

Councilor Acastus Nyx has revealed plans for constructing a small outpost at the Opportuunity-Naris jump node to act as a transit station and communications relay. Once complete, this station will make non-official transit between Opportunity and Naris much easier, finally allowing civilians and private companies to move to Opportunity. Several transport companies have already expressed the desire to set up regular flights to and from Opportunity upon the station’s completion. Construction is expected to start next month.

2179 / IV - Six month later, the Ring

“The journalists must be having a field day with this.” Cygnus frowned, seeing the flock of civilian ships near the Relic portal, looking over the assembled Vanguard and Fifth fleets. She supposed it wasn’t often the Naris system would be hosting four expansion fleets. Minister Ertanax must have been silently thanking evolution for making the Faira species so low maintenance, les his work would triple rather than doubling. Combine that with the attempt at traversing an artificial jump node, and well, even the cold admiral could understand the sensation.

The Explorer stood still in front of the gate. After Terminus, she decided that a destroyer would lead the first expedition rather than a frigate, even if they were Curious class. One never knew when a wing of Muons might be needed, and if the worst case scenario happened, a detonation of the Explorer in the jump corridor would seal it shut, and the Ring then hopefully used to stabilize the Naris-Opportunity node. The probes that were sent through though didn’t report anything unusual. Of course, there was the initial screw up where the Ring refused to allow any ship through, until they figured out the Hammerhead was an IFF key to its use, likely a precaution used by the Relics against the Ancients returning to this part of space.

“Ring control, Explorer. All ready on our part.” she called over, waiting for the red light. The Curious, Studious and Latanos were waiting behind the Explorer to follow through quickly if needed. The Second and Strike fleets were also in the system, ready to start filing to the Ring once the system was declared without contact or with hostile one. She felt a pang of pride as she remembered the Roster of the Strike fleet, having grown into an effective fighting force, albeit with just three capital ships, two of them Curious class and one Studious. Astra called her a while ago, sharing that the interim Sword group would be left behind this time, still in training. Most of the Narix, OEP or citizens have left for that fleet, which made sense - the new ships have amenities for them built into the design rather than an add-on. She did like to see fresh recruits who she could mold though.

The rear admiral’s decision to make her the Longbow’s Master Engineer came an unexpected surprise to Tarith. After some persuasion on the account of commander Linsis and adept Nihlus, possibly a ploy devised by them in conjunction with the rear admiral, she accepted and now was standing in the frigate’s engineering section, responsible for the whole clockwork that made the ship tick, just behind the spearhead. Despite spending countless hours on both Faira and narix simulators, it was only thanks to the powered suit her hands weren’t shaking.

“How long do you think we have until they need us? Thirty minutes, an hour?” she asked her fellow grease monkeys to pass the time.

“ED Explorer, Ring Control, all gr- red- clear on our end.” Damn it, this would lead to problems one day. “Stars guide your way and try not to annoy any potential neighbors.” the Ring controller bode them farewell, signalling the Hammerhead to unlock the portal. “Lockdown lifted, you may proceed.”

Well, the Rear admiral and Primarch are now in wave two, hopefully that’s taken care of. Cygnus winced. Astra had a streak of bad luck, first time she makes contact she has to deal with Ascari, and the next time an Ancient remnant shows up. She crossed her fingers and hoped for an empty, rich system. “Helm, take us through.”

A window like they have not seen before opened, similar to the Narix FTL but apparently an a different channel from it and Mindspace still. The vortex was tinted green, and seemed to be warping at speeds between the other two. The probe shown that using that channel of subspace, the travel was quite fast and yet smooth. No wonder the Hammerhead could outrun everything they had.

The trek was indeed smooth sailing and over before long, the Explorer emerging near a gas giant in the unknown system. “Perfect. Fuel station right at the highway exit. Oracles, get to it. Corvettes, take defensive positions around the node. Enlightenment, attempt a return jump.” the admiral set up tasks, and immediately found a hitch.

“Uh, ma’am, we can not jump back. The drives won’t engage.” The Enlightenment’s CO reported, “We can get a signal through though.”

“We expected as much. Ring control, Explorer. We have made it through safely, but are unable to jump in the other direction. Send the Hammerhead through.”

A while later, the Relic ship emerged from the Node, and immediately the Enlightenment engaged her drives successfully. “Ring control, Explorer. It appears the Hammerhead’s presence is required to travel in both directions. It really is a key to the gate. We’ll send it back as soon as it’s drives recharge. It would seem the Relics were very thorough in protecting us.” Cygnus smiled. Finally a little fortune smiled on them.

“I would very much like to have a look at the Hammerhead’s guts. Stranded in an Oort cloud for thousands of years, yet it still works. It will be that much worse when it inevitably breaks down one day.” Tarith thought as the Hammerhead came back, not at all happy about the idea of her or anyone else being stranded somewhere, just like the Ancients they’ve encountered so far.

“Explorer, Ring Control. Do we start sending the others through, or do we stand them down for now?”

“Negative, Ring Control. We’ll scan the systems with what we have for now. If somebody is living here, we don’t want them to mistake us for an invasion fleet.” Cygnus answered, before linking on a private channel to the Amare: “Eudorian, I need you to promise me - If there are Ancients here, and they make it into the node despite not having the Hammerhead, you’ll blow it up and the ring along with it.” she asked, foregoing the rank. It seemed proper with a request this grave. “Save the Homeworlds.”

The admiral’s transmission was a little unexpected. “No offense, admiral, but I would’ve done that even if you pleaded me not to.” He then continued on a more lighter note. “But let’s focus on what we know is there for now. Let us know as soon your survey is done. We’ll keep our fingers crossed here and hope the only red and black ships beyond the node are yours.” Ideally, what remained of the Ancients, if anything at all, was permanently sealed away beyond the collapsed Terminus-X node. “Just don’t forget you have friends back here should trouble find you.”

“Good to hear. Thank you. We’ll send you a postcard once we find a new paradise to settle. Explorer out.” Cygnus smirked. “Alright, people, let’s get this done. Oracles, what do you have for me?”

“It looks promising, ma’am. Seven planets, four inner, three outer, likely gas giants. We are at the sixth, which appears to be the largest, some hundred thousand kilometers in diameter. There are signs of one exit node near the star itself.”

“Very well. I want one cruiser scanning each of the inner planets and one at the node, The rest will have to wait a while.”

Half an hour later

“Ring control, Explorer. Send through the first element form the Fifth. We need them to take a look at the fourth planet. I think they’re going to like what we found.” Cygnus called over, not wanting to spoil the surprise. It was not Naris, but it was closer than anything else they found yet. The planet had similar composition, albeit it appeared to be going through a mild ice age, with the polar caps reaching all the way to the tropical circles. What wasn’t on ice though was only slightly colder than their homeworld, and the ice meant that there would be no problem with freshwater.

The Latanos and her group lay in orbit of the planet, mouths collectively agape at the probe readings, eagerly waiting for the atmospheric composition results to be sent.

“I’ve never seen so much natural ice before.”

“Are we absolutely sure that’s water ice?” A planet covered in solid carbon dioxide was everything but habitable. Finally, the probes sent the results and the Latanos’ CIC erupted with loud cheers.

“Ring Control, Latanos. Pack your warm coats. 21% oxygen, most nitrogen, some other gases, but nothing harmful as far as we can tell. A little dry, but that’s probably a result of the suspected ice age. Pack the Asgypus with ground surveying equipment.”

But first the system itself would have to be secured. “Explorer, Latanos, how much do you know about the node? Is it stable enough for transit and can unshielded ships even get to it?”

The admiral pulled up the feeds from the cruisers. “It seems like the rest of the rocks are not as pleasant. The innermost has a nice temperature and composition for us, but again, no atmosphere. Still, the resource shortage has been averted for another thousand years with that one. The three gas giants are a welcome logistical relief as well. As for the node, there’s some solar wind, but it’s far enough for even a Guardian to go through if they do not hang around too long. Thus far, no Ancients or Relics, and there is no asteroid belt, only an Oort cloud to map out. I think we are safe to send the rest of Vanguard and Fifth through to start the searching. I believe Strike will want to take it as training time, Second is welcome to help unless they think it too boring.” Cygnus smiled.

“If they get bored, they can play Opfor for Strike Fleet.” the Ring controller laughed, “Sending them through. Fifth’s second battlegroup will be delayed three hours on account of loading additional supplies to explore the planet. Third Fleet has provided several Type VII Discoveries fitted for long-range recon and two for geological surveys. I know they’re not in the original plan, but they’ll make it faster.”

“Copy that, we’ll keep looking around until then. Note that I’m parking the Explorer and it’s corvettes at the Star node, just in case something wanted to come through. The Ira will need to take over blockade at this node.” Cygnus shared and terminated the link, instructing her battlegroup to make the jump and re-routing the cruisers to scan moons and large asteroids in the system.

A minute later, the lot of Strike fleet minus the Sword group has emerged from the node. “Strike fleet, reporting in. You needed to take a look at some comets?” Astra called over, promptly receiving patrol paths form the Explorer. “All group commanders, attend briefing on board Longbow in ten minutes.” she sent to her ships as they vacated the space around the node for the Fifth to land in. “It looks like all this has finally paid off, chieftain. Look.” Astra noted as she downloaded the intel package on the planet from the Explorer’s FleetNet and put it on display on the CnC TacMap. The OEP part of her crew had it’s shift, but the room was packed, the off-shift taking time out of their recharge to go have a look at what would possibly be the first planet the alliance settled.

“I reckon land is going to be cheap. Once at least some basic settlements are in place. Can’t wait to see footage from the surface.” the chieftain commented before pointing to an icy peninsula. “Cape Exile, right there?”

Astra laughed, “Really? You find a starsend new planet and the first thing you want to build is a prison?” she scratched her chin then. “Hm. We are an attack fleet. It’s reasonably possible our people would need to be deployed to ground operations sometime in the future. Forget videos, I think I can get our boots on the ground.” she nodded, already liking the idea of running some combat drills with the Faira shift. “However, look. Island, about half the size of Ardor. No volcanoes, but three fault lines joining right below it. That should be called Quake Isle.”

“Not just a prison, a labor camp. A lot of work will have to be done. If we could move the exiles here to help set up and populate Ardor with citizens, that would be ideal. And if they do a good job setting up here, the Council might even free some of them as reward for their service. Up until now, the only way off the island and back to society was being exiled military and surviving a suicide mission.”

“Boots on the ground will be a learning experience for both of our species. In theory, deep snow behaves similar to fine sand, but is somehow even worse. But you can’t thaw sand and drink it, so there’s that.”

Just then the group commanders arrived. “Ah, here we go. Helm, you have the ship.” Astra gave command and moved to the briefing room. “Commanders, Captains.” She greeted. She was happy that Linsis followed her to Strike fleet. She didn’t know whether the Lord-Commander told him of the option to be promoted to destroyer CO eventually, so she kept her mouth shut- it wasn’t like it wouldn’t be her flag until the Singularity was complete anyhow, but she could start preparing him for the role. Hence why she officially made the Crossbow the lead ship of the group, with the Longbow being a sole operating flagship with no other assets attached to it. Captain Zana has proven herself a capable XO when Aurigae left to the Latanos during the first phase of the OEP, and now served the role permanently on the Crossbow.

The other group commanders were also a favorable pick. The EFG Independence and her battlegroup were commanded by none other than Commander Mirai and Captain Auraxis. She wondered what her crew would achieve now that they had another way forward. With their luck, it was small wonder they didn’t find something of importance upon jumping into the system. “How are you settling in to your new roles?”

“Less turrets and abysmal sublight maneuverability took some getting used to.” Auraxis recalled her woeful first simulator experiences. “It’s a good thing it took us a while to figure out how to access the Ring, it gave me a lot of time to practice.”

“All is well on the Crossbow. With Captain Zana taking on some of the administrative work, the crew got their break room back without a fight. So, where do they need us?” Linsis inquired. “Planet satellites or Oort cloud?”

“Oort cloud, please don’t clobber me to death you two.” Astra shot an amused glance to the Independence’s commanders. Pulling up the patrol sectors the Explorer designated for them, Astra colored them two shades of orange in proportion to the size of the Independence and Crossbow battlegroups. “Here are the sectors that we need to scan. How you deploy your ships along which routes I’ll leave to you. Thus far, we have encountered no debris at either of the nodes, so chances are the Ancients purposefully cleaned up after themselves. That means if we are to make contact, it is more likely to be Ancient than Relic, so keep your shields up. Taking a note form the Terminus book, I want you to have your corvette crews run fire drills. There will be plenty of comets for target practice, and if there are Ancients here, they might draw them out. I’ll leave it to you whether to include the cruisers in this, but I’d advise against it due to their survivability. I’ll also leave it to you whether to deploy your frigates or leave them in reserve should any contacts engage the Pulsars, do keep in mind that we have a lot of ships in the systems and reinforcements are readily available. I’ll leave the Longbow at the node ready to jump to an assist in case a Lilith shows up. The extra cannon will be decisive in that engagement. Questions and notes?”

Auraxis spoke up. “If we encounter any debris, are we to pick it up immediately or simply log it’s coordinates and resume the patrol?”

“If the debris is small enough, we’ll could send the cruisers to get it.” Zana noted, waiting for the rear admiral’s opinion.

“Maybe have all ships send periodic reports every X minutes? If someone would be unlucky enough to end up like the NSS Independence, it’s best if we know as soon as possible.” Linsis touched upon another issue.

“The cloud in this system is relatively thin to the one in Terminus, we should be able to read IFF or thermal and there will be far less subspace noise. But yes, have the ships report in on a five minute basis. If anyone has a problem on hardware like the Halberdier in Terminus, please do not wait half an hour for somebody to notice you.” Astra nodded. “If you encounter Ancient or Relic debris and can scoop it up, log it’s trajectory and mass and pick it up. Anything bigger, holler to the Explorer or Latanos to send a specialized team.”

“Finally, I know your Narix crewmen will be curious about the new planet. I’ll be contacting Lord-Commander Zorea about the option of getting our boots and fighters on there to participate in the survey, it would be a good training opportunity and it should boost the morale.



“Also, start marking land you’d like. I imagine the good spots will be spoken for fairly quickly. Sorry to disappoint you if you like mountain views, this rock appears to be rather flat and forested. Three large desert areas if you want to go play in the sand.” the admiral smiled, “I’d pick some high up though, because when that ice age eventually ends, a lot of that ice is going to become ocean. I suppose determining future shape of the continents will be part of the surveyor’s jobs.”

“We’ll be sure to tell the crews, the chance to get down there will be a huge boost. If that’s all, we best get going. There’s a lot of junk to sift through, even with the frigates and Discoveries helping out. I assume the Fifth is going to help? Or do we get sent to the middle of bloody nowhere while they do the interesting stuff?”

“They have their own patrol paths assigned, the masters should have real-time navigation updates courtesy of the Vanguard already having dropped FTL comm relays. Very well, keep me posted if something interesting happens.” Astra let them off the hook.

Two days later, Garden IV

Finally. It took some time to clear the Oort cloud, but the system was declared Ancient free and the landings on the planet have commenced. Some of the other ships have deployed plunderers to go scout out other potential landing sites, but the Rear admiral of the Strike fleet had different idea about the primary site. “Asgypus, permission to come aboard?”

“Permission granted, sir. Expecting you in the transport room. XO, take the ship.” Prefect Nyxeris excused himself from the CIC and headed two decks down to the former storage closet, a two by two room with a radio beacon set up for Faira mindjumpers, awaiting the rear admiral.

“Good morning.” he saluted, “What brings you aboard?”

“I think we can greatly speed up the deployment.” Astra said, saluting him off. “Instead of making multiple roadtrips with the Plunderers from and to orbit, it would be much simpler to use the cruiser itself, per your permission.”

“Not sure I follow, the Vanguard flies about as well as an axe, it can’t be used in atmosphere.”

“That’s where I come in. Very simplified, I can negate the effect of gravity on the ship. With minor modifications to the engines and shield systems, this ship will be able to operate in atmosphere under those conditions. We’ll have to ride from orbit down so the engine have time to decelerate, we launch everything you have with equipment, and then we can jump the ship back to orbit. We have practiced this maneuver with our ships, usually it requires the Helm to take on special life support, but I can perform it on my own… for the time period we’ll need.” the rear admiral explained, “the expedition can be deployed in half an hour instead of half a week.”

“If we prepare everything ahead, we can deploy in… about thirty minutes with some reserve? Sounds about right. Can you reliably keep the ship in the air for that time plus extra if something goes wrong? And what kind of shield and engine modifications are we talking about and in what timeframe? MAYBE we could shorten the deployment time if we clamp the dropships to the exterior so they can all launch at the same time, but I’m not too sure about that.”

“No, we’ll need them inside. The modification is temporarily increasing engine output, I believe with atmospheric air around the heatsinks will be much more effective, enough to take care of the extra energy. The other is putting all shield strength to the front quadrant to act as heat shield and fairing for the reentry. The Vanguard has good enough shape and armor to survive it on it’s own, but no need to push our luck. Ship this mass… I can give you forty five minutes, fifty if you cool down the room using life support.” she explained.

“Coldest it gets here are the refrigerated storage bays. -4°C, but we could go a bit lower. The problem is we can’t use the launch bays since the Plunderers don’t have a wheeled undercarriage, so we can only launch two at a time through the forward runways. 24 ships, that’s twelve launches with two minutes in between. 24 minutes to get everyone in the air and some distance from the ship. Doable. Send the modifications to my chief engineer and clear it with admiral Cygnus, if you haven’t already. I’ll spare you the talk with the primarch. When do you reckon this can start?”

“It’s mostly software change, disabling some failsafes and rewriting the shield pattern matrix. I’ll give you that much time easily without the cold room, and should something start to go wrong, we’ll abort and jump right back. Which way to Engineering?” She asked, intending to do the modifications herself.

“Down this hall, take an elevator to deck 8 and board a monorail headed aft. Engineering is one of the stops.” he indicated the route on the deckplan displayed on his tacpad. “Or you could just jump there if that is too mundane. Given what we’re about to do, what isn’t? If that is all, I have a primarch to persuade.”

“That will do. Oh, by the way, feel free to offload non-.essentials. I can’t make the gravity perpendicular to the floor during descend so everything will need to be clamped or strapped.”

Garden IV low orbit, twenty minutes later

Astra was done in two minutes plus travel, the rest of the time was spent preparing the ship, so the cooks didn’t blabber about their utensils flying around everywhere again. The Faira had herself mac booted in the middle of the ship on a disabled part of the monorail to make it as easy on herself as possible. The rest of her suit as well as sleeves from the undersuit were discarded in a maintenance access to allow her body to cool down.

When she was given the green, she radioed to engineering: “alright, execute the shield and engine rewrite.” Once that was confirmed, she crouched down, putting her hands on the steel of the ship. Small tendrils of a mindstorm launched from her fingers, following the monorail like a conduit, spreading into other parts of the ship, until it was completely enveloped. “Deorbit burn!” she radioed over, having the ship quite literally in her grip.

Having the ship already on a retrograde heading, the helmsman executed the maneuver, pushing the engines past the usual safety limits to alter the trajectory quickly enough to put the ship on the correct course. Once the burn was complete, they begun reorienting the ship for reentry. That was something no Narix capital ship helmsman ever wanted to do, under normal circumstances anyway. “Burn complete, error negligible.”

“Alright, now just let it fall, let the gravity do the work. Engineering, monitor the shield power drain and adjust accordingly. When we reach the marker on the descend, prepare to engage full burn on my signal.” Astra ordered as the ship started skimming the atmosphere, judging by the vibration that could be felt in the ship.

“Standing by.” the helmsman confirmed and displayed the upcoming maneuver on his HUD “Talk about pushing the limits.”

“Maybe they should’ve used a Vanguard from the Second, all the extra crew accommodations make the Fifth’s ships heavier than the standards.”

Minutes passed as the ship plummeted towards the planet, revealing more of its natural beauty to the eyes of the external cameras, though the reentry caused a whiteout on most of them. “Mark coming up, burning in T minus ten… five… mark!”

The engines switched to high thrust setting came to life, pushing the ship to its intended path.

At the same time, Astra pulled of a bit of Mindspace trickery reserved for special occasions. The entire ship was taken out of normal space, but not all the way. It somewhat limited the effects of normal space physics on such a body, the rest was Astra’s telekinetic abilities and the engines pushing the ship to slow down. “Coming up over the water body, keep the engines on full thrust. I’m adjusting our course to glide over the land.” The Faira called over, pushing the ship slightly off of the perpendicular descent course. In the next two minutes, she gave the order to cut the engines as she guided the ship into the desired position. “Launch the birds.”

“First pair away, next pair in ninety.” the ATC reported, the pilots agreeing to cut the safety intervals somewhat. The first launch was a little rough, the pilots directing those behind them what to expect as they veered away from the ship to make space for those behind them. Eighteen minutes later, the ATC reported the last pair was away and hangars secured.

“Ready to be back upstairs, admiral.”

“Helm, full thrust, let’s clear the lower atmosphere so the jumpout doesn’t cause too much of a sonic boom. Oh and implosion.” the Faira grinned, huffing air to keep her organs cool.

“Might as well let the native life know we’re coming and mean business.” one of the helmsmen grinned.

“Zip it, you sound like the Relics.” the other shot back. “What’s the target altitude?” Another thing one usually didn’t hear in a Vanguard.

“Judging by the atmosphere density, about twenty kilometers straight up, but go on a forty-five degree angle to ease up on the gyro’s bearings. Tell me when to jump, orbit coordinates and please make sure nothing is on the target orbit, thanks.” Astra said, falling silent to focus on flying the ship.

“Bloody weekend soldiers from Third are in the way.” the sensors officer warned, comms already clearing the Discoveries away from the set jump point.

“Approaching target altitude, sixty seconds.”

“Target orbit clear.”

Counting down in her head, Astra smirked when she reached zero exactly when the Helm told her to jump. Reaching out with her senses, she lifted the Vanguard into Mindspace, and after brief travel the ship emerged on the target orbit. “Jump complete. Please return your headsets to your attendant as you deplane. Thank you for traveling with Faira State Spacelines.”

“Never done that, not about to start. A free headset is always useful.” Nyxeris quipped. “That was great, let’s do it again just to show off! And as a friendly reminder, this is the first time a Narix warship has gone into atmosphere. The NSS Legionnaire doesn’t count, that didn’t live to tell the tale. On a more light-hearted note, also the first instance of use of mindspace that didn’t turn the kitchens into bombsites. We’ve just gone down in history. Let’s revert the Asgypus back to its original setup and maybe get the rear admiral a bed?”

“Uuuh, sir? She already jumped herself back to the Longbow without missing a beat. I think she’s doing fine.”

“That was an interesting exercise. Now, XO, start organizing the deployment of the Marines as landing zones are established.” Astra told the chieftain, giving him the ship and heading to the Morale sector to cool off her head.

Garden system, a week later

Not long after landing, one of the ground teams found what was very close to being described as ‘the ideal place’. Now, seven days later, the mountain meadow was specked with several raised prefabs, three hardened landing sites for dropships and shelters for survey vehicles, all walled off by a razorwire-topped fence with several hundred ampera going through it. Six raised platforms, enthusiastically called ‘towers’, were fitted with twin-linked 20 mm AA autocannons that have proven quite useful on night two when a winged creature took interest in the outpost. Said creature lay gutted on a trailer, swarmed by biologists.

Over the past week, five nearly identical outposts designated ‘A’ to ‘E’ were established - A and B in the mountainous area, C in the lowlands on the current shore, D in the desert area and E, the smallest and most disliked, on the ice cap.

Aside from the winged creature, later identified by its teeth and the way its jaw was built to be a herbivore, earning the gunner the moniker ‘First murderer of Garden IV’ by his squad, very few examples of local flora were encountered. The most commonly sighted animal was a knee-height quadruped dwelling in the lowland forests, but no specimen was captured yet. Just a day ago, a towed sonar buoy, deployed by a Faira trainee pilot, briefly detected some aquatic animal the size of a small vehicle before it devoured said buoy, halting all study of it for the time being.

Despite being native forest dwellers, the woods of this planet were, figuratively and literally, alien to the Narix. Where the woods of Naris had thick undergrowth and conifers, Garden featured forests with bare floor and trees with leaved canopies that in most places formed a homogenous layer, blocking most sunlight from entering the dense woods. Almost miraculously, atmospheric makeup, pressure and temperature allowed for operation of their engines without a hitch as well as supported life without sealed suits, but care was being exercised until it was known what plants were dangerous and native viruses and bacteria could be studied.

Outpost ‘F’ on the other hand changed location frequently. The ECR Enlightenment has been modified with makeshift landing struts, now serving as a Faira operations base and as a mindspace powered space elevator along with the ECR Visionary above it on geosynchronous orbit. The Faira were conducting far different research, the Strike fleet and elements of the Second fleet running drills on the ground. The entertainment consisted of an arena set up in the area, where anyone could issue a challenge to someone else in a one one one duel. The Narix were in for a shock when Virgo requested and successfully defeated a Patriarch tank as her opponent, and the block B Positron fighter held against it surprisingly well.

Inside, a collection on engineers were working day and night on a truly multipurpose strikecraft, resulting in a modified Faira transport armed with the short version of the HYVEL cannon in dorsal and ventral turrets, VLS for the missiles, a plasma cannon turret on each side, engines modified to accept water as a plasmatizable medium and a shield system taken from the Baryon heavy bomber. The craft was hastily assembled on the Explorer and now was conducting flight tests of it’s modified engine pylons with lifting surfaces. Already the data gathered was giving shape to a dedicated hull design, rather than a filled up transporter. On the airstrip built on one of the deserts, a band of hangar workers was fitting a new delta wing and vertical stabilizers to a block B Muon bomber to test if the beloved tool could be used against planet-side targets as well.

At the Star node, the Vanguard fleet was preparing to lead another expedition through to the unknown, leaving the Strike fleet to guard the Garden system while it ran it’s drills.

Garden IV, Outpost ‘Asteroid’

“So… You like this cold and humidity?” Commander Mirai on shore leave asked of her second in command. “Although I suppose it counts as ‘open space no ceiling’, so it must be heaven for you.” the Faira smiled cheekily.

“Veeery funny.” Auraxis shook her head. Now even aliens were making fun of her stature. “Temperature’s fine enough, but the humidity could use to go up another twenty percent. And on the subject of height, ask some of our shorter comrades how they feel, running around in this.” she pointed at a picture from Outpost C, showing a rolling plain consumed by shoulder-height weeds. “Someone should get Ascari in the middle of all that, we’d need a week to find him.”

“Assuming we’d search.” Mirai snorted. “You want more humid? Yuck. Now I officially lost all desire to go see your capital.” the Faira groaned, “I can’t get this mess out of my antennae, you know how sensitive those are? You try to dry that with a towel. Most of us are going helmet-on all the time.”

Auraxis tapped her helmet. “As are most of us. Most of us don’t want to be the first to catch some weird alien plague. Some keep the suits sealed, I trust the filtration pack. And come on. Sure, whenever fighting starts in the simulators, Ascari can’t tell his arse from his elbow, but he did broker the peace. Alright, he kept the tensions as low as possible until more qualified people arrived. That doesn’t mean I want to be a part of his fleet, no thank you. And if by some unthinkable way he makes it to the Council, I’ll erase my documents and head for the Nebula.” Auraxis laughed. “Although having Ascari in the council would mean Fifth would get a different commander, every coin has two sides.”

“I suppose. So, picked a construction site for your weekend home yet?” Mirai grinned, “There are talks in our fleets of an underground base on Garden I. I don’t know how to feel about that. We’d still have no sun, but at this point, any place to expand the population might be preferable. It does help that the resources for it are not even at the site of construction, they are literally the construction site. We could blow up a hole under the surface and mine out form there. The rear admiral said it could even be undetectable and resistant to a Lucifer attack. She was quick to boast that the Singularity would still slag it, but hey.”

“No, I’m saving up for an apartment on New Frontier to retire to one day. Don’t have to bother with bad weather on stations. You don’t like the humidity here? I dare you to visit Naris during either rain season. If the Singularity points its guns at any Faira or Narix, something’s fucked already. And I’d be careful about underground bases before thorough geological surveys are complete, remember the Quake Island? And the expected flooding when the planet starts heating up? But if you go through with it, don’t forget to ask, we happen to be quite good at that. Maybe we could start selling spent mines to you for cheap?” she teased her commanding officer.

“No, thanks. So, any plans for the shore leave? I’m thinking of going to the Airfield and pulling rank to get to fly the delta-Muon around for a while. Total forty Faira alive right now flown an atmospheric strikecraft of any type. I’d like to get that one on my have-flown list.” the Commander asked.

“Sounds fun. Sadly, not a thing for me. First year of national service, they tried to make me an APC driver, except when I finally got myself to the seat, my head was sticking out of the hatch so I couldn’t close it. I’m not joking, I cannot physically fit into the cockpit of any strike craft we have available. I heard they are organizing a hunt for the sea monster that ate one of our sonar buoys, think I’m going to watch. Apparently, their existence is confirmed all over the equatorial seas.”

“Well, I’d be hesitant to call them seas, compared to Naris. With the ice caps sucking most of the water available here, they are pathetic little lakes. You could walk the entire circumference of this rock with a dry foot right now. Wait ten thousand years, then it will be a sea.” Mirai snickered, “It’s still not dry enough though for our tastes. Speaking of Strikecraft, they put together the mother of all uglies to test some of the concepts, but it looks like it could pull a few Gs and cause havoc to ground forces with those HYVEL turrets. You could fit into that, that cockpit is made for long haul transports, it is sizeable and comfy.” she suggested.

“Maybe, but I’d prefer not to break something. Aside from three years as a paratrooper, I don’t have any experience with flying. Though it’d certainly be nice to see the lakes from high up. It’s so weird, there’s so little iron in the water it’s not blood red. Almost tempted to go for a swim once that beast is gone, but who knows how many centuries worth of fishcrap are dissolved in it.”

“And now I have that image in my head. Thank you!” Mirai groaned. “Seriously though, they made that overhauled transport sub-surface worthy. I think they all have a major case of The Casei. That one I do not want to test. Stuck in a metal coffin that is slowly sinking into crushing depth is not my idea of fun time. Did you hear what M of A Virgo did to the Patriarch?”

“You’re welcome, sir. Yes, anytime a tank is alone, it’s crew is asking to get killed. Wait, Casei? That name sounds familiar. What was it…? It’s not the madwoman that created the fighter/walker hybrid, is it?”

“Yes, but with bare hands? Well, okay, suited. And that’s the one. I mean they changed it to treads now, but it’s holding out against the Patriarchs in groups five against four. Not bad for what is basically a strikecraft with a kickass landing gear.” Mirai shrugged, “I still prefer a Frigate, don’t get me wrong.”

“I served with a few tanks during my infantry years. How many casualties can the whatsitcalled evacuate? How long can it operate without support, as in ‘how much food and other equipment can it carry with it’? Where does the crew sleep on or in it? Can you make repairs it in the field? Maybe mark those down to improve it in the future. And on a personal level, very few experiences beat jumping out of a transport plane at several thousand meters, accompanied by a tank on a loading palette being flung out of it.”

