Starlance

FreeSpace: Expansion

The alien conjured up another fancy hologram, ‘throwing’ it to Carthus. Was a simple command console or a control pad too much to ask for? Carthus examined the jagged lines on the projection, assuming it was meant to be the written form of their language. Maybe they should stick to hand signals. He placed his finger ‘on’ the knob and mimicked the alien’s finger motion. The knob responded accordingly and, feeling a slight downward pull, quickly reached for his helmet. Progress! He was certain this would be the weirdest conversation of his life. Comparing the alien readout with his suit’s indication, he made mental notes on what he assumed was the alien writing until he reached the maximum the controls would allow - a little over half of the Narix standard.
“What’s up, commander, broken something already?” one of the marines commented, earning him a nudge from his comrade.

Letting go of the maxed out controls, Carthus hung his helmet from his utility belt and demagnetized his boots. The alien than fished something from its suit. It looked like a piece of the alien itself. Carthus reluctantly accepted it, and upon closer inspection, discovered the circuitry-like patterns lining it. The alien proceeded to gesture at its head, much to the Primarch’s confusion until he realized it was pointing right where his ears would be. This was a horrible risk. Not only he didn’t know what this suspicious piece of alien technology was, but as one of the highest-ranking starfleet officers, his head contained a lot of things the Narix wanted to keep a lid on. Even on the smaller scale, such as the presence of two pilots and fourteen marines in the shuttle, and the RTO periodically sending low-power, encrypted messages back to the Latanos to let them know all was well so far. Oh well, too late to back out now. Giving the device one last look, he attached it to his left ear and waited.

FreeSpace: Expansion

Just how did the alien control the ship by essentially touching vacuum was beyond Carthus’s comprehension. The air rapidly flooded into the room, returning sound to the equation. Once the air pressure stabilised on a tolerable, albeit low level, Carthus gestured to his men, fingers forming a closed fist with the thumb jutting up, and switched the suit to open-circuit breathing, taking a deep breath of the oxygen-rich atmosphere.

When he turned back to the alien, his helmet - or her helmet, or its helmet as far as he knew - was off and it spoke, in a truly alien language. It sounded vaguely like the time one of his brothers tried to speak with his tongue under local anesthesia. “Well, this ought to be interesting, but at least we’re getting somewhere.” he thought. At least it could talk, that was a step ahead.
“Greetings.” he responded and took off his helmet, unaware of what the alien said, but this seemed to be an appropriate thing to go for. He let go of the helmet, letting it float beside him to illustrate that enabling gravity might be a good next step. He wasn’t too worried the gravity these people were used to would be too much to handle. If their natural gravity was so high it would pose major problems, they were not likely to subject themselves to zero G environments for this long.
“Perhaps you could do something about this, if you’d be so kind?” the Primarch said, pointing at his floating helmet, hoping the alien would get what he meant.

FreeSpace: Expansion

The light show took the Narix by surprise, one of the marines taking a half-step back in surprise. Carthus examined the animation, not too excited about the idea of the airlock closing behind them, but they wouldn’t get far without it. He slowly reached for the left side of his helmet with two fingers to speak to the dropship crew.
“Gate’s about to close, looks like we’ll get atmosphere. Three to ten Oxygen - Nitrogen if I understand this correctly.”
“SIr, how do we even tell them ‘yes’ or ‘no’? For all we know, what passes for our hand signals might be insults or whatnot to them.”
“Shut it, Katis, and let the Primarch do his job, he’s got an hour to figure it out.”

The soldier raised a good point, but what else was there to try? Carthus raised his left hand to head height, palm forward and moved the hand up and down about 20 centimeters, nodding his head and pointing at the ‘button’ as he did. He than dropped his arm down and reached for the tacpad on his left forearm, switching his visor to its transparent state and waiting for the alien’s reaction. Ho hoped showing his face could break some ice. After all, hiding ones face didn’t exactly say ‘friendly’. Raising his hand to his helmet once more, he contacted the dropship again. “Have everyone in the troop bay take a seat and appear as non-threatening as possible in case they catch a glimpse of you.”

The entire time, every movement the Narix made was about half the speed it normally would, drawing out the entire ordeal. The Primarch hoped they could quickly achieve vocal communication on at least a basic level. He dreaded to think where this would go if the species didn’t communicate vocally.

