SDNW4 Story Thread 1

[Siege]

Atmosphere of Majella-3
Fifteen minutes to USMC hyper-out

“Fuuuuck me!” yelled Sergeant Alders, and he was thrown against the side-mounted shock harnesses as the dropship rocked and swayed, bracketed like a leaf as it was by the atmospheric detonations of Bragulan warheads. As far as anyone aboard the Bullfly dropship could tell the Bragulans weren't nuking Majella, not yet anyway, but several of their warheads were popping off near enough to the planet to cause massive shockwaves that hammered everything from the dropships right down to the trees on the surface. Titanic storms were already brewing in the atmosphere, the result of the excess energy pumped into the air by the Sovereignty's orbital bombardments first, and whipped now into an utter frenzy by the bleed-off of the fleet engagement in orbit. “LT, we're in deep shit here!”

“Thanks for informing me sergeant, I hadn't noticed!” barked John Baylor, and he tried desperately not to hit the back of his head against the steel wall of the dropship again. Music was blasting through the hold, something about a 'highway to hell', something which Baylor thought overly dramatic but then that was the sort of thing the rocket jockeys liked. He switched radio nets and patched into the cockpit. “Pilot! What's it like out there!”

It took a moment before the pilot got back to him. When she did, her voice was strained. “Imagine flying your LARC, through Solaris rush-hour, in the wrong lane?” The dropship rocked back and forth and the pilot cursed audibly. “Jesus, hold on, we're in for some chop...” Even though the gravity and inertia-cancelling fields surrounding him Baylor could feel how the dropship was straining to heave itself into orbit – quite a feat, considering the damned thing should be able to make it to high orbit in under ten minutes. Baylor looked on his wristwatch and was surprised to find that only three minutes had passed since dust-off. He sighed. Clearly, sitting helplessly in the belly of a small ship that felt like it was about to fall brick-like out of the sky had heretofore unknown anti-relativistic effects. Still, he considered. Could be worse...

Red alarms flared through the hold and the voice of the pilot crackled across the comm-link, now laced with a tinge of panic. “Jesus, someone just got missile lock on us!” A beat. “Vampires in the air! Two missiles coming up from the surface. Christ, someone didn't do his job down there!”

Hidden rebel launchers on the surface had disgorged two heavy anti-orbit missiles, cumbersome things that would scarcely have any chance of working against something as nimble as a dropship under ordinary circumstances – but these were no ordinary circumstances, and the Bullfly had to sacrifice a lot of its agility to escape the gravity. “Lemme try to shake 'em...”

From one second to the next the dropship changed direction, plummeting meteorically from the heavens much to the consternation of the marines. “LT!” hollered Corporal Frost, and he pointed a gloved hand toward the armored ceiling of the drop-cabin. “I thought we were supposed to be going up!”

“Yeah but I'd like to get there in one piece Frost!” Baylor shouted back. “Now shut up and let our pilot do her work!”

Like all USMC and USSF atmospheric craft the Bullfly maneuvered primarily on its gravitic drive, allowing it to go sideways and engage in maneuvers that would be outright impossible with reactive propulsion systems. The ubiquitous presence of such force fields also meant, however, that its designers had felt it unnecessary to account for aerodynamics. The result was that the Bullfly cut about as well through the air as a house – that is to say, not at all well, and that deficiency really came out during extreme maneuvers that pushed the engines to their limits. The dropship twirled through the atmosphere, slicing through storm clouds as it zipped, fell and rose abruptly in a series of unpredictable twists and turns. Lightning crackled off its hull and if it weren't for the shock harnesses the marines would've ended up with broken bones. The crazy flying very nearly worked: one of the missiles overshot its target and detonated harmlessly, no more than another dark speck against a sky that had now gone completely black. The second missile would have missed as well, were it not for the brutal atmospheric disturbances. A particularly violent torrent of wind shoved the ascending dropship sideways some hundred meters – right into the path of the incoming missile. The sub-bright weapon didn't even realize what had happened, and failed to trigger its own detonation before the seeker head containing the computer was crushed out of existence against the dropship's hull, but then it didn't need to explode: the force of the impact against the Bullfly was more than enough to inflict catastrophic damage, shearing several armored suspensor units clean off the belly of the ship.

“We're hit,” the pilot confirmed, her voice oddly calm as the bracketing increased tenfold. Baylor got the distinct impression the ship was tipping its nose down. “And we're going down.”

“Oh great! This is just what my day needed!” yelled Alders. “Fuckle!”

The dropship shakes and twists something fierce as it falls back into the inner atmosphere at speeds exceeding Mach 30. Friction against the remaining force fields ignites the air around it, turning the Bullfly into a flame-wreathed comet as it plunges back toward the planetary surface. If something were to go wrong now, Baylor knew, he'd be dead before even his enhanced nervous system could register the problem. That was strangely reassuring in a way, because it meant that as long as he was still thinking, there wasn't a problem. Well, he caught himself, there was of course. Just not a fatal one. Yet. He glanced sideways at his marines. Designated marksman Duvalier had managed to pry a rosary out from under his harness and seemed to be in the middle of some kind of close-eyed prayer.

Yeah. Very reassuring.

The Bullfly arched back toward Majella trailing hypersonic shockwaves. “I'm going to try and set us down on the southern continent!” the pilot was obviously having difficulty keeping control of, well, the controls.

“Why the southern continent?!” yelled Baylor.

“Because that's where we're going to crash!”

Baylor groaned inwardly. “Can you at least aim for somewhere tropical?”

There was no reply; instead the marines are shoved sideways and then back again as the dropship engages in a series of improvised maneuvers intended to bleed off some of its ridiculous speed. Still falling down from the sky, Baylor gets the impression they were about to transform spectacularly from a barely-functioning dropship into a new crater on the surface of Majella. The fall seems to go on forever, but then the dropship shudders and Baylor feels the unmistakable bounce as the Bullfly skips violently up from the surface, only to fall back with another smash. He is violently pressed forward into the drop harness, and he realizes his spine feels like it's trying to force its way out through his nose. But slowly that disagreeable sensation fades, and the bouncing gets less violent, until the dropship comes to a skidding halt.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” comes the tired voice of the pilot. “We have come to a complete stop, so you're now again free to stick your arms and legs outside the vehicle. Thank you for flying USMC Air.”

Pandemonium breaks out amongst the marines. Whooping and hollering they drop the ramp of the dropship down and behold another field somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Majella. Why do all fields in the galaxy look the same? Baylor wonders, but promptly decides he doesn't care. He jumps down to the ground, barking: "Greetings, Earthlings!" and slings his M-116 over his shoulder. "Feast your eyes upon my magnificence! And take me to your women!"

Then he looks at the burning hulk that used to be his ride out of Majella and abruptly some of the adrenalin-fueled elation fades. The Bullfly is a smoldering ruin. Great, jagged gouges have been torn in its sides by the missile. The smell of ozone tells him at least some of the field generators have burned out on their mad descent. The ship is buried nose-first in the mud, and it's quite clear that without extensive maintenance it probably won't fly again.

Maintenance that is aboard ships that at that very moment were powering their way to the edge of the system.

Baylor scratches his head. Above him, the first contrails of Bragulan drop-tanks and trans-atmospheric gunships began to arch across the sky. He looks at Sergeant Alders who, from the look on his face, has reached the same conclusion. John Baylor nods. “Well, we're properly fucked now.”

[K. A. Pital]

Commune. Andropov-class carrier Alienation en route to New Gagarin

- I just got word from Sikorski, - said Omega. She stood in the middle of the ship's huge fighter bay. - He has sent the authorization of the Supreme Soviet, so the orders come from way on top. I've been ordered to come to the Core to be a part of a crack team in Secularis. Are you behind this? You want me to take part in Sikorski's little secularade? I mean, I support the goals, but you know how I feel about the Mirage in general...

A shuttle was parked nearby. Vector was slowly switching off the NX-03 fog, commanding it to enter stasis on the platform. The fog formed a cube with handles and wheels that would be easy to transport and stood still - until another operative would get the proper orders to use it.

- Space forbid, no! - Vector was genuinely surprised. - It's probably the Core and Sikorski. Perhaps they're planning something bigger than I've envisioned. Well, that's... strange. I never thought the Core would be interested in spy games.

- I've only been to the Core a few times, - shrugged Omega. - Certainly this lazy smart ball has too much power which it doesn't use. It could've been far more active in helping our goals. Good for us?

- It's not just one mind, - reminded Vector immediately, and for some reason his voice sounded... guilty? Omega knew it was pointless to try and pick stuff out of his non-biological brain - Vector, unlike young clouds, did not keep a structural copy of the human brain, which allowed talented telepaths to tap inside, but long shifted to other structures. But her talents also allowed her to grasp even the tiniest changes in a person's mood - in the voice, appearance, gestures and manners, even those of clouds.

- You don't like the Core, right? - She recalled that once upon a time Vector abruptly ended a conversation about the Core in the gunroom. That was a long time ago. - Never mind. You can stay on the orbital station while I gather the team.

- Thanks, Om, - Vector replied as they started walking through the corridors. - I've already been to the Core right before I came to you. I don't want to repeat the visit. It... pains me.

- Sure, sure, - Omega tried to guess just what happened between Vector and the Core. - If you'll be in the mood to share it with me, I'm always there for you, comrade.

Commune. Cloud Nine's apartments, Zero, Palace of the Soviets

Cloud Nine did not sleep, just like other Clouds. It could relax by switching off some processing sectors, but that was rarely required. However, after the talk with the Core he certainly needed some rest. But as soon as he started to fall into the rare and uncanny machine sleep, something spoke directly inside his mind.

- Don't worry...

- Holy shit! - Nine lost his posture and almost splashed on the floor like some inanimate liquid. - Who in the name of...

- I'm a non-conscious message-subprogram implanted inside your intelligence by the Core during the session, - the voice continued calmly. - This is a cautionary measure. The Core fears that a higher intelligence which was behind the transposition of a sector of space-time near us may track its conversations, or any other hostile power of which there are plenty. Therefore it hid me in a deep, protected sector and transplanted covertly as an insignificant package addition to The Plan. If the supposed higher being is focused on the Core, it would not notice my instructions to you.

- Okay, - Nine regained shape. - I thought things were bad enough already, but this! Secret packages transmitted into my own damn mind!

- Dire times call for dire measures, - mockingly replied the subprogram. - In any case, the instructions are as follows: you should order ambassador Eleven to talk with the Central Alliance leaders on the matter of scientific investigation of the transposition. We need an agreement which would allow our research vessels to enter the Central Alliance and scan their sector. At least some rocks and stuff. The advanced properties of matter may have changed as a result of the transposition. The Core desires to investigate the matter and see if this feat can be technically replicated, or to make certain that it can not. Because as you understand, just ripping out a huge chunk of a Galaxy, a part of a universe, and putting it... elsewhere... can be a deadly weapon.

- I understand, - nodded Nine. - I'll tell Eleven.

- Try to avoid a direct message. Send a ship, as if with software updates or something. It wouldn't make a higher mind suspicious. And now, alas, I self-destruct, - said the subprogram and vanished from the depths of Nine's consciousness.

He cursed again. For a while he simply stood on the floor, then made his body more rigid and left the room. If the higher mind would be scanning the Commune's network, it won't find there any information about this. Nine was going to give the orders to a ship's captain in person.

Commune. Zero, Umerian Friendship Tower

- Comrades, you must surely understand that the freak accident in our corner of space is extremely dangerous, - the Commune foreign relations chief watched the reaction of Umerians gathered in the hall. - In essence, we're dealing with a massive space-time rupture that some extremely potent higher power just pulled without warnings one year ago. What is alarming is that there is virtually no reaction from the other, less advanced nations of the Galaxy. I mean, such an event should have generated extreme alarm. But it hardly did. We tried to keep low, because we always do - but others? This is suspicious. But now, it seems, some who are smarter than the rest already picked up the winds.

- You think they might be looking for a way... to replicate this feat? Or at least look for clues, - concluded a bearded Umerian professor.

- Indeed, - comrade Sigma said. - We have detected a Collector monolith traversing to this corner of space. Undeniably they are willing to investigate the anomaly, as are we. What is also important is that us progressive civilizations unite in the face of possible new calamities. We propose to intensify our relations. Perhaps a roadmap for a full mutual defense pact...

- Defence! - one of the Umerians was amazed. - Previously the Commune was interested only in technical cooperation!

- We have... re-evaluated our position, - spoke Sigma calmly.

Commune. Zero. Interstellar Union of Worlds diplomatic mission.

- Comrades, we have been long thinking about the possibilities an alliance between the most progressive civilizations in the Galaxy. Moreover, this alliance would bring about massive technology proliferation and usher a new age of scientific wonders, - said comrade Aurora. - I believe we can work together. And what is also quite important, such an alliance would give us good control over the traffic passing to and out of the outer sectors of space. Our most advanced intelligence members, - Aurora made a pause, - consider this rather important.

[Lonestar]

P.N.S. Tuscarora
Gerhard Sector(AA-1)


The Tuscarora Strike group, consisting of the recently rebuilt Tuscarora Star Dreadnought, 2 Super-heavies, 3 Mediums(2 in carrier role), 7 destroyers, and 12 Sloops orbited Columbia Furnace in a lazy manner. Columbia Furnace was the only inhabited planet worthy of the name in this desolate colonial backwater. With a population of 350 million it was a frigging metropolis compared to the scattered spacer colonies and agri-worlds. In point of fact, there was only one reason for the strike group to visit: It was the last stop for stores and personnel before heading East.

Admiral Grierson glanced down at his orders once again.

Code: Select all

///TS/SI/CHEX MIX///
TO: COMTUSCSTRIGRU
FROM:DOMWARSTAF

1. LEVELS OF PIRATE ACTIVITIES HAVE INCREASED MARKEDLY IN BB-1.  PIRACY IS HAVING A DETRIMENTAL EFFECT ON INTERSTELLAR TRADE.
2. PIRATES APPEAR TO BE BOTH HUMAN AND XENOS.
3.TUSCARORA STRIKE GROUP ORDERED TO SECTOR BB-1 FOR SURVEYS OF KNOWN TERRAN AND NEAR-TERRAN WORLDS.  ANY INDEPENDENT HUMAN COLONIES ARE TO BE OFFERED DOMINION PROTECTION.  XENOS COLONIES ARE TO BE DESTROYED.
4.SUSPECTED PIRATE HOLDS ARE TO BE RAZED.

///TS/SI/CHEX MIX///

"Admiral, all ships are reporting personnel and stores aboard."