“Well, I’ll give you the troop compartment, that is a good thought and not doable on the Positron. But if you take into account that it is designed mostly for our use, the food and sleeping space aren’t important. Regarding repairs, probably easier than the Patriarch, considering it is one of the modular fighter designs. And no offense, I’d rather have a tank that can fly itself to orbit than needing a pallet and flimsy pieces of cloth and string.” Mirai hated on the parachute. “Well, here’s my stop.” the commander said as they came to a ring on the ground marked for the Faira jumpers, “The boffins found some kind of sweet fruit on this rock and are now fashioning a still and bar at the outpost ‘C’ biolab. Want to meet there to see what they make before we leave?”

“Flimsy pieces of cloth and string are multiuse. Unless you have one of the older, silk ones and drop it into a puddle of engine oil, that’s a certain recipe for untimely death.” Somehow, Auraxis wasn’t surprised that was the first thing on their mind upon confirming the fruit wasn’t harmful. “Drinking before returning to duty? Now there’s something you don’t see every day.” she laughed. “Don’t get lost up there, not many airstrips around yet.”

”Worst case scenario, I’ll just need to head for the frigate.” Mirai waved off before she was jumped away.

2179 / VIII - Garden, Star node

“Finally we’re going someplace first!” Commander Ikeya of the EFG Studious smirked. The frigate missed all of the excitement being stuck in a dock for refits when Terminus was opened, then acted as SAR ship for the mass explorations and was left in wave two going through the Ring, because everyone expected an Ancient superdestroyer waiting for them on the other side. Now that the tensions dropped, they were the next on the list, the Admiral citing the need for more crews experienced with first contact.

Compared to the Studious, the Agypus has been on the point of many important expeditions. Being left back when going through the Ring was a welcome change that even let most of the crew get home for a few days until they were scrambled to Garden IV before being dropped into the atmosphere by a good-crazy genius. Despite the operation’s smooth execution, some of the crew were ready for another R&R when the newsletter arrived, putting them first through the node. Though Nyxeris was a little surprised to be subordinate to a commander with little practical experience, at least as far a she knew, but was actually looking forward to it, wanting to see what this new Faira had in store.

“Studious, Asgypus. Drive synchronisers check across the battlegroup, we’re standing by for your go.”

“Asgypus, Studious. Diagnostics check out, we’re good to go. Helm, take us through.” the Commander ordered and the jump alert rang through the ship. Moments later, the two battle groups sinking into the Mindspace vortex. The ride proved extraordinarily smooth, which the commander expected on the Garden side of the node, with the entry being that close to the Star, it’s mass stabilizing the Mindspace there. “Asgypus, how are your drives?” She asked.

“No drive issues reported.”
”Kitchen in order.” he thought. Compared to the Latanos’ first use of a, albeit somewhat improvised, synchroniser, they could now get seven ships through on synced drives alone without much trouble. “Out of curiosity, can your abilities tell you anything about the other end of the corridor? Say: if it’s smooth, it’s close to a star?”

“We thought so. Then again we also thought that no more than two jump nodes can exist in a system, and second system we enter has three, so… Who knows really? I can tell you one thing, the ride is getting smoother as we go, meaning Mindspace is even more stable where we are going. It suggests either as you mentioned a heavier star than Garden, or high number of gas giants in the system. Definitely not a neutron star. Possibly even a Ring installation, even still being formed, the Naris-Garden node is the smoothest to date. I care not for guessing whether a jump node can lead into a black hole, too traumatising train of thought. Your kitchen staff can be at ease in any case.”

“I’ll be sure to tell them, last thing we want is a boarding party of angry cooks armed with frying pans. Scary stuff. Has the betting madness reached your ships as well?” Prior to setting out, the crews of Asgypus’ battlegroup started taking bets on what they would find on the other side: Ancients or something useful. Most bet big money on ‘something useful’, since if it was Ancients, it was likely they wouldn’t need to pay anyone anything.

“Negative, My ship actually doesn’t have OEP or Citizen Narix on the roster, we don’t have the accomodations built for them, nor do we have a hangar to have a use for your pilots. I liked the work of your Marines, but there are other things that need to be built for you to have time to send the Studious back again. What on your end, the Rear admiral didn’t leave too bitter taste plunging you into the atmosphere like that, did she?” Ikeya asked.

“Something specific about our marines? I heard some complains about our weapons leaving bad stench. For me, no, I actually enjoyed it, it’s not something that happens every day. It was the good kind of unusual event, nothing like accidental Demon-class or a rogue destroyer built by a species of genocidal maniacs barging into your home system. Other crew members were not so amused. Would you be surprised if I told you they usually work in the kitchen?” he chuckled. “Anyway, every time a synced jump is expected, the cooks scramble to tie down the cabinets with zip ties. They even petitioned Ascari to install latches onto them.”

“Then perhaps you should hire a few psychokinetics skilled in gravity simulation to cook. They could hold everything down, including the uprising cooks.” Ikeiya snickered. “So, what do you think we will find on the other side? Agree with the betting pool?”

“Leaving out the obvious, such as a world or at the very least a moon suitable for your people, resources never hurt. But aside from Ancients, I most fear another dead end like Terminus. But after the PSA regarding the visions rear admiral Astra had on the Hammerhead, I no longer hope we meet living Relics. If she interpreted those visions correctly, I want nothing to do with them idiots. What’s the mood like in your group? Excited to be the first to get somewhere for a change?”

“Well, place for more of our growth would be always nice, but I would like to meet some other people of the good nature. Thus far, we know of you, the Ancients and the Relics, the ratio swings towards the universe being inhabited by genocidal monsters, i’d like for it to be back at fifty fifty percent chance. That said, more Relic relics that would possibly explain our connection to them? I would not say no to learning more about ourselves either. I don’t think there is much more to learn technology wise form the Relics, we have strikecraft and arms from the Beetle, intact warship form the Hammerhead, the Ring is the most advanced piece of technology we have thus far encountered in the universe, and I don’t think any of their planet settlements are still standing to tell us more considering what the Ancient Lucifer class likely did to those. A fresh and different tech base to learn from? That is inviting.” the commander put out her thoughts.

“The chance is fifty fifty we meet another species of genocidal maniacs. Worse yet - these could be religious. For once I’d like to stumble upon a primitive culture worshipping artifacts of another, dead species. A culture that’s not a threat and still new things to learn. Perhaps some terraforming know-how?”

“Oh, that would be nice. Forget exploration, we’d be set with the planets and moons we already have. Figure out the ring, blow up outbound nodes and build an army for when we need to venture out that could face even the Ancients. Although who knows how deep is their might really,” Ikeiya smiled, “well, we will be able to tell soon. I feel the node is coming to an end in a minute. On your drives, this is probably close to twenty hour jump. We are going longer distance than anything we have been through thus far on this one.”

“Perhaps we should’ve been more careful with the Demon. Faster drives are something I could do with. I’m recalling the crews to stations and going condition blue. Assuming we aren’t all vaporized upon exit, should we focus on defense while you explore the system?”

“Let us see what we find first, then we’ll see. Emerging to normal space in eight… seven…” she counted down, until they reached the exit point to the node and saw a strangely beautiful sight around them. “Oh… That makes sense. It’s a binary system.”

“That’s not all, ma’am,” her Master of navigation spoke up, “There is a single gas giant only several hundred tonnes short of being a third star, the ecliptic is parallel to that of Garden, and the centers of mass are aligned on the axis.”

“No wonder the node was so stable.” Ikeiya nodded, “In fact, there are two more. One almost as stable as the one we came through ten kliks ahead, and one that feels exactly like the Beetle node in Terminus near the Gas giant. And other than that, this system is null and void, save for the giant’s ring system. My guess is the heavy objects long since caught any comets flying through.”

She frowned: “This… bites! We found nothing but a transfer station!”

“Focus on the opportunity in it. This is more fuel for us along the way and a way to continue through. And the Ring has shown us there are artificial ways of stabilising jump nodes.”

“It will be decades before we understand the ring enough to move it, let alone use or make a copy of it. Meanwhile, supply lines are getting longer and harder to maintain.” Ikeiya grunted, “How long would your food stocks last if we were cut off? Even our admiralty is talking about a deep space depot nowadays. Patrol fleet is stretched thin.” she sighed, “Call the rest through. No point in delaying. Nothing but gas and gravel out here.”

“You are complaining about decades? I will wither away in seventy years, give or take. Comms, invite the rest through. Helm, clear the node.”

In a couple of minutes, the Vanguard fleet came through. “Explorer to Asgypus and Studious. Pass us the nav data. We will set up fort at the exit node. Commander Ikeiya, I want the Studious on determining where the collapse node once lead, and if it is strong enough for anything at all to come through. Orders came by to wait until the Strike fleet’s line ships are finished before going any further.” Cygnus shared the new information.

Four months later

“Let me out of here!” Ikeiya groaned in the Explorer’s Morale sector during an unofficial officer meeting that has crystallized during the four months the fleets were stuck in Transfer without orders to go forward. “It’s not bad enough that even the Collapsed node just leads back to Terminus, but we have been setting up and patrolling depots for four months on end! I’m dying of boredom here!”

“I agree. A little while longer and I might start shooting friendlies for no other reason than for something interesting to happen.” Astra snickered, “Now that’s a thought! We’ve been shooting at rocks this entire time or fighting against simulations, how about we go fight each other for a change!” the Rear admiral said, giving no implication as to whether this was the stir-craze setting in, or if she was just crazy period.

“Please don’t.” Linsis groaned, “It started so well. Earlier, fine, but after two years of working partnership? And being killed in ‘A War of Boredom’ is not how I imagine to go. I’d rather pass away quietly, buried among paperwork in the breakroom.” Then, as if an epiphany has struck him square in the head he almost dropped his glass. “Practice shells! Our rookie crews use them during the first two months to give them a more realistic experience to simulations. They still cause superficial damage, but I’m willing to risk some dents. Do your ships have something similar?”

“My thoughts exactly. Our weapons can be toned down for the projectile modes, lower the temp just above plasmaizing point, and it cools down through radiation to arrive as inert gas. The beam mode weapons you can just replace with targeting lasers, and you can launch an empty modular torpedo.” Astra grinned, happy to see ehr fleet’s 2IC was able to think on her wavelength. “The shields should take care of most of that.”

“And we can use live CM torpedoes, since all they do is deploy a screen of chaff. Fighters can practice by establishing a firing solution instead of shooting at all- And our marines can get shore leave on garden. I imagine they’d be quite bored, since your shields don’t allow utilizing our deployment methods. Should I call it ‘our’ or ‘Narix’ methods? Dual citizenship is confusing at times. Now the question is: Who gets the honors of running it through the ranks?”

“I didn’t say ‘approved’ yet, but sure, why not, anything to make this dump of a system more bearable for at least half an hour.” Cygnus snorted from where she heard them. “What scenarios do you have in mind? And I wouldn’t do Marines either, Mindspike is something you can not tone down.”

“I think given what we know about the Ancients, ‘node blockade’ comes to mind immediately, from both sides. Since Garden is right there,” he pointed over his shoulder, “that looks like scenario number two. Losing that would be a massive blow to morale back home.” he turned to Astra, “I believe you said the relics claimed the Ancients didn’t land on any planets?”

“No, they just glassed them from space. I suppose they have no use of planets, but they want to kill us all anyway. I wonder if there was more the Hammerhead could have shown me if that system didn’t burn out. I would like to know if there is a real chance to find the Relics still alive, or even find how we are associated. In any case, Orbital defense might be just as important, since they do not appear to be using shields as all, much less Lucifer grade.”

“So no need to practice land warfare. I still find it hard to believe any species would be so stupid to continue its genocidal rampage even after they learned of the Ancients. Especially since they apparently got beaten across the galaxy all the way back to their homeworld. Still, if they are out there, I pity the poor sod that ends up in front of a fully-functioning Hammerhead.”

“Assuming that is the toughest thing they have. I can imagine the Ancients and Relics alike might be able to build a ship type our tech would have struggled with. With ours, I wouldn’t want to go above three kliks. But if they have better artificial gravity and inertial dampening… Six? Nine? More? I mean we built a twenty five kilometers long metal cylinder we call a city ship, but let’s face it, it’s a station with jump drive.” Cygnus frowned. “So, do I call Eudorian and have the first join in on the defense? I can’t imagine the second could be talked into staying out of this. I know Home will stay in the Nebula unless a fleet admiral orders them to move their behinds, and Patrol has enough on their plate already.”

“As long as too much of the First doesn’t have to leave the system I don’t think they’ll say no. I know a few people from that fleet, they could use the diversion. The press is going to go ballistic when the word reaches them, especially should the First fail to hold the node.”

“They can’t, not against us. Your ships can jump immediately, and ours can jump on each other’s wake. Their part must be defined as holding the entire system, there is no way they could destroy the Ira or the Explorer at the node.” Astra summarized how that would go. “We know the Ancients need about ten minutes for a drive recharge after translating a node. We may want to simulate that.”

“Exactly what I had in mind. Simulate who we know for sure are the bad ones as best as we can and prepare accordingly. And the more scenarios we try, the more time the war games kill before our esteemed leaders figure out what to do. No offense, admiral. In either case, a third of Second is on shore leave, some on Garden, most back home, that gives us time to think this through and set it up. Just getting the materials to produce all the practice shells here, the people from Fourth are going to be thrilled.” he referred to the freighter crews that would be tasked with the delivery.

“I think we should lend the Commander to First, see if he got his defense game in order.” Astra smirked cheekily at Linsis, popping a polished pebble of silicon into her mouth. “Speaking of higher numbered fleets though... Anything interesting happening at the Third? I’m sad to say we are still nowhere near firing a fusion beam. We found out that at their current design, the containment field just can not be made strong enough. We’ll have to start from scratch on all of the magnetic components. The pressures they need to generate at that range…” Astra sighed. The theory was simple - take a plasma beam, and make it more hot and dense. The practical side had nasty surprises though.

“Two years ago, any beam weapon of this magnitude was distant science fiction to us. We knew they could be made, but we never felt the need to do so. Little misguided, perhaps, but it’s for this reason there are bound to be problems along the way. You’d have to ask someone more educated or invested in this matter for details. Try asking your Master Engineer, it’s a safe bet she’s in contact with her uncle.” He chose not to respond to the ‘defense game’ remark. Though it wasn’t as horrible as it used to be, he still felt much more confident leaving that to those more qualified.

“Very well. I’m off to set this circus into motion. I expect the two of you to put First to shame! You are our hammer, and you know how they operate. My birthday is coming up, get me a targeting solution on the Ardor volcano, please.” Cygnus grinned. Assuming that Astra’s ship would have been the Singularity, that would mark Naris as a dead world.

Astra watched Cygnus leave with suspicion. “She’s… merrier than she used to.. I should be happy, but all I am is looking over my shoulder. Whatever that woman is thinking of, I know she means well, but I can’t help but think I will live a few years shorter for it.” the rear admiral shuddered. “Shall we go break the news to the lot?”

The meaning of whatever Astra just said went so high over Linsis’ head even Auraxis wouldn’t have to duck. “Assaulting my homeworld, what has this come to?” he laughed, finishing his drink. “When he hears of this, the lord-commander is going to be ecstatic. The lazy bastards lounging back home, not so much.” Although 89 percent of Narix had military experience, there could be serious problems for the First, at least in the PR department, depending on the way this goes. “I do hope we won’t embarrass lord-commander Eudorian too badly. He’s ten years from retirement, having the ire of the people rain upon you is not good at that age.”

“I can’t pull my punches though. He has ten years of service ahead of him. I on the other hand have an eternal life of shame as the person who finally pushed her idea of a dedicated attack fleet and failed to break into a single system.” Astra snickered, “Sorry, I am not pulling any punches. If it helps, you can attempt to assault the Civie fleet in the Nebula next time. Good luck.” The admiral snickered.

A week later; War games ‘Operation Boredom’

The day was finally there, after a few hasty production orders on blank ammunitions and holographic projectiles, so that hits against an enemy ship class could be properly evaluated, the day has finally come. Everyone in the Strike fleet has been on edge, doing Maintenance and running drills. The exercise was scheduled to work in two scenarios - initially, the Strike fleet with some elements of the Vanguard on loan to complete their intended numbers, would attempt to force their way from Garden to Naris as they were, to test their training against a living and thinking opponent. In the second part, the Second, camouflaged as Ancient attack fleet, would be testing the First’s defensive ability against the known qualities of the Ancient vessels.

Astra was standing in the Explorer’s command and control, happy as someone who was about to be handed the activation codes to the mightiest ship in the Allied fleet could be. “Rear admiral, the ship is yours while I’m on the ‘Hexus enjoying a break. Do her proud.” Cygnus said, completing the process to update the computer with the new CO’s biometric signature, before saluting the CnC off and jumping to a shuttle that was waiting for her.

“Alright, people, we don’t have all day. Command briefing on the Explorer in ten minutes.” she told the Master of Intelligence, who then sent out the invites.

Many lightyears away, the First was assembled around the Naris side of their node. Each battlegroup had a clear firing solution without risking friendly fire on the other side, so there was not enough room for everyone. The remaining three battlegroups lay in Naris low orbit, standing by to intercept ordnance headed for the planet, suffering from their inability to negate energy-based weapons. Fighters were already in space and weapons armed, expecting the Explorer to be among the first ships through. As atest to determine its viability, sixteen practice warheads with remote detonators meant to simulate nuclear torpedoes were placed by Plunderers around the perimeter of the the node itself, forming a poor man’s minefield intended to weaken the destroyer before it could jump out of the immediate area. Crippling other ships would be a welcome bonus, but everyone doubted it would work that well.

ED Explorer, briefing room

Seated around in the briefing room were many familiar faces, and many new ones. From the first group, Commander Linsis, Mirai, and with the Curious and despite Astra’s unspoken protest, Aurigae. The newer faces were not to be ashamed in her eyes though. Originally form the ECR Enlightenment, the new Commander Zirconia had her share of strange deployments and was a welcome brain in Astra’s command, now in charge of EFG Sword. From the Patrol fleet, Commander Draconis of the EFG Vigilant was substituting for the yet-to-be-built EFG Spear. Finally, with her on the Explorer, Astra’s post on the Longbow was taken by her XO, chieftain Helion.

“Alright people, you were badgering us long enough with your complaints about having nothing to do, so here we are. Our task in Operation Boredom is twofold. The primary objective is to disrupt Naris system command structure and economical routes. To do that, we have to achieve several tasks:
1) Capture and hold the node
2) Destroy first fleet command
3) Bombard government buildings on Naris
4) Destroy important shipyards and trading installations

Secondaries are targets upon other celestial bodies, civilian convoys and economical structures on Naris. We do not want to cause a major disruption to the economy, so only warp in next to them and comm their coordinates to validate the ‘kill’.

“An hour ago, the Longbow sent a probe through the node. Before it was destroyed, it sent a picture of the surroundings. Suffice to say, we have no way of breaking the blockade by force. That’s why we’ll attempt something bold.” Astra smiled, turning on the screen.

“What you see is a shuttle with an autopilot unit and an overload state reactor. We will send it through first as a massive fusion bomb. Of course, the system will be set to vent the reactor before it goes prompt-critical, and the training software will be set to simulate the effect. It should give us a window to jump through, along with significantly thinning the fighter screen, perhaps even the shields on the ships. We will not stick around however. The Frigates will go first in pairs on a wakejump, and will head deep into the system and start harassing any target of opportunity they can find. Group commanders will be Commander Linsis, with the Longbow as his heavy gun ship, and Commander Mirai, with the Vigilant as a simulated Studious class. Your fighters are to remain grounded, and the holograms and training sim software will display you as a Studious class.”

“That should give the First something to think about and deploy some of the blockade ships to hunt down the Frigates. If they do, abandon your targets and wolfpack on one ship at a time. Following this distraction will be a heavy Muon strike covered by Flails and Halberds. Their targets will be sensor and weapons systems on the blockading ships.”

“In the last wave, I will jump in the Explorer and power up it’s shield to max to cover the arrival of corvettes and cruisers, who will then immediately fan out into the system like the Frigates before. As soon as they are through, the explorer will jump out to recharge, along with the strike craft so it can be collected. We will jump close to the Opportunity jump node, as that will give us two and a half kliks distance from any Narix ship that will attempt to pursue us. Any questions?”

“Just how many strike craft do we expect to lose at the node?”

“2500 meters is still within range, although it does give us time to intercept some projectiles.”

I can not predict the outcome of the bomb blast, but I expect the enemy craft to be mostly knocked out by the EM blast, simulated as it is. They will have to deal with the Swarmers though, so it is imperative that the Muons are covered and quickly take care of the enemy targeting ability. Regarding the interception at the node, four of the destroyer group cruisers will rendezvous with us there. That should give us some advantage. There is still a good chance that the Explorer will not make it out of the node. In that case, the Crossbow will be the next in line for command. Should any of the Frigates fail to jump out of the Node, you are all to wakejump on one ship’s drive to keep your mobility. That way you will cut your jump time form fifteen minutes to five, that is something you should be able to keep up with until the pursuing Narix drives overheat. If that’s all, get to it people, go brief your battlegroups. We commence in thirty minutes.”

Naris system, Garden jump node
A lone transport was not what the First was expecting. Two 750 mm turrets from the defending Privateers reacted almost immediately, swatting the ship away with AA munitions. That was when the overloading reactor was noticed. As most of the warships were over 2500 meters from it and oriented sideways, there was little the large ships could do to evade. Fighters and Guardians, however, scrambled away, the fighters hiding behind the capital ships.

Though the simulated explosion carved a hole in the Raider’s numbers, the lighter Marauders and Halberds all made it away safely and some Guardians completely lost their targeting, instead having to rely on information from other ships. The Faira frigates followed immediately afterwards.

“Jump complete. All ships repo-” Zana started her report to Linsis, but was cut short.

“Sir! The Curious just went completely dark!” their sector controller announced in light state of panic.

“Abort the exercise, let the rest know. Last thing we need is more ships in a small area and the First making it harder with practice shells. Navigation, what’s the first thing they are going to hit?”

“The Peonitet. Notifying them now.” Zana answered, already sending the message for the destroyer to vacate the area. “Commander, we have a contact form the Curious. On speakers.”

“-neer Omicri, I’m using a comm system on one of the Positrons. We’ve had a cataclysmic power grid failure throughout the ship. Curious is completely out of control. We could really use tugboats and transports or mindjump beacons! We need to abandon ship, repairs impossible!”

“Tugboats will take a while, we’ll clear our hangar for you. How long will it take to marshall your crew, any casualties?” he turned to his crew, “Hail the Amare, tell them to shake the Fourth awake. Captain Tausi, clear the node. Captain Farsa, can you guide their jumpers?”

“No casualties in the hangar, but internal comms are down as well. We’re getting by on telepathy but it will take a while to organize everyone. We can begin transferring people in about five minutes.” Omicri radioed over.

“I’m on it.” Farsa replied, “Lieutenant Xyth, help me out.”

“Commander Aurigae speaking. Commander Linsis, I’m launching my transports to latch onto the engine pylons ant try to steer the ship. I’m missing two for the ventral starboard pylon. Can you spare them?” The Curious’ commander asked, and six of the craft left it’s hangar, heading for the pylons where their small engines would have the most leverage.

“We’re on it, commander. Your way is mostly clear for now. Endera,” he switched to a channel to the Crossbow’s strikecraft coordinator, “we need two transports out immediately, have them head for the Curious’ ventral starboard engine pylon and defer the Curious’ transports for further instructions, then help with the evacuation once it starts.”

“All ships, Amare. Fourth is sending eight tugs, but they have to get the crews first. ETA eight minutes, how can we help in the meantime?”

“Get out of the way and have a scrapyard ready. Also, clear out some hangar space for our strikecraft. We will need to transfer everything. The main bus has melted and the mystery goo is threatening to melt through the hangar roof.” Omicri radioed over, “I’m sorry, I think the ship is done for.” The hangar crew looked up as they heard her, seeing the ceiling starting to light up form the heat in the middle, and promptly going to fetch whatever pilots they could, installing AI capsules on as many ships as they could, and starting to direct the craft towards the exits.

“Gaudium here,” one of the destroyers at Naris joined the conversation, “We’ve offloaded most of our strike craft and some munitions at New Frontiers, send us jump coordinates and we’ll pick your people up.”

Narix National Newscast
How much is too much?

Yesterday in the evening hours, the alliance launched the largest military exercise to date. Set to be divided into two phases, the second testing our defenses against a simulated Ancient fleet, the wargames were delayed when the EFG Curious lost power upon completing the jump to Naris. The official reason given for the ship’s power grid collapse is the amount of alien technology integrated into an existing design, similar to the power problems of the Fifth when the shielding system was first installed two years ago. Captain Omicri, the master engineer of the Curious at the time of its failure, has assured us the new ships were built with the technology in mind and will not suffer the same fate. The exercise was immediately halted and the crews turned to evacuating the dying ship, in a way fulfilling a different part of the training: once again showing how well our two peoples can cooperate. No deaths or major injuries have been reported except the Curious herself, declared lost even before the Fourth fleet could secure and tow it to the Arotrias Orbital Shipyards, where the ship will be stripped alongside the berth of its bigger, younger sibling - the ESD Singularity.

The exercise, now officially named Operation: Boredom, will resume tomorrow.

Historical archive

2181 / II - First permanent city, Lindros, founded on Garden IV (mountain north of Outpost D).
2181 / III - Second and Strike Fleet relocated to Garden system.
2181 / IV - XD-5 Warrior launched for OpEval.
2181 / IV - Opportunity Station completed following redesign. Opportunity, Terminus and Exodus systems now open to civilians. Home fleet cruiser is stationed here for ferrying travellers to the Nebula
2181 / XII - Construction of a fortress installation in Transfer proposed by the Faira.
2182 / I - Decommissioning of the Guardian-class ships begins. Free berths on Faira’Karte used to speed up building additional Privateer-class replacements.

Opportunity system

The last few years have been quite eventful, despite the lack of progress on the Exploration front, or so Rear Admiral Libra thought. With most resources from the Narix side being diverted to upgrading their fleet and building Lindros and the Faira focusing on completing the Strike fleet and the Singularity, it was thought best to fortify Transfer for now and wait. Finally, they have also gotten the head nod to go ahead with the construction of a fortress in the system, as it made for a perfect choke point against any invading force.

Today though, Libra had a very different proposal for Runa, one that she has been preparing for years to make. The admiralty thought that it was time to remind their allies to take a step up from the Alliance. And Libra was happy to bring it up. For years now they have been one nation in all but name. The Faira have even acquired enough of the Narix currency and launched a few government owned corporations that worked on the free market. With the settlement of Garden and possibly more systems in the future, it was also high time they started thinking about a less centralized government system.

Sending the invite, Libra recalled the time when her counterpart was inhabiting a rickety old ship. Obviously, time moved forward, she thought as she looked at the footage of Opportunity station.

The Opportunity station had many advantages over the Alchemist, but the little old ship had it beaten in one area: mobility. Whenever they needed to meet, the ‘Hexus now either had to navigate the civilian ships and dock with the station, which caused some delays despite its diplomatic status and docking priority, or she had to shuttle over through the same mess. Having received the invitation, Runa notified her pilot and headed to the docking bay where the diplomatic shuttle was landed.

Having intensified their trade relations on top of everything, the Faira had equipped their diplomatic hub with a few amenities of the other species. As such, there was a mug of fresh iced Fersom waiting when Runa arrived, the aroma spread throughout the room - something the Faira used as well, as they found the smell quite lovely. Libra busied herself in the meantime by ‘examining‘ the fresh batch of Narix musical productions she has grown quite fond of. Their marches were rather inspiring.

Upon arriving, Runa immediately noticed the mug and its content. “So that’s why the income from liquor taxes is reaching the stars lately. No wonder minister Ertanax is in such joyous mindset these days.” she greeted her Faira counterpart. “So, admiral, when are you getting an upgrade?” Runa grinned, referring to the station.

“As soon as we find a suitable planet for us. Until then, my place is here.” Libra smiled, beckoning for Runa to sit down. “I’ve called you here to update my overlook an how our peoples stand. What’s the mood on the homeworld, did the numbers for ‘burn them all’ sway in any direction?” the rear admiral asked.

“The ‘burn them all’ was just a part of the four percent. It’s dying down. Slowly, but it is. It’s been quite a while since any public protest was organized, nobody’s heard from them since the Hammerhead got up and found the node for us. Would you believe lord-commander Eudorian was in the ‘keep them out of the system’ part of the four percent until that happened? Not to mention your mining fleet played a big part in catching the Ring asteroid debris. Some people just overreacted, some idiots realized you weren’t a burden, some can be chalked up to people voting that way because they thought it would be funny and the rest we’ll simply have to put up with until they do something outside of law. Then, Ardor. Those that got a little too deep into their protests have painted a target on their forehead already.”

“Good, good. What about your military personnel? I know the OEP was a success, have you heard anything from those that downright entered our service?” Libra inquired further. She of course conducted research herself among those crews, but she was wondering whether those Narix sang the same song back home.

“Those that entered your service permanently are either former OEP or have done their research. This isn’t the kind of thing you’d rush, and they wouldn’t have gone back if they had problems with it. Some find it hard to handle the Nebula. I can relate. Of course there are minor scuffles on a personal level here and there, but that was to be expected and should be handled by the people themselves or their COs if it gets in the way of their work. Initially, there were some complaints of supply shortages, mainly food variety, but trade and Opportunity station itself have helped to remedy that. As far as people outside your service, some are a little bitter over the outcomes of some exercises. Pride is a fragile thing. Second and Fifth have fully accepted you as their sisters in arms, some as far back as the Battle of Beetle. Boffins seem to enjoy working with you. You make things easy, as I heard one put it.”

“Good to hear. The reason I’m asking is that the outcries for unification have reached peak after a large number of people got their shore leaves following Operation Boredom. With the stories they brought, the Admiralty is hard pressed keeping them on the leash and from sending a petition to your government. It is with that that I am on behalf of the Admiralty and the Exiles of Faira proposing we have another round of talks regarding the unification of our nations.” Libra said, handing over an official looking paper letter.

“Stories, eh? Pick some example?” Runa examined the paper for a few moments before responding. “This has been coming for a while now, hasn’t it? Even we are starting to see it, though isolationists still remain. Just merging the governments will be a nightmare.”

“A nightmare that, when we wake up, should afford us to have a very nice day. As you said, this has been coming, and even if we fail this time, I have no doubt that our peoples will make us try and try again until we get it right. The Alliance has been a good first step, perhaps we should keep the approach and not try to make a final solution just yet. That is talk for the meeting though. As for stories on our side? The engagement with the Ancients seems to be the favorite. With more and more exaggeration being thrown in every time it is told of course. Sometimes it reminds me of your NNN!” Libra smirked, “But even the civilians have their own stories. The massive game of tag after the Hammerhead incident had the most impact, as ours and yours had to cooperate on a massive scale. And everyone saw it work. No preparation, just nations helping each other in an uncertain age. And even if cooler heads prevailed, there is no question when it comes to choosing a side. It is either being annihilated by the Ancients when we stand against them alone, being annihilated or possibly made subservient to the Relics when we stand against them alone, or to work with you, and possibly be annihilated or made subservient together anyway, but the likelihood is somewhat diminished. It doesn’t take a genius to see which option is preferable.”