FreeSpace: Expansion

“Entering the ship, start the clock. Pilot, what are we looking at?”
“Lots of boxes, looks like a cargo bay. Bright red lighting. So far no gravity and no atmosphere.” As one, everyone in the troop bay stood up, fixed to the floor by magnetized soles, and retrieved external air supply kits for their suits. Combined with the suits’ internal supply, it gave them about an hour of air.
“Fine, switch to internal air supply, depressurize the ship, keep the engines ready. If it all goes to shit, maybe at least you can make it out.” The Primarch stood at the front of the troop bay, the squad along the walls. “You two,” the Primarch gestured at the squad’s pointman and machine gunner, “You’re out first, make sure it’s clear. I’ll follow right behind you. I want the rest to stay here. Maybe they spook easily.”
“Lights off, depressurization check, thrusters check, weapons check.” the pilot reported, “Opening rear bay, good luck to all of us.”

The rear bay swung down to form a boarding ramp, revealing the darkened troop bay. Out of the black appeared two figures, one holding a short bullpup rifle, the other a longer one with a drum magazine and bipod. Both marines wore armored suits with hydraulic-driven exoskeleton supporting their backs, hip joints, knees, ankles, shoulders, elbows and wrists and opaque visors. Upon closer observation of the helmet, one could see feint orange glow from the HUD projectors. After scanning the room for a few seconds, their sight snapped to Astra.
“Primarch?” the one on the left lowered his weapon and swept his teammate’s aside as well. Without atmosphere, the entire spectacle was dead silent. “The landlord’s come to greet us. And looks loaded for large game.”
The Primarch slowly came out of the shuttle, little lights lining his soles alternating between green and orange as the electromagnets switched on and off, allowing him to walk. His only weapon was a sidearm in a chest holster. He stopped a step ahead of his men and raised his hands, palms toward Astra. “Holster your rifles, lads, but no sudden movements.” The soldiers obliged, letting their weapons hang on their slings. Without gravity, the rifles stayed where they let go of them, still within reach if they were necessary. The Primarch kept his gaze fixed on the alien while the other soldiers turned their attention back to their surroundings.

FreeSpace: Expansion

NSS Latanos
“Unknown changing orbit. Now on intercept trajectory, that’s… good? Is it?”
“Weapons don’t seem active, or at least aiming at us. What’s the illuminated section?” the Primarch pointed out as the unknown darkened. Zooming in revealed an opening in the ship’s hull.
“Hangar, perhaps? Or maybe a docking port?” the officer paused, “Goodness me, are they trying to board?!”
“Could be, but why would they illuminate the docking port? Why would they keep it open and exposed the ship’s innards. No, this doesn’t look like a boarding attempt, unless the species suffers from a crippling lack of basic mental faculties.”
The Primarch paced around the CIC. Just what was the unknown doing?
“They have backup, but they’re staying out of the picture. It’s likely they know we know they’re there, just as it is likely they know we are not the only Narix ship in this system. We have partially intercepted an outgoing transmission from them, but can’t make sense of it, but it doesn’t look like it was meant for us anyway and they haven’t responded to our first contact package. Either they haven’t received it, don’t care, or have as much luck deciphering it as we’ve had with theirs.” he sighed, “Well, there’s no bravery without a bit of recklessness. Ready a dropship and a marine squad.” Ascari turned to his XO, “The ship is yours for now. Let the Asgypus know what we’re doing. If we get in and don’t check back in ten minute intervals, scrap that ship and arrange for salvage. Should that come to pass, Prefect Nyxeris will take over the fleet. We’ll do our best to make sure Lord-Commander Zorea can stay home.”

Six minutes later
Four Raider-class heavy fighters formed around the dropship and headed for the unknown.
“Primarch?” the dropship pilot turned around to address his superior, “Is this really a wise course of action?”
The Primarch didn’t know the answer. The fighters held position one hundred meters from the ship while the dropship slowly approached the open docking port.
“That’s going to be a tight fit.” the pilot noted. He turned the Pillager around to face away from the alien vessel and inched toward it, ready to blast off at full throttle at the first sign of trouble.