Grierson nodded.

"Instruct the strike group to set sail...we got some pirates to smash."

[Shroom Man 777]

The Ideologically Impeccable Imperial Bragulan Bugle Patriotic Planetary Paper

GREAT PEOPLE'S VICTORY AT MAJELLA!

MAJELLA, Wild Space - The 18th Patriotic Naval Force, under the command of the loyal and triumphant Captain Grydon Feindflug, have won a great victory for the Imperator on the farflung Wilder Space system of Majella! Departing from the swift Imperial Navy's home, the Patriotic Naval Force was quick to vanquish the forces of the metacapitalistic paleocolonialist humans of the Sovereignty - sending the humans fleeing from the Majellan worlds posthaste.


The Imperator's Glourious Boot Stomping on the Face of Humanity orbits Majella after expelling the Sovereignty's forces.

"Today we begin the first steps of Majella's Bragulanization," said Captain Feindflug in a telescreen broadcast from his flagship the aptly-named The Imperator's Glourious Boot Stomping on the Face of Humanity. "This world, and its downtrodden populace so oppressed by the Sovereign tyrants, has now been liberated and its people finally able to taste the sweet honey of Bragulan freedom.

"The state of Majella, as the Sovereignty left it, was most dire with food shortages and the evaporation of basic services. But the Imperial Legions of Liberation have already set forth in claiming the world for the Imperator. As the populace is almost entirely comprised of humans, we have begun deploying humanitarian aid by dropping baskets of foods and supplies and copies of the Imperator's green book to the most stricken areas. Hopefully the humans will pick or nick these baskets in time."

"The process of Bragulanization is a long and arduous one, but in the end it is for the ultimate prosperity of not only the Majellas, but for all patriotic peoples as well."

JEALOUS HUMAN STAR NATION CANTANKEROUSLY COPIES CERTAIN BRAGULAN BATTLESHIP BLUEPRINTS!


A battle group of mighty Chernovyi-class battleships soaring through the skies of Bragule during the last People's Imperial Victory Day Sky Parade. The glouriously original Bragulan design was copied by unimaginative humans in the Grand Dominion.

ANNAPOLIS, Shepistani Republic - Proud Imperial Bragulan diplomats stationed in Shepistan once more patriotically denounce and decry the depravities of the Grand Dominionite fiends whose so-called star dreadnoughts are clearly cheap copy-imitations of the glourious warships of the great Imperial People's Military Maritime Space Fleet - particularly the distinct hammerheaded battleships of the Chernovyi and Imperator's Fist classes. Thus far the ever-pigheaded Dominionites continue their defiance in refusing to overhaul and redesign all the warships in their star dreadnought fleet to make them look dissimilar to the greater Bragulan battleships. But this impudence will not deter the Imperator's humble servants in continuously seeking to right the wrongs impugned by the Dominionite yokels until the 'dominos' rightfully redesign every single one of their ships to look differently.

VOWEL FAMINE ON RYGNSKRGNVK AVERTED!

RYGNSKRGNVK, Kirensk Sector - The Great Famine of Rygnskrgnvk comes to an end with the arrival of imported vowels from the Altacar Empire. Great celebrations were had on the planet Rygnskrgnvk as the populaces rejoiced in the timely arrival of the much-needed vowels. It was estimated that Rygnskrgnvk could not have lasted much longer without the aid shipment.


The Altacarian ship Queen of Space, the vessel bringing the vowels to Rygnskrgnvk.

The people of Rygnskrgnvk have sent their congratulations to the Altacar Empire, and the crewmembers of the Queen of Space were given heroes welcome. In reciprocation of the gracious shipment, the People's Department of Limited Foreign Interaction and Human Affairs has arranged for the Queen of Space to return to Altacar with a vast shipment of Bragulan goods and products as a humble token of Bragulan good will and appreciation. The planet Rygnskrgnvk is home to one of the great Imperial recycling plants that convert spent ammunition casings into vacuum tubes, and bullets into nuts and bolts. A container's worth of several megatons in Bragulan vacuum tubes and bullet bolts have so far been loaded into the Queen of Space.

Meanwhile, with this successful shipment, those in the Imperial Ministry of Plentiful Supply and Demand Regulation and Registration whose grave errors caused the famine in the first place can finally be sent away to the de-education camps.



WOULD YOU LIKE TO LEARN MORE?

[PeZook]

Unknown location

The room they were stuck in quickly became a sort of strange coalition of sleek, cold Collector technology and very human - Pendletonian, Gill had to correct himself - cables, portable computers and small nuclear generators powering it all.

Amanda de la Sorbonne was in the centre of it all, surrounded by no less than three computer consoles snaking wires all across the walls, through small holes made with hidden laser cutters that the BOSS team brought aboard concealed within their cybernetic frames. For a race of machines, the Collectors permitted the team to bring a whole lot of computers, and it didn't seem like they touched any of them. Well, too bad - the programs and viruses loaded onto these consoles were some of the deadliest the BOSS managed to prepare, originally intended to bring down dataspheres of other star nations.

"I have isolated the sensors monitoring the room. I would rather not risk an attempt to penetrate the local computer system, but I can feed false readings into the sensors themselves. They will get a nice simulated image of us working on the liaison thing.", Amanda explained to her compatriots, "I will start working on a way to quickly brute-force my way into the system, and start wreaking havoc if we need to take over."

Captain Parkhurst nodded and checked on the work of the rest of her team. They were assembling weapons - nasty devices, designed especially to deal with drones and robots, and miniaturized in the most cunning ways, in order to be storeable inside standard BOSS cybernetic implants. She was sometimes amazed how many deadly devices one could conceal inside a human body, if some thought was put into it.

"Mr. Gill?", she said to their nominal commander, who was walking around the room, increasingly frustrated with the fact he had nothing to do. The diplomat perked his head up from a particularly puzzling piece of Collector technology and looked at the captain quizzically.

"Yes?"

"Why don't you get on with setting up a comms channel back to fleet command? Our hosts will start getting suspicious if we don't actually act as liaisons."

The diplomat nodded to himself. That was something he knew how to do. The...ship? Ship's captain? - It was hard to even think of the entity that housed them here in any remotely human way - provided them with a sophisticated communications and battle management suite housed within the pedestal in the centre of the room. It took some clever jury-rigging, but the Pendletonians managed to find a way to make it interface with their computers.

It took a while longer, though, before they managed to send out their first message. Somewhere inside the ship's datasphere, the AI in charge of the mighty vessel gave itself the electronic equivalent of a smirk.

Organics, it thought to itself, sacrificing a brief data cycle out of billions for this one thought of amusement.



Pendleton, Fleet Command bunker

The tension inside the system-wide command and co-ordination bunker was palpable, filling the air like heavy fog, and one could almost breathe it the moment he entered the large, but incredibly crowded room. Everyone here was waiting: after months of preparations, of a planet-wide mobilization effort, of a crash program which managed to bolster the numbers of Pendleton's star navy with auxilliaries and a number of hastily completed destroyers, of building fortifications planetside and turning every city into a fortress bristling with ground-to-space weaponry and garrisoning troops, only one thing remained. Right now, hundreds of hyperspace drones were scouring the edges of the system, listening intently to the tell-tale echo, reminescent of the trembling ground before an armored charge.

And it finally came. As Sky Marshall Cedric Dienst read the hardcopy report, his gaze turned cold, and his diposition hardened. So it was time.

"All planetary defence forces to high alert. We are now under condition one.", he calmly commanded his men. He glanced once more on the hardcopy before tossing it into the incinerator, and did his best not to show fear. The hyperspace echo, to him, looked as if half the galaxy was coming for them.

"Has the liaison team reported in yet?", he asked one of the comms operators, who was charged exclusively with monitoring the liaising frequencies. Officers from all of Pendleton's armed force branches surrounded him, ready to pass on instructions and requests from their allies to whoever needed them. An inefficient setup, but years of institutional paranoia made Pendleton's computer systems hard to interface with outside technology.

"Yes, sir. All the code groups check out - they're in position, ready to relay data. They request we execute deployment plan six-three.", the tech reported, mentioning the Collector proposal to deploy Pendleton's fleet within the asteroid belt.

"I'll need more information before we redeploy the fleet.", Dienst said to himself and turned to one of his adiutants, "Find the Collector diplomat and bring him here. I think it's time he dispensed with excuses and gave us a clear image of his forces."

The young cadet snapped to attention and answered smartly, "Yes, sir!" - but before he could execute the order, the guards escorted an unmistakable figure into the bunker, which briefly startled everyone gathered there. Everyone except for Dienst, who's mind was now concentrated on the situation within the system

"Ambassador", the sky marshall nodded, acknowledging the Collector's presence. Funny, they were just about ready to arrest him a day ago, and now he has all the security clearances to just waltz in here at will

"Marshall. I have been informed you went to high alert", the diplomat said, not looking at Dienst, but instead surveying the room.

How the hell can he know that so fast?, the Marshall thought, but immediately remembered he was talking to a machine, not a human, so decided to simply answer, "Yes"

"I can therefore disclose the dislocation and disposition of our forces, since there is little risk of a security leak now. Here", Unit 7 handed a small sheet of polymer to Dienst, who scanned it quickly, "You've got to be kidding. Five ships? Have you seen the size of the force coming for us?"

The Collector nodded, "More than enough, Marshall. I assure you."

Dienst felt despair creep into his heart. He expected...more. An armada, hidden behind careful information management, carefully deployed for maximum secrecy. Hundreds of ship, not half a dozen. With a force that small, it would be hard to even fight a guerilla campaign. It was no use arguing with the bastard now, though. His proposed force dislocation plan was sound, even if the size of Collector forces was patethic for the task they were given: an ambush was the only way they'd be able to inflict any casualties on the attacking armada.

"Very well, then, we'll make use of them as best we can. Ensign", Dienst turned back to the men at his command, "Signal the fleet to execute deployment plan six-three."

As the order was carried out, the marshall observed the defenders leaving Pendleton's orbit at full burn - somehow, inside his heart, he knew the battle was already lost, and he was sending these ships, and the men aboard them, to their certain deaths. In a moment of self-pity, he wondered if he should've defected to the Anglians twenty years ago.

[Lonestar]

Dominion Defense News

Bizarre rantings by subhuman Moreaus
The so-called Bragulans have launched a bizarre and lunatic PR campaign accusing the Grand Dominion of copying their starship designs. The War Ministry and Foriegn ministry are scoffing at the claims, noting that the entirety of the Star Dreadnoughts were built several centuries ago.

"Unfortunately this is what happens when furry culture goes to it's logical conclusion. " Says renown analrapist Dr. Tobias Funke. "The run off to some part of the galazy and turn themselves into Moreaus. Obviously some Bragulan naval architect saw a Dominion Star Dreadnought in a copy of Jaynes and went with it."

The Bragulan PR campaign has resurrected calls from the All-Human league to occupy and surgically restore the Bragulans to their true human form.

[Steve]

Vessel Strahl
Pendleton System, The Outback
24 January 3400


When Katherine awoke she found herself bound tightly to a chair. Her surroundings were drab metal, mostly, and large enough that it was clearly a cargo bay on a transport ship. She looked down to see she was fully clad in an ankle-length dress and sleeved blouse now. "Ah, awake are we?", a voice stated.
From one of the doors, she saw her captor enter, wearing the fine embroidered gold vest and high-collared white shirt she'd noticed him in before. As bounty hunters and outlaws went Katherine considered him terribly over-dressed for the occupation.
Standing beside him was Sara.
The two locked gazes upon one another as Balthier approached her. "I hope the accommodations are not too uncomfortable, but we must take precautions, you understand? Dr. MacCulloch will be along shortly to check up on you and is going to be responsible for you until we get you to the authorities."
"Just kill me," Katherine pleaded. "I'm going to die anyway."
"Now, what's up with that? It's not like we can kill you any cleaner than a grav-field gallows."
Sara stepped closer, looking intently at Katherine. "It's not that. She... doesn't want to be a spectacle."
"Oh?"
"If the Anglians execute her, it will be a public event. The cosmos will watch her die and it will be associated with Pendleton. For some reason, she doesn't want that."
"I made my choices," Katherine stated quietly. "Not others."
"Well, I'm afraid I can't do that. Do have a pleasant voyage." Balthier walked out of the bay. Sara and Katherine were left in it, alone.

"Why?", Katherine suddenly asked. When Sara gave her a bewildered look, she clarified. "Why did you betray me, Sara?"
"Because you did," was the simple reply. "I... I almost didn't cooperate, but at the last moment I thought of all the things you'd lied about, how you'd treated me... and I became upset. And so I showed Lord Fisher the compartment where you were holding the slaves to be given to the Pfhor."
Katherine nodded. At this time, even though the prospect of rescue did exist, she was giving up hope of such and believed her death inevitable. This made her somewhat more open and honest than usual, causing her to speak her mind - truly - to Sara for the first time in years. "I was wrong to deceive you," she admitted.
Sara looked at her with a fair degree of surprise.
"I promised you things I could not deliver," Katherine continued. "I should not have. I gave you false hope, which only made it worse when..." She looked up to Sara. Her eyes seemed to Sara to be those one might show while pleading their case. "Don't you understand? Pendleton is the way it is. I would have been kicked out of university, shunned from society, had I lived up to my promises to you in any way. I had to start treating you like a slave and not a lover, it was the only way to save us both."
"Us both?", Sara inquired, incredulous.
"Had I failed, Father would have blamed you. You would have been taken, likely sold far away from us. I never would have seen you again," Katherine insisted. "I had... I had to establish, firmly, our social roles. It was the only way to be accepted."
"We could have left!", Sara cried out. "We talked about it all those times, you had the money to jump on a transport with me and run! We could have gone to Lochley, or Burleywood, or Gotham! We didn't have to stay!"
"You don't mean that," Katherine answered. "You couldn't have left your family behind in slavery any more than I could abandon my father, not with mother dead. He would have disowned me and the stress would have killed him. Your family would have then been scattered to the four corners of Pendleton, or even off-world, where we could never hope to find them."

Sara frowned, knowing Katherine spoke the truth. She pulled up a chair and sat in it. "So you do not regret the things you did to me, you had done to me?"
"I regret that it had to happen," was the answer. "I was only doing what I had to."
"That's not good enough!" Sara jumped from her chair, knocking it over in the process and causing it to clatter against the cargo bay floor. "All the times you hurt me, all the times you had me used like a cheap whore by your classmates, and the best you can say is 'doing what you had to do'?! I loved you and that's the best you can do?!" Tears were flowing from Sara's eyes as she drew closer to Katherine. "Don't you know what they did to me?! Don't you understand?!"
"It's how things are on Pendleton, Sara. I couldn't have changed that, I simply had to accept it and I had hoped you would too."
"That's easy to say for you, Katherine! You weren't the slave!" At that point, Sara couldn't stand it any more. She slapped Katherine across the face, an attempt to vent her incredible anger that failed miserably, and stormed off crying.. Katherine watched her go and felt her own eyes well with tears, tears from what they had together and had lost.