“Say what you will, but you have to admit the NNN has a way of extracting the best out of the worst, it keeps spirits high...er. So, when and where do we set the meeting? Opportunity, New Frontiers? How about Garden, have you been there yet? New settlement, new union? Would save the NNN some work with a title and coming up with symbolism.” she grinned.

“Opportunity would be more comfortable, but for the sake of security alone, Naris sees to be the primary candidate. Your government is far more numerous and moving all of them safely would be a nightmare. If the fanatics wanted to make a move against this union, that would be their best time. We can get five admirals in there with relative ease. But, if you feel confident about your security measures, I would like to see how the construction is progressing in Lindros.”

“Your admiralty would have to pass through Naris on their way to Lindros. If they’re willing to move, why drag them there unnecessarily. We could meet halfway, but as you said, Opportunity is somewhat lacking in security measures. New Frontiers station is the same. And unless you want to meet in a power plant, hospital o a mess hall, Lindros might not be the best option after all. If you came to Naris, it would deny the remaining xenophobes the argument of ‘we’re bending to their will’, but can you lead effective negotiations in Naris’ gravity for prolonged time periods?”

“It will be of no concern. We will likely come via the Warden and it will be stationed in orbit during the negotiations. We can go easily for a day and retire to the ship for the night to refresh. Very well, that’S place, check. Now, date? It will take two days or so of reorganization on our side. I imagine you will need a little more?”

“As I said earlier, we’ve seen this coming. Some time to formulate a unified point of view will be necessary. We will disclose the place to you a day before the meetings start to reduce the probability of the location being discovered by potential troublemakers. Three, maybe four days, I’ll get back to you the moment I know for sure. Will you be mindjumping between surface and the Warden or do we arrange escort fighters?”

“We’ll take care of our transportation, no sense introducing any unnecessary hazard.” Libra said, “That said a room with a beacon and do not enter sign would be appreciated. We wouldn’t want a hapless clerk to be torn apart by a spatial vortex. How much… publicity… would this meeting gather? Can you keep this behind closed doors or would statements be expected and how often?”

“We will of course announce the talks are taking place and what is their intention. The citizens have the right to know what’s happening. We’ll see where it goes, but I’m personally not in favor of publicising it, news crews only introduce security issues into the mix. Statements would be handled by the council’s spokesman… or me. I hope for the former. Whoever ends up doing it would take care of that issue completely unless there is something specific someone wants everyone to know. In that case, tell the spokesperson directly, the Councilors and Admirals will be able to fully focus on the talks. The complex where these talks are most likely to be held is several dozen meters below the surface, I believe that’s not going to be a problem, no claustrophobic admirals or any other special needs?”

“If we were claustrophobic, we would be an extinct species. The less we have to tell before the deal is finalized the better. You’ll excuse me for not wanting any… inaccurate or incomplete information leaking out.” Libra said, silently thinking fabricated and omitted on purpose. And she knew the other person in the room knew that.

“I’d argue ships and subterranean structures are different. Dying due to vacuum exposure is completely different to being crushed by tonnes of soil and rock.” Runa jested, “If that’s all, we’d better get to it. No point wasting time.”

Council chambers, somewhere on Naris

Fortunately, the Faira have chosen to jump straight into the complex. Fortunately for them, as the start of the year brought torrential rain, the clouds no doubt visible from the orbit, where the Warden now lay. The lifeline to and from the ship was a small room, four by four meters, turned into a ‘Faira space’ to give them a more homely feeling, save for the gravity of course. But since this was a complex secret to even most of the Narix population, any step beyond this room would be under guard or, at the very least, watchful eye of the security systems. Following confirmation of the Faira admirality’s arrival, an armed escort, accompanied by Runa, waited in the hall outside.

“So, this is new. All of us in one place that is not one of the most heavily defended ships in the largest fleet. This better be worth it.” Sola noted, and all the admirals marched through the concrete hallways, all wearing a uniform for the occasion, although most of them worn a nanomesh suit underneath. There was still about 4% chance of encountering the assassin, and all but Libra and Astra thought the danger too high. Libra didn’t believe anyone would attack them. Astra didn’t care either, as anyone attacking them on her watch would be promptly cut down by forces unknown to him.

“Ambassador.” Libra greeted for the group, “Let us get to it. I imagine we will be here for a while.”

NNN, Several days later....

A step forward: Narix Council and the Faira Admiralty announce the shape of a confederate governing system!
Over the past few days, The Council and the Admiralty have been in session at an undisclosed location discussing the future of the alliance. The result of their talks came as a staggering surprise to some: The Narix-Faira Confederation! The inner workings of this new confederation have been released to us a few hours ago.

Government
Domestic policy: Both nations decide their own for their worlds, fleets and installations.
Foreign policy: Both nations will have equal number of representatives which would then vote on the course of action. Who these representatives are is decided by the individual nations.

Law
Laws: Each nation creates it own laws effective on their territory (worlds/fleets/stations)
Courts: Crimes will be handled by the nation on which territory the crime was committed.
Enforcement: Armed forces of both nations police space and ships. Narix Civic Guard will be responsible for planets (Naris and Garden IV).

Economy
Civilian: All civilian assets will adopt the Narix Republic Numisma as currency as well as the taxes and market. Faira citizens in active service permanently residing on Narix worlds or stations will be eligible for tax benefits.
Military: Military fleets of both nations will adopt the Faira requisition system.

Military
The military is commanded by the Faira Admiralty and individual Narix fleet commanders. Ground-based operations will be handled by commanders appointed by the Military council and the Admiralty.
Narix commanders take orders from the Council, Faira commanders are the Admiralty.

This new system leaves a large degree of independence to both nations, yet makes defense, trade and travel much easier with unified command structure, currency, market and eliminating much of the current travel paperwork. Councilor Ayna has also informed us that Dr. Hadrian Ragaros, former administrator of the Blackhole Outpost, has been selected as Garden IVs first governor. Garden’s governors, subservient to the Council, will be appointed by the Council until a Garden attains a sufficient number of permanent residents following the completion of Lindros’ core. The governor is expected to be a part of the decision making proccess of the Confederation along with Faira civilian admirals.

Transfer system fortifications
Construction of a Fortress-class installation has started in the Transfer system to better secure this sole gateway to our home systems. The installation, Transfer'Juno, is expected to begin operations in early 2186. The station is likely to become the permanent home of the Second and Fifth Fleets upon its completion.

Historical archive

2182 / I - Narix ship classes and designations unified with the Faira to CNX (Corvette -> Cruiser, Frigate -> Corvette, Cruiser -> Frigate).
2182 / I - Narix fleets redesignated (First - Defender, Second - Lancer, Third - Inventor, Fourth - Worker, Fifth - Scout)
2182 / IV - All capital ships of the Strike fleet as well as replacement for the CFFG Curious complete.
2182 / IV - All of Scout Fleet’s Guardians retired and replaced by six Privateer-class corvettes.
2186 / I - Transfer’Juno and Exodus’Erea complete. Construction of Exodus’Dea harbor ship started. Faira resource stocks nearing depletion. Safety stocks defined, putting the completion of the harbor ship as far as 2189 / VII.
2186 / II - Transfer’Juno operational. Lancer Fleet relocated to Transfer.

Transfer outbound node

The years dragged on. Far someone with infinite lifespan, Cygnus was a Faira of little patience. The lack of will to move forward without a proper base in their backs was a nightmare, and Vanguard fleet was left with a patrol duty in Transfer and Garden. Well no more Sola! she thought bitterly at the thought of her main opponent. Before, there were three proponents in herself, Astra and Libra, with the opposition to progress being the civilian admirals with a single vote and Sola. Now that each civilian ship had its own vote, Libra cleverly using the Confederation talks to push her own agenda, they were six to four against. Only Merkur wanted to go forth.

Finally, the time came to go through, to see what was hiding beyond Transfer. With the ‘Juno station behind them that could take out a fleet coming through the node to the Unknown on its own, the conservatives’ main argument was removed, and Vanguard and Scout were lining up to make the trek. This time, they were going through as one, with Strike and Lancer ready to come and break everything in their path that would want to do them harm, be it Relics or Ancients. Astra was eager to see how the XD-5 compared to a Meteor, and while in their cores they knew no war was better than the other option, they were going into the unknown without fear, possibly for the first time.

“CFD Explorer to CNFG Latanos, all Vanguard ships are ready at your call.” The two exploration fleets have made it an unwritten law to trade command of the expeditions every now and then, and right now it was Captain Ascari’s turn at the helm, despite their ranking.

“Explorer, Latanos. Engaging drives in twenty seconds.” The rank, ship and fleet reforms have initially made quite a mess of things, but the new designation suited the ship. “Stay close together upon completing the jump should we run into rocks again.”

Unknown system

The fleet emerged on the outer edge of the system, alone in the void of empty space. In the distance and below them was a lone, bluish-white star.

“Decent call on the defensive formation. Massive debris disk between us and the star. No planets as far as astrogation can see.”

“That’s not the worst of it, Latanos.” Linsis called from the Crossbow, “Thermal signatures near the inner edge of the debris disc, about seventy degrees shifted. Captain Farsa, if you would?”

“Confirmed, it’s quite a bloom. Astrogation can’t get a decent look, the debris is blocking their view. Oracles are our only option here.”

The captain wasted no time getting to work. But unlike previously, she seemed to remain in her trance for long agonizing minutes. “I believe there are ships in the system other than our own. It is hard to even distinguish the gravitational anomaly among the rubble, but the rubble is on orbit. Some of the contacts change their trajectory far too often to be doing that under the power of gravity of the other objects alone.” She remained silent for a while then, before emerging from the trance. “I can not distinguish it as any known class. Potential first contact.” she reported.

“Another?! Faira, Ancients, Relics, now this, all under ten years, how?” Though there was nothing else that could explain the heat sources, Linsis in part still refused to believe it. “Latanos, shall we investigate? We can jump to an orbit with a smaller radius to keep our distance, give us time to act if they end up hostile.”

“I think we should wait, see if they noticed us. We may be in a system they consider their own. If they come to hail us, we’ll proceed to standard procedure. If they are oblivious of us and they vacate that area, we should go have a look. Other than that, send a message to the Admiral, notify her of the possibility, and tell her to send in the first logistics package for node defense. Whether the unknowns turn out to be friendly or hostile, we will want to fortify the node. Speaking of which…” Captain Ascari decided.

“There are three nodes other than which we came through leading from this system. Our understanding of Mindspace goes out the window with this. Honestly, other than calming the dimension down, gravity might as well not be related at all to the jump node formation.” Farsa grunted.

“Captain Zana, send the message please. Latanos, when you first jumped to Opportunity, the first thing you did upon noticing what was later revealed to be the Curious group was jump to a position that would give you a clear view of them. What’s different today? If we jump outside of the debris field in plain sight, I don’t think anyone would take it as hostile action, and even if, we’d be able to hold long enough to scram. And if there is a hostile species on this system, the sooner we know, the better.”

“It was more of both the Rear admiral and us noticing the other and inching closer to each other. These people, assuming that’s what they are, do not seem to know or be interested in us, that’s what is different. But, very well. Do you have a Muon on board? A bomber sensor suite will give us detailed enough readings of whatever is out there, and the Muon is fast enough to escape should it be fired upon.” Ascari retorted.

Linsis thought about the roster for a second before responding. “Yes, we do. We could sortie a pair flown by AI to get a short look with passive sensors and get back quickly. No contact yet, but no hiding either, does that sound right to you?”

“Authorized. If they notice and track them back to us, at least we will have the contact.” Ascari noted.

Just as the Muons were leaving, Farsa reported a jump distortion and vectored the unknown ships to one of the jump nodes. What the Muons found was a debris field, some of it still hot according to the sensors. “So… folks are either doing a military exercise, or they are not friendly at all. Sensors, can you investigate further?” Ascari inquired.

“Not without a closer look. The visual feed from the Muons shows debris that might belong to two species, but without detailed scan…”

“Very well, let us go have a look. Crossbow, follow us through. We’ll recover the debris faster if we have two hangars on site.”

“Right behind you, Latanos. Captain Tausi, you know our destination. All hands brace for jump.” The horn sounded and the ship left the node where the second wave was due to arrive soon and set up a resupply depot.

Unknown system, Investigation site

“Whatever happened here?” The hologram showed the general shape and positions of the debris, both natural and artificial. “Keep an eye on the shield. Squadron leader Endera, start getting ships out to secure the wreckage. If anyone’s willing to help and jump some smaller bits on board, they’re welcome.” He turned to his XO. “Can’t wait to see rear admiral Astra’s reaction when she hears of this.”

“Bodies.” Ascari radioed over, “Vented into space, bad way to go. Look at them though, so… disproportionate. I mean, we shouldn’t be surprised at slightly differing biped after meeting the Ancients, but still.”

“There is the other species, or what is left of the specimen…” Euris noted, pinging a frozen corpse missing some appendages on the screen. “Should we… recover them? And for study, or for burial?” She proposed an ethical question.

“Take only debris that doesn’t contain any large masses of organic material, and put them under quarantine. We do not know what kind of-”

“Captain! Destroyer-size signature just came through one of the nodes!” the Oracle shouted out of a sudden, “Oh stars! Smaller jump signatures, vectoring them ot the Transfer node and here!”

“Get a message to the Admiral, tell her she might have incoming! Recover all craft and head back to the node! Warm up the guns!” the Captain ordered.

"It's only painful for ten, twenty seconds, then it knocks you out. That's why you wear vac suits." Too soon perhaps, but true nonetheless. Then the destroyer appeared and it occurred to Linsis maybe it was a good thing his crew had them. Very few craft had made it out of the hangars and most were already back. “Helm, jump in forty seconds.”

Back at the node...

The commander was at a loss for words. He could clearly see debris of several cargo pods, at least two Plunderers and what appeared to be the gutted remains of a Nebula. An almost undamaged Swarmer turret could be seen, but the ship it belonged to was nowhere in sight.

“Get on the line with the Admiral.” he finally hissed through his teeth. “Now they’ve done it. Start picking up the debris, maybe there’s something to be learned from it. Captain Farsa, any survivors at all? Anyone?”

“I… Negative. No mindspace signals other than our own. That… that was the CFCR Ascension… Engineering reports that the damage is consistent with nuclear blasts. Somebody bombed our ships, probably before they could raise the shields. They must have jumped right on top of them.” The Oracle said, her face twisted in a mixture of sadness and anger.

Moments later, the Explorer came through the node. “Captain Ascari, I want the jump navigation to the unknown Destroyer. Please oversee the recovery efforts. Strike fleet has been notified and the Warrior is on the way. We will hold the fort and gather intelligence while they hunt down whoever did this.” Cygnus said, her tone dark.

“Warpick 2 here,” one of the Plunderers called, “We’ve found debris of a Guardian, nameplate says CNCR Acria, several charred bodies in space, commencing retrieval.”

“Sensors, oracle, do we know anything about the enemy other than their subspace paths?” Ascari asked, sending the requested data to the Explorer. “We’re clearing refrigerated storage to recover the bodies. What of Lancer Fleet, are they holding the Transfer side of the corridor?”

“Admiral, I assume the Crossbow is to rejoin the Strike Fleet once they arrive?” Linsis inquired, thankful he didn’t know anyone aboard the unfortunate ships. “Is it better or worse these are not the Ancients? At least with them you expect it. Are we the only damn races in this galaxy that don’t want to be the only race in the galaxy, period?” he vented to no one in particular.

They were fighting someone. Perhaps that someone could be a friendly. Until then, stay sharp. They might be just as bad.” The admiral noted, “Lancer is done refueling and is undocking as we speak. They will come through as soon as we vacate the area. Crossbow, I have orders for you from the Rear admiral. You are to jump to the site of the battle and conduct a firing test against the larger chunks of debris. We could use knowing how effective our weapons would be before we pick a fight.”

The Crossbow started to move away from the node to give Vanguard a bit of space. “Squadron leader, prepare a few strike craft to take part in the firing tests, assign rookie pilots and relay the orders for them. Understood, admiral. How much time do we have until the Warrior arrives?”

“They are traveling from Garden, so about half an hour before they get here, forty five minutes before they are ready to engage. Admiral Zorea will likely be ready to engage sooner. I do not know if they intend to wait for Strike. In the meantime - Captain Ascari, we need the bodies of the unknowns studied. I want to know if there is a chemical or biological method of attack. All oracles, stay sharp, watch out for that destroyer - Especially you, Crossbow. They might not take kindly to their graveyard being picked and prodded. Studious group is available for you as reinforcements.”

“We’ll keep that in mind, thank you, we’re heading out now. Shall we pick up more of their dead while we are there?”

“Chief medical officer is about to start autopsy on one of the more intact bodies, the deformed freak one. We will let you know as soon as she is done.” the Latanos reported. “Suffice to say the suit is quite tough to crack, marines will examine and perform penetration tests on it when they get the whole thing off.”

“Burn them all for what I care, Commander. We already have enough, and if not, there will be plenty more. The admiralty has called for war, and I can’t imagine the councilors not agreeing, not after such unprovoked aggression.” Cygnus called over, her anger getting the better of her.

Meanwhile on the Vasudan ship, PVD Typhon

“Battlemaster, the flight has returned. The depot have been neutralized, however, the acolytes report that the defending ships did not look like any Terran or Vasudan ship seen before. They executed standing orders, to clear the system of unauthorized forces.” The flight leader reported to the Ship’s commander.

“Perhaps the Terrans have deployed new classes of ships, or perhaps used an aging design due to shipping shortage. No matter, we shall investigate the wreckage after we secure-”

“Battlemaster!” A technician ran into the debriefing room, “There is much activity around the depot site! An antire fleet has just jumped in, reading one large and several smaller destroyer level signatures! We have pointed subspace sensors in the area for a deep scan, there is an uncharted jump node!”

The battlemaster suddenly looked disturbed. “Launch Capricorn wing, flying Horus interceptors. We need an IFF on the vessels. If the Terrans found a new route into Vega and brought another fleet, we will need to call for reinforcements.” He had a gut feeling though that it would not be the case. And if not, then praise be all the Saints, he hoped they have not just murdered new species.

asudan debris fieldUnknown debris field

“Jump flash, consistent with Narix drive! Four strikecraft, heading on a parallel course. They are attempting to scan us, should we raise shields?” The Crossbow’s sector controller announced. “Visual on TacMap.”



“Yeah, about ten seconds ago, those aren’t ours. Shield up, abort weapons testing, hold fire, interceptors standby. What can you tell me about those ships?” Their appearance was consistent with some of the debris. Three engines, sleek profile, four guns. And a canopy? First weak spot identified, assuming one could land a hit. Their drives seemed to work in a similar manner to their own, which meant both sides likely wouldn’t have any trouble tracking each others jumps. The Faira drives might be an advantage here. No visual cues that would betray a shielding system either. “Do not fire.” he reminded the crew, “I know their crimes, but perhaps no more blood needs to be spilled.”

“The admiral did say ‘burn them’. Although I tend to agree with not aiming at them until they fire at us, I feel I must stress the importance of that weapon test. We will not get another opportunity like this before we actually engage them in battl-” Farsa fell silent, “Nevermind, they just turned tail. I doubt they could get through the shield, although now they might know we have them.” The XO said.

“Cowards. Wipe out a nearly defenseless depot and then hide. Captain Farsa, stay alert. Let’s continue with the weapons tests.” he switched channels. “Explorer, Crossbow, quick update: We’ve just encountered four unknown fighters visually consistent with some of this debris. The unknowns attempted to scan us and ran as soon as we put up our shield. We’re about to begin the weapons tests, out.”

“Same here, four apiece. We’ve mindjumped one into our hangar and shot it full of plasma bolts before it could blast away. The pilot is alive, we’re waiting for rear admiral Astra to conduct the interrogation. One way or the other, they’ll listen to what we have to say. There are plenty of wrathful sorrows that need to be conveyed onto their government. Continue with your test, and stand your ground if that destroyer moves against you. We are but a few seconds away, and ours will not run!” Cygnus shared the developments next to the Node.

If he wasn’t so furious at that moment, he would have applauded the admiral’s tactics. “If it doesn’t talk, I suggest half a bottle of Fersom. And if you decide to get physical, give him a good punch for me. What’s the status of the fighter, anything worth something left of it?”

“Will do, Commander. And no, I don’t think there is anything worth looking at. Lasers and missiles with chemical explosive warheads for weapons, no shield, armor… well, structural really, the Explorer’s crew brought it down with suit mounted weaponry and anti-intruder countermeasures. The foam seems to just be the end-all in these situations, in this case it disabled the engines. We’ll keep you posted if we make a breakthrough. Admiral Zorea will be through any second now.”

As if on cue, Lancer fleet arrived, complete with both of its carriers and several salvage ships. “What do we know, any new developments?” The whole fleet was tense, adopting a loose formation and heading away from the node to let them use their jump drives. Strike craft were fueled and loaded in their launch bays, their pilots sitting around them in full kit. “Strike fleet isn’t far behind. The assembly demands vengeance and as far as I heard, the people agree.”

“We have one of them captured waiting for questioning. Their strikecraft is as weak as our old drones, the Crossbow is about to tell us more about their ships. The destroyer seems to be guarding their node just like we are. Are you waiting for Strike, or do you want to go have a personal word with them immediately?” Cygnus shared and asked.

“Shall send an intelligence officer to help? I’m tempted to go right away, but I’d rather wait for the rear admiral. If they see they’ve pissed off not one, but two species united, they’ll think twice before doing anything stupid. More stupid than they already have, anyway. What do we know about their numbers in this system, aside from the destroyer?”

“Then the officer is unnecessary. We are having trouble deciphering anything from their language on our own, let’s see if the master of gizmos has a better luck with her association probe.” Cygnus admitted. The guttural, grunting sounds the prisoner made were indistinguishable from an angered growling to them, and while they had structure beyond doubt, they couldn’t be sure the sounds were the only component to the alien language.

“Regarding the enemy, there are four cruiser sized vessels accompanying it and judging by the number and speed of several smaller masses around, they have strikecraft escorts deployed. We believe they are still waiting on their logistics, likely until they secured the area.”

“Thank you, admiral, we’ll prepare accordingly.” The first two battlegroups started to reorganize, the first’s carrier joining a different battlegroup, first instead forming around the Ira. Second battlegroup was meant as reinforcements that would stay a bit further away should shots be fired. Such a shame Scout Fleet got priority for new Pivateers because re-equipping it was the cheapest. “Drives - check. Synchronisers - check. Weapons - check. Crew motivation - beyond measure.” Now just wait for Strike fleet and then for some answers.

]Fifteen minutes later

A massive mindspace vortex opened at the node and spewed out the Strike fleet minus Crossbow. “Strike fleet on station. Commander Linsis, I believe you have something for me?” Astra said as soon as the vortex closed behind them. The fleet unfolded from travel formation, the battlegroups splitting up and forming into their attack wedges, with corvettes flanking capital ships and cruisers covering the rears, improving strikecraft protection around the engines.

“Aye, rear admiral, we’ll be but a moment.” a few seconds later, the Crossbow arrived to rejoin her fleet. “We’ve done some homework while waiting for you. I’ll have my master engineer’s report circulated once she’s done picking the debris apart. Unfortunately, the armor of both of these species is tougher than their Ancient counterparts, especially when it comes to strike craft. That being said, they posses no shielding system, leveling the playing field. As for the capital ships, it’s hard determining the sizes of the ships from the debris. The armor itself seems more resilient, but we won’t know for sure unless we get a mostly intact ship for thorough tests. If you’d like we can prepare some intact examples for transport and ship them to you. The Explorer captured one of their fighters mostly intact, but don’t seem too impressed. Their jump signatures match Narix drives, so their FTL mobility might be high.”

“Well done.” Astra said as she reviewed the data that arrived already. “Seems like they use thick, dense plating. Depleted uranium in some areas. Expensive, but effective, the twins and P-5s would have tough time getting through to the subsystems, and even the P-15 beam might not pierce a destroyer armor in one shot. That said, that plating will accumulate heat quickly and spread it all around the ship. The quads might be enough to punch through, depending on the ammo and thickness variation on each ship class. I say our best bet is to go in with a disarm/disable tactic, since they appear to have no shield.” she summarized the findings. “Admiral Zorea, what are the orders? Any word from the council?”

“Rear admiral, how quickly do you think you could decypher enough of their language to let us make contact, assuming you had one live specimen? Because one such is currently located on the Explorer. I suggest we transfer it to the Warrior, letting you see what’s what and than take it with us. Having a living hostage could be useful. Maybe they’ll see we haven’t killed it yet and try to talk.”

“Very well, jump it over, I’ll see what I can do. We have ten minutes to cool down our drives anyway.” Astra noted, instructing her Master of Arms to set up a proper place for holding the VIP hostage. She hoped her probe would work as well as it did with Captain Ascari, but that probe worked on the assumption that there was an electrical nervous system in the organism. And after meeting the Ancients, Astra wasn’t sure that assumption held.

“As far as the assembly is concerned, it’s 11:9 for talking it out. But to quote Councilor Nyx: ‘They better be sorry, or our fleets will make them so.’ The general consensus is first start talking, then figure out what they have of use, then ask for it as reparations. But that all hinges on being able to communicate with them. At the risk of sounding like a tool: rear admiral, peace might be in your hands.”

Many, many hours later…

“I. Give. Up.” Astra growled as she entered the conference room, where Cygnus, Zorea and Ascari were waiting impatiently. “I swear, the prisoner keeps changing dialects every hour or so, and I have no idea what is governing their uses. Long story short, I’d need a year and multiple specimen to comprehend that abysmal unmitigated mess those things use as a language. If their reasoning is as convoluted as the language, they might actually have found a logical explanation for naked aggression against an unknown species.” Astra yelled exasperatedly as she stormed to her seat.

“I’d actually like to hear that thought process common tongue, that is. In Think the alien is doing it on purpose to make your job impossible?” Zoea wondered.

“At least we’re not the only ones who wasted a day.” Ascari sighed, “The aliens haven’t moved either, although we did pick up several signatures coming and going. We suspect they’re supply ships.”

“We could send a really big bomb into the jump node and just cut them from our space. There is another jump node leading out of here after all.” Cygnus spoke up. “We will in time copy the Ring, so we will be able to re-open the node on our terms.”

“I do not believe it is purposeful, would you give your fighter pilots such extensive counterintelligence training to cover fooling alien telepaths?” Astra said doubtfully. “Anyay, the unknowns are fortifying their position at the node, likely as a reaction to our massive traffic. Considering that they were engaged with another species in this system, it is likely that this system is contested, or being invaded by them, and not controlled by them. That lands some credibility to what Admiral Cygnus proposed. Despite our traffic though, they brought no other destroyer, suggesting that they might not have any readily available. We may not wish to close off such a path, and we have no guarantee that we will not encounter them in the future - after all, had the Relics not collapsed the Transfer - Terminus node, there would be looping routes even in our territory.”

“I can’t say, but I wouldn’t have my pilots talk like frequency scrambler radios either.” Zorea shook his head. “For better or worse, the other species doesn’t seem to be present in this system. And with a hostile destroyer around, I don’t like the idea of sending corvettes to look around.”

“Crossbow to Warrior. Captain Farsa seems to think she picked up a faint trace of a ship at the boneyard about two minutes ago, but it’s disappeared before we could confirm it. Oracle from the Longbow confirms this.”

Invidia here, it gets better. Unknown jump window, signature consistent with our drives, but significantly weaker, off our stern, heading towards us at a slow pace, we’re launching two Halberds to take a slow, close look.”



Indeed, a small ship was approaching. The fighters approached slowly, their noses pointed perpendicular to the tiny craft. Upon approaching, the lead fighter turned to face it, illuminating it with his landing lights.

“What’s that? I can see windows and doors on it. The top and bottom seem to have docking rings on them.”

Watching the pilot’s gun camera feed, Zorea got an idea. “We could launch a support Plunderer to dock with it. That will let us keep it away from the fleet in case somebody took notes from rear admiral Astra’s book of breaking node blockades.”

“I’d send an SAR Plunderer instead. If they are battle survivors, they might need help. Also, it is sterile environment and can likely match the atmosphere they require, if any.” Astra noted.

“Maybe the Warrior can launch one of your transports, since we’d be bringing them here anyway? Besides, your holographic interface has already proven itself once when trying to communicate without knowing each other’s language.”

Meanwhile outside the ship, one of the fighters managed to convince the alien craft to come to a halt by parking in front of them.

“I think it might be better to just have them board a cruiser. I can keep myself intact even if that thing is packed with nukes, and also control a cruiser on my own. I’ll make sure they are not a threat and then jump them to a location on the Warrior or Ira, depending on what their needs are. Is that acceptable?”

“Very well. We’ll recall the fighters upon your approach and keep an eye on the destroyer and its group. We will let you know if they do anything shifty. Don’t push your luck out there.”

On the Terran escape pod

Following the destruction of their cruiser, the eight survivors of the GTC Cydonia have been hiding among the debris of the battle under minimal power, hoping they could hold out long enough for the GTD Eisenhower to catch up to their vanguard and retrieve them. That plan took a big hit when a stray piece of rock hit their hull, creating a small leak. Venting atmosphere, they were just weighing their options when the unknown ship arrived. Black as the night and armed with weapons out of sci-fi, the crew watched them shooting random pieces of Terran and Vasudan debris for no apparent reason. It was then the survivors noticed a wing of Horus-class interceptors gunning for the ship. The unknown reacted by forming some sort of barrier around the ship, routing the Vasudans. Facing rapid loss of cabin pressure, the crew decided to try their luck with the aliens, using the Hermes’ limited processing power to vector their jump and follow.

Now, they were among a massive fleet made up of at least six ships that matched the Orion-class in size, flanked by two unknown fighters and being approached by a Fenris-sized ship. “You sure this was the right thing to do?” one of the survivors asked uncertainly. Before anyone could respond, the unknown cruiser stopped and one of the alien fighters shone its floodlights into the open bay. WIth the single-use drive burned out, there was nothing else left to do and when they hesitated, one of the fighters gave them a gentle nudge in that direction.

Once inside, the survivors donned their pressure suits and composed themselves to get out. Opening the straboard door, the highest-ranking among them, an NCO responsible for the Fusion mortar crew, got out slowly.

“Warrior, Nebula. The unknowns are coming out. They are equipped with a pressure suit of their own, although I can see no armoring or shield. The craft they used appears to be a shuttle type craft stripped down of everything unnecessary, my guess is an escape pod. It would match them coming from the debris field. Their craft is shot to hell and actually smoking.” Astra reported over. TIme to make more friends - it couldn’t go worse than it gone with Ascari, could it?

She slowly showing them her hands and turned them over, indicating she held no weapon, while her suit mounted weaponry, plentiful as it was, remained powered down and locked in the suit’s compartments, invisible to the almost naked eye the survivors had.

They were met with a lone alien standing in what could only be described as ‘emergency lighting’. The assumed cargo bay they were in had no air or gravity. Though they still weren’t out of the water yet, at least it was better than being found by the Vasudans. Or was it? After all, the War only started after initial peaceful contact.