FreeSpace: Expansion

NSS Latanos, planet’s orbit
At this distance, the thermal cameras could pick out several heat signatures of different sizes. They lay in orbit at the edge of the system, much like the Narix were when they arrived in the system. That could indicate another jump node, assuming they used subspace to travel in a similar way the Narix did. Much to the crew’s puzzlement, the largest of the signatures started to emit an erratic subspace signature, completely different to Narix jump windows. What was strange was no heat buildup. Any uncertainty was dispelled when the unknown vanished.

The sight of the alien vessel appearing out of nowhere left the Narix crew stunned for a moment. The vessel’s general shape was reminiscent of a missile. An elongated hull with engine pylons near the back.
“Crap, get fighters into the launch tubes. Gunnery control, hold fire. DC teams, standby.”
“Cruiser-sized vessel, but EM signature is lower than one would guess for a ship of this size. It’s not doing anything, it’s just… sitting there.”
“Who are you?” the Primarch wondered, “Broadcast the first contact package. Let’s see if we even have a common wire.”

The first contact package contained a dumbed-down version of the Narix language along with instructions on how to decipher it. Of course it relied on the unknowns to figure out at least a part of the language in order to understand the language primer itself. Just how long that would take or if the unknowns would even try was anyone’s guess. The entire package was broadcast in a loop on every short-range channel the Narix used for sixty seconds. Based on distances alone, any other ship in the system was likely to receive the package as well. The same broadcast would also alert the remaining Narix ships to a first contact scenario.

The ATC reported 16 fighters in the tubes and prepared for launch. All they had to do to launch was engage the catapult. The Primarch could vividly imagine their hands on the controls, ready to ram the throttles open at a moment’s notice. He hoped they wouldn’t realize what the open launch tubes were for, or wouldn’t consider it a hostile action if they did. Given the ships attitude towards each other, the tubes shouldn’t even be visible to the unknowns.
“Sir?” The gunnery officer asked, “Do you think they’ll get the message?”
“I don’t know. Time will tell. I just hope I wasn’t right about the empire of xenophobes earlier today. No further transmissions for now, just to be on the safe side.”

FreeSpace: Expansion

Naris orbit
The New Frontier orbital station has been a hive of activity for the past ten ten months. Among the passenger liners and ever present freighters, nested in the numerous berths scattered around the station itself, were four Guardian-class corvettes that did not belong to the defensive fleet. Further behind them, hidden away from most praying eyes, the bow of a Vanguard-class cruiser was visible from Primarch Ascari’s seat in the station’s observation dome. Although the Council tried to conceal the uncommon activity around the shipyards, everyone knew something was coming. It was uncommon for the military to seal off several berths without at least a nonsense cover story. The Primarch remembered the rumors that emerged mere hours after the Exile Rebellion because the official sources were silent, leaving imagination running rampant. Fortunately, public relations weren’t his responsibility anymore. He would just have to tell everyone that he doesn’t know about anything. Carthus picked up his bag and walked out of the observation deck, heading toward the hangar.

Minutes before departure, a fair-skinned man rushed into the small passenger compartment, panting for breath despite his powered suit.
“Ran quite a distance, have we?” The Primarch asked.
“Indeed. Prefect Nyxeris, NSS Asgypus.” He responded with a salute, taking a seat beside the Primarch.
“What’s the hurry about, Prefect?”
“We’ve been attached to the exploration fleet, but my flight from Naris got delayed. As your subordinate, I haven’t received any departure orders. Can you shed some light on that?” he asked.
“T minus thirteen hours. Smart of them, we’ll be leaving with Lux Naris on the other side of the planet. With no light, the only thing visible will be the subspace windows. The jump point is located away from the observation dome, so even those will not be seen by many. We’re jumping beyond the outer belt, five kilometers from the node.”
“That’s a lot of secrecy. How many ships are a part of this?”
“Two cruisers, two frigates, eight corvettes and four science vessels.”
“That’s twelve warships.“ he gasped, “Now I hope we don’t find any intelligent life, because if we show up with this lot, nobody with their head screwed on right will believe us when we tell them we are just exploring the neighbouring systems. I understand they’re being cautious, but this is built like an invasion fleet.”
“The Council fears we will run into hostile life. Would you rather come prepared and hope you can reach out to them before an accident happens, or face an empire of xenophobes that see you as a snack with just one Vanguard, one Privateer and four Guardians as was originally planned? Not to mention keeping the science ships safe. But you’re right, I intend to hold back most of the fleet. Lord-Commander Eudorian has assured me the Amare and her battlegroup will blockade this side of the node, so we will take the entire force through at once and secure that side of the corridor. We’ll decide what to do based on what we’ll find on the other side. But I reckon it’ll be a bunch of rocks, maybe a few useful planets. Or we could jump near a black hole for all we know.”