Sara stormed into her room, weeping bitterly, finding Rana sitting on the bed in her humble robes. Rana had felt her coming and was quick in coming to her, holding Sara close in her arms. She didn't speak; her mind reached into Sara's, along the link they shared, and tried to absorb some the anguish she felt into her own being. Memories of shame and humiliation, of violation spiritual and physical, washed into her, the emotional scars of slavery etched deep into Sara's kind soul. Sara's anger, kindled by Katherine's words and fueled by those scars, began to calm under Rana's soothing touch. They laid upon the bed together, Sara above Rana, and with her anger cooled the emotionally spent woman soon fell asleep in her younger lover's arms.



Wilderness
Pendleton, The Outback


The night was cool in this part of the world, at this particular season, but for safety's sake the trio of ESPers had not dared to set up a campfire. Sleeping bags pilfered from the de la Poer estate only provided some warmth; Rydia and Maria provided the rest for each other by sharing the same bag. Quinn was to himself, his mind still alert while his body went toward sleep. This was not a life unfamiliar for him, or really any of them, and he had spent plenty of evenings sleeping under the starlit sky of alien worlds in his seventy years of life. Such was the life he led, during and after his time in the Church.
His soul was not easy. He could see the woman he killed in his mind, feel her life essence draining away with his weapon through her heart. He knew she was evil, but had she been beyond redemption? Or had he condemned her for eternity without any hope of being redeemed? The weight of causing a soul's permanent damnation was heavy on Quinn's conscious as he lay in his bag.

His concentration was broken by giggling from nearby. He looked over to see the sleeping Rydia and Maria smiling widely, giggles coming from both as they moved within the bag. Their minds were linked here, even in sleep, and contentment at their intimate closeness was clear, a rather stark contrast to Quinn. Though he had left the Order of St. Michael, he continued to hold himself to the monastic vows regarding poverty and chastity. For an ESPer, the last part was especially depriving; not only was he denied the physical pleasures and comforts of a mate, he would never know the closeness and intimacy of another ESPer's mind that came with it, and which Rydia and Maria so clearly enjoyed.
Even here, at the dawn of the 35th Century, the Church considered the two to be living in sin, though it was hardly as major an issue as it had been 1,400 years ago. Quinn was not entirely comfortable with it for entirely different reasons; it was something he thought as sinful and it was a reminder of what he did not, could not, have. Not if he was to hold true to the oath he had sworn. Nevertheless, he could not deny them, or others, what they had; the life he led was a personal choice.
As the night continued on, his mind quieted and soon he was asleep.



Montalban Port


Security had been doubled since she'd left, forcing Kara to take extra precautions as she drove the vehicle she'd taken from the de la Poer estate through. The local authorities were on the lookout for it, but with the wireless ID system disabled she was able to avoid immediate detection.
Slipping around the hangers, she found the one with her ship and drove inside. The vessel was still there, untouched, much to her delight. Kara went to work loading the equipment she'd taken from Delilah into the ship, after which she fetched her last item: Delilah's dead body. She placed it in the cockpit and turned on the computers and the rest of the ship systems.
After several seconds, a yawn crackled over the speakers. "Ah, Kara. How long... three days? Where have you been?"
"De la Poer's estate," Kara answered.
"And... is that a dead body?"
"That was Lady Delilah. Before you begin mourning her, consider she spent over 70 hours torturing me."
"That sounds unpleasant and makes me very thankful I am a computational intelligence," Nikki said drolly. "So your mission of revenge failed?"
"Actually, no. Walter de la Poer is dead. I shot him." Kara slumped into the seat and closed her eyes. "And now I need to sleep, would you mind monitoring all police and government bands? Discreetly, of course. Wake me if you think I've been detected."
"Ah, well... good night then."
Kara nodded and dozed off into what would be a restful and easy sleep.



Strahl


When Sara awoke, she found Rana was still sleeping soundly beside her. She slipped out of the bed and sensed the ship was a little chillier than before, prompting her to put a coat on. Wondering what was going on, she headed to the cockpit, where she found Balthier and Umarbacca at the pilot and astrogator stations. "Why is it so cold?"
"Life support's been put to minimal and we are on a planetoid facing away from the system star," Balthier replied.
"So, what are we doing?"
"Waiting." Balthier turned to his Bragulan first mate. "Umar, anything on the passives?" The reply was a series of growls and snarled sounds that passed for Bragulan. "Hrm, might be best if we take our chance now, while their patrol pattern has them like that. Wake up Vanrya."
As Umarbacca did so, Sara slipped into a seat behind Balthier. "So, what are we about to do?"
"Make a run for the primary gas giant. What do you call it again?"
"Jove."
"Ah, nice name. We're going to get to Jove's pole, hide in its mass shadow, and cloak, letting us sneak out the last bit of space to the system hyperlimit."
"Well... can't you just go to hyper here? I've heard you can go to hyperspace within the limit."
Balthier shook his head. "And it is a foolish thing to do, something only for a last resort. The system's grav fields simply won't permit a safe transit within the limit."
From behind Vanrya came to the cockpit, wearing what appeared to Sara to be a sports bra and thigh-length shorts. She showed no emotion as she asked, "Are we ready to run?"
"We are."

They began powering systems back up. Sara watched intently, with interest, while behind her Rana walked up, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. She stood to the side, at an auxiliary console, while the ship hummed back to life around them. The lights grew brighter and the usual rumble of the ship's sublight drive wings folding out vibrated through the deck. Suddenly the Strahl was free of the planetoid's gravity field, racing on toward the orange and red gas giant swirling in the distance.
"Several cutters and a destroyer have detected us, they are moving to attempt intercept." Vanrya flashed a small smile. "But we will be well within the gravity well, and ready to cloak, by the time they get within range."
"Best news I've heard all day," Balthier said as they watched the gas giant loom ever closer.
Sara watched with fascination as space zipped by them. She had never really seen Jove so close before. It didn't look quite like she'd seen in images of it, though the rings still appeared to be rings and would until they got closer. Her eyes moved over them, fascinated at the colors of blue and red and...
"What is that?", she asked.
"Hrm?"
In response to Balthier's remark she went up to the window and pointed to a growing black splotch on the Jovian Rings. "This? I've never seen this," she said.
"Balthier..." Vanrya's eyes widened in clear surprise. "There's a mass signature in Jove's orbit."
A concerned, yet bewildered look crossed the outlaw's face. "There's no ship in Pendleton that could give us a mass reading at this distance in that planet's gravity well," he remarked.
"Well, this one is," Vanrya countered. "Could it be a moon in low orbit, near the rings?"
"No, all of Jove's 20 moons are further away," Sara insisted.
Vanrya nodded. A beep came from the sensor station on her console, making her look back. "It's... it's now moving toward us! Not very fast but I'm detecting a definite intercept course, planned."
Balthier's hand went to the magnification system. The cockpit's viewer, above the actual window, slid down and magnified the image of the object in the distance. It grew larger and larger...
Sara let out a gasp. "Just what is that thing?', she asked. She looked to Balthier and saw the look on his face. More than that, even her untrained ESP could sense the emotion coming from him.
For the first time since Sara had met him, she sensed fear from him.

"That's no moon," he sighed.
"What is it?", Rana asked, sensing the dread from Balthier and Vanrya.
Vanrya looked back to Rana and Sara. The answer, however, came from Balthier.
"It's a Collector Monolith."

[PeZook]

Monolith escort fleet

"We have a runner. The fleet's signalling they're pursuing a small ship that escaped Pendleton yesterday...and it looks like it's headed towards Jove.", Gill reported dutifully from his control station, surprising himself. Despite being the nominal leader of this team, it was looking more and more as if he was, in fact, reporting to Parkhurst, not the other way around.

"Okay...Amanda, let's talk to the CI in charge of the ship.", Parkhurst didn't give a second thought to the changed roles. The specialist nodded and disabled the leads feeding false data to some of the sensors. There was a crackle and, before they could say anything, the booming voice of the ship's intelligence returned, relaying a simple and almost contemptuous message:

"I have already detected the intruder."

If the giant vessel could do it, it would shake its head, observing Amanda's confused expression, and her frantic attempts to check her electronic decoys. The really ought to know better.

Even before the Pendletonians informed it of the Strahl, the Monolith was already tracking the small ship. Its vast mind contemplated the issue and, within a split second, decided the intruder would have to be apprehended to preserve the security of the operation.

A Monolith looked like a ponderous vessel, a huge block of black, obsidian material, and it chose not to betray the full extent of its capabilities. It began to maneuver, like a beached whale, towards the smaller, nimbler smuggling vessel, forcing it to change course in a complicated dance of vectors and thrust ratings, as it attempted to avoid getting too close to the massive, menacing shape below, and still remain inside Jove's gravity well to avoid detection from its Pendletonian pursuers.

However, as it did so, the ship's intelligence prepared and sent out commands to the rest of its fleet, scattered around Jove's system, lurking undetected around its moons and rings. Sliding silently from their hiding spots, small shadows raced across the gas giant's colorful face to join the pursuit, barely visible to the naked eye and sensors,bracketing the smaller ship and collaring it in.

It was a silent dance, a ball without music, described in colors and shapes and data packets and instinctual understanding of orbital mechanics that only a mind built to contemplate such problems could exhibit. Somewhere, deep within its consciousness, the Monolith enjoyed the chase - the environment of the gas giant's gravity well was...challenging.

It was a real shame it would be over so quickly. However, the Monolith's mind noted to itself, This vessel is uncatalogued.

It would, ultimately, enjoy analyzing it and its crew - if such a thing as enjoyment could be said to be a property of a Collector intellect.

[Steve]

SV Paktu Pride
Approaching Hanson, The Outback
23 January 3400

A couple dozen passengers were at the lounge windows to watch as the Hiigaran liner approached the planet Hanson below. Hanson was a terraformed world, originally near-Earth but with a sub-optimal atmosphere, it had taken private ventures, supported eventually by Hiigaran funding, a half century to alter the planet's atmosphere with widescale vegetation transplanting and atmospheric scrubbers, bringing the oxygen mix to Human standard and reducing unbreathable elements to acceptable levels. Ordinarily such attention would have turned Hanson into a valuable planet, but optimistic projections of the sector's resources had proven just that - optimistic - and outside interest in the sector dried up. Hanson was now not even a modern world, inhabited only by the desperate or the stranded, ekeing out an existence amidst technological sophistication and industry over a thousand years out of date. If you came to Hanson, you were generally an outlaw, a charity worker, or a minor bureaucrat tasked to represent your government there - very rarely, you might be a son or daughter of a local elite who used his tremendous funds to get you an education off-planet.
Ahead of the ship was the Pride's destination. The Hanson Space Elevator, built with the expectation of being used to quickly ferry foodstuffs to waiting orbital ships and then completed raw materials to the planet's industries, was the only piece of modern technology visible on the planet; maintaining it was the main expenditure of the planet's fairly weak central government. Many ships opted to dock here and disembark passengers rather than use the shoddy planet-based spaceports.

Yuna and Ashe were dressed plainly, wearing purple robes that marked their affiliation and hid their weapons from view with the usual sleeveless vests and ladies' trousers underneath, along with sandals. With their duffel bags slung over their shoulders and their free hands together, they waited for their turn to disembark, taking the time to show their Anglian passports as they checked in with planetary customs. Technically Hanson was a federal republic with democratic principles; though in truth it was under the sway of local cartels and elites who bickered over issues and fought with one another, as well as the rural food-growing farming communities. What was illegal on Hanson depending on which faction held sway in the government. If farmers were dominant, then the planet restricted agricultural import and encouraged finished goods. If the city-dwellers managed to get their act together enough to be dominant, food flowed through and it was finished goods that was more limited (though not highly, as there was not much in the way of modern consumer goods that came to Hanson given most such goods required a greater technology base to use).
Once through the terminal Yuna and Ashe didn't bother looking to book a room or get lunch. They quickly used the cash reserves placed upon their cash card, from the Order's accounts, to book an elevator car heading to the surface. They promptly headed there, to find that their "cabin" was even smaller than the one on the Paktu Pride.
With the lack of room and the fact that an advanced space elevator would get them planetside in ten hours, Yuna and Ashe didn't even bother undressing. They squeezed themselves onto the only bunk and, wedged together, fell asleep.



Eleven hours later, they exited the terminal for the groundside space elevator entrance and moved into the busy streets of Galt, the main city of Hanson. Their first sight was a statue depicting the mythological being Atlas shrugging, causing the planet above him to be off-balance. The plaque mentioned the statue had been ordered by the town's founder, who was a fan of 20th Century Objectivist literature from Earth. This turned out to be the only real site on the planet, which was marked by ugly gray buildings, cheap pre-fab constructs one and all with the same squat windows of cheap synthetic glass. The tallest were marked as office buildings or upper class condominiums, the shorter ones were, well, more office buildings plus cheaper apartments.
For a few hours Yuna and Ashe walked around town, trying to find the building they knew housed the Order's "chapter" on the planet; a Chapter that consisted, honestly, of one Gifted Sister - Ezria - and three laity assistants. It was often a joke at Chapter Sunelis that the Hanson Chapter was only kept open to have a place to send misbehaving Sisters and laity, since anyone kept on the planet for the usual punishment term of six months to a year would come back committed to never again committing a bad deed.
"The... Applecorn Building?", Yuna said, double-checking her data reader. "It's got to be around here, according to the address."
"Maybe we should ask someone for help? The street plan here seems to be..."
They sensed the approaching strike a moment too late to stop it. A pair of grimy hands suddenly darted between them and snatched Yuna's PDA, the slim figure of a teenage pickpocket racing past them with her device in his hands. He was running like hell, but he couldn't run fast enough. Ashe's hands came up and her mind reached out, tripping him. Yuna reached for her device at the same time, snatching it from his hands and levitating it back to her's. They walked up to him as he lay on the ground, recovering from the sudden trip. The view from the ground was such that he could see the holsters for the girls' beamsabers. Color drained from his face as Yuna grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up. "Yo, gals, I'm sorry, real sorry, I didn't know... I mean, I'm just lookin' for a quick quid, y'know?"
"We know," Ashe answered, trying not to giggle and somewhat failing. "We'll let you go, but you have to tell us where the Applecorn Building is."