The alien than raised its hands, as if surrendering. Or, given the circumstances, indicating it was unarmed. Given the appearance of the alien’s suit, there was no doubt the alien wouldn’t need weapons to kill them all. Which would indicate it didn’t want to kill them, since it hasn’t happened yet. The Chief Petty Officer mimicked the alien’s gesture, followed by the rest of his men.

To drive home the point of diminishing air supply, the CPO resorted to human hand signals - pointing at the pack on his back, the hose connecting it to his helmet, and showed three fingers and a closed fist - thirty minutes. Then pointed at himself and his crew and ran his index finger along his throat. He didn’t even hope the alien would understand, but he simply had no idea what else to do.

The hose was a giveaway, or at least Astra hoped. But how to get an atmosphere composition without actually cutting into those hoses and letting one of the poor saps die? Well, their craft was shown to leak atmosphere before, perhaps some was still in. summoning a control screen and closing the docking port, she waited a few minutes until the hull breaches leaked enough of the atmosphere through into the room to get an analysis. She had her screen display the atmosphere composition in a number of given gas molecules in a ration matching the sample for the aliens to see. Hopefully their chemistry and matter composition theories were the same, otherwise they would just have to take a leap of faith. Astra approached slowly, and then tapped the hose before pointing back to the screen, asking for confirmation.

Holographic screens, fancy. Much to the officer’s disbelief, the alien seemed to have figured it out. The only question was what the multicolored balls the hologram was showing were meant to represent. Before he could figure it out, one of his subordinates understood, pointing at the holographic display with one hand and tapping his air hose with the other at a rapid rate, hopefully conveying the urgency of the matter at hand.

Hoping that was a yes, Astra activated the life support system in the cargo hold with the altered parameters. Once more she could not help but to praise the universe the Faira did not actually need to breathe like these other species had to. Now that she had a look at the aliens, and taking into account the Unknown form the hostile species, either evolution tended to prefer the biped shape, or greater forces were at play. Once again the shadow of the Relics hung over her mind. Were they all scraps of that species the Ancients missed in their crusade against the genocidal species, left to evolve on their own, but with the same base?

Whatever the case, they would figure it out later. Right now, Astra was more concerned with the aliens on her hold living more than a few more minutes. She couldn’T replicate the atmosphere perfectly, and much like the Narix, they would probably find it a bit dry, but hopefully that wouldn’T be too much of a problem. At least the Nebula was a ship with pure Faira crew, so hopefully no contagion form Naris or Garden IV came aboard.

Not perfect, but close enough. With one volunteer taking off his helmet and not displaying any immediate problems, the rest of the crew also ditched their headgear, immediately confronted with the humidity, or lackthereof.

“Sorry, forgot to warn you about that.” the Volunteer apologised.

“You’re shit as canary in the coal mine, you know that?”

Turning their attention back to the alien, a question presented itself: what now? Perhaps an expression of gratitude at having their lives saved was in order? One of the Terrans slowly backed into the escape pod and reemerged shortly after, holding a yellow plastic package covered in black symbols and offered it to Astra.

Meal Ready to Eat

Whatever that was, Astra had it ran through her scanner. Wouldn’t want to put a bomb in her suit’s pocket, would she? The scanner spat out ‘Uncatalogued Narix food item’ on her. Could it be that these people could even eat similar stuff? The universe was getting suspiciously small. Regardless, she had little use for it either as food or anything else, but she took it slowly as a gesture of gratitude, hopefully… maybe?

In any event, she seemed no harm in revealing her face as well, and set her helmet to retract and fold to showing herself to the newcomers. Wanting to hear her speak to show she could communicate with spoken language, she used the time to call over to the Warrior: “Good news, these guys seem to breathe and even eat the same things the Narix do. They also didn’t try to put a plasma bolt in my head yet, or even gouge my eyes out like our other prisoner, so I suppose they are a more reasonable bunch. I am going to attempt using the probe.”

Figuring out exchanging gifts was as an opportunity as any, she took the language probe out of one of her suit compartments and slowly approached the Alien, wrapping the soft material around what would pass for an ear on a Narix. Remembering Ascari’s reaction, she took a few steps back before turning on the screen displaying the images, slowly this time with increasing pace, shield emitters primed just to be sure.

The alien seemed to be wary of the gift presented. Although they realized why, some of them still couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought that the bad reputation of the MREs was galaxy-wide. All chuckles subsided when the alien removed its helmet and, after talking to someone in a bizzare, almost childlike tone, produced a gift of its own.

A series of images appeared in front of the group, showing seemingly random images at an increasing rate, leaving the Terran crew mildly confused as to what just happened. Lacking Ascari’s intelligence background, knowledge critical to the defense of their species and perhaps most importantly his lack of trust, the officer’s reaction was merely a confused glance at the alien, no doubt this would be something Ascari’s detractors across both Confederate species would share a few hearty laughs over.

“Survival - check, gifts - sorted, confusing alien device - check, what now sir?” one of the crew asked. “Think they’d let us call the Eisenhower? Wishful thinking for even compatible communications, eh?”

“Actually, that has been solved.” Astra said, speaking somewhat broken english, a language all of the new aliens seemed to share, although she got another one supposedly called Russian. First multiple dialects, and now multiple languages altogether? What madhouse was this galaxy? “Can you understand me?” She hoped the improved image set for quicker translation was paying out.

The terrans were stunned. “H...How? It took us years to sort out basic Vasudan language. Even learning german took years, I don’t...” the confused Terran officer trailed off. It would appear the confusion was now complete. Somewhat recovering, the officer pointed to the translation device. “Who re you, and what is this?”

“A device that lets me associate impulses of your nervous system to the images you see. It allows me to learn your language on a fast rate. I am rear admiral Astra of the Narix-Faira Confederation. You are aboard the Faira cruiser Nebula. Do you require medical attention?” she asked first, before she went on intelligence gathering spree. After Ascari, Libra had taken it upon herself to drill into her the first contact protocols. Hard.

“No, but a dozen more minutes without air and it would’ve been a different story. I’m Chief Petty Officer Artyom Novikov, Galactic Terran Alliance. Once again, you have our thanks. Where did you come from all of a sudden? We had no idea there even was a node here.”

“There is, but before I say anymore - What is your situation? We are a peaceful people, but we will not hesitate to wipe out anyone who threatens us. The other species in this system has already made that mistake and the hammer will fall on them hard. Can you contact your people and tell them not to engage any ship on these coordinates? We want no… incidents.” the Faira hissed.

“We’ve been at war with those damn freaks for fourteen years.” one of the Terrans said dryly, as if tired. “At this point, we only welcome any semblance of peace. But if you intend to tussle with them, beware. They’ve fielded a new type of ship, one we haven’t seen before. About two thousand meters across, it swept through us and our escorts like we weren’t even there. But with this fleet, I doubt you will have any problems.” He withheld the fact the Eisenhower was coming. Just because the seemingly friendly alien said something didn’t make it true. “Just be careful around them. They attacked us over a botched welcoming ceremony, there’s no reasoning with these people.”

“While I hope you understand our wanting of the story from the second side, it is in my power to grant you asylum for the time being. Would you object to moving to my flagship? My engineers can work on contacting your nation form there. I imagine you and I both have burning questions that we want answered as well. First thing though - you obviously deciphered their strange language. It would be greatly appreciated if you could provide us with a translation matrix.”

“What we know has gone to hell along with the Cydonia and the rest of our group. But if you get us home and make a good impression, I’m certain the assembly will gladly let you sort through that mess. Since they’ve been quite keen on killing us on sight, we haven’t bothered to mount translators on escape pods. They usually don’t last long.”

“Very well.” Astra said and the scene around them shifted, confusing the brain out of the Terrans, as Astra jumped them to the Warrior’s briefing room, homing in on Cygnus. “Gentlemen, Admiral Zorea of the Narix Lancer fleet, Captain Ascari of the Narix Scout fleet, and Admiral Cygnus of the Faira Vanguard fleet. Admirals, Captain, Chief Petty Officer Novikov and his crew, Galactic Terran Alliance. I have uploaded their translation matrix into the FleetNet. They require a transport home to facilitate contact with their government. Can the Explorer arrange that?”

“I will take your people to the node, Chief. Do you have any way to ensure we are not shot on sight after we emerge from the node? Short of attempting to repair your ship, we have nothing that would survive much punishment and is unarmed. I will not send my people in in those odds, I hope you understand.”

Recovering from the shock took a while. The unexpected, albeit weak, pull of gravity caused a few to lose their footing.

“The sole problem with the Hermes is the hull breach. We don’t know where it is, bud judging by the loss of air, it shouldn’t be hard to repair. But that’s not necessary anyway, we can contact our ships from your hangar. I suggest we make haste, the longer you harbor us, the more likely it is the Zods will assume you are allied to us and come after you.”

“Let them. They only need to change two out of twenty votes to have a war declared on them. You have been granted asylum for the duration of your stay. If these brutes are not civilized enough to recognize that, or idiotic enough to fire on an overwhelming force, they deserve what they have coming. This way, gentlemen. Your ship has already been transferred to the Explorer.” Cygnus said, motioning to the door.

“Idiotic, you have no idea. Twelve years ago, they fragged one of our capital ships with suicide pilots.” one of the Terrans grunted as the group followed through the door, causing the two present Narix to share puzzled looks. One more reason to bring the hammer down.

Vega - Beta Aquilae jump node

“Whenever you are ready, gentlemen. The Explorer is no pushover, but no need to scare the wits out of your garrison.” Casei said, scanning over the pod.

“As soon as we make the jump, we’ll start broadcasting a message to avoid any problems. Just let us know a few seconds ahead.”

“Get to it then, jump in under a minute. Hold onto something, the ship might rattle a bit.” Casei said, magnetizing her suit’s peds.

Other side of the jump node

“What is wrong with their drives?”

“Any GTA forces, this is Chief Petty Officer Novikov, service number 04012304-125342, do NOT fire upon the unknown vessel. The Vasudans have destroyed the GTC Cydonia and GTC Midas, we are the only alive because of these aliens.”



Within thirty seconds, a ship of destroyer proportions jumped in. “Chief Officer Novikov, this is the GTD Eisenhower. It’s good to hear from you. Come on home for debriefing and a hot meal. Can the aliens hear us? I assume you’ve figured out a way to communicate.”

As far as Cygnus thought, the Terran ship was nothing impressive. It crawled so slowly it could be taken for a halt, and the heat readings it ventilated were far below anything the NFC had. Still, if the armor matched the Vasudan ships, it might last a while, and scarily enough, be ungodly easy and fast to make. The most heat came of from the massive engine required to accelerate that hunk of mass though, suggesting the weapons systems were either powered down, or severely underwhelming. Certainly nothing compared to Ancient equivalent.

“GTD Eisenhower, CFD Explorer. Your crew’s shuttle is preparing to leave the starboard hangar, feel free to send fighter escorts. I would however like to meet in person to discuss important matters.” Cygnus connected to the Terran destroyer, sending an audiovisual signal, using the codecs copied form the escape pod.

A human male with wrinkly skin was on the other side of the line. “CFD Explorer, this is Admiral Errinwright speaking. First of, thank you for taking care of my people. Their knowledge may save many lives. I welcome you aboard the Eisenhower. Our hangar is located on the starboard side.”

“Your crew was given a radio beacon, please set it into a cleared location and tell your security I will arrive at it’s location via FTL. I am taking two guards with me. If you are able, we would appreciate if you could lower your gravity by twenty percent.” Cygnus said, giving the ship to the XO and leaving to prepare for the visit.

GTD Eisenhower, Hangar bay

The hangar was, in a way, similar to the Faira ones. Strike craft, each of them even less impressive than the destroyer, were stowed away on racks along the walls with a retractable ladder leading to each craft. The lights shone bright white with some red ones here and there. The admiral stood some twenty meters from the beacon with armed guards to each side, waiting for the guests.

In a flash of red and white, two Faira Marines arrived and gauged the situation. Detecting no immediate danger, they spoke briefly into the commsuite and the Admiral arrived as well. The three slammed their fists on their chests in a salute. Despite them being of equal ranking, it was polite to do when visiting the others’ ship. “Admiral Errinwright. I am sorry to drop onto you thus suddenly, but time is of the essence. While we would have been happy to return your crew in any case, I want to call the favor in immediately. We are aware you have deciphered the Vasudan language. We would very much appreciate if you shared with us a translating software or hardware.” Cygnus went straight to business.

“Greetings, admiral. While both I and the survivors of the Cydonia ar grateful for your assistance, I am afraid sharing information regarding the Vasudan language is beyond my authority. I doubt it would do you much good anyway, as our attempts at peaceful relations ended in this. Perhaps there is something else we can do for you?”

“Admiral, let’s be clear on one thing. We are this close to a war with the Vasudans. ‘Ended in this’ could be over in a few months if our two nations join yours. Whether we are fighting as your allies, or resent you for eternity for not sparing us the chance to avoid that war or even one battle, is up to you. Make whatever calls you need to, or tell me to stop wasting my time and I’ll be on my way!” Cygnus said sternly, hoping to end any hopes of involving politics in this.

”If we make friends with these people, we’ll request this one to lead penal units.” the admiral thought. “And what is stopping you from talking your way out of this or even joining forces with them, especially after you’ve picked up the sole survivors of our unit eradicate by them? Aside from not knowing their language, not much, I imagine. But desperate times call for desperate measures.” he turned to one of his guards. “Corporal Harrison, get to a shipcom terminal and tell the communications officer to send the Vasudan language package to the Explorer. But bear in mind, admiral,” he said turning back to Cygnus, “that we are resilient people, who do not forgive betrayal. The language data will be delivered shortly. As for any potential future dealings between our peoples, I suggest we leave them to more qualified people.”

“Their cold blooded murder of two of our cruiser crews, Admiral. We need this to ask for an explanation and demand severe reparations. As I said, THIS close to war.” Cygnus answered, her voice most mild compared to before. “Thank you, we won’t forget this. Here is a drive with silhouettes of our ships and a neutral communication frequency and encryption codes to contact us.” she said, handing it over. “I know you will not likely confirm, but if you intend to move into Vega, there is one Vasudan destroyer and several cruisers holed out around their node. They are however weary of attacking us, given we jumped four fleets into the system. If you would like, we'll send ships to recover the bodies of Cydonia’s crew.” she offered sympathetically.

“Thank you, admiral. Your report more or less matches what the Cydonia’s survivors told us. Recovering the bodies won’t be necessary, we’ll take care of our own. Until we meet again, farewell.”

Confederate ultimatum to the PVE

”This is admiral Adrihen Zorea of the Narix-Faira Confederation. Yesterday at 09:26, Confederation System Time, a number of ships belonging to the Parliamentary Vasudan Navy attacked a Confederate depot without provocation, leading to loss of the CFCR Ascencion, CNCR Acria, two dropships and a large number of supplies. Worse, this attack cost over 400 lives of two species.

As reparations for this despicable act, we demand:
The individuals executing the attack, the officers in charge and the official issuing the order be handed over to us.
Resources detailed in attachments

Failure to respond within one hour and to comply within one week will lead to the declaration of war. Any jump of a warship anywhere but out of this system or to the Confederate-held node will likewise result in military action being taken.”

PVD Typhon, some time before

The Vasudan CnC was alive with pilot chatter.

“Capricorn one one, we have the small destroyer in visual range.”

“Capricorn two one here, the fleet at the uncharted node is massive, reading six destroyers, close to a dozen of the smaller capital ships and large number of lineships, about a third above cruiser specification.”

“The small capital ship just vanished from sensors for a moment… Command! The ship appears to have raised a protective barrier around itself!”

The Battlemaster’s worries came through then. By the gods, what have we woken up? Capricorn wing, both flights return to base! Do not provoke them!”

“Capricorn two two! Command the flight leader just disappeared in a flash of light, we are withdrawing!”

The XO of the Typhon approached the Battlemaster: “Could they be the Destroyers the scrolls speak about? ‘Jet black engines of tireless war, glowing red into the night, infinite in number and silent mystery…’?”

The old Vasudan shuddered at the thought: “I pray they are not, but even if the gods hear my plea, their fleet is massive. If they attack, we can not hold.”

Present time…

The command staff has been gazing haplessly at the note that was sent from the Alien fleet. No doubt the treacherous Terrans gave them a language file.

Perhaps some good could come from this though. The misunderstanding that was the attack could be smoothed out if they could communicate. “Notify the Parliament immediately. And hope they heed our warning to pay the price. I will give myself to them if it saves us from a war.”

30 minutes later

The peace and quiet of the Vega - Beta Aquilae jump node was disturbed by the arrival of the Eisenhower, flanked by six cruisers and numerous fighter escorts. It would appear the Terran admiral decided to heed the warnings and take a larger force through. No doubt the fleet was noticed by everyone in the system, but it would take up to ten minutes for all their drives to recover, leaving them vulnerable to attack.

The Vasudan battlemaster was on his wit’s end. To stay put was to invite an attack from the Terrans, that could lead to them establishing a beachhead in Deneb. Worse, going on the offensive or calling in reinforcements could provoke the new aliens into attacking. Thus far it seemed like the best option was to fall back through the node and blockade the other end.

Desperate times called for desperate measures though. “XO, contact the Confederate admiral, and prepare to take over command.”

It wasn’t surprising the Vasudans took long to respond. After all, the choice between sending your men to uncertain fate or sending your nation to a war on two fronts was not an easy one. And yet minutes went by, the Vasudan’s time dwindling.

“Incoming transmission.” The Ira’s communications officers perked up at the sound of the alert, having previously used the ultimatum time to rest. “What do you know, it’s the Vasudans! Decoding their mess, standby a moment.”

“Admiral Zorea, this is Battlemaster HaDo of the PVD Typhon. I have not yet received an official response to your ultimatum form my government, however I am prepared to surrender the pilots responsible and myself as a commanding officer to your custody regardless of their decision. I would ask you however to allow my fleet to defend our home in accordance to your stated requirements on equal measures from the Terran fleet that has entered the system, and summon two cruisers to reinforce the node to match the Terran numbers. I and my pilots have made a grave error in judgement, and we will face the consequences. I plead that my countrymen do not have to pay for our mistakes as well.” the Battlemaster messaged over, ignoring the disapproving looks from his XO.

“So it was an accident, or so they claim. I say we have no reason to get involved in their war. Forward the message to admiral Cygnus. She’s had contact with the Terrans, let’s hear her opinion.”

“The Terrans claim the Vasudans attacked over a botched protocol. From what we seen of them, I’m inclined to believe it, even if it was just a means to start a war of conquest. However, I see no point to get involved if they do not fail to meet our demands. Let them have their cruisers, and us a few of them to recondition at Cape Exile. I say we grant the request.” Cygnus said pragmatically.

“Communications, send message: PVD Typhon, CND Ira. Request granted. We expect you and your pilots to arrive at the node by means of a transport vessel with no escort within the remaining time of the ultimatum. I’m sure I don’t have to explain what failing to appear would entail. Further damage to the Confederation at any point in time will be dealt with much more severely.“

“Thank you, Admiral. We are sending a silhouette of a ship you should expect.” HaDo ended, signing off the command of the fleet to Shipmaster BagNir and leaving to join the pilots in the hangar.

Zorea pulled the ships back away from the point the Vasudans were to jump to, still not trusting of the race. Four Flails were sent out to guide the incoming transport and the Warrior was notified, as it would be the ship to receive them since they already housed the captured pilot.

The transport the Terrans designated Isis class arrived into the Explorer’s hangar without incident. Inside, a numerous guard of Faira and Narix marines were waiting to take them into holding. The pilot they captured before that was supposedly not taking part in the massacre was then marshalled into the ship and the pilot told to head back to his fleet.

“What do you intend to do with us?” The Battlemaster asked, once they were seated under guard in the briefing room with admiral Cygnus getting a look at them.

“If you ask me, we should just toss you out into space. You can thank the Narix for their legal system, you are likely facing labor camps on a developing colony. They are not luxurious, but to my knowledge they do not work prisoners to death there.” Cygnus said without a speck of sympathy.

“Thank the gods, then.” one of the pilots noted as Cygnus left.

“Did you hear what he said at the end?” She asked into the radio, having patched Zorea in on the conversation.

“I did. Thank the gods,” Zorea spat out the word with disdain, “thank Ramses Verrikan for coming up with the three-tier system in the first place, you ungrateful bastard. I agree with labor camps for the pilots, following drastic reeducation that is, they’re just grunts, but the flight leader and the commander had authority in that attack and went through with it regardless. I recommend a public trial followed by the execution of these two. The public is livid as it is. And after what he just said? You get the picture. Maybe we should call Inventor fleet if they need to test some neurotoxins, see what they’re made of?”

“Those vectors of attack should be developed even against the Terrans, until we have a treaty signed.” the Faira admiral said darkly. “You should share the recent discovery about their faith with the council, see if any votes are swayed. My XO will continue gathering intel, especially about their war with the Terrans. I will give you the data as it comes in.

“We don’t have Terran specimen. We had some, but I think buying some goodwill with them and getting the Vasudan language files was the better choice. Special Activities Division might at least stop complaining about having nothing to do. I’ll leave the Ira to my XO and update the intelligence report. If you or rear admiral Astra have anything you’d like to add, send it over. Has any of the fleets moved yet?”

Vega - Deneb node

Indeed they have. Admiral Errinwright, expecting the transport to be a negotiator, launched his attack, using the cruisers as forward fighter defense, assisted by his Apollos. The Eisenhower jumped behind them, keeping the Vasudan destroyer on its 10 o’clock high to shield their fighterbay from fire. The Vasudans responded by scrambling their fighters, revealing one of the Typohn’s strengths as over 100 craft, including Osiris bombers, streamed out of its hangars. Still, the Terrans had the upper hand so far as the Vsudans only had a dozen fighters on patrol while the Terrans had launched all of their fighters prior to the jump. The GTC Fenris was at an advantage over the PVC Aten, even without their numerical superiority. But the Vasudans were not as disorganized as the Terrans thought, despite the battlemaster’s absence, and the battle soon turned into a bloody skirmish. The Typhon and its cruisers started to move, circling the Eisenhower from the right, with the Terran destroyer turning to keep it at its 10. As the destroyer turned, followed by its screening cruisers, the two reinforcement Atens arrived, targeting the Eisenhower’s engines opposed by a pair of straggling Apollos that couldn’t do much to stop them.

The NFC forces held their word and didn’t join the fight for now. The one hour limit was closing in though. Good for the Eisenhower, that was now standing alone, alongside with the only Leviathan class cruiser they brought. The Typhon had fared little better, it’s Atens wiped out, but all strikecraft remaining in the area, including two wings of bombers, belonged to the Vasudan battlegroup.

“CFD Warrior to PVD Typhon, your time is up. What is your answer?” Astra asked, waiting a few seconds. The answer was not coming from the destroyer, but rather from outside the system via a comm buoy:

“High speaker DirAk of the Vasudan Imperial Parliament to the Confederate fleet: Your demands are out of order with the damages caused by an unsanctioned attack by the thirteenth battlegroup. You have the personnel responsible in your custody and you will be reimbursed for the cost of the ships destroyed. No more. Furthermore, you will cease your unwarranted invasion of the Vega system and withdraw any and all armed f-”

Astra has had enough, cutting the transmission. She was sublimating with anger. A mindstorm enveloped her and the Ascendant let out a horrifying shriek, that could be heard in the mind of every being with the system. This feeling would have been alien, and yet everyone would understand the reason and aim of the anger it conveyed. “Admiral Zorea, permission tu blockade the Deneb jump node and assist the Eisenhower!”

Throughout the Narix fleet, the Vasudan message was routed throughout the PA system for everyone to hear. In the aft mess hall where admiral Zorea was finishing his lunch, the message created a loud cacophony of disapproving voices, curses from several cultural backgrounds and more. Standing up and heading to the CIC, Zorea sent a suit message to the XO on duty to relay to the rest of the fleet: “All ships, admiral Adrihen Zorea speaking. Seconds ago, the Vasudan parliament decided to trample the memory of our fallen comrades in arms. This insult will not be tolerated, certainly not from a nation that claims to be guided by deities. Rear admiral Astra, alert your battlegroup, the Warrior, the Ira and their respective battlegroups are going to explain to the Vasudans that our terms are not negotiable. Admiral Cygnus has command of the system until our return. Invidia, her battlegroup and both carriers are on twenty second alert should we need reinforcements.”

“Oracle, plot a jump exit on danger close parallel course to the Eisenhower. Prepare to expand the shield over both ships. Protect the Terran destroyer. Fighters prioritize Vasudan bombs and bombers. Frigates, engage the Typhon, keep the P-15s in pulse mode, no need to reveal our hand any further. Corvettes, engage the remaining cruisers, sending target lists now. Jump in thirty seconds.” Astra sent out the orders. “Admiral Errinwright, help in on the way. Hold on a minute longer!”

The Eisenhower was in a bad spot prior to the Confederate intervention. The ship was crippled, albeit reparable, and many of her turrets were history. With the Warrior now shielding it, the crew could breathe freely again. The species that referred to themselves as “Faira” were engaging the Vasudans up close while another ship, its design philosophy much closer to that of his own, jumped to the other side of the Typhon, keeping it at its 10 and slightly below. Errinwright could see at least 15 turrets biting into the Typhon, not to mention the Faira energy weaponry the Cydonia survivors described. The Vasudan fighters, now faced with an overwhelming fighter force and anti fighter screens from two sides, collapsed as an effective fighting force.

Pretty soon the Typhon crumpled under the barrage of fire from the Sword, Spear, Longbow and Crossbow. The larger corvettes had no trouble dispatching the cruisers, and the fighters fell in droves to the many ASBs and Swarmers.

“Admiral, as of a few moments ago, what Admiral Cygnus told you came to pass. NFC has declared war on PVE. As such, we are very interested in talking to your nation. Before that though, what assistance can we give you?” Astra radioed over.

“You’ve already done quite enough, but our engines have had it and the GTC Lonewolf will spend a few months in a berth. But if you’ve declared war, we’d appreciate a node blockade to deter those pesky Zods from coming back. I will notify my government as soon as we resolve the most pressing issues on board. They will no doubt be glad to hear this. On behalf of the crew of the GTD Eisenhower, you have our sincerest thanks.”

“That goes without saying, admiral. Strike fleet will guard the Vega - Deneb node-”

“Incoming node traffic! Massive node Traffic!” her oracle shouted suddenly.

“Damn it! Alright, gloves are off. Warrior engaging siege mode, all ships stand clear of the node! Helm, put us between the node and the Eisenhower! Corvettes, withdraw back to Transfer node! Sword, Spear, Longbow, Independence, flanking positions. Crossbow, shield the Lonewolf!” Astra ordered a change in tactics. The Warrior maneuvered in front of the Terran destroyer, and they could see it’s engines powering down, and shield fading everywhere but the front, where it seemed to glow ever brighter and bleed into the void. At the same time, the heat emissions from the main and secondary heavy cannons increased dramatically.

Half a minute later, three Vasudan destroyers of older design emerged from the node. “We are the Argent Flotilla. All hostile forces, this system is under PVE jurisdiction. Vacate the system or power down and surrender.” The Vasudan said arrogantly.

“Argent Flotilla, this is Rear Admiral Astra of the Strike fleet. Here is a message to your parliament.” the Faira said, and the sieged Warrior let loose with beam-mode P-5s and P-15s against two of the destroyers, while the frigates on the flak targeted the third one. Within two minutes, the three capital ships were turned into an expanding debris field and molten metal. The cruisers gathered their wits and crash jumped further into the system. “Admiral Zorea, about twenty cruisers have slipped the blockade. I am sending their jump vectors. I wish you good hunting. Eisenhower, call for your command chain to send you the necessary spare parts.”

CNCV Midnight, Vega - Beta Aquilae node

Now this was something new to Runa - meeting a species in an active warzone while at a state of war with yet another species whose 16 cruisers were still in the system. The men and women under Admiral Zorea’s command managed to hunt down four of the enemy cruisers, capturing two dozen-odd Vasudans and forcing the remaining cruisers to seek the safety of the asteroid belt, where they were hidden to most forms of conventional detection, within one day. Granted, it wasn’t a fair fight for the PVE crews.

Compared to meeting the Faira aboard the semi-complete Alchemist, she was put on a Lancer fleet Corvette and outfitted with armor of her own. It was decided the Midnight would hold the talks with this new species due to similar atmospheric demands, the Narix atmosphere having only 2% more oxygen than these ‘Terrans’ needed. Quite a weird name. The mud people of planet Soil, who in their right mind would name their homeworld ‘Earth’? Now that she was wearing more protection than a trench coat, she was actually looking forward to it. It was only a matter of time before the Terran envoy arrived.

As this was a warzone, Admiral Libra was for once not called to service, no doubt because the first contact was far from so uncertain as when the Faira have met the Narix. With the Terrans all receptive and a common enemy, this meeting was more about hammering the details of an alliance rather than a race to maintain neutrality and perhaps opening trade. As such, and having already pushed the Terran into doing her will once before with a mix of logic and intimidation, Admiral Cygnus was selected to talk on their part. “Ambassador, nice to see you again. How are things at home? Do we have any directions from the Council? The Admiralty is now unanimously backing a fight, although we are split on what to do, whether we should defeat the Vasudans into submission or into extinction.”

“Likewise, admiral. Lindros is coming along nicely, they are just about ready to start the first reactor of the power plant and flood damage in Ernoma is almost fixed. The Council has decided the best course of action would be to neutralize their military, put our boot on their throat and keep it there. Thralls are useful, corpses are not. Some protesters mentioned acting like the Relics, only to be promptly told to stuff it, since the Vasudans fired first. The revelation of their religious leanings is troubling, but this wouldn’t be the first time we’ve forcefully reeducated a nation. I heard you’ve managed to rack up an impressive tally already, including live captives and the leader of their fleet. Congratulations. They’re scheduled to be taken to New Frontier for a public trial. One for the history books. What can you tell me about these Terrans, anything we could use in the talks?”

“Not much. We have captured one of the Aten class cruisers intact and are working day and night on getting what intel we can from it, both Vasudan and Terran moves. The terrans, from what limited sample I met, seem like proud people, intelligent, if a bit egoistical, not knowing their strength or place. Optimistic and opportunistic. The navigational data has revealed that the fourth jump node out of Vega leads to a system where they intend to fund more than the one colony they already have there. It is thus likely they will downright lay claim to Vega. The admiralty is of the opúinion that we should well let them, for the small price of free movement through their systems, so we can gain new territories elsewhere, even if far detached from our own.” The admiral informed.

“Agreed, it’s not like there’s much use to this system anyway. We might be able to use their ego against them. That and our rescue of their destroyer, that must’ve blown a hole in their pride. I trust you will handle the military side of the talks?”

Just then, two Terran cruisers arrived. “This is the GTC Ravage to Confederate vessel, we are carrying the GTA diplomatic mission. Proceed to the Neptune’s port side docking port when ready, the delegates will then transfer to you.”