Past the Arcus Belt, fourteen hours later
The expeditionary fleet assembled around the intersystem node. The cruisers at the tip of the formation, flanked by the rest of the ships. Primarch Ascari took up his position in the Latanos’ CIC, looking over the fleet. Only the position lights were visible, with the occasional faint glow of thrusters here and there.
“FCO, signal the fleet we are go. SCO, contact control. Boffins estimate the jump to take a little under two hours. If homeworld doesn’t hear from us within six hours, we’re likely in trouble. We’ll try to call back as soon as as we secure the node.”
The formation headed for the node. First crusiers, frigates and corvettes four minutes, science vessels eight minutes behind them.
“Engineering reports subspace motivators ready. Both reactors stable.”
“Signal the others. Jump in ten seconds.”
Three subspace windows opened and swallowed the two ships, sending them onto a two hour journey into the unknown.

Two hours later, Subspace
The two of ships raced through the Subspace corridor shoulder to shoulder, the white and blue walls shooting past them. Primarch Ascari rested in his seat, trying to relax while he could. So far, they were safe. But in ten or so minutes, that could drastically change.
Prefect Nyxeris was quite the opposite. He kept pacing around the CIC in circles, hoping they would be out soon. Subspace always sent a chill through his guts. Although two Vanguards were a force not to be trifled with, at least in theory, he never would’ve thought actually going past Naris would be this much pressure.

Both the Latanos and Asgypus were Vanguard-class cruisers. The 1100 meters long ship was the main warship of the starfleet, preceded by the Legionnaire-class cruisers. With six quad turrets and 16 torpedo tubes for anti-ship work as well as 24 strike craft, the Vanguard should be able to handle whatever lay on the other side. In theory.

The smaller Privateer-class frigates have always been intended for long-range patrols and reconnaissance. At 600 meters, they could be considered the big, mean siblings of the NCv Guardian-class corvettes. Though far from defenceless, their anti-ship capablilty was limited to three quad turrets and 12 torpedo tubes with limited ammunition. The Privateers Subspace motivators were fitted with advanced heatsinks, allowing it to jump in shorter intervals than would be expected from a ship of its size. In addition, each carried two Pillager-class dropships equipped with an additional sensor and communication package to provide better coverage in cases of interference, be it environmental or artificial.

Lastly, there were the Guardian-class corvettes. At 170 meters, she was nothing more than 12 Swarmer missile turrets with engines strapped to them. Eight of them were more than capable of neutralizing a large force of fighters or bombers, but a single hit was enough to incapacitate it.

Eight minutes later, uncharted system
The two brown dwarfs lay seemingly stationary in the center of the system. In reality, they danced around each other, forever bound together by the tethers of gravity. Besides these stars and two dwarf planets circling the stellar duet, there was nothing interesting in the system when two white and blue subspace windows formed, spitting the Vanguards out into real space. Carthus scrambled to the sensors officers, eyes glued to their instruments.

“Well?” he asked after gazing over their shoulders for several minutes.
“Looks like we found ourselves a binary system here. We seem to be about 108 million kilometers from the closer star. Astrogation reports two orbiting bodies visible, preliminary observation would suggest dwarf planets, but you know how confusing things are at such distances.”
The Primarch nodded. “Once they arrive, send the Sandstorm and Uppercut to investigate the planets. We’ll stay here take a look at the surrounding stars and report back home. If there’s something noteworthy here or in close proximity, I want to know about it.”
“Hold on, possible contact.” the sensors officer called, “Picking up a thermal signature, heading three-three-zero, inclination negative three-six. It’s much hotter than our ships, and it’s big. Either it’s several ships close together, or it’s massive.”
“Already? Fine, no plan survives first contact. Leave the Asgypus here to secure the node, let them know we’re going to investigate. Tell them to send a frigate our way once they arrive. Jump to the planet closer to the contact, we’ll take a closer look with optical sensors as well before approaching.”
The Latanos disappeared through the subspace window, emerging near the planet, much closer to the contact.