"The... the Applecorn? Where've you been, chicks? I mean..." Seeing Yuna glower - and she could do a real mean-looking one - he very nearly crapped himself. "It's gone."
"What do you mean it's gone?"
"Blown up a couple weeks ago," he continued. "They say the Watch did it, t' kill that spotted alien hottie and her people."
"The who?" There was a new edge to Ashe's voice.
"The Watch. The Hanson Citizens' Watch, they call 'emselves. 'Cept they don't watch nothin' but wha' they want, feel me? And they hate chicks like you, mentals and all. They go around tellin' people to report any mentals to the Watch for a reward."
"You mean 'ESPers' when you say 'mentals'," Yuna said - it was certainly not a question.
"Yeah. Peeps who can do stuff with their minds."
A cool sensation came between them. Just what have we stepped into?, Ashe thought, knowing Yuna would hear. "Go about your way, then," she said to the pickpocket, who took off.
We need to find shelter, Yuna replied telepathically. Tomorrow we'll check in with the authorities and see if Sister Ezria and the laity were among the dead.



An hour later, the pickpocket that had tried to snatch Yuna's personal computer walked out of a local office of the Citizens' Watch, his cash card freshly charged with a sizable (to him) amount of cash. The Watch had paid handsomely for the information, especially as he described the two women's clothing and their weapons. Now he'd have the money to get nice and wasted, fill the fridge, and find some good chicks to suck his di-....
As he moved passed an alley, a powerful force pulled at him. He went flying backward into the alley, deep into shadow. As he went to cry out he found a vibroblade pressed against his neck. "Sh...sh...shit! What do...."
"Shut up. Tell me what you told the Watch, all of it, and give me that cash card they filled," a voice demanded.
"Oh come on, I earned..." The blade pressed further, drawing blood. He pissed himself as he cried out, "Okay, oh God don't kill me, card's in my back pocket, and I told them about these two Mental chicks, real young hotties, walkin' around in these purple robes with a moon and sword on 'em..."
After he was done squealing, and he had been relieved of the cash card, a force knocked him unconscious.

[Steve]

Tasker Cloister, New Caroline Islands
New Anglia, Star Kingdom of New Anglia
25 January 3400


Within the walls of the Order cloister, one of the chambers stood as a sparring room for the Acolytes of the Order to be trained in the use of sabers. The clang of kala sticks - Dorei wooden poles fashioned similarly to the Japanese bokken - echoed in the air from the various Acolytes squaring off. Knight-Captain Ann Wu, an austere Anglian woman of Chinese descent, moved about the room watching intently at the dueling of the Acolytes who were not apprenticed. Those who were apprenticed had their own corner to train, by themselves sometimes but usually in the observation of the Knights teaching them.

The current duel in the corner was between Druni Jestani, apprentice of Zara Delmar, and Zaharia Herzela, apprentice of Shayera Thol. Druni was a Dorei of the Astra nation, with fine blue skin and eyes of a similar shade, her hair a dark teal. Zaharia was a Trill girl, known as "Zaria" to those around her, with red hair and green eyes just as her master had.
Shayera and Zara were giving instruction and advice to their students as the two Apprentices clashed. Druni showed the most aggressiveness, surprising given Shayera's reputation, but Zaria clearly had a superior understanding of the sword. This clash of passion versus knowledge continued for several minutes until Zaria used a disarming technique to twisted Druni's kala out of her hand.
The two Knights stepped forward. Shayera, training her second apprentice now, made sure to give a measured level of congratulations, pointing out the errors Zaria had made while also indicating what she'd done right. Zara wasn't sure how to approach her wayward apprentice; Druni had a frustrated and angry look about her, her mind showing a similar state of agitation, and Zara's nature was generally not to press hard. "Druni," she began.
"I had her," the Dorei girl said with frustration oozing from every syllabyle. "Dammit I had her and she won anyway."
"You fight without patience," Zara told her. "You open yourself up too much."
"Yes yes, I know..." Fuming, Druni contemptuously kicked her fallen stick. "I should focus on unarmed combat, I'm better at that."
"Well, if you want to try..." Zara smirked a little and gestured to a nearby mat. Her lover Hilda was standing there, watching cautiously as her own apprentice, 18 year old Layla, faced off against another Knight, Cassandra. She was one of the few Knights who didn't have an Apprentice; she had trained four and had received a special dispensation from the Order Council from taking another, instead joining the Tasker Cloister's Rectors as an unarmed combat instructor. Though just a Knight, having not yet qualified for Knight-Captain trials, Cassandra was one of the Order's leading experts in Jana Lema, also teaching the Human arts of Wing Chung, Savate, and Sambo and being fairly proficient in two of the beamsaber styles, though she was still learning Tor de Lema to get Blademaster status.

Hilda grimaced as her apprentice, foolishly, opened herself up to attack with a badly-aimed kick. Cassandra slipped around it, took Layla's ankle, and tossed her to the ground. The purple-haired young Fynnian - the responsible cosmetic gene was inherited from a great-grandmother - sighed as she laid sprawled out. "I'm never going to defeat you, am I Master Cassandra?"
"Likely not," Cassandra said. Grinning widely, she added, "But I have defeated Masters in Jana Lema bouts, Sister Layla, so do not get discouraged."
"Sister Cassandra," Zara called out, putting a hand on Druni's shoulder. That got the attention of all three present. "Why don't you agree to a fun little bout? Sisters Layla and Druni will try to fight you."
"Ah, Sister Druni. Still as impatient? Come, then, and let me work that out of you."



A distance from where Hilda and Zara were holding hands and watching their apprentices repeatedly hit the mat, Shayera was guiding Zaharia through Jayn de Lema technique. It was not one of her favorites but it fit Zaharia better than Shayera's favored Tor de Lema did. "Remember that each move flows into another. That is how you read the opponent's defense," Shayera stated. "Keep your mind focused yet clear - read your opponent's body and mind-state, learn her movements. That is how you will know when, where, and how to strike."
"Sister Shayera." The voice prompted them to turn. Sentinel Meiying, the aide to Master Jennifer Long, approached and bowed. The twenty-six year old girl had a soft, sweet smile, and the demeanor of a sister who was fit more for working with others than working in the Outback. "The Master seeks to see you."
"Continue your exercises, Zaria," Shayera ordered befoire following Meiying. Zaria watched them go before going back into the routine. For many minutes she continued it, committing specific cuts and movements to muscle memory.
After a time, she saw a figure moving next to her and looked over briefly to see Cassandra had approached and was taking up a kala. She had apparently gotten her fill of throwing around apprentices - and Knights too, Zaria sensed, as she could feel the open and fresh memory of sending Zara and Hilda to the mat repeatedly. "Mistress Cassandra..."
"Your technique is good," Cassandra noted. "Shayera has always been good at teaching blades. And don't worry, I've spent the day tossing around Apprentices, I have no desire to do it. I'm just here to train."
"Ah."
They trained together for a bit, Cassandra adding notes on Zaria's technique while Zaria admired how the strong, athletic woman's body moved. She was slender and on the muscular side, not precisely the exquisitely beautiful type as some people pictured the Sisters as universally being, but it certainly fit her reputation as the Order's best hand-to-hand fighter.

Soon enough, Shayera was back with them, looking faintly irritated. "Did they stick you with substitute Initiate teaching?", Cassandra asked.
"If only," Shayera answered. "No, I've been told I'm going to be in the formal honor guard for the new Lord Priest of the Church when he arrives in New Chatham in two months. Zaria and I will join Sister Annie in the guard and be expected to spend the entire day with the His Eminence, including the greeting banquet which is full of Parliamentary lords and other government officials. Master Jennifer even thinks the Emperor might attend, so I'll have to go in formal dress."
Cassandra grinned. "Oh, but you look so good in formal dress."
"'The Emperor'?", Zaria asked, quizzically.
"The Emperor Edward... the King," Shayera corrected. "On Thanagar he is our Emperor, and I was raised to think of the King of New Anglia that way."
"I wasn't aware."
"Given that there are only a dozen Trill and one Thanagarian in the Order, Sister Zaria, I am not surprised," Cassandra said. "So, is saber technique training done for today?"
"Yes. Now it's time for balance training." Seeing the look on Zaria's face, Shayera smirked. "Or I could send you to Knight-Captain Liria for Focus training."
That was all that had to be said. Zaria ran off, to change into her skinsuit and prepare for the wire-balancing that was to come. Shayera followed slowly with Cassandra beside her, knowing she'd have to get into her own highly-specialized suit. "This is the worst part of the job, you know?"
"Tell me about it," Cassandra said. Smiling, she looked to Shayera and asked, "So, what will you be doing once you have Zaria ready to collapse into her cot?"

"Dinner and bed, most likely." Shayera answered Cassandra's smile with one of her own. "I guess you had different plans?"
"I was thinking of an early dinner," she answered. "Then dragging you to my room and making love to you all night."
"Well, that is a bold invitation, but you know..."
"Really, Shayera, you'd think a fiery personality like your's would appreciate a little physical intimacy once and a while, even if you don't want to open your mind," Cassandra remarked. "I remember you used to be such a horny little bunny back at Delgado Cloister."
That prompted a blush. "Well... yes. But I don't really feel like getting into a relationship, not now."
"When, then? By the Goddess, Shayera, it's been almost twenty years now..."
"Eighteen years, five months," Shayera corrected.
"My point is, aside from a few lonely nights you've not opened up to anyone since then. I'm sure she's moved on, you need to as well."
"It's not that easy," was the reply, followed by a sigh. "And I don't know if I can go through with that again. But thanks for the offer anyway, Cassandra. Maybe in a few nights I'll take you up on it, but not tonight." WIth that said Shayera walked off, leaving Cassandra to sigh in turn.

[Shroom Man 777]

The CEID has blocked all exits from Agent Spozavik's safehouse. But he outsmarted them once again - he snuck out through an entrance!

Brought to you in GODDAMN UNREAL TIME

SOMEWHERE in Altacar 3



'Trade liaison Dryznyl Shpechtkov' finished his meeting with Interstellar Spaceways CEO Samuel Isaacson. The deal had been done, the courier was now on the way to Lochley's to forward the message to Pendleton. Now with that over, Agent Spozavik took time off for some R&R. In his months in Altacar 3, he had gotten to know the place somewhat familiarly, and despite his ideologically impeccable Imperial leanings, there were some places in the human world he frequented. One of these places was a street side foodstore marked by strange hieroglyphics unlike traditional human writings - obviously it was non-human calligraphy, and thus the establishment served non-human foods, which assured Spozavik of the foods' edibility. Once, Spozavik had frequented the donut shops too, but with that unfortunate incident some time ago, all loyal servants of the Imperator were henceforth banned from consuming those pastries. But that was then, and this was now.

Rain fell on Altacar. It was evening, on buildings neon holos made strange colorful haze as light reflected from raindrops. Rain reminded me of home, mighty Bragule, except there rain wasn't water, rain was acid. Here on Altacar, rain was water, not acid. Cool and refreshing. Dangerous.

I scarfed noodles into mouth, gulping it down straight from puny human-sized bowl. Chopsticks didn't fit bare bear hands, sticks too small, broke, didn't use them. Ate with mouth instead, placed snout in bowl and ate hungrily. Savored spicy meats and noodles, flavor of hot steaming soups. Other patrons stared warily, sight of Bragulan frequenting their local noodle establishment uncommon, but store owner reassured them and normalcy resumed.

Outside noodle stand, my driver, shocktrooper chauffeur, stood by in rain, leaning on hoverlimo, waiting for me to finish. Shocktrooper chauffeur never came to meals. Didn't mind. Preferred to be alone. Better that way.

Noodles finished. Time to pay.

"...kimashita, kimashita. Irasshai, irasshai. Sa dozo. Nani ni shimasho-ka," said noodle store owner. Was human, but spoke alien language. Strange. Must investigate further.

"Give me four," I muttered impatiently. Ordering takeout.

"Futatsu de jubun desuyo," strange alien-speaking human babbled.

"And noodles," I decided to add.

"Wakatte kudasai yo," store owner continued like I could understand.

Suddenly store owner backed off. Something approaching from behind. I didn't look back, looked at reflection on sake glass instead. Shocktrooper chauffeur coming. Tapped my shoulder.

"Tell him I'm eating," I told store owner.

"Ka'plah tauri jaffa kree shol'vat teal'c Gryznk," the shocktrooper chauffeur uttered in Bragulan.

"Gryznk, huh?"

"Hai!" the store owner exclaimed.

So. I took noodles and sushi and spare change. Bid sushi man farewell. Went into rain and street. Crowded cars, people in streetside stalls, rushing by, fluorescent umbrellas in hand.



Went back into hoverlimo, was greeted by Telescreen Gryznk. His face smugly in display screen sticking out of seat. As if one visitation was not enough. Telescreen Gryznk giving briefing once a day was more than enough.

"Spozavik," Telescreen Gryznk said. Looked supremely happy with himself. Not good.

"Gryznk," I replied. Saying name left bad taste on tongue. No matter, will brush teeth later anyway. Thankfully.

"Ah, Spozavik," Telescreen Gryznk smiled. Very not good. "After giving you your orders, I consulted my friends for further advice. With the Anglians coming to Pendleton, something has to be done for our friends stuck there, no?"

"No," I muttered. IBGV agents did not have friends.

"Hahahaha," Telescreen Gryznk laughed. Insincerely. IBGV agents were never sincere. "I like your style, friend."

"Thank you," IBGV agents were never sincere.

"Anyway, we have decided to extract our people from Pendleton," Telescreen Gryznk said this so plainly. Like fact.

"How?" I asked. There were no nearby ships or other assets. Any rescue mission would arrive too late. Place would be already a warzone by then.

"The Bragulan Star Empire has friends in surprising places," Telescreen Gryznk replied.

"I see," I said. Pretended to understand. Didn't. Bragulan Star Empire did not have friends.

"Only interests," Telescreen Gryznk suddenly said.

"What?" I asked. Clarification.

"Oh, nothing," Telescreen Gryznk grinned.

"What is it?" I asked again.

"You will be in charge of extracting our people in Pendleton." Telescreen Gryznk said, again plainly as if giving weather on Bragule. Full opacity overcast with supercells brewing and high chance of acid rain. Must be suppressing himself hard to not laugh in my face. "Your chauffeur will drive you to the embassy cosmodrome and you'll receive further instructions there. No need to pack your things, Spozavik."