The Terran delegation was led by an elderly lady with the personality of a belt sander, who was not at all impressed by the Privateer’s layout. The airlocks led straight to the storage bays that stretched 300 meters from bow to midship, directly adjacent to the crew section. One of the breakrooms was cleared out, fitted with a large table and had its gravity lowered to Earth standard. By examining the food package given to Astra, they were able to determine what kinds of food the Terrans could safely eat, and a shipment of high-grade supplies was sent to the Midnight, only to have 90% of it marked as ‘spoiled’ by the ship’s quartermaster and stowed out of sight, leading to good crew morale and giving Runa something to laugh about.

“Good evening.” Runa started the introductions, “Please have a seat. I am Ambassador Taranis, this is admiral Cygnus.”

“Secretary General Sigrid Schreiber, shall we dispense with the introductions and get to it?”

“Yes, let’s, before the Vasudans decide that it is a good tactic to use their cruisers as relativistic kill vehicles.” Cygnus said, the two belt sanders coming to grind against each other. “I understand that one of your systems is neighboring the enemy capital. Do you have sufficient forces to hold the node, Secretary General?”

“Admiral Errinwright might have overcalculated, but that is a rare exception among our fleet commanders. The Vasudans haven’t broken through for fourteen years, though they’ve tried, they have much bigger worries elsewhere. The Typhon-class hasn’t been sighted before, leading me to believe it is a new type of ship. Your men might be responsible for the destruction of the sole vessel of this class. I would like to know whether there are other, perhaps yet unexplored nodes in your territory, nodes that could potentially allow us to strike deep in Vasudan territory where they don’t expect it?”

“And yet, neither were you able to break through to them. While I will admit it is a testament to the strength of your economy and the will of your people that your civilization have not bankrupted and your peoples revolted yet, a fourteen year old stalemate is just that: A stalemate. From what I understand, a very bloody and costly one.” Cygnus said in a level voice. “And I would hate to think that this new class of ship could break this stalemate in the advantage of autocratic evangelizing zealots.”

“Having spent several years scanning every system in detail, we can assure you that not only is our branch of the galaxy is not connected anywhere else, it is also a dead end. However, before we talk about taking the fight to the Vasudans, shall we ensure first that there are no accidents between our forces?”

“We are distributing the ship silhouettes you’ve provided to admiral Errinwright throughout our fleets.” she gestured at one of her companions, who handed Cygnus a drive the size of a football. “With the information we’ve learned from your drive, we’ve taken the liberty to convert these to your data standard, you can thank us later. After the Vasudan incident, our people are wary of aliens, but they’ll welcome a helping hand, as long as coming to an agreement with you isn’t half the battle. But now that we know about it, Errinwright’s mistake will not be repeated. I assume saying ‘hello’ in a slightly wrong way won’t spark a war with you?”

Giving a half-smile, Cygnus conceded a little: “No, I believe we are beyond that point. As well, it is logical to ally against the Vasudans. We want to give your attention to what comes afterwards. As I have shared, we are subspace-locked in our current systems. Before the Confederation was formed, my people and the Narix have developed this system for exploration and frictionless expansion of our peoples. It is our hope that you would be open to agreeing to function on a similar model.” Cygnus presented, displaying the visualization of the basic workings of the former Alliance, with the freedom of movement alongside the selected navigational ‘highways’ highlighted.

“We will happily talk about this following the Vasudan’s defeat. Until then, there is no reason for your presence in our systems, much like there’s no point for us to move through your systems if they are truly isolated. As for seized Vasudan systems, it’s best to treat them as jointly captured until the war ends. After the wars end, we can talk of further exploration and this system appears feasible. I am more interested in what you can bring to the table, or shall I say ‘War room’?”

“The fleets currently present in Vega are two of our attack fleets, and two of our exploration fleets that can be used in offense operations if need be. It seems that even in power saving mode of operation, our ships are capable of overpowering Vasudan equivalents one on one. That said, we were rather taken aback at how many destroyer class vessels the Vasudans were capable of fielding on moment’s notice. It suggests they have vast numbers on their disposal, although I believe you would be able to give us better number than we can guess?”

“At this time, we are aware of thirteen Vasudan destroyers of the Pharaoh class, seven of which are accounted for. Well, make that ten and four after yesterday. Their homeworld is two jumps away, of course they’ll have a large number of ships on station, and both Sirius and Deneb systems are important to the PVE, Deneb houses a large colony and medical stations and Sirius is half refinery, half repair yard. The only reason Sirius is still standing is the zealous fanaticism of the Vasudans. Perhaps the best example of their misguided barbarism is the destruction of the GTD Goliath by suicide attacks. If we could break through Deneb, we could strike at their medical facilities, cripple their fleet yards at Sirius and that would be the end of them.”

“I would forego any attempts at invasion until we are ready for one decisive strike. The NFC is not interested in a drawn out campaign, much less when far greater threats than the Vasudans exist in the universe. There is a project in the works back home that will be ready for deployment in about two years, that will make smashing any blockade the Vasudans can pose much easier and less costly.” Cygnus said, thinking of the Halcyon.

Being simpler in design from the get go and integrating much less Relic and Ancient technology, the Narix superdestroyer would actually be finished earlier than the Singularity. Just as well, since it was made to engage from broadsides, whereas the Faira ship was forward oriented. In-system, the Halcyon was more suited for defense and the Singularity could crush anything on the attack, but where node taking was concerned, it was the exact opposite. The Singularity could focus enough firepower on a node to destroy anything coming through, and the Halcyon was able to go through and then engage multiple blockading ships easily.

“But, until then, we could hamper their fleetbuilding process with hit and run strikes on their infrastructure. A tactical bomber wing should be able to run the blockade and proceed into the system. Faira pilots can then easily wait out the months it would take for the opportunity to return to arise.” The Vanguard’s admiral noted.

“Interesting proposal.” The human delegate scratched her chin, “How about this: We organize a little military exercise - your bombers attacking one of our cruisers set to be scrapped, then our bombers do the same. Then we decide what ships would be used for these harassing attacks AND it would let our pilots work together to see how it works. How does that sound to you?” the secretary general proposed “But you mentioned ‘greater threats’. What did you mean by that? Rogue elements of your nation? Or have you encountered more aliens?”

Runa summoned a holographic image of an Ancient, quickly becoming fond of the technology. Perhaps she should’ve warned the Terrans first, as some of them, quite understandably, jumped in their seats at the sight. “We had a few run-ins.” as she spoke, the projection cycled through the known Ancient ships, ending with the footage the Curious captured at the Beetle, especially focused on the Lilith. “Now our fleets have scored several victories, leading to what we believe to be the eradication of these aliens in our systems. But that is not to say there are no more around. Their destroyer managed to remain hidden from detection for months all the way until they deployed it. I suggest you thoroughly sweep your home system.” Getting an idea, she found the gun camera footage of the Claymore wing when it disabled the Demon. “What can your bombers do? This is the firepower the Confederation can provide.”

“The firepower of the Muon is not it’s main advantage though. The craft can accelerate to a kilometer per second in less than ten seconds, meaning that it can avoid all fire on the other side of the node until it can safely jump out. No other strikecraft we possess stands a higher chance of carrying this mission out. That said, the weapon you saw it deploy is the hypervelocity cannon, which is actually it’s primary means of engagement, requiring little in logistical support unlike conventional bombers relying on torpedoes. They can carry six a piece of those as well though, if needed.” Cygnus jumped in, filling them on the details. From what she saw on the Eisenhower and how well they fared in the battle with the Typhon, that alone stood a good chance of the Muon being the go-to craft, unless the Terrans had something hidden elsewhere.

That demonstration seemed to have put a finer belt onto the sander. “Yes… It would appear this Muon is best suited for this. You wouldn’t happen to have the drive signatures of these alien vessels available to you, would you?”

“We do, as well as multiple cannon signatures, just in case you found some alien wreckage and didn’t know who wrecked it. Chances are good it was the Ancients… Have you?” Cygnus fished, as she prepared the files to send over.

Schreiber remained silent, merely shaking her head. The GTI will want to see this, especially the R&D branch. “This will certainly help in our search. When can these bombers be deployed, and how many? The sooner the Vasudans are tied up, the sooner we can send some ships from patrol duties to sweep the systems.”

“I imagine a wing of three could be sent out as soon as the pilots volunteer. It will take some time to find a couple that would be willing to stay behind enemy lines for over twenty months and be ruthlessly engaging any target of opportunity regardless of the number of lives they take. I’d also equip them with the strongest torpedo we can shoehorn in, just in case the vasudan anti-fighter systems on some targets could keep up with the speed. I don’t think more would be needed, depending on how much intel you can supply on the potential targets. In that case, I’d send three wings, one pilot and two AI controlled bombers each.” Cygnus elaborated on her plan. Guerrilla warfare was not fought with armies.

“Very well, I will convey this to the GTA security council. Have you received the signatures of known Vasudan ships?”

“We have gotten them from the Aten we captured.” Cygnus nodded, “Although we do not know if they are complete, so I suggest we let our intelligence people compare notes. We can also bring them up to speed on the Ancients. If that’s is all for Military matters, I will let the Ambassador do the rest of the talking.”

“In that case, I’ll be happy to talk. My name is John Blunt, speaker of the General Assembly for the Sol system.” A man from Schreiber’s group introduced himself.

“Very well. While we have our own reasons to want to see Vasuda Prime burn, all of these talks will be for nought if we can’t agree on a lasting non-aggression pact. We have already proposed a post-war system of travel through each other’s territories, one the secretary general agreed to, but that is just a small part of it. For obvious reasons, mutual defense is out of the question for the time being outside of the Vasudan War. On another note, fourteen years of war couldn’t have taken kindly to your economy. Although we have several large construction projects in the works, I’m sure we could bring useful resources to the table, provided your side has something in return.”

“Yest, the proposed system should be more or less acceptable as is, once the proper infrastructure is in place. Since you are locked in your region of space, I imagine we would have to come to some form of agreement on dividing any newly explored systems between us sooner or later or we’ll inevitably find ourselves in another war, am I correct?” the speaker said bluntly.

“Pretty much, and we’ve seen how our ships fare compared to your standards.” Runa commented, “As far as dividing new systems, that would apply to jointly discovered and explored systems. Otherwise, it’s finders-keepers, though trading systems for other systems or resources is on the table. At least the uninhabited ones if morality is a concern.”

“I would prefer to find none, nonsentient, primitive and susceptible and fully evolved inhabitants anywhere, in that order. After the Vasudans… Let us just say we are all very glad and relieved your views on matters align better with ours than theirs. Hopefully we’ll be finding a whole lot of empty systems. Regarding exploration though… What methods do you use to search for jump nodes? It takes us years to fully chart a system. I am a bit worried about possible entry points for these Ancients, as you call them.” Blunt inquired.

Somehow Runa had a feeling the Terrans didn’t need to know about the Faira mindspace capabilities. Not until much later. Fortunately, it looked like none of these people even knew the Ancients existed, which meant they had a bit more time. It also meant there was a friendly, reasonable buffer to one side and a hostile, fanatical one to the other.

“They may not even need entry points, they may already be in your systems. Detection varies from system to system. Some we can detect across an entire system, and some have evaded our attention until a few months ago despite being located in our home system.” She made a reference to the Naris - Transfer node, although that was an exception worth its own chapter, “The system itself also plays a huge role. As for the practical realisation of node detection, it involves the Scout Fleet, their corvettes and patience. Although there are ways of predicting where a node is likely to be, it’s still a coin toss whether it’s actually there.”

“Yes, our boffins are still puzzled about it as well, more or less. We have been missing nodes left and right, discovering them fifteen years after we colonized the system and moved on to another behind it. Then there was Talania. A system so rich that if we didn’t before, the Vasudans and us would have likely gone to war over it. Three garden words.Only after we moved in three fleets we noticed that the nodes were getting weaker. Turned out they were phasing, about 200 years stable, 500 years almost nonexistent repeating cycle. It was the only cease-fire during the war, when both us and the Zods joined forces to get everybody out before the nodes shut down. Unfortunately, it didn’t last.” The speaker summarized.

“Which only means that those Ancients can show up at any time in any place without warning. You aren’t giving me a whole lot of good news to bring home, Ambassador.” he sighed, “Back on track though-” he said, knowing now that he said it out loud that there probably was no point in inviting the NFC to help them scan their systems, “I do not know how much you were able to ascertain from the captured Aten, but our territory is rather vast - we do not have much need for any resources, not ones we know of though - whether you have some exotic materials in your part of space that our science didn’t describe yet, that remains to be seen and is potentially worthy to look at. We are more interested in some of the technologies you posses, but before we talk trade, alliance or anything beyond this one war, I would like to know who it is I am negotiating with. If you wouldn’t mind enlightening me to your nation’s history and philosophies?”

“Do you want the long answer, the compressed version, or the one propagandists would tell you?” Runa asked with a great deal of sarcasm. “We are two nations united: The Narix Republic and the Exiles of Faira. A democratic republic forged by a prolonged war and a military nation born of necessity respectively. We have encountered each other as we left our homes for the first time, quickly finding common ground and forming a loose alliance. It was the Faira knowledge of the Ancients existence and later encounters with them that pushed us to unification, giving birth to the Confederation you see today. As you may have noticed based on the fact the Cydonia’s survivors have been returned and not dissected for research purposes, we prefer a meeting to a sword, although as the Vasudans have learned, aren’t afraid to take up arms against anyone who would threaten us. Neither of our species has any religions at this time. If that doesn’t cover it, ask away. If it does, I’d like to know more about your alliance as well.”

“Your nations are… united? I mean, your individual nations, not the Confederation as a whole. That is interesting. The Galactic Terran Alliance is just that: An alliance of independent systems, and our homeworld, unlike the other planets and systems, is to this day divided between over a hundred nations, although they have one voice in the assembly. We have had many differences, and like you, have waged many wars between ourselves. Sometimes over reasons constructed by maniacs. I am not certain whether religious wars fit into that category, but they are nonews to us either.” Blunt shared. “How did the Faira come to know about the Ancients prior to any encounter with them?”

“Yes, our unification was in part made possible by the violent eradication of any religion from our society almost 1400 years prior to the Republic’s creation. What is the religious situation like among your kind?” She touched a sensitive topic. “As for the Ancient contact, I was referring to our first contact with them, as in seeing what they can do first hand. It’s one thing being told by your allies that they’d found some advanced debris a while back, it’s another being jumped by three ships while exploring a dead end system. Speaking of contact,” she summoned a projection of the strange probe the then-NSS Privateer and the ECR Durable found when first charting Naris, “Does this look familiar to you?”

“How?” Blunt said, pulling up an image of the Voyager in pristine condition off of the Extranet, “It’s ours alright, but it shouldn’t have been anywhere that far! What the hell happened to it?” he wondered aloud. “Well, I suppose our boffins would like to have a look at it, maybe something can be salvaged from it’s recording equipment. Back to your question though, I doubt we could get a count, but there are four dominant religions on Earth, only one of them mildly violent. You can imagine, that religions take a big hit once you reach into space and find no evidence of it. Most people nowadays keep them as a moral code more than anything, and we value the freedom of choice in the matter.” Blunt was a little bit disturbed by the fact that the Narix disposed of religion violently, that could probably cause problems somewhere down the line, once somebody would inevitably try to convert some of them. “What happened to the Faira that forced them into a military existence? You mentioned they called themselves Exiles?”

“Sadly, the probe seems to have passed through a dust cloud or a nebula, causing surface damage. Last I heard it was taken to a secure lab in my home system, but I do not know what became of it.”

“Mildly violent? And you tolerate them?” Damn, these people were stupid. “Where do you stand on the matter?” she posed a question of personal importance. “We will of course respect your decisions as long as you respect ours. But I will advise against sending emissaries to us, enough blood has been spilled over make-believe nonsense as it is. I would also like to be sent copies of whatever sacred texts these religions claim to follow.” Mr. Blunt probably wouldn’t be happy to know the Narix safety board would fill the shoes of the Spanish Inquisition.

“Firstly, don’t confuse a Faira exile and a Narix exile. Every Faira would call themselves an exile, whereas Narix exiles are criminals condemned to life outside of our society. It is also considered a grave insult among my people. I believe that question is best left for a Faira to answer anyway, as that is something only related to them.”

“Very well. The texts I can download for you from the net, although to put your mind at ease, no one sent an emissary anywhere in hundreds of years. These days, you have to go to a church, mosque, temple or what have you to sign up, if you can find one. Why do we allow for that religion to exist? About hundred thousand people follow it, and only few percent are the violent sort. It is easy to keep an eye on them, and every generation there is less of them, as the new generations do not take easily to those concepts. We give religions a few more hundred years to disappear completely. About 98% of our population is atheist, although phrases originally referring to a religion have been accepted into the common way of speaking, such as calling for god when a person is emotionally distressed. You should make nothing of it. Myself, I was born into a religious family, but like most of the children in my age, I just see nothing in it. I found that a money transfer gets a lot more done than a prayer.” he smiled. “Put your mind at ease though, the jump node to your systems will be well off-limits to our civilian traffic probably even after the whole Vasudan situation is solved. Your idea of a transfer station to act as customs and meeting point would work well.”

Vega system, CFFG Independence

With the course of action for the immediate future being ‘Halt in Vega’, Astra made her way on the Independence. Time came to tell them why their frigate group was organized to operate independently of both the Warrior and the Singularity. “Captain Auraxis, I was wondering if you could spare me a few hours of your time. I have a mission to discuss.” she said as she walked to the CnC.

Jumping to her feet, Auraxis gave Astra a salute. “You don’t have to ask, sir, that’s what ranks are for. Shall we go somewhere private?” she asked at the mention of ‘few hours’, expecting a two plus month patrol.

Nodding, Astra let auraxis lead the way. Once they were seated, the rear admiral started by asking a question: “Have you ever wondered, why is it that in this fleet, your group is organized to be reporting directly to me, and not operate under any of the heavy ships?”

“It’s crossed out minds, but commander Mirai and I agreed it was because we came straight from small ships with vastly different duties and you wanted us under a magnifying glass.” Auraxis answered, setting her helmet aside. “How far off were we?”

“Well, I will admit that part of it is me wanting to see what else you can do. But no, the reason is quite different.” Astra revealed, “As you may have noticed, Faira fleets are structured around a main ship, and a secondary ship or ships to act as it’s hunting dogs, so to speak. Strike is a bit different, in that both the Singularity and the Warrior will act in this capacity, having their own frigates to do the herding. Yours, however, is a different case. With the thinking and resourcefulness you and the Commander often displayed, it would be a waste of your time in this universe to have you climbing the ranks in the usual manner. The Independence group, Captain, was added to the fleet as a Black Operations group. The Commander, you, and most of the other crews were selected to be here because of your talents, be they tactical or strategic in nature. Now, I’ve come to collect on that.” she smiled, giving the Narix some time to absorb this.

“Okay, that came out of nowhere.” She said after a brief period of silence, “I’ll save that information for when we need a boost of morale. So, what is the Assembly asking of us? I assume some sort of reconnaissance, maybe seeing what there is to the Terrans?” she guessed. “Which would call for our pilots.”

“Not quite yet, Captain. While we would certainly like to see what there is to them, the Vasudans still pose credible enough threat to anger the terrans by entering their territory uninvited. Besides, the captured Vasudan cruiser was a vault of information on it’s own. What we know is enough for now. The mission concerns the Vasudans, and you are correct in assuming that it would require pilots. Please, pull up the files of your Muon pilots, Faira ones. This mission calls for my kind specifically.” the admiral shared.

“As you probably expect, the Vasudans would have fortified the other side of the node quite heavily. Even the Warrior’s shield might not last long enough under the volume of fire we expect on the other side. However, something as fast as a Muon stands a chance of getting through, and has the punch to do significant damage. This is exactly what we are going to do. One wing will slip through the node, and attack important infrastructure the Terrans have picked and scouted before while they still had beachheads in some of the Vasudan systems. They stand little chance of returning to our space, hence why I want Faira, who can, in worst case scenario, kick around on an asteroid for two years until the Halcyon is ready to be deployed and smash the Vasudan’s ugly faces in. I need you to go over the pilot files with me, and pick three best suited candidates. They will need to have someone who can determine what and where to hit, someone good with plotting jumps, and someone who can do maintenance and repairs on their craft. We will also need to install intersystem level jump drives, so their secondary capacity will be more limited than usual even for the Muon.”

“That throws volunteers out of the window.” Auraxis commented as she loaded the dossiers. “Here they are. I think I have a good candidate for the flight leader. What about senior enlistee Arcadi?” she displayed the selected pilot’s file. “Don’t think she’s ever left anything standing in her way during simulations.”

“I know her by reputation. The Explorer’s Master of Arms is her sister. Yes, her sim record was what got her into your group. Interestingly, she seemed to have no qualms taking out a city with several million lives either. Cruel even by our standards, but exactly what we might need here. We know the Vasudan government is highly centralized, and quite intertwined with their religion. Destroying their imperial palace or large temples might drive them to desperation… or to a relentless war. Is there anyone who could keep her in check, make the strategic decisions to apply her tactical ones?” Astra noted.

“Don’t know about the jumper, but I believe I have an engineer: senior enlistee Pyxis - an avatar of stoicism, played a part in the design process of the Block C Muon, knows the bombers inside out. The by-the-book type to counterbalance senior enlistee Arcadi’s bloodrage.”

“Mhmm, yes, perhaps. I imagine there aren’t that many Faira wing leaders yet, considering we are building our pilot numbers from the ground up and very slowly?” The admiral asked, pulling up the list of appropriate ranks, species and group. “Only one, actually, Leader Hydri, callsign Silver. Record says she’s a heavy fighter pilot, but it should be a mild adaptation. She is also an oracle, meaning she could plot the jumps, and with some training possibly even look for jump nodes the Vasudans and Terrans missed. If we could get an undefended entry vector, well… We wouldn’t have to wait for the Halcyon.” Astra noted. “Are they on duty? I’d like to talk with them.”

“That’s three, do we fill up the second section? That would let them pair off into two sections, leaving everyone covered.” she browsed the pilot roster, but found no one that would immediately stand out. “Let me see. Leader Hydri’s shift starts in six minutes, senior enlistee Arcadi is on a four-minute alert, senior enlistee Pyxis is off duty, maybe someone’s seen her. Wait, what about enlistee Taurus? A little hot-headed multirole pilot, but she can think outside the box. It took two wings of 242nd pilots more than ten minutes to find her in an asteroid belt. And she managed to get three of them using her surroundings to her advantage. But she only has about 400 flight hours on record, and just 120 on the Muon. Your thoughts?”

“The Terrans suggested running an exercise against some of their decommissioned hulls. Let us see what the enlistee can do. Send them an alert to meet me in the Garage-” she said, taking note on how the crews taken to calling the small hangar on the Curious class, “-we’ll have to talk customization. Explorer’s engineer’s are ready to put that assembly line to use, but they need an order. If you could let everyone finish their recharge and then tell them to meet me down there, I would much appreciate it. I think I’ll go have a look at what you’ve done with the ship in the meantime. Carry on!” Astra said with a smirk. Magnifying glass, indeed.

CFFG Independence, hangar, eight minutes later

The four pilots sat in a makeshift recreational area the Narix pilots built out of empty crates and collapsible chairs, allowing the alert pilots some degree of comfort while remaining within 60 meters of their fighters, not really sure what to expect as the captain left the message summoning them intentionally vague.

“You think we’ve screwed something up?” Taurus asked her compatriots as they waited for the rear admiral.

“Screw what up, a sim run? Unless you’re behind on your maintenance log, we should be fine. It’s probably just an inspection, maybe they even want our opinions on the crates we fly.” Shadow tried to ease up the tension, but being summoned by an admiral was, while not unheard of, rare.

“We are all classified for the tactical bomber…” Silver noted as she looked over the quartet that has gathered. “‘Think it could have something to do with that? Dice helped to build the current variant.”

“Think the Muon’s getting another upgrade? Secondary capacity, maybe?” Pyxis wondered. “Or maybe the Terrans need training so we don’t have to rescue their destroyers again?” she took a shot at the newfound aliens.

“Maybe we are selling them a Muon license to help the war effort?” Taurus offered, “It would get us a better bargaining position, too.”

“That is not a bad idea, Enlistee. Beats letting them see it and develop something similar on their own.” Astra commented, as she ended her inspection and came from behind the corner. “As you were, pilots. How are you settling in? All of you are from the first batch of trainees, correct?”

“Stars, don’t do that!” Pyxis, who had her back turned where Astra appeared yelped, turning to face her superior. “Correct, ma’am, though some more fresh than others when it comes to the Muon.” she answered, waiting eagerly to hear what this odd meeting was about.

“Yes, while I would like to send more senior people onto the mission that came up, I am afraid it calls for our kind rather than the Narix. You were all selected because of your unique talents. That said, come with me, we’ll talk more of the mission and the craft you would be flying.” Astra said, leading to the Muon racks. “As you know, the Muon is currently in the block c variant, with carousel munition bays and small delta wings to allow for atmospheric flight, with an unofficial block d for the command variant. How are you happy with this configuration?”

“It’s a sports shuttle that can put up with anything up to a frigate, but then it loses the punch. The Demon the Muons attacked in Terminus was shot up. Full strength, it seems like the HYVEL might have just bounced off.” Shadow grumbled.

“I could really use a pilot on the command version, and there have been general outcries for a two seater, so a dedicated ECM or weapons officer can accompany you, or an AI on top of the pilot.” Silver noted.

“Atmospheric performance relies solely on computer control. You don’t fly the ship, you suggest where it should go and the computer tries to turn it that way. If you drop below 480 kilometers per hour, it goes either straight or down.” Dice added, “Although I don’t expect an atmospheric deployment anytime soon.”

“Though offset by the HYVEl, secondary capacity where anti-ship topredoes are concerned leaves something to be desired. At least it can accommodate a wide variety of ordnance.” Rock shared.

“The Muon is not meant to carry a heavy load of secondaries. However, I might be able to do something for you with the cannon. We have recently reverse engineered the Relic version of the weapon, including some interesting ammunition. This mission concerns precision strikes with surprise on the enemy. Heavy load will not be necessary. In fact, some of the secondary capacity will have to go to fit an intersystem jump drive. What we need you to do, is to break the Deneb node and follow through to Sirius, where you are to hit critical yards of the Vasudan shipbuilding industry.” she finally shared.

“The four of us, ma’am? Just the four of us?” Pyxis asked somewhat uncertainly. “Are we really that close to a full invasion of Deneb?”

“Not by a long shot, Dice. Which is exactly why Faira pilots have to undertake this mission.”

“You need someone who doesn’t need much inthe way of sustenance or support…” Silver connected the dots, “Someone who can live just on sunlight for… days?” the wing leader asked, receiving a shake of the head form Astra. “The Halcyon is likely the first chance we’ll get to break through without losing quarter of our ships. And that is two years away. I do not claim this mission will be easy. Staving off boredom until you’re picked up will be the least of your worries though.” the Admiral noted.

“But… A wing of these fast ships alone… The Zods are probably still going to be collecting their mouths from the ground when we warp away form the node, and the Sirius node should be far less defended…” Shadow realized what was in play.

“We won’t be sending you in blind. The Terrans have suggested an exercise, we’ll use that to gauge whether the strategy is even plausible. Are you up for it, pilots?” Astra asked, the one and only time.

“If not us, then who? Certainly not the Terrans.” Taurus shrugged. “How much do we know about Deneb and Sirius. How many Zods are there and are there even places to hide?”

“The exercise is welcome. Do we have a date?” Pyxis asked, actually looking forward to seeing what the Muon can do against aliens.

“You will have to rely on your wits. If you park on an asteroid and shut your fighters down save for life support, even we would have hard time figuring out where you are. But you will have to work with what you have on site - there might even be a way to get back sooner - Terrans and Vasudans have even weaker node detection technology than us, you’ll have to see. Silver is an Oracle - I would train you personally to teach you what you would need. Shadow is an Inventor, so you have a good chance of not only getting out of this, but causing some major mayhem.”

Astra then looked back to the bombers. “Before we even schedule the exercise, we will need to make the modifications to the craft themselves to see what we can shoehorn in once we know how much the internal volume will be restricted. We might even need to bring the Block As for this, with the external bays. Dice, I want you to shuttle over to the Explorer and start working with Captain Casei on this as soon as we are done here. For now though, let us get to a briefing room. I will answer any detail that I can so you can start working on what loadouts and tactics you would like to use.”

Vega - Beta Aquilae node, NFC-GTA exercise

“Confederate bombers, this is the GTD Krios. Your target is the GTC Hellas, protected by Delta wing. Delta, are you ready?”

“Yes sir. Delta, let’s show them what we’re made of!”

“Mace wing, you may begin at your discretion. Your objective is to get the Hellas down to fifty percent hull integrity.”

“They were told how this cannon works, right?” Shadow smirked over Mace’s private channel. The wing was hanging safely six kilometers out from the cruiser. “In that case, you might want to bring a tougher target, so Delta even has a chance to intercept!” She spat over the public channel as she lined up her shot and let a spray out of the RHVC, selecting solid ammunition as not to annihilate the cruiser completely. The rounds sped over the distance in just half a second, the audio simulators delivering a satisfactory ‘whap’ sound on impact, followed by the armor of the cruiser shattering on impact with the shell, floating off crumpled like a bit of aluminum foil.

“What the fuck?”

“The Hellas has dropped by 16 percent!”

“At them! Don’t let them fire again and for everything you hold dear, don’t get hit!”

The Apollos took off towards the Muons at full afterburner, straining to achieve radar lock due to the small profile of the Muon. Observing on the Independence, Auraxis laughed at the Apollo’s pathetic acceleration. Maybe they could sell the Terrans the Mk. III Avems, the Marauder’s predecessor, and claim they are top-of-the-line ships, it would still be an upgrade.

The Apollos finally made it to range, giving up their attempts at radar lock, instead resorting to the IR-guided MX-50 missiles.

“Alright, Ladies, Let’s show them why mounting jump drives on Bombers is worth losing a few missiles. Coordinates are locked in, we will emerge five kliks on the other side of here. With their travel time, it will be over before they can limp back to us. Engage on my mark!” Silver gave the orders, following by the Mark as soon as the Apollos opened fire with their lasers.

“Oh no, NO!!!” Delta three screamed as the Muons sunk into white and red vortexes, appearing about eight kilometers from them on the other side of the cruiser.

“Aim for the central column, there has to be the Fusion Mortar ammo rack in there somewhere!” Shadow called up, before letting the cannon rattle again.

As Delta one desperately tried to get command to enable their drives, the Hellas was reduced to half its strength, prompting the Krios to call the Confederate victory.

“For the next exercise, the Hellas will be defending herself. We are launching a Centaur and Beta wing to assist Delta. Mace wing, pick new starting coordinates. The exercise will resume once all fighters are rearmed.”

Two Apollos and two Angels left the Krios, forming around the Hellas while the shoebox with a cockpit refilled Delta’s missiles, some pilots swapping them out for Furies.

“Exercise commencing in three… two… one… go.”

The Angels shot out towards the bombers, much more suited for this than the Apollo.

“Dice, if we go full burn, how long of a window will they have to target us, and can the shields hold before we pass them?” Silver asked, as Mace was approaching head on to the cruiser.

