LiotrentCorinthene
Planetary Defence Command
The PDC bunker was an enormous facility buried deep below Corinthene’s surface, armour clad, environmentally sealed, shielded, and all around indestructible. Staff there liked to joke that the bunker would still be there even if you blew up the planet around it. General Verner, the man responsible for Corinthene’s safety, was in no mood for jokes today. He was hovering on the edge of incandescent fury, but keeping it under control. He looked around the command centre slowly, noting how on edge its personnel were. “Alright,” he said calmly, “how did they get by the detection grid.”
And that was the million dollar question. On the surface, the population was in a state of anxious confusion. The content of the message was already slipping from their minds, completely overshadowed by the question of how the alien ship slipped into orbit of the Commonwealth’s capital without being detected. Already the news networks were bandying about theories, consulting ‘experts’ and being generally unhelpful. General Verner knew he needed to get a statement out, or the population would likely begin to panic. Thankfully Parliament was sitting on Praetoria this week for its quarterly Royal Session, or else Verner would’ve had every one of them beating on his door demanding answers.
His chief of staff was the first to respond. “We’ve been working on that, and I believe we may have an answer.” He brought up sensor logs on the primary display. “Here,” he said, pointing at a small blip. “We think that was them dropping out of FTL. They came into realspace way out of the system, far enough that the signature was too faint for analysis software to flag. We think they spent the next week or so coasting in ballistically, which combined with their cloaking field and the small size of the vessel, made them more or less undetectable.”
Verner nodded slowly. “What about psy-ops? Did no one pick up anything while they were in orbit?”
“Psy-ops reported that the speaker in the message was a powerful psintegrat. He was hiding himself and the vessel’s crew the whole time.”
“Alright; I want a full report written up ASAP, and get somebody from media relations in here to put together a press release. Oh, and let’s contact Admiral Herzenhollen, and see about getting some probes to follow that thing.”
----------------------------------------------------
An hour later, Lieutenant Cecilia Jesbeth Ferguson, press officer for the PDC, was standing in front of a holographic projection of the PDC’s shield and stars logo, delivering a statement she’d whipped together in less than an hour based on the report from Operations. And then, she said those fateful words she hated so much: “I will now take your questions.”
Immediately the room exploded with cries of “CJ! CJ! Over here CJ!”. Ferguson hated the newsies on Corinthene. She’d started out on Praetoria, where the largely Vit’azny press corp looked at her--a human--like she was wearing an offensive perfume, but at least they addressed her correctly as ‘Lietenant Ferguson’. On Corinthene, within a week of starting her job, the newsies had named her CJ and no amount of correcting them would make ‘Lieutenant Ferguson’ stick.
Hating them all equally, Ferguson chose a reporter from the crowd at random.
“CJ! Would the aliens have been able to successfully bombard parliament?!”
Ferguson resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “No. The unidentified vessel was targeted and queried within 5 seconds of beginning its broadcast. It would have been destroyed at the first sign of weaponsfire, and Parliament’s shields can withstand days of sustained fleet bombardment without failing. Next question.”
“CJ, is this the precursor to a foreign invasion?”
Again, the urge to roll her eyes. “ONI and CID think it unlikely. An invasion scout would’ve been better served by remaining undetected. The alien vessel was here to deliver a message, nothing else. And if the unknown aliens should pursue an invasion, well, they will find us a formidable adversary”
“And what about the message, CJ, does the military have any comments on that?”
Ferguson shrugged. “Who can fathom the minds of religious zealots? It was evidently important to them that they deliver this message. We have faith that the citizens of Corinthene won’t fall to panic from the vague threats of fanatics. That will be all, thank you.”
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Sol System
RCNS Unbowed
When thinking of stealth and spacecraft, a Commonwealth Reliant-class battlecruiser does not generally come to mind. But surprisingly enough, they can hide themselves quite effectively given the right circumstances. RCNS Unbowed was operating in stealth mode at the moment, and was nicely tucked away in Sol’s middling asteroid belt, giving her plenty of cover. In the days of the old Imperium she never would have made it this far into the system undetected, but years of conflict had reduced Sol’s detection arrays to clouds of debris.
Unbowed was diligently watching a specific target. She couldn’t use active scanners lest they give away her position, but the Dominion Titan she was stalking was so huge and so emissions heavy that passive scanners were more than enough to keep track of it. From afar, they watched the fate of the galaxy unfold, as the occupation of Earth began.
