AmongHeroes — Roleplayer Guild

Laytn kept his head on a swivel, scanning the monochromatic terrain before him with broad sweeps of his gaze. The rolling hills of sandy earth disappeared into a blurred horizon of wavy heat. To the direct front of the three Zeon officers, the rough road that the convoy had been following stretched outward to the west. Its darker smudge likewise vanishing amidst the haze of the desert, and the lift of the dunes. 

“I’ve got nothing so far,” Laytn replied to Milo’s inquiry. “It’s hard to see clearly though with the sun in our faces like it is. You got anything, Commander?”

Squinting, Laytn brought a hand to shield his helmeted eyes from the glare of the descending sun, still yet high in the sky. He knew that they couldn’t be far from Federation lines now, but as of yet Laytn could see no sign of their enemy. That thought made his jaw clench. We’re trying to find them to surrender, the very voicing of it within his mind made him cringe. Never in all my days did I think it would come to this.

A part of his proud, spacenoid psyche, wanted to rebel against the Prime Minister’s call for capitulation. The notion of going out in an honorable blaze of glory inside of Old Crow, taking as many Feddies with him as he could manage, tingled pleasantly within his imagination. Yet, at the same instance, the absolute fool hearted reality of such a stand came into his mind as well. Laytn was a patriot, and a lover of his homeland, but he was no zealot. There was a difference in dying for one’s country, and committing self-righteous suicide. 

Laytn was brought back to the moment as his eyes were drawn to the blaze of a green flare rising from beyond a distant dune. It arced through the sky, still very bright, even in the face of the full sun. 

“Contact!” Laytn called. “I’ve got a green flare off to the northwest of my position. Probably three or four klicks out. It’s gotta be the Feddies. Can you guys make out any vehicles?”

Post 3: Howl at the Moon

The Kashbrillaari Nebula
The Maw Frontier
Five Standard Weeks following the True Vacuum Event

The deep reconnaissance controller ship, Yuansu, adjusted its course slightly, allowing its ugly bulk to position for optimal launch vectors for the four FTL equipped Diviak-class space probes it clutched to its outer hull.  Following closely in the Yuansu’s wake like doting, overprotective parents, was the frigate VRS Folmer, and the corvette VRS Hastos. As with any privately operated High Value Asset (HVA), as the Yuansu was designated, it required an escort from the 4th Fleet. The Maw Frontier was a lucrative expanse of space for the VUR, but as its name suggested, a frontier was exactly what it was.

The Maw Frontier’s legal population was almost exclusively tied with deep space mining operations, and these Val lived mostly in the several dozen stations scattered throughout the region. Given the Maw’s relative distance from the core systems of the Valeth Unified Republic, it lacked the development, and thus the draw, of general colonization. As such, the Maw Frontier had the highest concentration of pirates, terrorists, and political dissidents of any VUR sector of space. The navy’s 4th Fleet, along with the 8th Legion of the Republic Commerce Corp, had the daunting task of maintaining order and free commercial operations within the expanse of the Maw. 

Operating from the hub of Piroch Station, the navy and RCC forces went about their duties skillfully. Thousands of missions had reduced the once sizable rebel network of the Maleth Rokulval to a mere shadow of its former self. Following the True Vacuum event, many in the VUR feared that the rebel group would attempt to capitalize on the relative chaos, and ramp up terrorist action within the Maw. However, that fear had not yet come to fruition. The navy’s Fleet Intelligence Office reported that Maleth Rokulval no longer possessed any capital-class vessels, and so the incursions against legitimate VUR ships within the Maw Frontier had actually gone down since the True Vacuum event. Never before had operations in the Maw been so smooth. 

Old habits die hard however, and the 4th Fleet was far from believing that Maleth Rokulval had completely been reduced to a state of insignificance. So, as the Yuansu went about its business, the navy ships Folmer and Hastos went about theirs.

As it maneuvered into its final launch position, the Yuansu retro-thrusted to hold station. The ship’s captain communicated with the Folmer and the Hastos, assuring that each vessel was aware that the four deep space probes were about to disembark. Each navy vessel reported it was indeed aware, and confirmed their positions were well clear of the escape vectors of the probes. This mundane procedure was interrupted as the corvette VRS Hastos violently disintegrated into an expanding ball of ionized metal. 

The klaxons of sensor warnings followed a split second after the Hastos exploded, blaring at crews of the Yuansu and Folmer that new ship signatures were present, and that targeting beams had interrogated their hulls. With a skill that belied its crew’s surprise, the Folmer began immediate evasive maneuvers, and initiated the process of training its ion-beam cannons and mass driver batteries against the new threat. 

By the time the Folmer oriented itself to return fire however, it was all too late. A dozen high-output ion beams reduced the frigate’s point matrix shields to nothingness, followed closely by the impact of several hundred super-dense, mass-driver accelerated slugs. These slugs ripped through the hull of the Folmer, imparted an almost incalculable amount of kinetic energy into the superstructure. Bulkheads disappeared, and the tachyon fusion core lost containment integrity. In mere seconds, the ship joined the Hastos in becoming an expanding cloud of atoms that would soon be lost amidst the heart of the Kashbrillaari Nebula.

The Yuansu followed protocol when in the face of what could only be designated as a super-capital class enemy ship—its engines powered down, and its protective shields were lowered. From the vantage of the bridge, the Yuansu became shrouded in shadow as its assailant came to eclipse the light from the surrounding stars. Hailing frequencies were opened to the foundered Yuansu, and the massive vessel identified itself for the first time. 

“This is the dreadnaught Red Pelt. Your vessel, and all its cargo, are now under the direct control of the one, true, and legitimate Valeth government. We are the Maleth Rokulval.”

*V*V*V*V*V*V*V*

The Maleth Rokulval dreadnought Red Pelt

The Tuazor Asteroid Cloud
The Maw Frontier
Six Standard Weeks following the True Vacuum Event

The dreadnaught Red Pelt rose from the floating cloud of astral rock like a living leviathan, its hard lines ominous and deadly silhouetted amidst the field of stars. From its belly, the deep reconnaissance controller ship Yuansu emerged. The ship bristled with the bodies of the four large FTL equipped probes, just at it had a week before. Yet, all was not the same. Each of the probes, originally built to prospect and analyze new mining sectors within the Maw Frontier, had been repurposed. Now each was a mass of sensors and comm arrays, destined to move amongst the vast new universe with the sole purpose of making first contact with other FTL-achieved civilizations. 

From their contacts within the VUR navy and scientific community, Maleth Rokulval knew that the distinct signatures of FTL vessels existed beyond the borders of the republic. They also knew that the VUR government was taking its time in reaching out to these civilizations, weary of inciting war in the wake of the True Vacuum event. The VUR wanted to make sure its own house was in order before it went about drawing the attention of outsiders. Maleth Rokulval had a very different outlook on the matter. 

For those Val that held onto the old ways, the ways that had governed the Val prior to the tyrannical democratic republic had been established, chaos was an element to be desired. Maleth Rokulval didn’t want the VUR to get its affairs stable, and if it required the influence of alien civilizations to achieve its ends, then so be it.

So, in the shadow of the Red Pelt, these four deep space probes departed. In short order, they had achieved FTL speeds, and were now rocketing towards the four corners of the new universe. Their courses were straight, and easily trackable to any civilization of spacefaring ability. From within their hulls, wave after wave of tachyon particles broadcast outward at similar super-light speed, making the probes veritable beacons in the omnipresent dark of the void.

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