“They’ll be breathing down our necks as soon as they turn around. We don’t know anything about the Terran weapons, so that’s anyone’s guess.”

“Interceptors at 5k.” Rock reported.

“Alright, as soon as you see cannon signatures or missile launch, point at the Cruiser and open up the burners. Target the fighters with the practice rounds, they should knock them off course. Protect Shadow! Shadow, you just focus on delivering the bombs. Break off at three kliks.” Silver issued the order.

As soon as the Angels fired, the Muons responded with the practice shells.

“Crap, Bosch, dive!”

“One, defending!”

The scout fighters broke off, burning to slow down so they could match speed with the Muons as they passed, one targeting Silver, the other hanging several hundred meters behind him, harassing the other three to make it hard for them to aim. The Apollos formed a wall, 4 about 1000 meters from the Hellas, standing by to pounce any warheads, while the rest of Beta loitered around the cruiser itself.

“Shields are holding. Sic the turrets on the pursuing fighters, focus your main guns on those ahead!” Silver said, her plasma turret blasting away already, directed by the AI they crammed into it instead of some space occupied by the HYVEL previously mounted there.

“Mace leader, Shadow. Ten seconds till we’re within drop range. Break off on my mark!” Shadow counted, lining up the drop onto the engine pod where the Fusion bomb would cause massive secondary explosion, were it not a dummy. “Mark!” she said and pushed the button, dropping the one bomb. The bomb would be undetectable by anything the Terrans would have, even being painted black. It only gave off weak EM signature, and only the Cruiser’s massive radar dish had a hope of detecting it. The Muons scattered, splitting off in four different direction.

“Heavens, their shields aren’t taking any damage!”

“Care, they’re breaking off.”

The Angels stayed on their course, realizing what had happened and saturated the area that was in front of Shadow’s bomber before she broke off, hoping to hit the bomb as it drew further and further away from them, giving the defending fighters and the turrets on the Hellas, remotely controlled from the Krios an idea of the bomb’s general area, allowing them to try their luck by blind firing. In the meantime, Beta two kept an eye and sensors on the Confederates in case they tried to play fighter pilots.

The bomb’s engineless construction made it impossible to detect by sensors or naked eye, even the Angels couldn’t see anything against the cruiser and four fighters. At one point, one of the ML-16 bolts disappeared in a flash, indicating a successful hit, but there was no way of telling what, if anything, it did to the bomb.

“I’ve lost the bomb telemetry, drat. Looks like ‘Spray and pray’ is a valid tactic after all.” Shadow groaned. “Should we come around for another run?”

“Anyone packing something that can deal with the fighters?” Silver asked around.

“60 rockets, 30:30 APHE and practice.” Rock reported. That, and the HYVEL cannons could probably knock the light Angel over to the neighboring postcode.

“They’re still spraying the bomb.” Dice observed with great amusement. “They really can’t see it.”

“Good for us. Rock requesting permission to engage with practice munitions.”

“Granted, I’ll go cover you. Shadow, Dice, blast that cruiser out of the sky while we keep them busy please.” Silver said, turning around and heading to the cruiser’S bottom side to link up with Rock.

“I have five bombs left, I could try to drop it form further up, but if that cruiser moves…” Shadow told Dice, open to ideas.

“That would give them more time to intercept. How close are you willing to get while being able to evacuate safely?”

“Not much, it’s supposed to be a fusion bomb. The blast radius is about a kilometer. I think for the live mission, I will only take four and put something else into the freed up space.” Shadow complained. “We could put the bomb on time or proximity fuse and use it against the fighters if we can get them to bunch up…”

“Waste of ordnance. Retry the drop, I’ll follow. Once the bomb is loose, turn the HYVELs on any fighter that would try to take it down. Stay at least 1000 meters from the cruiser.”

“Alright. Silver, how are you doing, have they taken the bait?” Shadow asked, wanting to get a lay of the land. “I also have some antimatter rounds for the HVRC, but I really wouldn’t use those against a cruiser if I could help it…”

“We’re busy with four, the rest are holding near the cruiser.” Indeed, Beta wing remained on patrol, the two Angels already on their way to Dice and Shadow.

“Shadow, Dice here, if you score a hit, you’ll swat the escorts along with the cruiser. All you, I’ll give them something else to think about.” she set the turret to target one of the Angels, herself focusing on the other one. “I’ll get a bit higher along the Hellas’ Y axis to avoid that monster torpedo launcher, might want to do the same.”

“Ten four, i’ll put my turret on the one you’re attacking. If you can lure the other one into my crosshairs, we’ll splatter them both, those things are made of tissue paper!” Shadow said, going full throttle but saving the afterburner for the escape. This time, she intended to drop at the least possible moment.

“Mace, Silver. The cruiser has figured out our bomb is a dumbfire and started maneuvering. Do we need to change the plan?”

“Negative, I’m going danger close. Watch the blast, stay clear one klik of the cruiser!” Shadow answered as she picked up speed.

“Copy.” Silver acknowledged and shot away from the skirmish, her turret still engaging, turning to cover Rock’s retreat once beyond the safety line.

“I’ll try.” Dice answered Shadow, quite worried about the two extra Apollos messing things up again. Both Angels seemed to have figured out Shadow was the one responsible for the attacks, weaving past Dice and turning their attention to her. They timed their strike, the number two waiting for his leader to launch his payload of rockets before emptying his own banks, trying to bring Shadow’s shield down.

“You guys have missiles right? Let them eat dirt! The shield is starting to bleed through!” Shadow groaned, feeling the heatsinks flooding her ship with heat. The Faira was fine, the circuitry and engines not so much. She made a mental note to add some cluster bombs to their load out.

The fighters were annoying, but once the Cruiser engaged, she had to put in evasive maneuvers. “Drop in three, two one, Break break BREAK!” she shouted and flipped on the ABurn after she dropped the bomb aimed at the centre of the cruiser plus lead.

“We’re clear!” Silver reported, followed by an excited ‘YES!’ from Rock as one of the Terran pilots announced his simulated death.

Having ignored Dice proved a bad move for the Angels as she planted herself firmly at the six o’clock of Beta 2, obscuring the fighter with the practice round tracers. The turret had more luck hitting the nimble target and the fighter was forced to break off, the simulation software shutting down its starboard engine. Ignoring the stricken ship and leaving the turret to deal with it, she turned her attention to the first one, only to be hit from somewhere below and to the right. Beta 2 just did not want to give up. “Ugh, he’s actually good, Shadow, where’s the bomb?”

“I am the vanguard of your doom doom doom. I'm gonna make your world go boom boom boom…”

“Confirmed, if that hit, the Hellas AND Beta would be very crispy right now. Heck, the Krios would be pretty scorched on the outside. Mace got the best of you, Pilots. We will not proceed to the final part of the exercise. The Krios and Hellas will simulate a node blockade. Mace, you will need to survive for about ten minutes for your drives to recharge before you can jump out. How you do it is up to you. We will do everything we can to vaporize you. Well… good luck to you all.” Admiral Scott out, as the ships moved into position.

“Copy, Krios control. We’re setting up autopilot to simulate the node exit and blinding our sensors until the exit point is reached, Silver out.”

The Krios positioned itself perpendicular to the node, keeping it at its 3 o’clock, right in the path of the Moans to block the easiest escape route at the cost of being the first thing in their sights. The Hellas lumbered to the left flank while Delta flew patrol around the formation, keeping Beta on the right flank.

“Damn Greybacks are hard to crack, switch to Furies.” Beta one advised. “Ready when you are.”

“Alright, let’s try to leg it, that’s our default MO and probably best bet.” Silver noted as they travelled the simulated node, “We’ll come out shooting at maximum speed the safeties allow, transfer all power out of your guns into the engines and shield, and drain your weapons capacitor if you have to. Our task is to get through, to kill them all. Failing that, we’ll have to improvise, but I’d like to hear what everybody thinks. How are we looking with the ECM?”

“If we kill our active sensors, the jammers will make it nearly impossible to track us.” Dice noted, not talking about temperature, as that was obvious to everybody, “Do we stay in a group or separate upon exit?”

“Huddle up, turrets out.” Shadow suggested, “Leader, how are we on mindspace usage, still keeping that a secret?”

“Yes, Shadow, let’s keep an ace in the sleeve.” Silver noted, having asked Astra the same thing.

“No need to spare their computers though. We have both Terran and Vasudan comms protocols, so it would be accurate. I’ll try to get the Krios and Hellas to busy themselves with each other, let’s see if this AI is worth the space. I’ll also program some of my TAG beacons with our IFF transponders and shoot a few out.”

“Exit in thirty seconds.”

“If I may, huddling up sounds like an express ticket to whatever lies beyond.” Rock interjected. “If one ship goes, it could take the rest with it, especially Shadow’s antimatter warheads.”

“If it’s that easy to bring a Muon down, then we might as well abandon the mission. Boost your shield quadrant that is sticking out, and call a scatter if your shield power goes below 50%.” Silver said in the short time they had remaining, letting loose five TAG missiles with the fake IFF beacons in a cone in front of her. “Full gas, ladies!”

The Terrans did not have a good time when four bombers came into view, ‘exiting the corridor’, but the sensors tracked five bombers several dozen meters ahead and getting further away, thermal imaging showing just four bombers corresponding with visual. Smaller, computer controlled turrets immediately let loose on the five false blips, no doubt giving the Faira a laugh, while the fighter pilots took several seconds to even realise what was going on. Immediately after, the communication channels were filled with random gibberish and electronic warfare officers responsible for the Krios and the Hellas were swamped in firewall warnings.

The manned turrets opened fire, going by nothing but thermal signature as the fighters tried to intercept with no effective means of communication. The Muon cluster shot past, giving Beta wing their taillights and leaving the patrolling Delta only seconds to react. One of the Apollos found itself right in their path, unaware of the four bomber-sized projectiles coming at him from below where he couldn’t see.

“There is a two klik long shoebox in our waaaaaay!” Shadow squealed as the purple mass of the Krios was expanding in her view. “‘Pollo’s, twelve o clock!” She reported when she noticed the poor sod, letting a burst of the practice rounds, hitting on the chin and sending him into at least a 5G spin.

“Stern side, engine wash is better than turrets!” Silver growled, directing her craft left, popping the comms probe onto the Krios in the confusion, hoping to hear what orders the Admiral would give to hunt them down, once they defeated the plethora of awful dubstep the ECM suite was pumping into every speaker on the ship.

Poor Delta four had a bad day. Despite the worst of Terran music and the ‘Over G’ alert blasting in his ears, he could hear his fighter twisting. 5 G was an understatement.

Going around the engines befuddled the Terrans, as the engines would normally fry their unshielded ships. “Military thrust, full port.” Scott said calmly. “Idle engines are one thing, full thrust might deter them. Hellas, Climb X axis, fusion mortar facing us. Delta wing, leave a man behind and intercept while you are in range. Beta three and four, recover Delta four, you’re out of range anyway.”

The rest of Delta fared little better, the initial signs of trouble being their canopies getting smeared by bouncing practice shells, with the odd plasma bolt and missiles joining soon after. The news were not bad just for the Terrans though.

“Stars! DIVE!” Shadow screamed when she saw the engine plume belching form the engines of the Orion. “That is an MoT failure right there!”

“Helm, bow up 45 degrees.” Scott immediately gave the order to reorient the ship, hoping the Faira would pull up to evade the now descending engine plume and fly past Delta wing straight into the line of fire of the Hellas’ fusion mortar. The Beta Angels finally caught up, realizing what the Admiral was trying to do and gunning to get below and to the left of the Muons to herd them toward the Hellas. All of this assuming the Muons wouldn’t be in the next postcode by the time the Krios turned.

Unfortunately for the Admiral, that was wishful thinking. The four Faira ships zoomed past, caring not for the destroyer or the fighters, using their speed and shield to their advantage. Twenty kliks out, they slowed down and broke formation. “How are we doing?” Silver asked for status.

“My Afterburner reserves are down to twenty five per cent. We’ll need to figure out a different way to do this, I have barely enough for one attack run.” Shadow groaned. “I dunno, drop tanks maybe?”

“I need to rack up more flight hours in this thing.” Taurus gunted, having fumbled with the high-speed maneuvers a little. “Wait, incoming!”

Two groups of jump points, four each, formed around the bombers. Out came flat slabs of metal with cockpits and many secondary bays.

“Mu wing on station, let loose!”

The Athena-class bombers released a massive volley of furies, saturating the general area of the Muons with rockets.

“MACE, SCATTER!” Silver shrieked, hitting her throttle. The Furies were little puffsticks with about as much energy in it’s tiny warhead as was in it’s tiny engine, but there were many, MANY of them heading their way. Her shield dropped by full forty percent before she was out of range.

Shadow blasted out, low afterburner reserve or not, but as she reached out of range, she turned around, growling in anger. “Oh, really? Can I play?” she called to noone in particular, opening up with the RHVC on maximum setting, picking her targets and aiming for the missile bays on the Athenas as she glided backwards.

The Athenas scattered like birds, some swerving in attempts to avoid the lethal HYVEL while the others flocked to Shadow, a pair of Athenas, though under fire, unloading what remained in their banks into her ship, trying to either make her back away or draw attention to themselves away from their still-armed comrades, in turn giving them a chance to fire.

“Got your back, Two!” Silver called over, her cannons slamming into the athenas pursuing Shadow. “Dice, Rock, report!”

“Dice, tailing two, shield at 38 percent and holding.” a calm voice announced.

“Rock, spiked, vector two-six-two inc one two.” a mildly excited voice called over, the transmission carrying a little static. “Shield at 16 percent and recovering, they got through.”

“...Rock, can you fake a power failure and play dead?” Silver asked as she splashed the two Terrans pursuing Shadow. The black Faira caught on, her engines seemed to flash before her ship went dark. The only thing that would seem strange was that beforehand, she fired her thrusters to come to a relative stop.

Rock fired her thrusters to shake off the Terran’s aim and cut her engines, tempted to leave the shields up and charging, but deciding against it. One of the pursuing Terrans took off chasing after Silver, but another seemed intent on making sure, likely believing the simulation software more than his eyes. Dice, having finished one of her targets, set the turret to track the other and turned to aid the younger pilot.

“Splash two! Yeah!” One of the Mus hollered, floating close to Shadow’s Muon. “The hell? Where did she g-?” Then the training software turned his dashboard off as he looked up, gazing into Shadow’s eyes and glowing sidearm.

“Three?” Another of them came to investigate, wondering what made his craft shudder suddenly when there were no rocks to hit him.

“Four, break break, something’s on your bomber!” the flight leader almost panicked, having seen something like this for the first time in his life. Mu four turned hard 180 degrees on full afterburner, trying to remove the foreign body.

“Bomber?” Dice thought, the comm probe still doing its job. “Those things are bombers?”

“Wheeeeee!” Shadow shouted into the Terran comms frequency as she mag locked onto the fleeing Athena, climbing over the cockpit and pulling on the emergency canopy release, suddenly climbing into the pilot’s view, her sidearm pointed at his head. Switching to the secure training channel, she explained: “You’re out, pilot, Taxi me back to my ship, then simulate having your autopilot turned to ram the Cruiser.”

It understandably took the pilot upwards of five seconds to understand just what the hell was happening. “WHERE is your ship?” he finally stammered, having lost sight of it when he tried to get her off. Meanwhile, the remaining two Muons continued their dance with the Athenas, gaining the upper hand as the Terrans slowly expended their Fury banks.

Shadow pointed in the exact direction, the Terran noticing she didn’t even have to look. In a few seconds, her ship powered up again, joining the fight and bringing their number further down. Meanwhile, Delta wing who was limping close to intercept would be unexpectedly busied by Mu four gunning for the Hellas.

“That was interesting!” Mirai commented to her XO, coming to the bridge from her recharge. “How are they doing?”

“Words fail to describe what’s happening out there.” Auraxis shook her head. “One of your kinswomen just disabled one craft and sent another on a collision course with the Hellas while outside of her ship. I thought they were supposed to get away from the node and hide as soon as they could jump?”

“Mu four, what are you doing?”

“His canopy’s out!”

Realizing just what was happening, or at least what the intended end result of it was, Delta four turned around and raced to intercept the rogue Athena, leaving three undamaged Apollos to reinforce Mu wing.

Taking the time to let her shield recover, Rock pounced the trio, her multirole experience showing.

“Squad, fuel?” Dice suddenly inquired.

“20 percent of ABurn left, nevermind though, thirty seconds to jump, the Apollo scrubs will still be two kilometers gone when we jump.” Silver noted, looking at the clock. “Krios, Independence, can we call it in and head to the Garage to examine the bombers? Modifications will need to be made, I’m afraid.”

CFD Warrior, Three days later

“Hm, it needs a bit of paint.” Rock commented, looking over her modified Muon with an extra fuel tank hanging from its underside like a tumor. Another tumor took the form of a dorsal hump that housed the extended shield capacitors. “Some blue, maybe?”

“Tssk. You want to minimize visual detection, no?” Shadow said, standing next to the ‘CFB Shark’, how she was calling her customized ship.Two of the fusion bombs were gone rom the loadout, in their place an EMP Generator and a pod with six anti-fighter aspect seekers. The fixed HYVEL was also replaced by the more powerful RHVC. The ship lost it’s shark mouth to a black coat specially made to absorb radar waves and the surface was nano-treated to disperse targeting lasers.

“Give it up, the fighter pilot ego is strong with that one.” Silver smirked, her own ‘CFB Commander’ upgraded as well. One of the TAGs was gone as well as the communication taps, replaced by additional advanced EW suite and sensors.

“Ma’am, if your singing doesn’t tip them off, nothing will. Then again, maybe we could weaponize it. It wouldn’t take much effort.” the younger pilot shot back.

“Anyone thought of using their own culture against them?” Pyxis asked, “Leave a bunch of propaganda posters after a hit, maybe some excerpts from their sacred texts? Or some of their symbols on the ships? Exploit their weaknesses.” Her own bomber lost the two radar seeking missiles in favor of a storage container for small repairs and maintenance.

“I’m fairly sure Admiral Libra and ambassador Taranis would have poured over those in details, but that is something better used in a ground campaign. We’ll be operating mostly in space. On this sortie that is. I’m sure those texts must have been a good laugh though.” Silver grinned.

“Personally, I think we should just wait for the Halcyon and Singularity and do some divine smiting on our own, but the terrans are impatient. They are already planning on pushing through the node they guard, or so Virgo heard. Anyway, I am more interested in the gizmo Rear Admiral Astra is building that should give us clear pass through the node. Apparently the Terrans are calling it the ‘Next gen MOAB’, whatever that means.” Shadow grunted, finishing up loading the bombs and doing an electronics check.

“It would’ve been preferable, but who knows how many destroyers the Vasudans would gather in the meantime?” the technician shared, “Although what we’ve seen was objectively bad, they could have dozens of these against just one Halcyon. And although that thing even has torpedo tubes in multiple directions, they only reload so quickly.”

“Maybe if we wait long enough, they’ll try to break through again. Whether it’d be a good thing or not. How long do you think we’ll survive?” It wasn’t the insertion she was worried about, it was what will come after it. Being a major shipyard, Sirius would likely be filled with yellow fanatics.

“We should be fine once we get through. The Terrans had time to adapt and they still had hard time detecting us. My ship is also packing stronger scramblers than before and with the drop tanks, we can get out of range much faster. What I’m worried about is how we survive the two years of boredom we will have to endure before a pickup arrives. Anyone has even a crazy idea on how to get back home with no guns and afterburners?” Silver grunted, the prospect of camping on an asteroid not too appealing.

“Assuming the Vasudans don’t adapt and overcome the jamming. Or the Halcyon offensive fails. Or-” Pyxis nudged her in the ribs. “Ever the optimist, you’ve spent too much time with the Narix. I guess we can kill some time by looking for a node, but I wouldn’t get hopeful. Technically, we could bring a few Terabytes worth of books. Maybe even that religious hogwash.”

“Should we bring some Terran-related materials to study? Just in case.” Taurus added.

“They will have to be on guard for us in several systems and we’ll be doing hit and run attacks. Hopefully all primary objectives will be done before they manage to lock anything but heat seeker and cameras on us.” Silver thought out loud.

“What if we hijack a ship?” Shadow said suddenly. “Four of us, even lacking Marine training should be able to de-crew a cruiser, and in turn, that should be able to last before we jump it through the node…”

“Assuming we figure out how to operate it before the Vasudans catch up on our plan, even with knowledge from the one we captured earlier. But it does give us an idea of how to approach, how to board and what to expect inside.” Dice looked to the storage container on her bomber. “And we can bring some specialised equipment if we want to go through with it. You think there’s time to practice that? Last I heard, the captured cruiser is still mostly intact.”

“Pros of being an admiral’s black ops wing, ladies, is having the rear admiral on a speed dial. If the terrans give us a few pointers, this sounds reasonably well. Dice, how much space do you have? If necessary we could tear out my turret and put in a few more grenades.” Silver noted, linking to Astra.

“I’d rather keep turrets if possible. And if we run out of space we could store small things in the cockpits. The Terrans wouldn’t happen to have a neurotoxin tailored to Vasudans on hand by chance, would they?”

“If they don’t, the Narix can probably whip up something that would work. I think we’re better off stealing one that is being repaired or resupplied.” Shadow noted, “Engineers and repair crews are easier to dispose of while the Marines are on shore leave. And we have the RHVCs to create the necessity to repair one. Now I’m not the engineer, but an Aten sized applique armor should get four Muons through, no?”

“Yes, that seems feasible. Finding one that’s being repaired shouldn’t be a problem, the Terran intelligence says Sirius is full of shipyards. I’m surprised you of all people intend to leave something intact enough to be repaired, Shadow. But docks are likely to be defended, especially if we start targeting them. Are you sure ambushing a ship that’s out on a patrol or a shakedown run after being repaired wouldn’t be better? When you’re out testing a freshly patched up ship, there’s no need to bring more than skeleton crew along.”

“I intend to leave us intact for the attack on Vasuda Prime first and foremost. Our orders are to sow fear to the hearts of Vasudans, not to sacrifice ourselves in a desperate bid to stop us from losing the war.” Shadow grunted. “Sure, let’s cause mayhem if we can. I can’t wait to hear the screams on my radio. But enough Faira dies at the depot, no need to add us to the memorial wall.”

Shadow was interrupted by the buzz of a mind jump as the Admiral arrived personally. “What do you need, Black wing?”

“Ma’am, do you think it would be possible for us to receive some training on how to hijack a Vasudan cruiser?” Silver noted.

“It’s not really within the timeframe we thought up. Every day we wait the Vasudans fortify the node even more. The sooner you go the less trouble it is going to be. We are converting a decommissioned Narix cruiser into the biggest bomb you have ever seen to clear a path for you, but it won’t take out destroyers. Are you confident you can break through with the delay?”

Silver looked at the wing, silently asking for their opinions.

“That depends on the delay. Do we spend three days on the training, or do we try once or twice just to see if it’s even feasible?” Pyxis asked her wingmates. “We’ll have two years to figure out our plan of attack in detail once we’re there.”

“That could work. Get a lay of the land, so to speak, maybe a quick course by the Terrans on where to stab them for a quick kill.” Shadow nodded.

“Alright, we can spare a few hours.” Astra nodded, sending a message to Virgo and Libra to set up the exercise immediately. “How is the equipment?”

“We just painted.” Silver smirked, “They’re four of a kind now, each tailored to a role. Mine is a recon and electronics package, Shadow has a high survivability, high firepower package, Pyxis is packing half a repair shop and Rock added on some more shielding to address the weaknesses identified in the exercise. Considering Vasudan fighters are even worse than their Terran equivalents, the bombers are as ready as they’ll ever be. If you’re sending a miniature sun ahead of us, all the better.”

“Seems alright. Any further requests? We can try sending a support ship on autopilot with you. It could give you some edge in the long run. By the way, what’s the marine training for?”

“Can you rig up a few drones that would mimic the silhouette of the bombers? Give the Vasudans more targets so it’s not just the four of us they’re shooting at. Maybe load them up with a warhead on a timer. The less equipment that falls into their hands, the better. Just imagine their faces when they bring one on board to study and get half their hangar turned inside out.” Pyxis offered.

“Shadow had the idea of…how to best put this?” Taurus scratched the chin of her helmet. “Shadow thought waiting for two years is wasteful and had the idea of hijacking a Vasudan cruiser to use as additional ablative armor and break through the node back to Vega. While you’re here, admiral, thoughts?”

“I’d give you the drones, but where would you put them? Your banks are already full. Unless you’re talking full sized strikecraft drone, which would almost double your thermal signature, I’m not sure that’s wise, considering it’s one of the few sure means of detection they have on you. You may do better to just glide in with your engines cut. It’s not a problem if you decide to do so though.” Astra noted.

“Yeah, Shadow is like that. Unplanned spacewalks in the middle of a firefight and all. Hence why she’s here. It might be doable, it will depend on the situation whether you will want to hide your fighters inside the cruiser or just clamp onto the surface and point it to where the worst punishment is going to be coming from. I could certainly think of two years of work to give you on top of this. Very well, you’ll get your crash course. Get your recharge and report on the Warrior in eight hours.” Astra nodded.

“Increasing thermal signature was their intended purpose. The drones were meant for the initial insertion, bring them into the corridor with us and detach them before exit. You’re sending a cruiser-sized bomb ahead of us anyway, they will know something’s up. The idea is to give the Vasudans more targets and make it easier for us to get away from the node.”

“After the cruiser goes up, the temp in five kilometers around the node is going to be about a thousand degrees. Whatever thermal sensors they are going to have, they’re going to be very monochromatic and very bright. Fortunately that’s only mildly hot for the shields and life support you’re packing. Only the destroyers will be able to see through that, and it will take about half an hour for the cloud to disperse enough for their unshielded fighters to launch, or for the bays to open for that matter. Jumping to Sirius is going to be your main problem. The blockade should be smaller, but up and about.” Astra answered.

“Very well, then.” She deferred to the rear admiral’s judgement.

CFD Warrior

“If we don’t make it back here, well, my final days were interesting.” Shadow grunted, looking at the four ships lined up in the Warrior’s launch bay. “I hope we didn’t tell many Terrans about this, apparently there are Vasudan sympathizers among them. For whatever the reason.” the black tinted Faira huffed.

“I get being tired of the war, but betraying your own kind? What is wrong with these people?” Taurus shook her head. “Have you seen the way some of the crew look at us? Something between ‘they’re avatars of bravery’ and ‘they’ve completely lost it’.”

“Well, have you?” Captain Auraxis appeared from behind one of the bombers. “A crew for the history books. How’s the mood?”

“Apparently, if the psych evals are to be believed, I lost it a long time ago, Ma’am.” Shadow smirked.

“I can vouch for that.” Silver grunted, having the pleasure of being Shadow’s bunk mate. “We are as ready as one can be to do what no one dared to do before. Hopefully we’ll also get back to teach a few classes on what we did and let some other sods do this work.”

“We’ll bring you back a cruiser and a few corpses for souvenirs.” Shadow added, earning herself a bump on the helmet.

“I’m glad to hear you’re taking it this well. But remember: we’re not asking you to win the war. Just pave the way for the big guns and come back home safe, we’ll wait for you with dinner.” Auraxis was sure Vasuda would burn if something happened to this group, even if they had to figure out how to ignite all the sand beforehand. Then again, it might happen either way. “And if you can bring back an officer or two that are still breathing, we’re not going to complain!”

“Alright. Mace, mount up and get ot your pre-flight checks, we’re launching in ten minutes.” Silver ordered, sealing her helmet on.

“Noone will miss you - when you’re finally gone - at your conclusion - sing your swansong!” Shadow sung as she climbed into her cockpit, linking her suit to the controls. Often not appreciated by the others who favored sticks and dials, the inventor preferred to have her mind linked up to the ship, halving her response time.

“Mace wing, you are cleared for launch when ready. The CNC Ardor is ready to deploy.” The old Guardian, recognised by some to be the Erixa, had its turrets replaced with mockups and its hull was covered in messages left by the refit crew, ranging from taunts to curses.

“Command, what’s that thing packing exactly?” Shadow asked. It was Astra responding: “The Terrans came with an unexpected gift. They are starting something they call ‘project tsunami’, and the first stage included building the largest particle accelerator you have ever seen to create antimatter on large scale. They gifted us the first few batches and ‘waste’, which is any antimatter of different antiproton number than they desire. We’ve basically turned the shield to contain it on the inside. When the Vasudans offline the power grid on that ship, the shield will breach, mater will meet antimatter, at which point they are toast.” the admiral answered, the smirk apparent in her tone. “That ship packs fifty gigatons of ordnance, so make sure your safeties are on.”

“I almost, ALMOST feel sorry for them.” Taurus shared on the wing’s internal channel. “Then again, not really.”

“How long do we expect the transfer to take and how far ahead of us is the Ardor going to be?” Pyxis asked. Somehow, perhaps for security reasons, this information hasn’t been made available to them. “I think we’re ready. Mace leader?”

“Recalculating form the Terran travel time, the trek is about half an hour, quite a long one. We estimate the area will be traversable for your ships five minutes after detonation. To guarantee your survival, we’ve put a timed shutdown of the shield upon exit, just in case the Vasudans there are woefully inept. You’ll have an extra minute before you go to be on the safe side. Ardor jumping in two minutes.” Warrior’s sector controller reported. Indeed, the profane cruiser started shuffling towards the node.

On the Independence, Auraxis wondered what goes through someone’s mind when they know they might be dead in seven minutes. “Fingers crossed the Ardor doesn’t break down now like the Curious did.”

Deneb - Vega node, half an hour later

“The radio has been awfully calm, Cancer one. Usually, the controllers are curising us with divine wrath when we deviate five degrees form course. They didn’t even notice now.” cancer two mentioned.

“Command has been tight lipped about the whole incident. In any case, the response to the unknowns has gone badly. The question is, how much? Are our brothers still fighting, or are they with the creators now?” The leader noted on the wing’s private channel.

“Two battlegroups have arrived to the node, but are not proceeding any further. It is too strong a compliment for a rear guard too. I am worried we might have lost the other end of the node.” the Two shared.

“Worries will not do. If your suspicions are correct, then keep your senses sharpened, for the infidels may be through the node any minute.”

“Cancer wing, PVD Hakor. We are reading strange signals from the node. Head to the node and investigate.” the leading destroyer of the group of four spaced around the node radioed over.

The fighters broke off their patrol paths, heading to their demise as a Mindspace vortex opened near them and ripped them to shreds, spewing the CNC Ardor into normal space. “Unidentified ship, you are trespassing in Vasudan territory. You are ordered to power down and surrender.”

Meanwhile in the node…

“Hear that, Silver? They want the ship to power down. How about we comply?” Shadow burst out laughing.

Having an idea, Silver patched herself through the decommissioned cruiser’s comm link. “Understood, Vasudan. We are a diplomatic ship and are unarmed. Power down ETC five minutes. Please send a shuttle to collect our ambassador.” she radioed over, receiving a confirmation. The cruiser’s telemetry also noted the sole Typhoon class moving closer into range.

“Ohohoooo, are we really going to scratch another flat one? Can we be this lucky?” Shadow giggled.