"Yes, sir," that was all I could say. Telescreen Gryznk bid farewell and safe trip, screen went blank and slid back into seat.

I slumped on seat. Opened noodles and began scarfing. Hoverlimo took the bridge to the embassy. Roads were slippery when wet. Treacherous.



Entrance to bridge was monument to human image. Somehow this time it failed to strike revulsion in me. Neon lipstick mouth of bridge opened, welcomed us into orifice, head bent backwards and eyes wide shut, like receiving oral sex. Architecture was metaphor for human profanity. Did not mind this though. Not now.

Anger welled up inside me like caged human prisoner of war tortured in gulag. Gave way to denial like de-education camp session teaching two plus two equals five. Turned into depression like denuded planet where pristine landscape is turned into mulch as world becomes worldwide fertilizer factory for supplying agriworlds manure. Then acceptance like conscript sent to clear minefield with face.

Finished noodles, threw disposable bowl out window, bowl fell off bridge into pristine chlorine-treated Altacarian river.

Arrived at embassy, went to starport and received instructions. No choice but to go and liaison with human warship bound for Pendleton. Undoubtedly to plan daring rescue mission while world burns in war. Currently ship was still in Lochley's, rendezvous point. Grand fleet would leave soon, so we had to hurry. No time to collect things, then, only clothes on back, green hat and tie.

I did not like this mission. Not one bit. But nevertheless I would do it, for Imperator and Empire.



By dawn we lifted off.



To be continued...

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Imperial Chronicles

Stasograd Prime

“You are sure of this?” asked Rus Komnenos. The Inquisitor Toraq had come before Rus Komnenos in his court room, and presented him the evidence that Janus Colony was infested with Karlacks. In the court room, stood the Chapter Master Georgi Konstantin of the Slavic Rus Astartes Legion, along with Rus Komnenos’ personal guard, all armored in Terminator Armor and standing guard over their charge.

“Yes, my Lord. If there is any chance left to save Janus Colony, the time is now. My.. sources indicated that the Karlacks are moving to seize the colony soon. We must act quickly, or it would be too late.”

“Hmm.. I see. Well, we do have forces at our disposal that can deploy quickly. Probes will be sent ahead of our arrival to see if enemy opposition is too tough for us to handle, but yes, we will save this colony from Karlack infestation. Having a ... Karlack world this close to Imperium territory is intolerable in any regard. Not least it sets a precedence for future Karlack expansion.”

“Indeed my Lord. If the Karlacks infest more worlds in Wild Space in this fashion, the Karlacks could open a second front in their next invasion.”

“That indeed. Well, my dear Inquisitor. Might I suggest we take flight to my flagship?”

“I will be honored my Lord.”

--------



The shuttle took off from Stasograd Prime, and headed to the orbiting fleet. At the center of the fleet was Tyrant’s Dominion, one of 4 Battle Barges in the Imperium. With over 100,000 Astartes on board, it was terror to be reckoned with. More firepower than most ships in the Galaxy, the vessel was deliberately designed without streamlined lines, rather with rough sharp edges, like a serrated blade that didn’t just chew through its prey, but dragged its organs and tissues along with it, causing it to scream in pain and agony. The ship’s inertial gravitic drive and directed graviton drive allowed the ship to move with agility and speed that would put some ships to shame.

To the great ship’s side, there were four Scutum heavy cruisers, a Sol class carrier, 2 Solaris frigates. Along side the ships were ships painted in black sensor stealth coating; Inquisitorial ships. A single Malchador class destroyer, carrying its own assortment of Inquisitorial Astartes, the Silent Dagger sat quietly in space. Heavily modified over the standard Astartes Malchador class destroyer, the ship sacrificed some power output for sensor stealth. 2 other corvettes accompanied the ship, were also painted in sensor coating. These 2 corvettes were however, seconded Imperial Navy vessels. Other ships in the small flotilla included some troop ships carrying Imperial Guard and PDF troops, and Titan Legio VIII.

On board the Tyrant’s Dominion, crewmen busied to get the ship ready for departure, running direct and in-direct checks on all systems, verifying all tests and ensuring that the warship would be ready for war. “Status report, Admiral?”

Admiral Gorshkov turned around and said, “All is well my Lord, the crew is ready and the ship is ready for departure. The fleet reports the same. We are ready to go, my Lord.”

Nodding, “Signal the Io, bring up Admiral Sergey.”

“Aye my Lord, bringing him up.”

Turning to the viewer, “Admiral Sergey, I believed I have passed you the report?”

“Yes, my Lord, I have seen it. Most worrying.”

“I want you bring your ship and some escorts consisting of a carrier, 2 Scutum cruisers, 4 frigates, 4 corvettes along. Just so in case we need more firepower and in case the Karlack scum brought along more heavy firepower than we expect. Rendezvous with us at these coordinates.” The coordinates were keyed mentally from Rus’ mind into the ship’s mind-machine network.

“Coordinates received. We will proceed as ordered, my Lord.”

“See you on the other side then.”

Turning to the Inquisitor Toraq, Rus Komnenos said, “Well my dear Inquisitor, perhaps your ships would like to come as well.”

“We will be honored my Lord.”

And with that, the ships jumped into the warp.

[Shroom Man 777]

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[Force Lord]

Abandoned space station, Deep space
Novadon Sector, The Centrality
Early 3400

All the preparations had been made. A small flotilla carrying the communist-led insurgents made ready to leave the Centrality. Which was lucky for them, as a CSB ship arrived all of the sudden. It was purely coincidence, since this was not the usual patrol route of said ship, but was an unofficial recon mission. By the time the pilot realized what he was seeing and made a frantic call to his superiors, the flotilla was already gone.

CSB Headquarters, Centrum
The Center Sector, The Centrality
Early 3400

Ardolt Xin walked back and forth restlessly as he grappled with this new information, as well as the leads he acquired from other...sources. This definitely was the same band that attempted to assasinate Admiral Groven back in Foxa Sector. But now they escaped. Since the fleeing insurgents were communists, it was obvious that they would try to escape to the Commune.

Xin sighed. He did not like the fact that he now had to tell this to his President. Hopefully, Enduvos would be in a good mood...

[Shroom Man 777]

But there was more falling into the Majellan skies, something unique to the Shock Armies of the Bragulan Star Empire. There were tanks. Equipped with retrorockets and grav-chutes, and with no other means of aerospace transportation, the Dredkaflauvisk main battle tanks were dropped from orbit and entered the atmosphere, hull armor, tracks and turrets glowing red due to air friction. The whole vehicles, in essence, became space capsules. Even before the landing ships arrived on terra firma, the Dredka battle tanks already hit dirt, landing hard on their treads with detaching chutes. A few others landed upside down, on their turrets, but in a testament to Bragulan engineering they merely fired their retro-rockets and the hundred-plus-ton tanks were flipped back right side up. Assembled and ready, with parachutes removed and reentry rockets detached, the tanks waited for the landing ships to arrive and disgorge the shock troopers.

The Bragulans had arrived at Majella.

MAJELLA-3

Tank Commander Helanska surveyed the scene with her tactical viewfinder. The initial landing had been a disaster, the fields were littered with the burnt up hulks of Dredkaflauvisk battle tanks and Chornyb urban pacifiers. The wreckage of Imperial armor of all kind was strewn all over, blasted and ruined. It was a kill-zone, an ambush.

The Majellans had set up a trap. The tank battalion was met by heavy surface-to-space missiles even as they were performing atmospheric insertion, causing them to suffer casualties before they even hit the ground. Then after that, they had found their vulnerable landing zones mined and bombarded by everything from IEDs and jerry-rigged plasma bombs, to rocket artillery and guided missiles. Miserable shits, I’ll kill them myself! Helanska cursed mentally.

In the brief respite after the Sovereignty's evacuation, it seemed as though the Majellans had been able to reorganize their resistance forces. Between then and now, they only had scant time to re-fortify their world, but they seemed well-equipped and tenacious even after enduring a days-long Sovereignty ground offensive and were now pitting themselves against the Bragulan forces. The fight for Majella’s space was brutal, but within several hours, the Imperial warships had smashed through the Sovereignty's line, and now it was time for the 357th Shock Army to take care of the resistance on the ground. So far, they were doing what humans called a banged up job. “Imperator damn those fuckers!”

Beyond the Saratov Plains, Helanska could see the ruined capital city, St. Gerard… and the bright flashes of tactical atomics obliterating large chunks of it. Forty kilometers behind them were the Shock Army’s siege cannons. A few of them were delivering the atomics to St. Gerard’s heart, while the rest were doing a conventional bombardment of the city outskirts. Before the bombardment though, they had shelled the area immediately ahead of Helanska’s tank formation. Since they could not afford to step into another minefield, trap or ambush, they transformed the land in front of them into a slagfield of smoking craters and trenches.

After their troublesome landing, they had opted for a less subtle, more cautious approach. Instead of going in to engage the enemy and retake their cities relatively intact, they would obliterate then with telegraphed barrages that would last the entire day (and hopefully longer) while destroying anything that had enough sense to escape the carnage the Imperial guns were wreaking on St. Gerard. Of course, artillery was not precise enough to engage stragglers, so they sent the tanks to form a ring of Bragulan Steel around the city, just far enough to be below the horizon. The bombardment would encourage the enemy to come out by scaring the traitorous shits out of them, and then they would be ambushed and die. Quickly and violently. This was all Standard Imperial Doctrine, not like the harebrained strategy of going in and retaking the city intact without the slightest use of tactical atomics.

Who would be shitheaded enough not to order a day-long atomic barrage? Helanska thought. She was both furious at the Majellans and at her superior, who was the slack-jawed effeminate officer who devised the previous attack, although she no longer had any reason to be angry at the latter, as the overseeing Imperial Commandant had assumed command immediately after executing him for ‘gross treacherous incompetence’.

Overhead, Helanska could hear the whining turbofans of hovercraft, Stalag attack gunships and rocket-propelled recon drones. Barely hear, actually, as yet another mushroom cloud erupted over the horizon, nearly deafening them with a very noticeable blast wave.

Helanska hoped the snipers and infantry they would deploy later into St. Gerard’s ruins had enough sense to take their anti-radiation pills. Tactical atomics were very dirty.

The radio suddenly crackled to life, slightly garbled by radioactive interference and insurgent jamming. “Commander Helanska, a column of armored units, including mobile artillery, is-”

In one quick motion, Helanska grabbed her radio and pressed the talk button, cutting off the person on the other line. “Majellans?” she asked. She was excited, yet sounded firm and in control. As an Imperial female should be.

“Of course,” the voice replied sardonically as Helanska finally depressed the button. “They are ten kilometers due east of you. They’re composed of almost a hundred tanks, antiques, technicals, as well as rocket trucks, missile launchers and war walkers. They are escorting civilians fleeing from the city. They must not be allowed to leave the city while atomic shelling is in progress! Your unit is closest, so intercept them and take them out.”

“Will do,” Helanska answered. Rocket trucks? Missile launchers? These were probably the same bastards who did the ambush. I’ll kill those little fuckers and rip off their balls. “Vasyly, bring us eastwards. Zysief, load the guns. We’ve got work to do, the shits who ambushed our comrades have finally come out of hiding!”

“We’ll show those rats what the 357th can do!” Zysief cheered enthusiastically as he slammed a giant warhead into one of the tank’s 220mm guns.

Once again, Helanska grabbed her radio. This time, she told the rest of her unit what they were about to do. It was payback time.



The column of Imperial Steel rolled forward to meet the insurgents’ disorganized advance. While the Imperial armor was relatively swift, the insurgents were much slower, as they could not afford to leave their clunky war walkers behind – in fact, some of the sluggish walkers were at the lead. As the Imperial armor emerged out of the blurry horizon, the insurgents opened fire. The leading walkers were the first to engage, filling the air between the two walls of steel with autolasers, typical human weaponry. A light tank that led Helanska’s formation was carved open by the beams, but suddenly, heavily armed Stalag gunships emerged from the horizon like great birds of prey and opened up with a mighty salvo of Imperial firepower. Walkers were melted by the initial wave of K-bolts, unguided rockets and anti-tank missiles that blanketed the area with fire and acid, before the surviving walkers diverted their attention to the Imperial aircraft and soon, the gunships found themselves bathed by autolasers. A steel bird was clipped, spinning wildly as exposed turbofans ignited, causing it to crash and burn into a brilliant fireball. The air was beginning to be saturated by flak fire and railgun rounds from tanks and technicals.

As the first bird fell, the Imperial armor got up close and personal, and unleashed upon the Majellans a debilitating barrage of corrosive K-bolts and high explosives. The remaining walkers melted under the fusillade, and the tanks behind them exploded before they could even fire at the Imperials, their ancient targeting mechanisms too old and too slow.

“This is for Comrade Jyagiir!” Korachonynv, Helanska’s gunner, yelled as their tank fired two 220mm K-bolts simultaneously. Their rangefinder tracked the rounds, and they all watched as a war walker got dismembered by the acid bullets tearing through it and splattering onto the tank behind it. The tank’s turret began sizzling and soon it became a puddle of corrosive steel. Looking closely, one could see the tank's horrified crew attempt to escape before they too were dissolved by acid, screaming as they did. Comrade Jyagiir was one of those who died in the previous attack, and they dedicated this sight to his memory. As Korachonynv cheered, a tank behind them disappeared under a massive explosion that nearly sent their own tank flying.

“Helanska, we’ve got a problem!” the radio crackled to life.

“What?!” Helanska barked at her receiver, forgetting to press the talk button. She cursed, slammed the receiver, and then pressed the button. “What?!”

“Look up!”

Helanska grabbed her viewfinder and looked up, seeing missiles arcing over the horizon, descending towards them. Surface-to-space missiles modified to hit surface targets. “Shit!” she cursed just in time as the area was again covered in explosions. The earth shook violently and then there was a giant ‘boom’ that signaled a direct hit.

More Majellan tanks and walkers left the rocket trucks and mobile artillery behind to provide cover for them, and now they delivered. The Imperial advance was being blanketed by artillery shells, rockets and missiles. Of course, the bombardment was imprecise and off-schedule, but it bought the Majellans time, and did well for a hasty on-the-spot stratagem.

It was only a short while before the Imperial gunships noticed the rockets and missiles raining down on their comrades, and quickly decided to take care of the insurgent artillery. They emptied the last of their own missiles in a single volley and then began making their way for a strafing run. However, they were intercepted by war walkers and technicals that had lagged behind the insurgent formation. Lasers, MANPADs and railguns sheared through turbines and turbofans. The damaged gunships fell back as a pair of SNT fighters screamed down from the skies and repeatedly strafed the walkers and technicals with their K-bolters, liquefying them. The gunships resumed their attack run and tore the helpless Majellans to pieces with cannon fire. Then they circled around and went back to their original formations, a few of them dropping nuclear firebombs at fleeing technicals.