Innocence Lost: An RP of Child Soldiers and Science Fantasy

Present.

Innocence Lost: An RP of Child Soldiers and Science Fantasy

The five days before the transfer to planet Cobalt went by without anything of note. Perhaps the last few calm days they would enjoy for some time. Despite hitching a ride among the cargo, the trip wasn’t of the worst. She would almost call it comfortable, compared to some of the places she’s been to during the war. As the flight dragged on, she entertained herself by browsing the cargo manifests attached to most crates and other containers. Perhaps there was something that could be useful to them. What was a few opened crates to a large shipping company? That was until the freighter turned around rather hastily and, by the looks of things, tried to get back to the Bazaar at full burn. This kind of maneuver was rough on the passengers and cargo even in top of the line vessels, let alone a freight barge. As soon as the ship somewhat steadied, Rachel dropped what she was doing and made her way back to the group, wondering what could have caused the crew to head back in such a hurry? Engine trouble? No, they would take it slowly. Something critical, like a life support failure? Could be. Or perhaps...

The pirate ramming attempt caught her mid-step, promptly sending her onto the floor with a hollow thud. As she scrambled back to her feet, the ship started to shake again as the pirates pummeled it with weapons fire. She could only hope the hail of fire wouldn’t penetrate the cargo compartment they were in, much like the rest of the passengers and crew. As far as any defensive action was considered, she was next to useless in a situation like this. Rachel spent most of the war observing the enemy, infiltrating key positions and extracting information. Most of her training was devoted to not being seen. They only started shooting after making sure the team she was assigned to like a piece of equipment had every possible advantage before executing a swift sweep with surgical precision. The other possibility was being ambushed by an enemy force, but that never happened while she was on a ship. She took a breath and was about to suggest they just hide and live out the raid. But that was before the pirates docked, no doubt intent on deploying a boarding party. “So much for that plan.” she cursed under her breath and hid behind a stack of crates, more for concealment rather than cover given the raiders’ firepower.

The best course of action would be to stay back and support her more combat-oriented teammates by throwing any pirate that would be a threat to her teammates into a wall or pulling a friendly away from said threat with her telekinesis Sadly, this ‘best course of action’ was still quite limited. An illusion at her level could only affect one target at a time and she couldn’t do much else while it was active. Rapport was dependent on the target’s mental fortitude, but if she focused on injured pirates, the spell’s chance of success would be greater. She doubted Fire Surge would be effective enough against opponents in vac suits. “Ideas?” she asked with a good measure of uncertainty in her voice.

Innocence Lost: An RP of Child Soldiers and Science Fantasy

The part of the Galactic Bazaar where the factory was located reminded Rachel of the Nariman district of Londres Nova, where she grew up back on Mars. Dark, somewhat rundown, quite cramped, almost claustrophobic in some places and very few law enforcement officers ever ventured there. But it was home, no matter how bad it was. A heaven for a fingersmith such as herself, had it been more populated. With her hands in her pockets, the former scoundrel followed the group towards the team’s humble abode in long strides, leaving her mind to wander. Eight years ago, give or take a few months, she tried to steal her first bicycle in a street not very different from the one they were just walking on. Given that she has never learned to ride a bike, it was the first and also the last one she ever set her hands on.

When the group stopped to listen to the news, Rachel followed the broadcast with her ears, eyes mindful of the street. Although the general was correct in citing the lack of security in the name of freedom as a problem in past regimes, his apology rang hollow. He was also correct about the corruption issue, but there was a big difference between a corrupt government and a species-wide cult of personality. She had to snort with laughter at the last bit. ‘...disturbance of tranquility is never a way to solve any problems.’ Spoken by a representative of the government that started a race-oriented war and pissed off every known major species in the process. And the might of Ascendancy’s military? Rather, they would face whatever scraps were left of it. But despite the massive beating they received at Proxima and during several late-war battles prior to it as well as the subsequent disarmament and sanctions, squashing a couple of annoying bugs was still a fairly easy task for them. And their little group was a very small bug.

As the broadcast ended, Rachel turned to Aaloka. “I don’t know. I think I saw a deck of cards in one of the cabinets?” she searched her memory for more, but came up with nothing. ”We’ll have to check when we get home. That is unless something that needs to be done first pops up.” she added, looking forward to sitting down at last. “How long do ye think the job will take? Few days? A week?”