“I am legitimately disturbed by your demeanor, Shadow.” Pyxis shook her head as she observed the readouts of Ardor’s power levels, a large dial counting down the five minutes in the corner. “Camera 6 is tracking what appears to be the shuttle.”

“The blockade is smaller than I expected.” Taurus noted. “More backup is probably waiting somewhere else in the system. The area denial aspect of the weapon might force them to jump farther away. If the blast can at least stun that destroyer, we might be gone before they can do anything about it.”

“That would be preferable to them still being on the way.” Silver noted, “We really need the least amount of ships at the next node.” the wing leader noted. “I do not expect much action anywhere but there. Then they either can’t find us and we hide, or they can and we better start learning religious chants and pray that Ambassador Taranis doesn’t haunt us when she passes. That said, the rear admiral’s orders are clear. No piece of tech and no prisoner of war is allowed to fall into the enemy hands. Are we all clear on this?”

“Good luck piecing the fine mist the reactor behind me is going to turn me into back together for interrogation, Sandmen.” Taurus scoffed.

“Given the massive losses they’ve already suffered at our hands, and the massive losses they are about to suffer, I think suicide by any means is preferable to what they’d do to us. And the Narix still haven’t executed the Vasudans in charge of the Vasudan First Contact Massacre, I imagine that will lead to a few grudges.”

“Time?”

“T minus two. The Vasudan shuttle just docked.to the Ardor, the bluff will be called sooner than we would like, Pyxis, can you detonate manually?” Silver inquired.

“Yeah, ain’t no destroyer running away form this show!” Shadow pipped up.

“Think so. Good thing these things are so old, no wonder they’re being retired.” Pyxis turned her attention to the Ardor’s power distribution system and powered up everything.

The Ardor’s power grid collapsed almost immediately after, releasing its deadly payload. The profane cruiser and everything within its general vicinity ceased to exist. The unfortunate Typhon was a little too close for its crew’s comfort, as evidenced by its now red-hot outer hull. Most turrets and one of the hangar openings have been put out of service.

“Well, now we wait. And hope by the time we arrive, it’ll still be too hot for any Vasudan to bother us.”

“If you were a Sandman and someone blew up a cruiser in your face, how long would it take for you to stop praying and get your bearings straight?” Taurus laughed.

“I kind of wish we could get a camera in there. Just to see the carnage and the looks on their faces.” Shadow noted.

At the blockade

“Hakor! Do you copy!” one of the commanders of the older class destroyers was trying to reach the commander, among the myriad of other voices on the radio, most coming from the concerned destroyer and screaming. On the display, the Hakor’s disaster beacon was blaring, displaying the internal temperature anywhere between 500 to 90 degrees. The commander estimated that 90% of the destroyer’s crew was dead, the remaining ten was crippled for life or going to die soon, even if the destroyer itself might perhaps be salvageable.

“They have cruisers to spare as bombs!” One of the fighter pilots panicked, “We are doomed.”

The screams of the Hakor’s crew were promptly replaced by eerie silence as the destroyer’s communications succumbed to the furnace temperatures. Most were unaware what the temperature in the hangar was doing to the destroyer’s fighter and bomber ordnance stores. Those who knew had no way of warning the others before several secondary explosions rocked the stricken ship.

No one would fault the Vasudans if they failed to notice four small vortexes forming in the node before dissipating, the still lingering ambient temperature masking most of the heat emitted by the confederate bombers.

Pyxis gasped in amazement, manually pointing her turret at the Hakor, her gun camera capturing the frightening, yet strangely beautiful sight. She didn’t care if she had to give an arm and a leg for it, but she was saving that footage when they get back home.

“Woah, the shields don’t exactly like this. Punch it ladies, we’re holding for now but losing about a percent every ten seconds, no time for sightseeing.” Silver shared, checking over the sensor readings.

“Strangely beautiful though.” Shadow said, her eyes glued to the hull camera, showing the hot particles impacting the shield, creating a beautiful colorful map. “Alright, moment’s over, let’s go save the Federation. Shall we take pot shots at the crippled destroyer? I’m also picking up a blob of molten metal and slag, Aten class I suppose.”

“I’d hold fire until they notice us.” Pyxis advised, “And I’m only partially sure our ordnance wouldn’t blow up in our face in this mess. Rock, can you jump us out?”

“Aye, someplace specific? Leader?”

“I sense the node, but I didn’t have much training time. There is something big around, but whether it’s a Typhon or one of the older boats I can’t tell, the node is interfering too much. Shall we target about ten klicks way and glide it down? We still have about thirteen minutes for our intersystem drives to recharge. There is an asteroid field about ten kliks form the node, can you work with that, Taurus?” the leader inquired.

“I can get us into the belt, but we may have to pull some crazy stunt flying since I don’t know what it looks like. I’d boost shields and engines if you haven’t done so already. Jump in four… three… two… one...”

The edge of the asteroid belt was mostly small chunks of ice no bigger than one meter in diameter strewn several dozen meters apart. The four bombers fit between without issues. “Whew, we’re in luck, but it’s not much cover.” with the path between her and the node clear, she cut the engines and started looking around with the turret camera, the starlight reflecting of the ice creating a spectacular light show. “This war is quite beautiful so far. Can you make out what’s at the node?”

“I can see the typhon with my eyes. That’s 120 strikecraft they could throw our ways. Minimum EM usage! Shadow thought telepathically over to her wing. Against that number, the best the Muons could do was run like hell.

”At least three wings on guard, two more on patrol routes. Massive shipping, counting twenty four cargo containers, that’s enough to supply a fleet for a couple of months. Do we take a few shots with the RHVCs while they don’t know where we are? They are quite small and quick, and we can load AP to minimize ammo signature.” Shadow noticed.

”Hold fire for now, let’s wait for the drives to charge first. Pyxis, I’m patching you to my sensor readings, can you read any weakspots on the big ships? Battle damage, armor fatigue, lower than usual power readings?” Silver asked.

”You think they’ll scramble some of the fighters to the node? If they haven’t noticed us, they might be thinking a spearhead fleet is coming through. MIGHT.” Taurus ‘thought out loud’.

”The engines seem exposed and weakly armored. The two ventral spikes and the dorsal tower are emitting a lot of EM radiation, possibly communications. The dorsal hump could be a sector control tower, or astrogation decks. Other than that, the hull armoring seems solid. It’s like the ship is new or something. So what’s the plan? Charge the drives, enter the node, silence the destroyer, whack a few containers and jump?”

”We should have brought our heavy fighters. They wouldn’t know what hit them. We[/i] still do not know what the Explorer’s chief actually built. They are not packed enough to warrant a bombing run. Let’s hit the comms array on the destroyer first when we start moving, hopefully that will make the fighters clueless for a little longer. Set your turrets on any fighter within two kliks and head to the node. If you can get pot shots on the cargo on approach, take them, but save your ammo. Our primary objective is Sirius.”[/i] Silver decided.

Meanwhile…

Two Atens came through the node, starting to circle the exit point. “GVD Sharlatan, cruiser wing Aquarius. The GVD Pharaoh is en-route, ETA two minutes. We have heard rumors that the unknowns have begun an invasion. Do they hold true?”

“Unknown, Shipmaster.” The Sharlatan’s XO answered, “The long range sensors can not penetrate the radiation cloud yet, and it is too hot to send in any recon fighters. We do not track any ships entering the system though. Perhaps they hope to simply move their defense point to this side of the corridor. In any case, the last transmissions we received spoke of a single cruiser entering the system. Then the Hakor went silent.”

Back at the asteroid belt…

”Woah! Targets!” Shadow thought out loud.

”Just two cruisers, wouldn’t even be a fair fight if it wasn’t for that destroyer-”

”Ah! There’s a destroyer on the way!” Silver recognized the node activity. ”Damn, that is so bomb worthy, but we’d have to engage before they spread, and we can’t last ten minutes out there with 240 fighters and bombers on our tail. Can we?” Silver said, admittedly thinking about it. Shadow was practically drooling at the prospect.

”It’s only 240 fighters if the destroyer is capable of launching, I’m game. Shadow, can you release one of the bombs and let it drift like you did during the training? It looks like they’re all so busy with the fireworks at the Vega node they might not notice it until it collides with the Typhon’s engines. And by that time, we’ll be almost at the node. When that blows, we can use the confusion to get out, maybe even take a few shots at the cruisers.” Pyxis suggested. ”But given the Ardor Incident, now they WILL know we’re here for sure.”

”I don’t know. We still have twelve minutes on the charge, the destroyer will be here in about two. Whatever blast residue there is should be clear by then, but the fusion bombs are no profanity cruise missiles. If we give them the time to spread, the bomb will not catch them all, and if we don’t, it is not going to take out their launching capabilities. How confident are we in our shields?” Shadow analyzed.

”Shields, I’d say yes, but I really don’t like the idea of attacking like this without charged drives. Maybe we might want to pass this up, leave them for the Halcyon in two years and make sure they have nowhere to berth and repair for a few months?”

Silver was silent for a minute, thinking. [i]”That’s an… interesting point. They are going to get their shipbuilding up after we hit it in months, the Halcyon won’t launch within two years… Ladies, what if we are going about this all wrong? Would it not be better to hide for nine months and then go on a rampage just prior to the attack, so they are at their weakest? Can we stay undetected for that long if we do recon flights in the meantime? Maybe we should give this one up and stay quiet.”

Pyxis was stunned. ”How did we not realize earlier? But it gives us the advantage! We slip into Sirius undetected now and observe, learn everything there is about the system. Think of everything we can learn: Patrol paths around our targets, previously unknown ship classes, their signatures, mindspace echoes, maybe we can even listen in on low-priority communications. We change this from a deep strike with elements of recon into recon with a grand finale. It’d make our attacks, and the entire war, much easier. Besides, if the Sirius shipyards start blowing up, the Sandmen will investigate, possibly leaving the nodes weakened after two years of inactivity.”

”My bloodlust is so not happy with you guys, but it makes sense. If we can find a large enough rock to hollow with weapons fire, we might even make a comfortable garage out of it that would help avoiding detection. I guess I’m game. Did anyone bring some of those? It’s going to be a long wait. Dice?” Shadow complained, but voted a yes anyway.

”I DID suggest books. Not a lot of materials to make anything. I heard of a Terran game that only required an eight by eight grid and two sets of colored pebbles, we might be able to make that.”

”We can repurpose my plasma turret to a foundry, if we find rocks with materials we need. I’ll be in mindspace most of the time anyway. I have twenty one months to learn every echo I will ever need in this war, I am not passing that up. In either case, just to have a space to stretch while not being tethered to the ship might be nice. Alright, Mace, let’s wait for the traffic to get low and pass through hopefully undetected. I’ll leave a time-delayed comm buoy to send a message back to command about the yield of the Ardor and about the change in plan.” Silver decided. ”Speaking of which, here it comes, Typhon number 3. Where the hell are they getting the resources for so many destroyers? If we didn’t find the Lucifer, we would have been screwed the second we poked out antennae out of the Nebula. And they could support this for fourteen years!”

”Maybe they’re finally starting to feel it now.” Taurus hoped. It would’ve been nice to jump to Sirius and find empty shipyards with no resources as far as the eye could see. ”Or we’ll find a ship the size of the Singularity shaped like a giant temple or something. In any case, any destroyer lost is good news for us, and that Typhon is number five already. Thay have to feel that.” because if losing five destroyers wasn’t a major problem for the Vasudans, what was the point in trying?

”Drives in ten.” Pyxis reported.

NFC command group teleconference, shortly after Mace wing”s databurst was received…

“Well, it is quite the deviation from the plan, but having had time to think on this, I think it actually suits our purposes rather well.” Cygnus said from on board of the Explorer. “ We can now pressure the Terrans to launch the invasion they want to launch anyway a few weeks before Mace”s attack. That way we are guaranteed to knock some Vasudan ships out from the fight, whether the Terrans succeed or not. What do you think, admirals?” the Faira proposed a plan.

“While I have some reservations about using the Earthers like this,” Libra grunted from the ‘Hexus, “it is as you said - They are set to throw themselves into the Vasudan blockade regardless of what we do. Like this, their sacrifice will at least have a meaning and lasting impact. All that assuming either the Singularity or the Halcyon will be ready. Will they?”

“I’m afraid the Singularity will still be far from operational readiness.” Astra chimed in from the Warrior,” Were we to devote all resources to the Halcyon, we might make the window, but I stress that the Halcyon can not stop a Lucifer class, and two years is time enough to encounter the Ancients.” The ascendant worried.

“We could use it to our advantage on more than one front.” Admiral Lindres noted from the Amare, “They are bound to suffer casualties. Any form of support or relief prior or following the attack will buy us some good will. And if not, the argument remains and it would paint them as ungrateful bastards.”

“I for one am looking for peaceful relations. Compared to any of the newly discovered races, we are a tiny nation even combined as the Confederation.” Libra argued, “Besides, goodwill gestures require something to be given, and we were concerned about material shortage.”

“Unless the help comes as intellectual property…” Astra hypothesized. “Mace wing suggested selling the block A Muon design to the terrans, and they have resources in spades anyway. They, much like us, have trouble consuming them fast enough, so we might even strike a deal for some industrial help with the Halcyon, and they should take it, because they will be able to build more firepower for the same man hours. Opinions?”

“I doubt they would agree to having their workers shipped off to an uncharted system by a race they’ve just encountered.” Zorea chimed in. “But I agree about the Muons. They should be able to build enough to be of considerable help in their attack, especially after Mace wing’s performance. What do we ask in return?”

“We can have them build components or subassemblies for the Halcyon. Keeps our systems and most of the tech secret, but helps us the most in what we don't have: Factories. The industrial might Earth has to have to keep up a war in space for 14 years has to be colossal.” Astra noted.

“Very well, Admiral Libra, please get on the exchange with Ambassador Taranis. Back to the report Mace wing got through: I am considering assigning several of our scientists to aid in project Tsunami. If we contribute, perhaps the Terrans will grant us access to their accelerator. We should also start constructing our own, perhaps at Transfer”Juno? We will eventually want to switch to antimatter power generation sooner or later.” Cygnus proposed.

“Although Transfer’Juno is well defended, it is also the first known stop should any force invade our system. The Opportunity system has several planetside sites that could be used. Placing it in the Garden system would put it close to both Garden and Naris, meaning workers wouldn’t be an issue.” Ascari noted.

“If we’re worried about invaders, we might as well put it somewhere behind the Naris-Garden node, given its unique properties, not to mention the Defender Fleet.” The respective fleet’s commander added.

“Opportunity sounds reasonable. Well defended, everything solid mined in system, gasses one jump away in the Nebula, far from population centers in case of a containment breach. Very well, shall we order this structure in the private sector? I believe they can deliver in sufficient quality and state run shipyards are better tasked with shipbuilding.” Cygnus suggested, “Anything further to discuss?”

Asteroid base ‘In Ardor clad’, 12 months later

“Good grief. The Zods are still doing absolutely nothing of interest whatsoever. Ferry the rocks in. Melt them down. Build ships. No fleets coming through, no unusual classes being built, no military exercise, hell, not even a good terrorist attack.” Shadow complained as soon as she parked, having returned to the safety of their cavernous home.

The rock they were using as a hideout was as barren as a desert, but it had a large natural cave that fit the four bombers. With some assistance from the engineer, they even carved a bit of home into the walls.

Two months ago, Shadow found a derelict Vasudan transport they stripped for parts and set up a listening post. “Anything good on the radio?”

“No hails from either the Halcyon or the Singularity, so not really. The translator is a piece of garbage, I’ve been trying to learn Sandspeak, but it makes no sense.” Silver groaned from one of the salvaged chairs they put out for recharging their bodies. “Listen to this though - Their fleetnet has some terran stuff on it - We should put this into our EW suite instead of the other stuff we used.” she said playing the track.

Dark and grim,
your fate will begin
In the fire and the pain,
God will end on this Doomsday

“If that shouldn’t be the anthem of this wing, I don’t know what is.”

“Looks like at least some Terran artists might find their way onto the Narix market after all.” Taurus grinned. “But seriously, not even a fighter sweep of the system? Someone blew up a cruiser at your blockade, the same someone that captured two dozen of your people, they have to know something is up, no? Unless sending a cruiser bomb through and then doing nothing is normal here. Maybe we should’ve set the transport on a collision course with one of the shipyards instead, take care of that terrorist attack.”

“At least they’re predictable.” Pyxis, the voice of reason in the group, tried to push the positive things into light. “Two cruisers and several fighter wings on patrol at all times, a destroyer shows up to resupply every few days. Any attack is a matter of timing. Have you by chance found the melted Typhon at any of the salvage yards? I’m kind of curious what’s become of it.” The Terrans confirmed it was a new class, and losing one in such a way could’ve been a big blow to morale. If that could apply to fanatics.

“Well, as far as they know, all of the people beyond the Vega node are dead. Besides, who knows what we did to them since. First we blew up a cruiser stuffed with antimatter in their face, and if the rear admiral stayed at the helm of planning this offensive, it probably got worse from there.” Shadow pointed out, pulling up a chair and starting to decouple the extremities of her suit to soak up some of the sun.

“Aye, and each one of the resupplied destroyers promptly turned around and went either to Alpha Centauri or Deneb. I counted four individual ships in each, and there might be more. The Halcyon’s shield better work, or they are going to bleed, even if those destroyers are starved after we hit the shipyards.” Silver said darkly. “Makes me wonder what else did our side build. Think they built more Warriors? Or perhaps a civilian ship? I’ve had enough with the lottery, I want some maternity leave after this deployment damnit. Even if I have to build a house on that wet rock the Narix like. You were there working on the block C, right? Any arid and hot places that are somewhat bearable?” The leader asked Pyxis.

“If you like sand, sure, some deserts in the lowlands. But build a houseboat, or your kids will hate your antennae. Still above comfortable humidity though. Or dig in at the mountaintops and run constant life support for your cave.”

“No doubt Lancer fleet has a few new Privateers. If we pull this off, Asking for a suite at the Opportunity station might not be out of the question. And that’s run by the Narix, so moving there wouldn’t bother our resources.”

“Think they aren’t sure where else we can come from? They didn’t know about the Vega-Transfer node until we arrived. I’d certainly be looking over my shoulder, just remember the panic search when the Ancients showed up.”

“Heh, yeah. They scrambled every oracle in the entire nation to plug those holes. Not fun times.” Silver snickered, “I don’t feel anything here though, and I don’t think the Terrans are too keen on letting us into their systems to do detailed scan, because of course they aren’t. What else might we find? And wouldn’t we claim the systems we discovered? Everyone is greedy for space. The Narix weren’t too keen on it then either.”

“If you ask me, we should just get everything we have and shove it through the Vega - Deneb node. Don’t tell me that three Meteors and a Warrior couldn’t break through. Then we would go to Vasuda prime, turn it into a ball of glass, and we can start arming for the real war to come when more ANcients show up.” Shadow grunted.

“I’d be with you, but you can only shove so many ships through a node at once. Otherwise, it’ll be chaos on the other side.” Pyxis noted. “If the Terrans let us through their systems, we could launch a two-pronged offensive to Deneb AND Vasuda. That would probably overload the Vasudan temples. So many prayers, wooh.”

“You people need to go through officer courses. When you see the logistics required for that, especially if you would like our destroyers to fire for more than two battles, you’d know why we’re waiting for the one big ship. Aside form the fact that the Singularity can wipe out life on Vasuda prime with one shot, I bet we’ve been building transports, freighters and escort fighters non-stop since this war started and it’s still not enough.” Silver snorted.

“Neither the Terrans nor the Vasudans seem to be aware of the Ancient’s existence, at least the Terrans weren’t until we warned them. Does that make it better, or worse? Either they’ve packed up and left since they wiped out the Relics, hence why they haven’t been seen, or they’re just that good at avoiding detection. They’ve hidden a small battlegroup in Transfer, can you imagine if we found that every five systems? Or worse, woke them all up at once?”

“I don’t think it’s an If, I think it’s a when. The relics were no pushovers, they could create jump nodes, and the Hammerhead is the strongest ship of it’s class we have seen so far. The Warrior is treading that line, but again, when you count with the logistics, it falls way short. And the Ancients defeated them!” Silver summarized her thoughts.

“I can’t wait to scrap with another Demon. That old cripple was no challenge at all, and the capships ate the cake. I want one for my own scoresheet!” Shadow growled hungrily.

“Eight thousand years is a lot of time. Who knows what could’ve happened to them? Maybe they’ve all died of some freak tech plague and we just finished those that were isolated from it? And don’t forget they only showed up after we entered the system. Think a species like that would ignore fourteen years of warfare, if any of the theories are correct?”

“Shadow, what the fuck is wrong with you, honestly?” Pyxis shook her head. “If I never see them again until my death I’ll die a happy Faira.”

“Let me flip this one around-” Shadows said as she got up from the chair and walked over to Pyxis, “-Why did you join the military?” she said, seemingly towering over the engineer all of the sudden. “I joined because I love the game. I came to fight! Because I love to fight!” she explained, and strangely, Pyxis would feel a chill running down her spine and the urge to drop everything and run away, as far from this creature as possible.

“Inventors, right?” Silver snickered, observing the spectacle.

Up until Shadow’s mindspace spectacle, Pyxis was stretched out in her seat in the most homely way possible, in small part to taunt the hot-headed pilot.

When her foot stopped shaking, she returned to the question. “You may like the game, I like the gear. Would I be responsible for the first atmospheric craft since the exodus if I wasn’t in the military? I don’t mind a fight, I just like to think I’m sane enough to NOT want contact with civilisation-ending aliens. We already have two and a half genocidal species on the list.”

“Alright, sit down, the enemy is out there, not in here.” Taurus interjected.

“I know I know. I’m just bored sitting on this empty rock. First the recon flights cut it, but now I see all those targets and I have to wait.” Shadow sighed, “It doesn’t help that the only recon ship we have is the Commander, and we’ve had our control interfaces and seats tailored to our preferences, so I have to make use of Silver’s insane setup. She flies by entering vectors and a whole bunch of math like it’s a capship!” she pointed an accusatory finger on the wing leader.

“What, really ma’am?” Taurus grinned, having been ‘raised’ mostly in Narix-based cockpits. “I thought better of you. Doesn’t it take all the joy of flight away and turn it into mundane work?”

“Well, at least some of our bombers are capable of flying in atmosphere, where stealth is doable. Do the Vasudans have any presence on the planets here? If done right, we could strike there without being detected to stave off boredom. And then spend months hiding, doing absolutely nothing while the Vasudans search the system.”

“Yeah not helping.” Shadow snorted. “Anybody up for a spar? Or even that terran game? I’m dying of boredom out here. Next time you brainiacs decide to launch a pet project, put a fabricator on the result, okay?” the pilot complained.

“Well, we could kill some time brainstorming a design for missions such as these. The Muon is a good frame but we had to modify it as well. There was talk of a recon sub class, although I think such a ship would be a class of it’s own…” Silver suggested.

“Hm, suit fabricators… Hmmm… Right, recon. It’s as good an entertainment as any. The Narix had a bomber that had its own crew cabin, but that’s too sluggish. Problem is: we essentially want to combine the Commander, the Engineer’s storage space, the fuel tanks from the Warhound and add a fabricator. Maybe a second seat to spread workload and allow working in shifts?”

“Definitely a two seater. Because it’s going to have to have more turrets than the Muon. Maybe even drop the fixed primary. Three turrets in a triangle setup, with similar engine setup flipped, like the Singularity? Good field of view for the turrets, full fire front and rear, two thirds anywhere else. Where to put the bombs though…” Silver thought out loud.

“If you put strong primaries on it, you might not need bombs. The RHVC is a good start, but it’s going to start struggling killing corvettes and forget about anything bigger, you are lucky to kill subsystems. Plasma might not give you too many shots for a clip, but you only need a ram scoop to resupply. That alone is a very strong argument.” Shadow chipped in.

“Either that, or you could only have primaries on the turrets and put a big internal bank in the nose. Or any big gun, really, the plasma sounds good. Do we bother with atmospheric capability? Probably not given the shape we agreed upon, yes? It would be nice if this ship could call back home once in a while, relay information back as it is discovered. Without being detected, of course. Ideas?”

“How about an AI to aid the crew? Plotting jumps, controlling turrets, electronic warfare, smart autopilot, that sort of thing.”

“Narix are useless for these kind of missions, right? If we can fit in an AI core, why not. With a gunner though, I don’t think that would be needed, and one would have to be an oracle anyway. I’d rather have a small secondary bay for TAGs and the like.” Silver suggested.

“This will have to be built around a fabricator anyway, can it possibly repair it’s own armor? The nanites are already there…” Shadow mumbled. A healing ship and a ram scoop would eliminate all need for support. “We don’t have any Intersystem comm system that is undetectable because it uses the node. But we wouldn’t need a broad range… Wasn’t there a theory about a point to point transmitter using some sort of quantum physics?”

“I think I read something like that, but don’t quote me on it. And with the fabricator serving as a self repair system, the only spare parts you have to carry around are to fix a broken fabricator. How big are we talking? Definitely bigger than the Muon, but by how much?”

“About the EW suite, what would you want there? Comm interception, maybe scrambler buoys?” Pyxis got a minor case of ‘The Casei’. “With the fabricator, you just need the resources, and you’re likely going to be hiding in an asteroid field anyway.”

“If we’re expanding on the fabricator so much, why not just coat the armor with a nano skin? The ship is already going to be expensive as a cruiser, so only a few will ever be made, might as well cram them up with the best stuff. Can a bomber sized fusion powerplant run all of that gear though? Keep in mind that with an increase in size, you also go up with the shield input.” Silver lined out the limits. “We’re doing this wrong, we’re already making plans and we didn’t even have a clear picture of what it’s supposed to do. Damn, this shit is harder than it looks. What is the mission profile for these?”

“I thought long-term recon and the occasional precision strike, you? It’s going to be big, what’s stopping us from mounting two smaller reactors rather than a big one? Then you can even perform maintenance and while the other one is still up and running. And if something goes so horribly wrong one fails, the other keeps the fabricator working.”

“A few more minutes and it’s going to need a berth rather than a hangar. We should start writing it down so we don’t get completely lost in it. It could be somewhat simplified by replacing punchout capsules with fixed cockpits. Situations like these, nobody’s coming to help and getting captured isn’t too appealing.”

“Well, occasional precision strike is not what we aim to do here, we intend to fuck their shit up, no?” Shadow shrugged. “Which means less stealth and more bombs.”

“I thought we agreed on the biggest, baddest gun the galaxy has ever seen and ditch the bombs?”

“Yes, but she’s underlying the problem, we can’T have that and stealth. Let’s agree on the specification first…”

11 months earlier - Naris system, Ignis, Armed Forces Detention Facility

Several cells in one of the detention facility’s wings were quickly retrofitted to be more accommodating to Vasudan life according to interior of the captured cruisers. If there was much to make ‘more accommodating’ about four beds, four lockers, a table, an air vent, bathroom and light. The Vasudans arrived by a wing of plunderers straight to the facility’s closed hangar, but numerous airlocks and fully-suited personnel were indicative of atmosphere that couldn’t support life. To an observant individual, it would quickly become clear that one of the cell’s walls was in fact a gate, its purpose also quite clear. The captive pilots and cruiser crews were spread across thirty cells by four, with Battlemaster HaDo and the flight leader in their own, segregated cell. Each corridor had four guards, clad in black and red riot armor, on patrol in eight hour shifts, none of whom were particularly secretive about their disdain for the Vasudans.

“What do you think about our captors, wingmaster?” One of the pilots fortunate enough to avoid the impending execution asked of his wing leader turned fellow captive with equally limited rights. “What are their intentions?”

“They are feeding us decent food and while spartan, the accommodations are closer to a boot camp bunk than a prison. Ii believe we will live. They have in fact declared the squadronmaster and battlemaster responsible. Considering how many casualties they suffered, it is merciful. As for how we will spend our remaining days, being put to work, I imagine.

“Quiet, cultists! Step away from the door, hands over your face.” A Narix guard entered, watched by another from the corridor. “You.” he tapped the wingmaster’s shoulder, “File says you’re their wing leader, yes? You’re summoned for interrogation. Get out, walk fast and no one gets hurt.

The wingmaster compiled without a word, although with not much haste. The Vasudans could probably toss these creatures around if they so desired despite their powered suits, but the weapons made that a nonsensical prospect. They all saw what their shipboard projectile weapons could do - applied on a small scale, he did not need to see them used.

The interrogation room was about four by four meters, lit dim-orange and painted battleship gray with black tiled floor. The door was in the right corner of the room. A mirror spanned the right wall near the ceiling, overlooking a metal table with one simple chair for the interrogated party and two comfortable ones on the opposite side of the table. The interrogation officers were already comfortably seated with cups of steaming liquid in their hands. Upon the Vasudan’s entrance, they set them down and woke up their tablets. The guards pointed the wingmaster at the free chair and assumed their place at the door, a click indicating it had been remotely locked. The interrogators switched on small table lamps, several magnitudes brighter than the dim ambient lighting, pointed at the vasudan.

The room was about the same as could be expected, albeit the Vasudan equivalent would be filled with hard to breathe humid air and the interrogated person would be kept in the dark to keep them sense deprived. The orange lighting was strange, the wingmaster wondered if it was an aesthetic choice.

The officer on the Vasudan’s right hand side spoke up first in a calm tone. “We want you to recount the raid on our depot, minute by minute, don’t leave anything out.” Of course, they had no way of knowing if the vasudan was or wasn’t lying, but maybe he would cooperate willingly.

“Wingmaster KheFrehm, Aries wing, Smite squadron, PVD Typhon. Service number 0101310201.” was all the Vasudan said to their inquiry.

So they trained their soldiers in a similar way. “The one we captured before the ultimatum was more useful.” The interrogator on the left shared with his comrade. “How about I just kick this thing out the airlock and see what it does? We’ve plenty more of the animals to talk with, for whatever good it will do.”

“Not yet.” the right interrogator shook his head. “Look, for the next several months at least, that is in the past. Right now, you’re V-052. There is no Smite squadron, or PVD Typhon, for that matter. You and your comrades are all that’s left, and it is up to you how many survivors of this Smite squadron will be returned home.” As right was talking, left called up gun camera footage of one of the Ira’s turret cameras from the engagement, starting about two seconds prior to the ship’s destruction, showing the Typhon’s final moments. Left continued: “Usually, the Republic does not execute prisoners, not unless our own have been mistreated first. That being said, you and your wingmen did fire upon unidentified vessels without provocation.”

“Not sure about the backwards mess you call ‘culture’, but here in the civilized space, that’s bad news for you.” right interrupted, seemingly losing his patience.

“To put things plainly, there are two ways this can go. One, you answer the questions, get sent back to your kinsmen within an hour and one day, if your leaders see it fit to talk peace instead of insults, you may even be repatriated. Certainly after the war is over. Two-”

“Two, you continue doing what you’re doing and the Inventor Fleet will receive a shipment of test subjects.”

“Given that we are at a state of war with your species, your are facing the wrath of three species over the pride of your leaders. WIthout cooperation, there is not much the intelligence corps can do to help you in your situation.”

“Yeah, bioweapons are hard to aim. Deploy too high up over a city aaaand...”