“Shit these Majellan motherfuckers!” Helanska growled before barking out another series of orders to her tank crew. Directly in front of her was a spike that protruded from the interior walls of their tank’s massive turret. It was an armor piercing round that had imbedded itself into the turret’s outer layer of cement. Its tip had sliced through the slanted layers of Bragulan Steel and concrete, but aside from that, no harm had come to the tank itself. The funny thing was that the projectile wasn’t from the artillery barrage, but from one of the insurgent tanks right in front of them. The one that was about to finish them off. “Kora, what the hell are you waiting for, you moron! Fire the guns!”



In response, the entire tank shook as Korachonynv punched the dual 220mm cannons’ triggers and sent the rounds flying towards the tank that tried to kill them. The traitors didn’t share their luck and their tank’s turret was instantly vaporized by the high explosive warheads. Korachonynv laughed, headbutted the button that expelled the spent shells from the dual breech, and then laughed again as the tank’s interior started stinking of gunpowder. “Burninated!”

“You shut up!” Zysief screamed very loudly as he reloaded another pair of K-bolt rounds into the tank’s massive guns. The previous impact of the armor piercing round had somehow deafened him, and caused him to have a complete nervous breakdown. He slammed the breech close, forgot to twist the knob that would lock it, slammed it close again, and then finally locked the knob. As Helanska checked to see if the rest of their electronics weren’t killed by the impact (that and the massive recoil of their own guns), she made a mental note to submit Zysief to the People’s Imperial Sanatorium of the Empire, where he would be processed and made to ingest a large quantity of tranquilizers. He had been degrading for quite some time, behaving erratically and having drastic mood swings. After this mission, he would probably have to be replaced or reprocessed.

Helanska sniffed the air, it stank of cordite. And also of urine. She glared at Zysief. Then she glared at the tank’s driver, Vasyly. “Get us moving! We’re falling behind! Bring this slab of shit forward! Fuck, why isn’t that camera working?!”

One of the cameras was dead, the one mounted on the B-NET machinegun in front of the commander’s hatch. Helanska thought it was from the impact of the armor piercing round, but it was actually because of an unexploded artillery round that landed right on top of them, crushing the gun, its camera, and damaging the opening mechanism of the commander's hatch.

“Zysief, I’m going to have to use your rangeviewer,” Helanska said as she sat herself in front of Zysief’s periscope.

“But I need it to aim!” Zysief protested feebly.

“Fuck off, or I’ll shoot you myself!” Helanska roared as she activated the thermograph and the tactical display.

“This is so shit!” Zysief whined. “This is so shit!”

Vasyly finally got the tank to move - despite the fact that one of their treads was broken - and the tank rolled forward, catching up with the rest of the Imperial armor. They passed by a field of twisted metal, but unlike the last time, it was the twisted metal of the Majellan resistance and refugees that filled the Saratov Plains. The price for their ingratitude towards the Bragulan liberation of their world. The Imperial 357th Shock Army had suffered minimal casualties, and Helanska was thankful for that.


Once more, the radio garbled to life. This time, it was the voice of the Commandant. Helanska remembered him. He was an old Bragulan, gray furred, grizzly and gaunt. He wore a black leather uniform adorned by both emerald cruxes and red medals in the shape of human skulls and in the color of human blood. He also had a broadsword, a Vorsratha (which was probably what he used to execute their former commander), and an eye patch. Helanska saw him only once, and he scared the crap out of her. He reeked of fanaticism, and Helanska could smell the stench even through the radio. The Commandant's voice then commanded, in a thick accent: “Brave soldiers of the 357th Shock Army, the Majellan ingrates have been brutalized by our awesome artillery, their city has been shattered. Their women now weep in lamentation and their children are buried under tons of rock! Now it is time to complete your patriotic duty and advance into the city as an unstoppable wall of Imperial steel! Remember, there is no turning back. The Imperator has commanded no prisoners be taken. Now go forth and kill!”

Zysief began crying, which prompted Korachonynv to slap him silly.

“Alright, Vasyly, take us in,” Helanska ordered as she took up Zysief’s periscope-like viewfinder. She observed that their artillery was shelling the innermost most parts of the city, which told her that they were almost out of things to bombard – which was a good thing. Hopefully, there would be no friendly fire incidents. The last time one of those happened, Helanska heard, two entire armies were nuked from orbit because it was mistaken for mutiny. And the bastard who ordered the orbital bombardment got promoted, too! “Everyone, grab your anti-radiation pills. They’ve stopped the atomic shelling, but our hull is compromised and I don’t intend to get leukemia and grow tumors on my cunt!”

[Agent Sorchus]

Hyperspace; The Centrality

Luis squirmed his way out from underneath one of the panels int he limited cockpit. One of the alarms was beeping. He had been busy trying to get at the little faults that a newly refurbished fighter has.Of course if it weren't for the fact that he had worked for so many years in the docks he never would have attempted working on the ship. As it was it distracted him from the loss of most of his friends. Of course while he might not have lacked experience he didn't have time. The alarm signified the close approach of the pursuers.

Cybele bolted out her catnap. Omar had been watching the computer and Mac was sharing in Luis' chosen method of distraction. Omar filled them in, "4 fighters coming in, 3 minutes till they hit."

"Nav has a local gravity field a minute and a half distant. I'm going to redirect us."

"What is it Luis?"

"Looks to be an extra-stellar patch of ice."

The dust gas and ice shimmered in the weak light of an stellar nursery just out of reach, distant and aloof. The brilliant burst of hyperlight from the pursuers re-anointed the glittering dust as the gunship dove fort he nearest clump of ice.

Cedric threw the little fighter into a spiral about one the larger rocks, while the other fighters continued onward in a more direct path, shields plowing through the ice. "Fox Two", shouted the leader, IR guided missile hunting the drive trail. Two more cries followed it in. At the last moment the first missile caught a super chilled piece of ice across it's path and proximity detonated. The next impacted the shields on the valiant gunship, while also committing fratricide on them last missile. The mini turret on the gunship started blazing away with blaster bolts traversing the void. Mac was out for blood.

Cedric was only doing his duty, he dodged through the wave of bolts as he followed the others in. The fighters were responding with their forward lazors. The gunship cut close to an icy planetoid, were once it fell just behind the horizon from it's pursuers it went into a Newtonian power slide. 6 anti-fighter missiles leapt from the gunship, most dying immediately thanks to their rough handling and lacking proper armament. 2 of them rose above the horizon again and looped back unto the fighters.

The first fighter saw the incoming, and lacking the gunships robust shields broke for the surface of the planetoid, with one of the incoming missiles in tow. The next fighter went into a spin while cutting velocity to allow counter measures to take their time, eventually succeeding in blinding the missile with a laz burst. The last one, sure from his comrades broadcasts that it was clear, powered past the engagement with the missiles. He finally brought the gunship above the horizon, much to his horror though it was already opening up with it's main guns while blinding him and all his missiles with it's e-war gear. His fighter was split apart by the antiship cannon.

Cedric watched the nuclear fireball and finally made his move, with only two fighters to go it would be easy. The fighter that had gone into the spiral was painted with his Dradis as he launched a fully guided missile at the extremes of range. The pilot did the only thing he could after expending so many of his countermeasures, and he punched it trying to drag out the missiles delta v so he could out maneuver it in the end.

The last pilot was shouting at him. He ignored it, duty still called. The gunship was burning once more to the hyper-limit, while that last fighter did what the gunship had done and hid behind the planet. The running fighter pilot ejected as the guided weapon proved merciless. Cedric, tiring of the cat and mouse games that the last pilot was playing fired both of his IR seeking missiles to probe the horizon. The pilot responded by shooting down the closer of the pair, engaging in Cedric's feint. Now that he knew where the pilot was Cedric accelerated head on. Laz bolts passed back and forth in space. They aimed to collide when they were just a half klick of the surface of the ice burg. Cedric won, thanks to not straining his shields pushing a fighter through a high density ice field. The stricken fighter turned it's remaining lazy wing up towards the Stellar nursery as it slammed into the surface.

Cedric finally broke the silence that he traveled in, "Gunship this is Cedric, remember me? I have coordinates for a safe haven if you wish to follow me."

"Really Cedric, if you hadn't just eliminated the pursuers I wouldn't have believed you. Between this and having the codes for the dock I am going to have to get an explanation, and I guess that means I am going to have to hear it at your 'safe haven. Over'"

Later OOC: music

He had felt the needs of someone in distress, and despite it making him late he just had to respond. They would understand, even if they disliked operation near either the Eoghan Commons or the Centrality and didn't want to spend more time here than they had to, they would understand. The Zord class Yacht Zordon's Blessing left hyperspace to assist the stranded fighter pilots of the 248th Chase squadron. He left them in a disaster hut with extra water and a large distress beacon. He didn't want to be caught up in anyone's internal affairs.

[K. A. Pital]

Commune. Industrial planet New Gagarin.

- Comrade commissar! - the officer said as he entered Vector's "quarters" (which hardly amounted to more than a corner without any special designations in the large docking bay). What was his name... Hailfirstmay or something like that? The young-looking officer offered a formal military greeting - showing a lack of discipline in front of a Mirage operative was not the best way to improve your reputation.

- Yes, comrade Hailfirstmay?

- One of the Crimson-class cruisers, Eat the Rich, has been moving towards the territory of Pendleton. The ship's soviet has unilaterally voted in favor of this action. They maintain communications, but since nor the Supreme Soviet neither the fleet command prohibits traveling through space in any direction, it's course raises no official objections or counterorders. In fact, only the Mirage is interested.

- Pendleton? That slave-holding shithole in Anglia's sphere of influence... or future sphere of influence? - Vector hummed. - And what exactly comrade captain of Eat the Rich desires to achieve by nearing potential warzone?

- It is the opinion of the Mirage that the ship's crew is rather... radical. However, they have strictly adhered to the regulations issued by the Supreme Soviet and never once breached them, - Hailfirstmay explained. - We assume their goals are to use the moment and spread propaganda in Pendleton during the chaos and confusion caused by the Anglian operation. They intend to use it to translate tightbeam messages to all planetary media from afar.

- Freedom of the press is a fundamental blah blah blah, - Vector would've shown a grim smile if he were in a human shape at the moment. - I'm not sure anyone or anything in this Universe shall dare to try and stop broadcasts from our ships. After all, the news are free, aren't they? But keep me informed.

- Indeed, comrade, - the officer said, - Well, in that case I'll do just that. By the way, comrade, we're going to have a station party this evening... I know you're here somewhat incognito, but still...

- I'm sorry, - Vector replied with a yawn, - I believe I'll spend my time more efficiently pondering about how beautiful the Perelman solution is. But another day, perhaps.

Commune capital planet, Zero

The bullets made one rather unpleasant sound as they whizzed past. Twock-twock - he heard sometimes when the bullets found the body of another Commune defender. The barricade was almost overrun. Bayonets flashed, bathing in the last rays of the sun. Blood and guts were everywhere. The smoke and thunder of guns was omnipresent, it seemed. Versailles was winning. It was the end.

The man tried to grasp for his weapon. He was losing. He knew that the morale of his squad was probably faltering and there was not much he could do. One of the bullets hit him right between the eyes just as he thought that the cause is lost...

- Temporary memory access block, released. Sense simulation, released. Information flow, reduced by 99,9999%. Comrade Sigma, mission completed.

Not failed. Not accomplished. Completed. It was the Fifth Great Game, a common form of education combined with entertainment for Commune citizens. There were, of course, books - in electronic form - and movies (the term "moving images" was still viable even after the movies became fully immersive experiences), but the Commune rarely if ever used them.

The massive computational abilities of the Core have created a special type of game. It was a model of reality, a model of civilization that could display any moment in the history of humanity (and, to a lesser degree, other species) with extreme accuracy. The data was not stored - the Core just created the virtual environment for people entering this enormous game. You could choose the time, place and the level of immersion. It could be as deep as fully blocking your memory for a time being and putting you into the storm of history. The Core dug up information from the vast scientific libraries Communet and re-created the period (mostly just the space surrounding the visitor, the rest of the universe existed as a primitive model). Very recent periods, determined as two centuries ago and later, were off-hands - the Core, and Commune's planners, considered them to be a part of politics still, not that of academic history.

This particular episode, however, existed permanently. People could visit it in a static, informative version, like a diorama, or re-live it as a man of the time. It was the Fall of the Paris Commune.

In education, the Great Game served to teach about lots of things. Often it offered the students quests which couldn't be solved (like the one Sigma chose, being dumped into the Commune about a few days before the fall), just to make a point. In any second one could call subprotocols that would explain anything and everything about the clothes, culture, economies, weapons of the era - you name it. Linguists could be thrown into a faraway time to witness the rise of languages. Economists were put into the position of ministers of economy in previously existing nations. And so forth...

The Great Game was the universal book, movie and picture. It was the Commune's cultural pinnacle. Sigma sighed. He failed again in the "Man versus God" scenario, one of the favorite Core scenarios which put men into situations that utterly destroyed any chance of changing the outcome. In a certain way, this was the Core's way of saying "the heroic concept of history does not work".

[Steve]

Co-written with PeZook.



Strahl


Balthier was careful to remain as far away from the Monolith as possible, but such was becoming hard now that he saw the other Collector ships rushing in. "Vanrya! Send out a distress call."
"What? But nobody..."
"Hopefully the Anglian fleet's gotten near Acker," Balthier remarked. "They'll pick it up. Send it, tell them there are Collectors here and to stay away!"
Vanrya nodded stiffly and began transmitting the message. "I'm detecting a jamming field, but I think at least some of it got out."
He gave no answer. Sara felt dread, not from herself but from Rana. She had heard of the Collectors. They were one of the reasons the Sisters of the Silver Moon dreaded Wild Space assignments; their desire for ESPers to experiment upon was widely known in those circles. She reached out and took Rana's hand, trying to calm herself and to calm Rana from their fears.
"Girls, go to Marissa, have her show you the main smuggling space!", Balthier shouted. "And bring Katherine with you!"
Rana and Sara immediately left.
"You don't think it'll work, do you?", Vanrya asked. "And even if it does..."
"We'll have a day or so to escape."
"Escape from a Monolith? Are you mad, Balthier?"
"No, simply desperate," he answered, "and counting on the kind of luck the leading man is usually given. Now call down to Kaylee, have her get into her backup smuggling compartment." As Vanrya did so he kept an eye on his sensor screen and on his heading. The net was closing, his one hope to get out would be skimming uncomfortably close to the Monolith. Thankfully something of that size had to be terribly slow, so he could probably make it work....