Planetary Defence Command
The PDC bunker was an enormous facility buried deep below Corinthene’s surface, armour clad, environmentally sealed, shielded, and all around indestructible. Staff there liked to joke that the bunker would still be there even if you blew up the planet around it. General Verner, the man responsible for Corinthene’s safety, was in no mood for jokes today. He was hovering on the edge of incandescent fury, but keeping it under control. He looked around the command centre slowly, noting how on edge its personnel were. “Alright,” he said calmly, “how did they get by the detection grid.”
And that was the million dollar question. On the surface, the population was in a state of anxious confusion. The content of the message was already slipping from their minds, completely overshadowed by the question of how the alien ship slipped into orbit of the Commonwealth’s capital without being detected. Already the news networks were bandying about theories, consulting ‘experts’ and being generally unhelpful. General Verner knew he needed to get a statement out, or the population would likely begin to panic. Thankfully Parliament was sitting on Praetoria this week for its quarterly Royal Session, or else Verner would’ve had every one of them beating on his door demanding answers.
His chief of staff was the first to respond. “We’ve been working on that, and I believe we may have an answer.” He brought up sensor logs on the primary display. “Here,” he said, pointing at a small blip. “We think that was them dropping out of FTL. They came into realspace way out of the system, far enough that the signature was too faint for analysis software to flag. We think they spent the next week or so coasting in ballistically, which combined with their cloaking field and the small size of the vessel, made them more or less undetectable.”
Verner nodded slowly. “What about psy-ops? Did no one pick up anything while they were in orbit?”
“Psy-ops reported that the speaker in the message was a powerful psintegrat. He was hiding himself and the vessel’s crew the whole time.”
“Alright; I want a full report written up ASAP, and get somebody from media relations in here to put together a press release. Oh, and let’s contact Admiral Herzenhollen, and see about getting some probes to follow that thing.”
----------------------------------------------------
An hour later, Lieutenant Cecilia Jesbeth Ferguson, press officer for the PDC, was standing in front of a holographic projection of the PDC’s shield and stars logo, delivering a statement she’d whipped together in less than an hour based on the report from Operations. And then, she said those fateful words she hated so much: “I will now take your questions.”
Immediately the room exploded with cries of “CJ! CJ! Over here CJ!”. Ferguson hated the newsies on Corinthene. She’d started out on Praetoria, where the largely Vit’azny press corp looked at her--a human--like she was wearing an offensive perfume, but at least they addressed her correctly as ‘Lietenant Ferguson’. On Corinthene, within a week of starting her job, the newsies had named her CJ and no amount of correcting them would make ‘Lieutenant Ferguson’ stick.
Hating them all equally, Ferguson chose a reporter from the crowd at random.
“CJ! Would the aliens have been able to successfully bombard parliament?!”
Ferguson resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “No. The unidentified vessel was targeted and queried within 5 seconds of beginning its broadcast. It would have been destroyed at the first sign of weaponsfire, and Parliament’s shields can withstand days of sustained fleet bombardment without failing. Next question.”
“CJ, is this the precursor to a foreign invasion?”
Again, the urge to roll her eyes. “ONI and CID think it unlikely. An invasion scout would’ve been better served by remaining undetected. The alien vessel was here to deliver a message, nothing else. And if the unknown aliens should pursue an invasion, well, they will find us a formidable adversary”
“And what about the message, CJ, does the military have any comments on that?”
Ferguson shrugged. “Who can fathom the minds of religious zealots? It was evidently important to them that they deliver this message. We have faith that the citizens of Corinthene won’t fall to panic from the vague threats of fanatics. That will be all, thank you.”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sol System
RCNS Unbowed
When thinking of stealth and spacecraft, a Commonwealth Reliant-class battlecruiser does not generally come to mind. But surprisingly enough, they can hide themselves quite effectively given the right circumstances. RCNS Unbowed was operating in stealth mode at the moment, and was nicely tucked away in Sol’s middling asteroid belt, giving her plenty of cover. In the days of the old Imperium she never would have made it this far into the system undetected, but years of conflict had reduced Sol’s detection arrays to clouds of debris.
Unbowed was diligently watching a specific target. She couldn’t use active scanners lest they give away her position, but the Dominion Titan she was stalking was so huge and so emissions heavy that passive scanners were more than enough to keep track of it. From afar, they watched the fate of the galaxy unfold, as the occupation of Earth began.