”A nasty new biological weapon would be bad for your people. Think of all the unnecessary dead on Vasuda Prime. Are their lives worth this posturing?”

“You preach of civilisation, yet you would commit mass genocide. Regarding me and my wingmen, we will be judged by higher power for our sins. We followed orders issued by the squadron leader, and that is that. Your wrath on us is just, of that there is little doubt. Do with us that did you wrong as you see fit. But threatening my homeworld will get you nowhere, and only prove you are no better than the Terrans.” The Vasudan answered. “They tried for longer and failed.”

Behind the wall, a Faira telepath that has been learning the patterns of Vasudan mind since the first specimen arrived was paying close attention, linked to the comm suites of the two interrogating Narix. “He is content with his fate, frighteningly so. I believe it is the faith responsible. According to Ambassador Taranis, their fighting men are honored in the afterlife based on the worthiness of their death, so speaking is counterproductive for him.” she noted how the Vasudans emotional state was. “He is thinking of his family… KheSu, wife. KheDo, child.” she noted the names, perhaps it would be of some use. “Get him to think of home, maybe we can get a location too, use it to pressure him?”

“Terrans? Hah!” the left officer laughed. “You’re comparing a combustion engine generator to a fusion reactor here.”

“Mass genocide, reducing the enemy’s recruitment capability, it depends on the point of view. A simple pilot such as you couldn’t possibly understand.” The interrogators disabled their translators for a moment and leaned closer to each other.

“This is the reason we didn’t try converting the Crillists all those years ago. Once the mind is corrupted at a young age, there is no going back.”

“Do we call it off? We still have a few groups left, we can try a different approach.”

“Not yet. Let’s see if we can use the family, but I’m almost skeptical.”

Reenabling the translators, right turned back to the Vasudan. “We don’t blame you and your wingmen, the order came from someone else. What I do find weird is why no one thought to ask a simple question. We’ve seen Terran ships. Our cruiser could be mistaken, but the Fiara ship? Not one of you though something was odd?”

“Or do your leaders want dumb drones instead of independently-thinking pilots?”

The Vasudan sighed. “If I could access our targeting computer, I could explain. The Faira Ship is uncannily similar to a Terran design used about seven years ago as a military transport. The squadron leader, likely acting on the belief that Terrans were the only alien species present in the system, ordered the attack believing the Terrans brought the older ships out of mothball.” the wing leader finally shared, likely somewhat reassured that his head was not on the block. What he thought also matched what the squadron leader said.

“Quite an expensive misunderstanding, considering it’s cost you four destroyers already AND thrown you into a worse war than before.” left stated almost sympathetically. Nothing compared to what lurks out there. he thought, but hasn’t said anything.

The Vasudan looked uncertain for a second. “Some on the ship were preaching the destroyers prophesied in the scrolls have arrived in the form of the Faira. I write it off to despair at seeing the best our newest ship class could throw at them being easily absorbed by the energy barrier it possessed, but the scrolls are based on decoded writings of an extinct race that visited our homeworld when our species was in its infancy. I believe that t0hey speak of something much worse. I can not tell you how our leaders would react, but from the safety of the parliament building, I have little faith that our leaders will seek peace without further losses. Now I believe I have said much more than I should have, and do not have much more to tell in either case.” the wing leader finished.

“These scrolls you speak of.” left leaned a little closer, “How old are they? Is it close or upwards of… eight thousand years?” He hoped the Faira in the observation room could get something from his reaction. After finding old Faira writing all over the Hammerhead’s systems, he had a hunch the relics might be more everpresent than they thought.

“I can not tell you. The originals are guarded better than the Emperor himself. To my knowledge, they must be older than our writing, so older than five thousand years. If they were ever dated… you would have to find a grand preacher at least, someone this high in the church might know.” the pilot said.

“He is honest.” the Faira shared, “See if you can get him to write something down, draw a likeness of the characters of the originals, something that we could match to the relic script.”

The Vasudan seemed more cooperative since being reassured of his safety, maybe it would be worth trying to reconsider their approach to fanatical ones, as threats did not seem to faze them. He’s shared more than he possibly knew. Guarding scrolls more than the emperor meant that either the emperor wasn’t that important to the empire’s function or that targeting religious sites could be a viable strategy.

“Would you recognize the symbols if you saw them?” right found a blank sheet of paper in one of the folders. “Can you draw some of them? Doesn’t matter if it’s just a few individual symbols.”

“Twelve of the ancient characters are used as heraldry of the twelve noble families.” The Vasudan said, drawing the given sigils. While slightly different, they would be a loose match for those on the Hammerhead. “How exactly we came upon them is known only by the Speaker of the Church and the Emperor. We know they were on an alien structure of some sort, but noone will be able to tell you if it was a building, ship or writing in blood on a cave wall.” The Vasudan shared.

“This is a problem.” The telepath mentioned, “If their faith is based on an actual thing, then no matter how hard we try, good luck to us getting rid of it. Every faction who wavers will be back in the fold and all they have to do is bring those artifacts out of storage and show them around.” The Faira summed, “Should we inform the Admiralty?”

While right was instructing one of the guards what to do with the Vasudan’s scribbled symbols, left responded to the telepath. “We might not have to get rid of it. We might be able to use it. After all, we are in possession of a Relic destroyer in working order, although with basic understanding of it. I’m confident in saying we know more about the Relics than the Vasudans do. But if they found Relic ruins or a derelict ship, there’s no telling what they could have learned from them. I don’t like the idea of RHVCs in Vasudan hands. Shall we wrap this up given this unexpected turn of events? At least until the high ups make their minds up about this?”

“Well, this was an interesting chat. Guard, escort the wingmaster to the transport and bring in the next one in eight minutes, we have a few new questions to ask.”

Faira”Karte, Research and development

The day has come for the big demonstration. Astra and co. have been slaving over this in any free moment of their time. If this can not punch through a Lucifers shielding, nothing ever will and we need to copy the Ring fast, because jump nodes are going to fall. Might want to sic RnD on it in either case. At least we need to figure out how to get the Hammerhead to get it moving. Astra thought, as the cannon jury-rigged to the side of the station on Artorias’ orbit was pointed at the testing target. The targets were towed about ten kilometers in front of the station and Singularity and Halcyon docks that rested to each side of it.

“As you know, the test will be twofold - the targets are the latest we developed in armor and shielding, and we will be testing them against our current generation arms as well as captured Terran and Vasudan cannons.” Astra repeated the briefing material, the short version.

The freighters hauling the captured cannons lined up. “Targets at full power, shields raised.” a technician reported, and Astra gave the order to fire. The green and yellow blobs belched by the alien cannons splashed harmlessly on the shield.

“Shield strength down .05%. That’s half of what the current generation takes. Drop the shield, proceed with the armor test.” Astra noted.

The next plasma blobs were intercepted shortly before impact by a jet of coolant, distorting it and cooling it down a little. The shot then passed through a grate of electrodes and was partially neutralized. “Shot reading as 60% less efficient as current generation armor. Continue firing until something gives.”

It took four more shots for the grates to overheat and get blown off, and then the mark II crystalline armor derived from the Hammerhead came to play, the one meter thick sheet taking ten more shots before the cannons melted through. “Looks like the Terran version is doing slightly better. Now well move to our current generation arms.”

The kinetic weaponry fared little better, efficiency scaling up with caliber. The only exception was the RHVC, which had enough speed to pass the shield unimpeded and unlike the older HYVEL, it was also fast enough to beat the CIWS targeting systems. Faira fighter-based weaponry was easily defeated by the shield, and did not have enough power to damage the active armor.

The P-5 managed slightly better than the Terran equivalent, taking quarter less shots to punch through. In beam mode, the active armor proved to be far less effective. The same repeated with the P-15, only it was adequately quicker in dispatching the target.

“Now comes the fun part.” Astra said, linking into the Halcyons fire control system. One of the forward facing mothers of all railguns belched its projectile, aimed at one of the three larger targets. Passing through its shield it lost a third of its mass to ablation, but it burrowed 80% through the five meters thick sheet of armor. “This doesn't look like a lot, but take into account that the Halcyon will have four of these and with quite a high rate of fire. Any ship that presents its broadside will be disabled within a minute, because even without penetrating hits, the armor will lose the necessary integrity to transmit the push from the engines.”

Next up in the line was the new 10m fusion beam. In essence, it was the same beam weapon previously used on the Faira ship, but with a different firing chamber and an order of magnitude more powerful containment field for the beam. “Please note that in the current state,the F-10 requires a specially trained psychokinetic to fire at full range of fifteen kliks. Unassisted, the range drops to four, but even then, the effect can not be denied.” Astra said and gave the order. The cannon mounted to the station came to life and spewed a jet of still fusing atoms that continued through the target and beyond. “As you see, at the present time, we have yet to come up with a countermeasure, but we believe this will be of great aid against the ancient vessels up to and most likely including the Lucifer class. The power demands are somewhat limiting though, and we will likely only be able to mount two single barrel cannons on a destroyer. Mounting them on a frigate would be possible, at the expense of having the same power issues as the old Comet class, unless we manage to increase the yield of the reactors. The Singularity will be able to mount three pieces.” the admiral delivered.

Finally, she tapped into the firing controls of the Singularity. The P-100”s dish lit up, a cloud of plasma as large as the ship was wide gathering in front of it, until after half a minute the mass was converted into a beam that blown the final target away, completely obliterating it. “Needless to say, if this ship can not pierce the Lucifer's shields, nothing we can build in the next fifty years will. With that in mind, with your permission, I would like to put my research team on studying the Ring.” Astra finished, turning to the Admirals present.

With the Vasudan weaponry scoring dead last, there was surely a story to be made by the NNN.

As the Halcyon’s 16m bow coilgun bit into the target, Zorea couldn’t help but smile, almost like a child about to be given a new toy. With decent ammo capacity for its size, lot of storage space and multiple on-board fabricators, a carefully calculated rate of fire could keep up the bombardment for a while.

“The problem is if something jumps behind the ships, but there’s no such thing as ‘perfect’ design now, is it?”

“That is a problem to solve by the team designing the individual ships, but as for the superdestroyers - they are meant to be on the attack. Also, they are not fleetships, so adequate frigate and corvette escort has to be provided, alongside a fighter screen. The Strike fleet has all necessary assets in place, only needing a reorganization once the Singularity is deployed. The Halcyon I am not sure about, given that it is a project that stretches before the Confederation.” Astra noted.

“Only a little restructuring will be required. These days, I only stay on the Ira because I have nowhere else to sleep. I wanted to use this time to return home for a few weeks, but with hostile Vasudans there,” he pointed to one side of the room, then to the other, “and neutral Terrans there, I stayed just in case. Funny thing, rear admiral, when the dynamic duo found the Hammerhead, admiral Lira and I asked you about the Strike Fleet’s personnel and you mentioned that you would take Narix crew to the Singularity and train them for the Halcyon. Now, it seems I’ll be training you some people for the Singularity.” he laughed. He’d already decided what positions he would like to be filled by at least one Faira shift, namely occupations where the ship’s size played a role like helm, TCs, gunnery chief and chief engineer plus other miscellaneous crew.

“Much appreciated, Admiral. Although the Singularity will be a bit easier on the crew than the average destroyer with me at the helm, the follow up class will need a crew to operate it. To finish the demonstration, we expect it should be possible to upgrade most ships to the armor specification you have seen by removing the top layer of the present armor and letting the crystalline coat grow on top. The active parts of the armor can be installed as applique on the existing hull without the need of major stay in the shipyard, so we believe this would be best done in two phases - first install the active armor on all ships, and then start applying the new material layer ship by ship. Compared to Ancient vessels, we best start with frigates, as it would allow them to stand up to Demons on their own before a destroyer arrives. If we are still dealing with the Vasudans at that point, then we estimate corvettes will be the most effective ship class due to the large area that we will need to engage in. The upgraded weapon suites would best be deployed on entire new classes of ships, I”m afraid. While some of the older destroyers can be outfitted with the F-10, we run the risk of blowing the power grid just like on the Curious, and I do not need to stress the necessity of none of our hardware falling into Vasudan hands.” Astra finished.

“The Explorer will provide you with any crew requirements you will have, Admiral Zorea. Vanguard fleet will be upgraded to Strike fleet numbers in the future, and I would like to take my crew with me when the next superdestroyer rolls off the assembly line. In the meantime, I”ll train a new crew for the Explorer. No time for it like now.” Cygnus offered.

“Very well, I’ll get you the list within the next two days, thank you.”

Antares, 8th January 2335 Terran, 18 months after the launch of Mace wing

For the past several months, the Terran plan, known as Operation Thresher, has been gaining momentum as several groups of ships, lead by the GTD Normandy and GTD Aeneas, were gathering and taking on vast quantities of supplies all throughout Antares. Now the time has come to bring the fleets together. The dice have been cast as the two Orions arrived within a minute of eachother, soon joined by Fenris and Leviathan-class cruisers and even more freighters. The mood aboard the ships was good, morale bolstered by the events that transpired in the past few months. Although the Eisenhower was in a shipyard being rebuilt almost from the ground up, the Zods managed to piss off not one, but two alien species. Granted, they haven’t done anything since the first engagements, aside from publicly executing Battlemaster HaDo by a firing squad and transmitting it live across the galaxy in Terran standard and Vasudan translations, but knowing they were no longer alone returned the life into many Terrans throughout the GTA. Even the loss of contact with Riviera station at Ross 128 three days ago, attributed to a malfunctioning relay station, couldn’t sour their day. With their heads held high, the Fleet plunged into Subspace, eager to tear into the heart of the PVE.

Only the highest echelons were aware of the Confederate operation and the true reason for the disappearance of some waste material from project Tsunami. What none of the men and women of the strike force knew was that the CNCR Ardor rang alarm bells throughout the entire Vasudan hierarchy, from pilots and crew of the ships that witnessed the event through the convoluted mess of the Vasudan nobility all the way to the Parliament. The Vasudan side of the nodes was now guarded more than ever, with most blockading ships several kilometers from the node, leaving only a few cruisers close to the nodes.

Orbit of Opportunity II

It’s been eleven years since the Mining rights to opportunity-I and Opportunity-II were signed off to the Narix Republic while the Faira took the asteroid mining operations. Since then, many valuable resources were discovered and since the completion of the Opportunity station seven years ago, Narix corporations flooded into the system, dividing up the dwarf planets among themselves and extracting the valuable minerals and ore.

For Argo Natanis, this was the opportunity of a lifetime, as his current contract ended due to the completion of habitation module ‘K’ of the New Frontier station, his small moving company was hired to move cargo between the Opportunity station and eight mining outposts in the Artorias belt. This was just another regular trip he and his co-pilot would spend leaning back in their chairs and letting the autopilot do most of the work. Load the cargo, jump to Naris, cool the drives, jump to the given outpost, dock, unload the cargo, return, dock, repeat.

Argo was just programming the navigation computer with the Naris-Opportunity jump beacon when a jump point of massive proportions formed some two thousand meters ahead of them on a near perpendicular course. The surprise was made complete when the Halcyon emerged at a 20 degree angle and in a slight starboard roll.

Aboard the superdestroyer, Commodore Langara was trying to explain their current predicament to Admiral Zorea.

“The subspace motivators have what, Tarvis?”

“Melted, admiral.” the chief engineer repeated. “So have many of the heat exchangers. We have lost all subspace capability and seven main drives. It appears the dual-stage heat sinks will require a redesign. The drives produced more heat than the heat exchangers could manage, overheating the motivators and in some cases damaging their respective sublight engines.”

“And the remaining nine will get us back to the yard in… four days. I suggest you divide your skeleton crew into shifts and start cutting apart the busted engines as soon as they stop glowing. I’ll alert the assembly that our shakedown run sadly fulfilled its role.”

“Sir? I am looking at one of the exchangers that is not a molten slag, and there is coolant everywhere. It looks like the piping broke. We’ll collect debris and try to jigsaw it back together to see where the failure originated. Can you spare some transports and combat oracles to collect what fell off and give us some hangar space to put it all in?” Casei asked, already outside and on the task, while the Narix DC crews had to wait for the IR radiation to drop a bit. “Sorry we didn’t see it, it looks like the coolant was under so much pressure it went straight to gas. It was over in half a minute.” She added, her tone adequately morose. This was the Worst failure since the Curious.

“I’ve notified the marine commander, he’s sorting the oracles. Use the free storage bays for the reconstruction. Dropships are being prepared. Chins up, everyone. Better it happened now than when we jump to Deneb.”

“Admiral!” the communications officer called, “High ups mentioned something about rear admiral Astra being able to jump us back to the yard. We can dock manually from there.”

“Which would speed up the repairs by a few days. Then the engineers help with the modifications while the rest of us get more accustomed to our new home. Before the shipwrights design this hitch out, we may even get a few days of leave.”

Sirius

“Oho! Ladies, look sharp! The Zods just started moving massive numbers out of the system!” Silver called up, her antennae downright tingling with how much traffic was headed for the node. “Counting two Typhons and at least four older destroyers heading out.”

“Their fleetnet says they are headed for Vasuda. The Terran invasion must have started. I guess that means it is time?” Shadow perked up, flexing her fingers.

“It would seem so.” Rock got up from the chess board. “Let’s ruin someone’s day! Veeeery carefully.”

Already in the cockpit, Shadow laughed. “With two years of recon I know every bolt on those docks. You work on getting us home, allow me to break stuff. I hope you downloaded your books and music, we’re going in cold. Silver, verify this gravity maneuver?”

“Physics check out. This will launch us at the yards at five thousand kliks per second, are you sure you can aim at that speed?” The leader noted.

“It’s the speed needed to beat the reaction time of the defenses. I’ll be launching three bombs almost immediately after we leave the sphere of influence aiming by RCS course corrections. Then we’ll adjust our own heading to fly just out of the blast zone - The RHVCs should allow us to engage any fighters that will try to shoot the bombs down with reasonable lead. The last bomb, assuming these three reach the target, is for getting us home in case the Halcyon isn’t fast enough. Any word from them?” the mad bomber explained.

“Good thing you know every bolt, now you can make sure you rearrange them all!” Pyxis laughed. “Nary a peep from them, I assume they’ll only let us know hours prior to deployment. Meanwhile, we’ll watch for cargo, inconvenient cruisers or other food for the cannons.”

“And fighters, and hope another battlegroup doesn’t jump us by accident. What’s along the escape trajectory? The node, or do we return here?”

“Or do we jump ourselves away as soon as the bombs hit?”

“I believe we should attempt to drift cold as long as we are not detected before we jump. First place you look for a bomber is around the ground zero, not five kilometers further every second. Remember, the Zods don’t know about the Muons and what they can do, they will look for conventional bombers. As soon as we’re clear, we head towards the Halcyon, so node it is. Worst case scenario we”ll have to fight for fifteen minutes and then break a blockade.” Silver highlighted the general idea, “Then again, in the original plan the yards should have been dust twelve months ago, so expect anything.” she snorted, turning her bomber on.

“I’m not a fan of the ‘fight for fifteen minutes’ part, can you believe it? Though I’m sure some of love the prospect.” Pyxis muttered, taking her bomber outside. “Farewell, chunk of rock in the middle of nowhere.” she waited for Silver to take off, ready to follow.

Sirius Imperial Shipyard

The bombs were launched, and Silver was tracking their progress carefully. So far they were on course, both bombs and bombers. Hopefully, with only needing to activate the engines for the course correction far away from here, their approach was undetected. Thirty minutes to go.

“Foreman! Early warning has detected three small asteroids heading for the station! They are too fast to intercept effectively with the stations defenses!” A vasudan technician warned.

“How large and where will they hit?” The foreman asked.

“They are the roughly fifty centimeters in diameter, and headed towards the control station, the PVD Hammer construction and the supply depot! No visual! Impact in under five minutes!”

“Sound the Evacuation! Inform the garrison!”

“There is no one that can intercept or launch enough fighters in time!”

“This is Shipmaster KhuFu. Pray for our souls in the afterlife. PVC Aves, signing off.”

Shadow was listening to them panic on the public channel with glee, right until the Shipmaster spoke. “Nooo, no you sand eating BASTARD! Don’t you dare!” she shrieked as the cruiser jumped in the path of the bombs and promptly went up in flames. “

“Well, so much for that plan. This is a shipyard, there has to be some way to refuel and rearm the ships. There’s a freight depot on the other side of the station. Reckon we can get a scan of some of it, see if they have some spare warheads or a fuel dump in place?”

“Wait! Wait for it!” Shadow shouted, watching the quarters the cruiser split into drift towards the shipyard that was now scrambling everything that flown to evacuate.

Not a bit of it. The hundreds of tons of cruiser debris plowed through, slowly, but surely. “Well, I am not going to complain. The shipyard is fucked, that is the biggest metal harmonica I have ever seen.” the bomber pilot snarked, seeing the pylons of the dock break and impact into each other. The control station now featured one of the Aten”s arms stuck pointy side in, also out of commission. The only target still usable was the supply depot. “Shame most of the people inside are going to live rather than burn up. What about the depot?”

“Forget it. The entire node blockade just jumped, likely to mount a rescue. We won't get a better chance to reach Vega. Keep the bomb for what's on the other side and let”s go.” Silver noted, giving Rock the jump location.

“The entire blockade?” Pyxis almost found it hard to believe. “Either they are dumber than expected, or we were wrong and our gods love us.”

“Hah! That's a thought. Or maybe the Vasudan gods love us more. Or maybe two destroyers are holding the other side of the node and will splash us like flies. In either case, looks like they noticed the bombs but not us, maybe an asteroid collision avoidance notified them, and we were not on collision course. In any case,let's not push our luck and get out of here, shall we?” Silver suggestordered and the four bombers jumped away.

Vega, CFFG Independence

“What do you mean, the Halcyon isn’t coming, ma’am? Those four are going to be hunted like animals once they make their move, if they aren’t already! We promised them a pickup!” Commander Mirai exclaimed, not at all happy with the news Rear Admiral Astra called over with.

“Calm down, commander. I agree with the sentiment, but the Assembly won’t let me commit the Warrior even if I am not on it. I asked. Not without knowing what is on the other side, and Mace is the only group that ever went there. Fortunately, they said nothing of the other ships, likely assuming we won’t be mad enough to send those. But answer me this: If you had an Ardor blow up in your face, what would be your reaction?” Astra asked, having Linsis, Mirai and Auraxis patched in to the conversation.

“Mine the node approaches. At the cost of sounding like a Vasudan: the Warrior, or any ship for that matter, is a lot of materials and many crew, whereas Mace wing are only four pilots and four bombers.” Auraxis chimed in, “We’ve picked them because of anyone available, they stood the greatest chance of not only completing their mission, but living to tell the tale. They went there voluntarily and aware the risks. And as much as I hate to say this, we don’t even what their situation is. Should the worst come to pass, is risking a ship, or several ships and their crews, worth discovering Muon debris?”

“That depends on what you consider an acceptable risk.” Mirai chimed in. If only to get a look at the Vasudan reaction to the Ardor. Give the Halcyon some intelligence for when it finally deploys. Two frigates, all power to jump drives and shields, wakejump in, let the oracles have a look, pick up Mace if we can, wakejump out.” the Faira noted, using her hands as models for the frigates absentmindedly.

“That could work, though If a cruiser bomb just blew up in my face so hard it blew the sand out from between my teeth, I’d definitely shore up the defenses, especially at the node where three different species can come from. We could find ourselves staring down four Typhons ahead and two of the older ones in our backs, alongside the aforementioned minefield.” Linsis scratched his chin, ignoring the Vasudan cruisers that would be present in such a hypothetical blockade. “But given how many lives their efforts will save in the long run, we owe them at least an extraction. If we’re going through with this, the crew of the Crossbow volunteers.”

“I suppose it all depends on whether they could identify the explosion and an antimatter bomb. You can not defend against that in any way but to space out your defenses. In either case, the frigates can, in worst case secanrio, jump back before the Vasudans even aim their guns, and we’ll at least have an image of how the other side of the node looks like.” Astra nodded.

“If the Crossbow wants to go, Independence will as well go recover it’s crew.” Mirai agreed.

Deneb

“Uuuuuh, problem, no Halcyon!” Shadow grunted as they emerged on the other side of the node. “Buggers sure got spooked by the Ardor though, look at them fanned around. Can we thread the needle between their firing spheres?”

“No. Wouldn’t matter, they noticed us, incoming fighters fifteen kliks ahead, launching from one of the typhons. We can not blaze through the fighter screen either, fanned out like this, even the Zod drives can nanojump. I don't want to become a smear on an Aten’s hull like our bombs. Looks like we'll have to punch through! Form up, Mace!” Silver ordered, plotting the course and starting a warm up cycle on the guns.

“No Halcyon, but no Narix debris either. At least some good, or not completely bad news.”

“And here I was, thinking mounting extra shields was wasted effort.” Rock rubbed her hand stogether. “Hey, ugly yellow bastards, have you seen a superdestroyer by chance?” she armed the laser guided missiles, assigning them to the four turrets closest to them to punch a hole, set her turret free on the fighters, herself targeting one of them, waiting for them to get just a little closer…

Several Vasudan fighters fell apart with no apparent reason far beyond the range of Vasudan fighter weaponry. As the Vasudans raced to close the distance to avoid being picked off like range targets, one of the specs sensors identified as an unidentified heavy bomber lit up with the trails of dumbfire rocket engines. The Vasudans scattered, avoiding the rocket barrage without problems. But when they returned to formation, the bombers were past them.

“It worked once, but I’ve only got 18 rockets left and another group is launching from the typhon.”

“We need to dispose of the destroyer, every other ship is too far for intercept, but we can’t fight off 120 pieces of strikecraft! Silver, permission to do something insane?” Shadow asked, already setting her bomber up.

“Wait! Incoming form our side!” Silver shouted.

A mindspace vortex opened at the end of the node and spat the two frigates into normal space. “Full reverse!” Mirai ordered, just in case there were any bombs present. “Mace wing, are you there, please respond! Oracles, get a lay of the land quickly!”

“Jump prep complete, standing by for jump.” the Crossbow reported. “We’ve got four destroyers, at least thirty deployed fighters and it looks like more are on their way.” It took the Vasudans a few moments shake off the surprise to do something about the two pocket destroyers in their front yard.

“Crazy bastards, what are they thinking?” Pyxis asked no one in particular at the sight of the two frigates. “Not that I’m complaining. Full burn to the closest frigate and hope they open in time?”

“The frigates won’t last that long. Get ready to scuttle your bombers.” Silver ordered, “Shadow, whatever you want to do, do it quickly. Independence, we are NO-GO for landing. Can the Marine jumpers bring aboard just us? We’ll time delay the bomber’s self destruct charges.”

“Master of Arms says you are GO fo combat extraction, activate your disaster beacons and we’ll jump you on board.” Mirai replied, having confirmed with her subordinate.

“Not yet!” Shadow said, pulling up near Pyxis who was closest to her. The cover of her ejection pod blown upwards and the mad bastard jumped onto the other bomber, maglocking herself on. “For the love of us both, don’t let your shield drop!” Shadow laughed over the comms, guiding her bomber remotely on full burn. The shield of her bomber took a beating form the escorting fighter wings, but with 5% remaining, Shadow got close enough and let the RHVC loose on the Typhon’s fighter bay doors, blasting an opening and guiding the bomber in, before promptly activating the last fusion bomb. On the outside, the bomb would have probably dropped the destroyer solid 20% hull integrity. On the inside and in a fighter bay, it made the typhon explode like a watermelon. “Ready for extraction!”

Somewhere on the Crossbow, Virgo was proud of her sister. Pyxis did as asked, having already been on an approach vector to the Independence, steered slightly off course and funneled as much power to the shields as they would allow. Once the deed was done, she turned the bomber so the top was facing the frigates and opened the hatch. “Hello! Sixteen seconds.” she waved at Shadow and launched herself away from the bomber, activating her distress beacon. In less than half a minute, her ‘Engineer’ ceased to exist. Now it was up to the marine jumpers. She did not at all like the idea of orbiting Deneb just in her suit, wondering who would find her first.

Four hops later, Mace wing appeared on the bridge, Silver spotting a new gouge in one plate of her suit when a vasudan laser grazed her, but all were alive and in one piece. “Crossbow, now!” Mirai shouted as she watched the Independence’s shield flicker and collapse under the bombardment. Moments later, the ships were on their way back to Vega, the Independence groaning ominously where some of the shots landed. Only when the rattling stopped did Mirai allow herself a breath to cool down. “Both ships all stations, report!”

“The Zods took objection to one of our turrets.” Someone reported.

“All is in order. What about our unsung heroes?” Linsis wanted to know, having been too occupied with the typhon and some of its more persistent pilots. Shame those bombers couldn’t have been brought aboard, they would’ve made nice in a museum. “Also, this marks the destruction of a second typhon class, both at the hands of the NFC.”

“Third, actually.” Taurus said in a ‘business as usual’ tone, having overheard the transmission.

“On top of an extra Aten, one station and one destroyer sized shipyard. Sadly the Zods are not new to self sacrifice and we were unable to destroy the nearby cargo depot. Full loss of strikecraft, no pilot losses. Not that I mind, Commanders, you were a starsend, but we were expecting someone else.” Silver reported.

“We’ll debrief once we’re safely in Vega, or in Transfer undergoing repairs. Well done, Mace. Go get some rest before CFN and NCN start bothering you,” Mirai smiled.

“Oh dear, I heard about Narix reporters from someone from the CFCR Durable. I’m gonna go and hide.” Pyxis shook her head.

Narix Confederate Newscast

First Confederate scouts to Vasudan systems have returned
A daring operation came to a dramatic end as four Faira pilots, inserted into Deneb two years ago, returned home in the evening hours of 8th / I. Despite the setbacks to the extraction plan, the Strike Fleet quickly adapted. The CFFG Independence and CFFG Crossbow jumped to Deneb and retrieved the four yet unnamed pilots, confirming the destruction of Vasudan Sirius shipyards and two Typhon-class destroyers! We will bring you further details as they are revealed.

Deployment of the CNSD Halcyon delayed
The Halcyon suffered an undisclosed engine-related failure during its trial runs in Naris. The spokesman for Silaris Yards stated the repairs will be complete before the end of the month.

Unraveling the Ring’s mysteries
A large science convoy arrived at the RI Ring early this morning. The Inventor Fleet has declared its study and understanding their top priority within the confines of their budget.

Confederate Fleetnet News

Operation Thresher declared a failure
Only a few hours after launch, the terrans have declared Operation Thresher a failure, having lost one entire fleet during an attempt to breach the blockade, with no Vasudan ship losses. With the Terrans failing to keep up the pressure until the Halcyon is ready and the early extraction of our black operations bomber wing, the invasion has been put on hold, new date pending.

New front?
The Terrans have, in no certain terms, notified us of one of their systems’ hub installations going dark for longer time than it would take to bring backups online in case of a comm relay failure. Whether this is a Vasudan attack through a newly discovered node or something else is yet to be confirmed.

Fleetwide Vasudan database update
With the Mace wing having actively engaged Vasudan targets, the database have been updated with both ship weak points, applicable strategies and behavioral patterns of both vasudan strikecraft and ships. All military personnel are required to review the new content within five days.