Monolith


The little freighter seemed like a fly fighting against an elephant, as it dove towards the ponderous Collector ship, its engines blazing at full thrust. All it would take would be a brief opening, a bit of luck and correct estimation of the ever-changing relative speeds for the Strahl to slip by the Monolith and disappear within the gas giant's rings.

And it had every chance of working, the ship's intelligence pondered, admiring the pilot's skill. For an organic, the being piloting it displayed an amazing ability to analyze and adapt to a changing situation in an extremely complex environment.

The Monolith would change the situation, however, by introducing another variable. As the Strahl screamed towards the rings, leaving a trail of remass behind it, the giant Collector ship suddenly whipped about on its heading and rapidly accelerated in an entirely different direction, shifting its velocity vector with trivial ease, springing the deadly trap. Despite a last ditch maneuver by the smuggler, the Monolith managed to get a lock and hit the Strahl with tractor beams of tremendous power.



Strahl


The Collector tractor emitters threw everyone on the ship around. Balthier immediately diverted all power to the engines, hoping to force his way free. Unfortunately, as it turned out, that's precisely the response the Collectors were hoping for; their tractors were specially designed to induce feedback into overpowered engines and to bring ships to a quick stop that way. Within seconds he got the warning light of an engine blowout. A deep sigh came from him and he looked carefully to Vanrya. "It looks like we won't be getting away this time."
Vanrya swallowed and nodded. "The others are in the smuggling spaces."
"Good. Now, when we get out there, keep a good eye open for opportunities."
"How can we escape with our drives burnt out?"
"I trust Kaylee can get them repaired in time."
"And the tractors?"
"Well... we'll deal with that when it comes." Already he was calculating the risks of a hyperspace transit this close to the gas giant. Their odds weren't good... but better than zero if they couldn't knock out the Collector tractor beams.

The captive Strahl was guided into a massive landing bay in the Monolith's side. Balthier shut down the drives, folding the engines back into inactive position, and lowered the landing struts. The ship shuddered only slightly when they were firmly in place. "I do hope there's an atmosphere out there," he stated. "I find vacuum suits rather ponderous."
Vanrya could only give him one of those looks that betrayed her irritation at his attempt at unflappability in the face of extreme terror and uncertainty.



It took less than a minute for the brilliant light reflected off Jove's atmosphere to disappear entirely, cut off by the hangar bay's armored door, sliding into place and covering the gaping maw in the Monolith's side. Within seconds, there was no visible sign of the hangar bay ever being there.

There was something terrifying about the darkness - on a primordial level, the way humanity's ancestors felt about it when the dark meant horrible, deadly things came out to hunt their helpless victims.

Those aboard Strahl couldn't help but shiver slightly when something started to scrape on the hull. The Strahl's infrared sensors managed to catch a glimpse of six-legged machines descending onto the hull and swarming all over it, banging on the plates as if they were attempting to get in. Before any of the crew could get a closer look, however, the sensors and all computer systems aboard abruptly shut down. Silence fell inside the cabin, interrupted only by the screeching of metal against metal.

The ship stopped abruptly and started rotating, then began moving again, before finally coming to a complete stop in a place just as dark as anywhere else. Somehow, everyone aboard could feel the overwhelming, heavy presence of the Monolith all around them.

Suddendly, three glowing green eyes ignited right outside the cockpit's windows. They glared inside, cold, unmoving. Something scraped against the hull again, and all screens, computer systems and indicator lights suddendly came alive just as abruptly as they have died. Waves of data raced across the main indicators, and no system reacted to attempts at shutting them down. When the data dump was complete, the entire ship went dark again, and to everybody's horror, the ramp began to extend on its own.

When it touched the deck, unseen machine enforces surrounding the ship began marching up it, their feet striking the Strahl's floor in what sounded like a unison march of Death.



"We should attack them!", Marissa urged Balthier as they gathered forward in the cockpit. "Surely the Valkyries would see our courage and escort us into the halls of Valhalla..."
"I'm not quite interested in visiting Valhalla yet." Balthier rubbed the side of his head. Implants in the back of his eyes shifted to show the infrared range; Umarbacca and MacCulloch could also see in this range, and Vanrya wasn't completely blind thanks to long-standing gene augmentation of the Dorei ocular system to make use of less light, but Marissa was completely blinded. "Hello down there, we are unarmed and quite ready to discuss things like civilized beings. I don't suppose anyone is interested in a good case of brandy?"


The call fell on deaf ears - or, rather, indifferent ones. The row of metallic warriors marched into the cockpit, watching the crew with their red, glowing eyes. Swarms of tiny drones flooded the Strahl behind them, swarming over the walls and the ship's equipment.
"Where's the rest?", a booming voice resounded throughout the hangar bay, forming an eerie effect when coupled with the black-and-green false-color image of the landing bay and Collector soldiers.


Suspecting that their crew, and having ESPers, had been given away by Pendletonian authorities, Balthier nevertheless decided to maintain the masquerade. "We're all here."


"No.", the voice replied. Strangely, it didn't seem to be coming from the skeletal figures standing in a loose semicircle around Balthier and his crew. Talking with it was like having a conversation with a wall, "You're not. Where's Katherine de la Poer?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, my crew is all here"

"Very well...we know you had beings with extrasensory potential aboard. Let's see if they really are all here.", the voice seemed...amused.

In the infrared-illuminated darkness of the Strahl's corridors, another shape appeared. That one was was bigger, barely able to fit inside the ship. It hovered above the floorboards, with six legs hanging from its body, and a pair of massive metal pincers in the front. A smaller head with three green glowing eyes and a mass of smaller manipulators finished the picture.

The...Creature? Robot? - It was hard to say - carried some sort of device in one of its massive pincers. It disappeared inside the pantry for several minutes, before the crew felt a low rumble reverberate through the deck plates.

Across the ship, a wail came from within the smuggling space. Sara, Rana, and Katherine all felt pain stab into their minds, but it was Sara who wasn't trained in any way to deal with such. She cried out from the pain and her heart quickened. As the effect continued she flailed about until finally her leg knocked off the cover of the compartment, opening them to detection. A swarm of beetle-like drones flooded the compartment almost immediately, crawling all over the women, pricking them with their cold, metal feet. Numbness came quickly, muscles began to stop answering their commands...yet they did not lose consciousness. As the three women stopped struggling, a metal pincer reached inside the compartment. Rana was the first to be dragged outside by the manipulator, and her heart froze in terror, a terror those with her could feel tacitly, as the spider-like machine held her close to its head and examined her carefully, before installing restraints around her hands and feet and hanging its victim from its underbelly, like a fly in a cocoon. It then reached for another ESPer, repeating the process with machine precision until all three women hanged limply under its body. The spider then picked up its device and left the ship.

"I don't know why you bothered lying", the voice remarked as Balthier's crew watched the large drone carry off its prisoners, "We'd have found them anyway."

"The young ladies are passengers on my vessel, a captain has an obligation to his guests, you know," he retorted. "I must say, your reputation proceeds you."

"Really? You are an interesting creature. I will make sure to talk again with you in a few moments."

The scarabs swarmed out of the smuggling compartment and flooded into the cockpit, a massive, teeming mass of shining carapaces. Like a storm, unstoppable, they were coming for their victims.

"This isn't really necessary," MacCulloch protested; having lived on Solaris he'd heard plenty about the Collectors, or at least the rumors popular about them. "We can bloody walk!"

To everyone's amazement, the flood stopped just short of reaching the group. It quivered and shook, like an attack dog held on a tight leash.

"Organics have a disturbing tendency to attempt futile acts of resistance or escape," the drone answered, with that annoying hint of amusement appearing again. "It is therefore in the interests of all that you are kept under strict control while being moved to a secure location."
"How considerate of you," Balthier noted wryly, staring at the disgusting mass. "I don't suppose you'll have a spare wardrobe, I imagine you don't get many visitors with a concern for fresh and clean clothing."

There was no answer, though Balthier could swear he heard a chuckle. The mass of scarabs surged forwards, spilling over to cover the walls and ceiling of the cockpit, and swarmed over the intrepid crew.

"No!" The shout came from Marissa, who was the first to be gripped at. She swung her axe angrily, trying to strike the scarab, but it skittered out of the way. "I am a warrior of Thor, I will not be taken so easily! Come, you foul beasts, come and face a...." She was able to say no more as the scarab injected her with a more potent cocktail of muscle relaxant than usual, weakening her and leaving her unable to resist while it climbed up onto her neck and back. A needle point came from the drone and went into the back of Marissa's neck, striking her spinal cord and permitting it to override her nervous system. She lost all control of her body before she could utter a single protest. The scarabs began dragging her unconscious body out of the cockpit. Umarbacca let out a roar and tried to shake the drones off her, barely able to constrain his anger.
"Your weapons and choice of dress are curious," the lead drone remarked, having noticed her fallen axe and the Nordic-themed armor pieces she wore. "You will be studied closely." The Collector turned its attention to the barely-constrained ball of rage that was Umarbacca. "A Bragulan subject. I am equipped to deal with you as well. Resistance is pointless."
"Umar..." Balthier gave him a look. He had suspected Marissa would get herself in trouble, but he needed Umar undrugged and capable for when any opportunity presented itself. Seeing Balthier's expression, Umar nodded and grudgingly relented to having a particularly large scarab clamber up his back.

Each of the crew were injected with relaxant,but at a lower dosage than Marissa had gotten. They were left free to follow the main Collector drone off their ship and to a holding cell. The vessel around them was mostly devoid of normal light as the Collectors had no need of it.
It was not a long trip to the holding room. They were brought to a chamber lit normally, and fairly brightly, with an all-white appearance. The walls, floor, ceiling, even the furniture and table were of the same basic color. Once brought into the room, the scarabs detached themselves from the crew and left. "Not very imaginative are you?", was Balthier's response to the room.
"Hey, you bloody machines, what about Marissa?!", MacCulloch called out. In the open light, without the scarabs, they were able to look around and see their young compatriot was not amongst them. There was no answer to either one.

When the drone was gone, Balthier stepped into the middle of the room and found a chair near the table. "So, what is your plan?", Vanrya asked pointedly. Normally unflappable, she had become the height of nervousness. "How will you break us free and get back Sara and Rana?"
"Honestly, I haven't a clue," was the reply. "By all odds opportunity will have to be our guide." Since they were likely being monitored, he was able to silence everyone on the issue of Kaylee. Clearly the Collectors had not known of her, and had not anticipated they would hide non-ESPers.


It wasn't long before a door slid open in the side of the room, and a figure walked inside. It was different from the ones that boarded their ship: taller, more reminsescent of a mummy than a skeleton. Its eyes glowed green instead of red, and it wore a tattered, black cape to fill out the image.

Balthier remained sitting, but MacCulloch jumped straight to his feet and behest the creature, "You mechanical bastard, what have you done to Marissa?!"

The robot faced him, studying the fiery Scot with its emotionless face. The stylized faceplate bore stitches in place of the mouth, "Her weapons and choice of dress are curious," it finally remarked, "She will be studied closely."

"I swear to God if anything...", MacCulloch started with the obvious intent of threatening the machine. Balthier interrupted him.
"Doctor! Please, our...host...has obviously come to discuss something with us. Haven't you? Please, sit down. Protein cube?", he shoved a tray of bland Collector-provided food rations towards the robot. It stared at it for a while.
"Amusing", it finally said. Balthier had to admit its demeanor had become somewhat annoying, but decided he'd continue his game. It was better if one's captors were amused, rather than wary. Though, of course, the robot did not sit down.
"You are an interesting being, captain. We often see attempts by biologicals to protect their friends, but such loyalty to one's passengers? An interesting concept. Most traders try to exchange their passengers for their own freedom."
"Please, 'Balthier', not 'Captain'," was the first part of the reply, before he continued. "What can I say? I'm not most traders, I like to think that professionals have certain standards when it comes to their conduct."
"It seems inefficient"
"Why? Did you ever let anyone go in exchange for their passenger?"

"No. A fair point.", the slight change in the tone of voice was hard to read, but Balthier was pretty sure the creature was amused, again. Balthier's crew, on the other hand, obviously wasn't. It seemed like Umarbacca was contemplating ripping the robot in half, but so far managed to restrain himself, "Can I ask you a question?", Balthier didn't seem to mind, and continued his conversation, "If you care that much about efficiency, why the cape?"
"It's useful during negotiations."
"I see", Balthier nodded to himself, and changed the subject, "What will happen to my crew?"
"You will be examined."
"And then?"
"It depends on the result.", the robot answered and left, as abruptly as it came in.
"Well...", Varnya commented dryly, "That went well. Were you trying to gain something out of this little chat?"
"Yes", Balthier took a bite from a protein cube, "Time."



In the quiet spaces of the Strahl, Kaylee slipped out of her safety compartment. Her goggles permitted her to see in the dark - even then she knew the entire engine room by memory - and the device clipped to her belt would block her life signs from immediate detection. With her toolbelt attached and ready, she gritted her teeth and went to work on the ship's drives.



HMS Dauntless
Acker System, The Outback


Fisher leaned over the table in the war room with irritation and concern chiseled on his features. Lieutenant Sampson, his comm officer, reached over and triggered her station again. The message played over again, broken up and garbled by jamming, but the words "trap" and "too powerful" were audible. He looked to his assembled command staff, including the service liaisons of the Hiigarans, Altacarans, Ascendancy, Shepistani, and Gothamites. Lieutenant Sampson spoke up first. "Among the information in the signal was the ID code of the transmitter. It was a vessel recorded as being the Strahl, a private ship flown by one Bartholomew Meidan, formerly a Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy, our Royal Navy." Sampson had quickly corrected herself, looking briefly to the Altacaran officer while doing so. "We don't know why he was at Pendleton, but it is clear he stumbled upon some plan or scheme by the Pendletonians to launch an ambush of the invasion fleet."
"We must now decide whether to commence the attack or attempt a transmission back through the Gap," Fisher said. "And thus ask for reinforcements."

The discussion occurred for a time. When it came down to it, nobody could imagine the Pendletonians technically capable of posing a threat to their fleet's survival, though all agreed they might have some form of trap laid to attempt to maximize damage to the invasion fleet. The decision was made to come out of hyperspace further from the limit than normal and to avoid any minefields set up for the usual hyperspace exit point.
A half hour later, with post-Gap drive checks complete, the invasion fleet resumed course for Pendleton, to arrive in 12 hours....

[Koffee]

League of Free Stars
Planet Diaspora
Beverfield City


Soft music played in the background from the band as the high and mighty elites of Diasporan society mingled with each other in the grand ballroom of the Price Hotel, where the current ball to celebrate Revolution Day, was being held. Men and women dressed in black tuxes and dresses, danced in the middle of the floor or stood along side the various columns holding their drinks in gloved hands and chatted from affairs of the mundane about where one bought the latest diamond they were wearing to the all important of the latest reports coming out of the Pendeleton and what that meant for the future of League/Anglian relations.

Floating through the various crowd like the social butterfly that she was, Alisa Kaufman, Assemblywomen from Job itself, as member of the People's Democratic party, which was not in power at the moment and was barely above a regional party from Job after the latest election, but despite all the common sense and current talk about her party vanishing into the ether and her own political Armageddon come in two months, she at this party wasn't letting any worries or concerns show on her face, though she did seem more business then what was appropriate for the day to celebrating the overthrow of the First Citizen.

It was business she had come to talk to with the man in the back of the room who everybody always seemed to forgot was there, but was always present at most of these parties. Alisa walked past him and then stopped, “Ah so there you are”

“Right in plain sight, what can I do for my dear? The note you sent seemed urgent.”the man said demurely, closer in Alisa had trouble understanding why the man seemed to blend into the crowd so easily, long blond hair was not the normal style of dress that the elites favored, nor was the white business suit with strange golden embroidered symbols on it, nor where the golden pupils himself he had.

“I want to have request help from the Lodge to help me in the next election.”

“Oh” the man swirled his drink around a bit, “And why should we do that even if we had the power to change the results to something more favorable for you.”

“Because then you would own me, so to speak, and I could make life easier for you if you help me and my party. With the rise of Holzerhein as Chancellor and his law and order crackdown on the Grand Families, whatever you guys do have to be more difficult now.” then the Assemblywoman grinned in a predatory fashion, “Or I'll have my attack staff release all the data we accumulated on you from years of investigation to the public, and lets see how long the Lodge would last in face of public scrutiny with the Chancellor on the ball.”

The man stopped swirling his drink, and then leaned back against the marble column he was standing at and looked up at the ceiling as if contemplating the paintings of angels and demons there, before looking down back at Kaufman. He smiled friendly like and took a step closer to her, and reached out and put his hands on her shoulders and looked at her eye to eye.

“All right, you made your point.” his seemed to shimmer to Alisa, and then things went black.
And Alisa woke up, very confused, and screamed in terror at the sight before her, in front of her laid in a bloody heap, the entirety of the staff of researches that knew about the Lodge, bullet ridden, and behind them ruined computers from bullets which were now on fire, along with the rest of the small one story two room office she rented for them on the outskirts of the merchant district in the capital. She started to hyperventilate as she realized she was holding her right hand a nearly empty SMG which was still hot from firing.

Then windows behind her burst opened and her already panicked eyes widened even more when she saw the armored forms moving towards her, they weren't normal police, but the Frontier Ranger Core, rapid response unit. The man's voice? She couldn't tell from the voiced amplification and her own terror and fucked up state of mind, boomed, “drop the gun down or else!”

It was to her horror that her arm and hand started moving on their own, heading towards her own head when there was a single shot and the last thing she felt was a wave of paralyzing relief as the stun cannon hit her straight on. She smiled before she lost consciousness again, confusing the hell out of the ranger in charge.

After surveying the situation was clear, the ranger took the helmet to his hostage rescue team suit, and knelled down and did a confirmation of the identity of the killer, and frowned, and was about to radio in the news to the command center outside when a man and women dressed in all black walked into the crime scene.

“That'll be enough Ranger Harris. We'll take it from here.” said the women.

“Ahh great, our infamous MiBs, show me some Ids before I let you take over yet another crime scene.” Harris grumbled, as they both reached into pockets and displayed a very terse picture ID with obviously fake names but real Chancellor issued executive command authority codes. Harris looked back at the rest of his team who had followed him into the building, and the pinnance outside that they had been riding on heading to Camp Furton where they would be training in a situation very similar.

“You know its lucky we were here, eh Mr “Smith” normal police would of just let her shot herself or killed her when she moved the gun up. That gun she had would of chewed through anything short of military grade body armor.”

“Yes very fortuitous Ranger Harris, but I do believe you have a training seminar to attend to.”

Harris threw his hands up in the air, and said, “All right, I got it, we're leaving.” with that the ranger left, leaving behind only the MiBs and the teams they brought.

The women knelled down by the body of Alisa and took a blood sample, and ran into her computer, “Hmm as we thought, Lodge.”

“We could be thankful that the Lodge was kind enough to make her unable to run for public office, save us the work.”

“Yeah, if they knew her true ID they would of kept her for their own purposes. But the question is what do now, we can't let this go out in public, too many questions would be asked especially with her background.”

“Freakish fire, possible arson, I'll get Media control up here on this. The problem is what do we with her, she despite her ugly background is still a victim here, even if one we're obligated to destroy a political career of.”

The women looked at the bodies, and the way everything was destroyed, it was very professional, “Sent her to S1, when she recovers she'll want revenge, and I think she has some talent for it.”

“Tch, there is no way somebody like her would work for us.”

“There is that, well send her to Scythe.”

“You be that cruel?”

“Its either a graveyard for her if we let her go, the Lodge will get her again, and she won't stay in our protection, or we make use of her. She's only twenty eight, still young enough to be brought into the system. But the choice is hers, she'll either adapt or die.” the woman said.

“And I thought I was the cruel one of the duo.” Mr “Smith” said.

“Well don't blame yourself, blame the Lodge for causing this mess.”


Next Day
Camp Furton

William Harris, captain of the League of Free Stars, Frontier Ranger Corp, sat at table in the officer's mess reading the newspaper as it was projected from the table emitters as he had his customary morning oatmeal, could only be amused when he read that last night a fatal fire occurred claiming the lives of Assemblywoman Kaufman and her staff, leaving no bodies behind, with a suspected arsonist who had been hitting the area at random. There was going to be a brief state funeral for her, but none of the major news groups were that interested in a candidate who was already a lame duck.

Harris finished reading it, and was about to comment to his buddy Lou Stella, also a captain in the Ranger Corp, when his internal com-implant pipped up and the base commandant Colonel Rockbottom, said, “Harris get your ass up here now.”

“Coming sir!”

Within minutes Harris was standing at full attention in front of the desk Rockbottom was siting at, “At ease, I'll make this quick because you don't have a lot of time.”

“Sir?”

“Orders from in top my boy. You been promoted to Major and give your own assignment.”

“Sir!?”

'Congrats Major Harris.” Rockbottom threw a box with the rank tabs in it, at the now scrambling Harris, who caught them. “One minor detail, you been assigned to some station in Babel I have not even had heard off.”

“Uhm well a promotion is a promotion.” Harris said, though darkly he thought and a warning is a warning

“Good, good, anyway gather your gear up, HQ sent a shuttle to pick you up by 11 hundred.”

“I'll get on this right away.” and why I am being exiled for doing my job.

[PeZook]

Pendleton, fleet command bunker

Dienst was running a final briefing for defence force commanders when an ensign charged into the room with no regard to protocol. He almost forgot to salute, even.

"Sir! The smuggler has been captured and brought aboard the Collector flagship!", he panted. The gathered high officers of the Pendletonian armed forces all looked up from their maps in shock, which made the young man realize his mistake, "Uh...I'm sorry, sir, I thought you'd want to know...the ship carried Katherine de la Poer aboard?"

This cause quite a stir inside the briefing room. the de la Poers were well-known and respected on Pendleton, having played a pivotal role in resistance forces fighting against Anglian occupation. The news of Walther de la Poer's murder managed to reach the secluded command centre despite the communications blackout imposed on the planet. Everyone just assumed his daughter was killed, too, so the news was more than just a bit shocking.

"Are you certain?", the marshall askd the first question that came to his head, "Has this been confirmed?"

"Yes, sir. We've received witness statements from the staff at the de la Poer estate confirming that Ms. Katherine was abducted. We're now waiting on confirmation from our liaison team aboard the flagship."

"Good! Inform me the moment we're certain, so that she can be transferred planetside!"

The ensign saluted and left. Marshall Dienst turned back to his officers, "Gentlemen, let us not get carried away with such a small piece of good news. We have less ten hours before the Anglians get here, so let's get back to work."



Collector Monolith

"Hello? We've asked a question! You're supposed to cooperate with us!", Gill screamed into the air. He hated communicating with the ship that way. There was no captain, no crew, the only way to ask questions was to shout them at the walls and hope they deemed to answer.

Fortunately, this time they did, "We have not yet identified the crew of the captured vessel."

"A very important person was aboard. We would like her back.", Gill continued the chat, despite his frustration. If he could secure the return of Katherine de la Poer to Pendleton, his future career would be very rosy indeed.

"Yes, I know. You will be informed if we find her."

Wait, wasn't de la Poer an ESPer?, Gill thought to himself. He knew that Collectors had an uncanny interest in extrasensory perception capable people...but they wouldn't abduct an allied VIP, now would they?

Gill had to admit that they probably would.

He was shook from his thoughts by a satisfied shout coming from Amanda's impromptu hacking station. The young EW expert slapped her thigh and cried, "Hah!", obviously satisfied with some sort of important computer coup.

Eli, who was running a teleconference with Fleet Command, glanced sideways and apologized to the Marshall, while Parkhurst found herself right next to Amanda in two steps.

"What is it? What did you do?"

"I managed to pull the deck plan from a secondary system!", the girl said with satisfaction and rotated a computer to show the imagery, "And translate the file!"

"This will be useful...", Parkhurst muttered to herself, "Is that a power line here?"

"Yes, looks like a heavy one, too. Runs through a shaft between levels...I'm not sure what it's for, but it looks important."

"We've got our first target, then. Let's see if we can mine it without getting spotted."

Parkhurst suddendly felt someone touch her shoulder, "Captain...a word?", she heard Gill say.

They walked a few steps to the side, while Amanda got back to work on scouring Collector system, "Go ahead..."

"I have reasons to believe our host is hiding Katherine de la Poer with the intention to abduct her.", Gill whispered, and outlined his reasons for this belief.

"So?", Parkhurst replied, shocking Gill somewhat.

"What do you mean, 'so'? She's important!"

"Sir, not as important as our mission. If we can save her, fine, good for us, but we must remember our objectives. In this game, any single life doesn't matter."

"Surely you must see that in this particular case...", Gill tried again

"No. We're fighting for the whole of Pendleton. Three hundred million lives are at stake. I'm sorry, but de la Poer will have to wait her turn.", Parkhurst turned around

"Captain! Have you forgotten who's in charge of this operation?!", Gill changed his tone. He looked at Parkhurst's back, and heard her grind her teeth - which brought him no small amount of satisfaction. The captain finally turned around, obviously angry, "You are, sir. I strongly advise ot to undertake any rescue attempts."

"Advice noted, captain. I want to see a plan in two hours.", this time it was Gill who turned around, and disappeared inside a small bathroom attached to the main room.

Jackass, Parkhurst thought, but she had little choice. Shaking her head, she went back towards Amanda. Maybe they could show Gill how insane his idea was, but for that she'd need to figure out where the holding cells were.

[Siege]

Southern Continent
Bragulan-occupied Majella

It took the marines of A Company, 1st Battalion twenty minutes to extract their vehicles from the crashed Bullfly transport. Baylor was having an itch by the time the final Ranger emerged from the ruined hold, as if at any moment the Bragulans who now dominated orbit might drop a nuke on his position. He was exposed and horribly vulnerable. The crash site would stand out on any half-decent optical sensor, and once the Brags spotted it – and his little convoy next to it - there could be little doubt about what their reaction would be.

"Come on people, saddle up and let's get moving. We don't want to be here all day, unless you like getting force-fed some Shardik atomics!" he hollered, using one of the many perjoratives for Bragulans the USMC had developed over the years. He stuck his head out of his trusty command vehicle just as it rose on its suspensor skirts and surveyed the small marine convoy. He had six M8A6 Ranger AFVs, each carrying ten soldiers, the bulk of his platoon. Then there were four M12A1 Hellhounds IFVs with six soldiers each, and another four Hellhounds of the M12A2 scout variant with only four troopers aboard. Finally the convoy was rounded off with two M6S2 Blackbirds, one his own command vehicle, another carrying an electronic warfare suite. Thank dog for that Baylor thought, knowing that without the blanket of interference the EW vehicle could pump out the Brags would be on him in a matter of hours. And thank dog too for all-suspensor units. He'd loathe to have to drag a few Terminators along with him. Their tracks would have been visible from orbit.

The last man to mount up was in fact a woman, the pilot of the now-ruined dropship who obviously didn't feel like leaving her bird behind. But they had no mechanics, and at any rate getting airborne whilst the enemy had orbital supremacy would he suicide. He told her as much, but Flight Lieutenant Clarke obviously didn't feel much better about it as she disappeared into the hold of the Blackbird.

The convoy zipped off, headed at high speed for the dubious safety afforded by a series of small bluffs not too far from the crash site.

[Lonestar]

P.N.S. Tuscarora
Meinhoff System, BB-1



“Admiral? The…President Terwilliger is aboard.” The aide had a sneer on his face, and Admiral Grierson certainly understood why it was there. Meinhoff was far and away the most populated human world in BB-1, with a population of 1.2 million. The colony(Grierson refused to think of it as an independent nation) had mostly been established by Dominionite citizens who had fled the rampant religious fanaticism that was a hallmark of the David Fairfax regime. After 2 centuries of more or less being ignored by the Grand Dominion, the time of reckoning had come.

“Send him in.” Grierson said. In came an astonishingly overweight man(especially so since malnutrition was a hallmark of Verge worlds like Meinhoff) who was sweating profusely, despite the climate being a comfortable 70 F. Grierson gave an insincere smile. “Mr. President, thank you visiting my ship on such short notice.”

“Oh no problem, no problem.” Terwilliger said. The man was shaking. The handful of antiquated gunboats and converted cargo vessels that made up the Meinhoff Republic Navy had quickly made for orbit, and those that could land did. The Tuscarora all on its own had several times the total tonnage of the MRN. “I, uh, we are always glad to see our cousins from the Grand Dominion. It’s been…several years since a Dominion naval vessel paid a port visit.” And nothing like the Tuscarora strike group He didn’t say.

“I dare say that this will be a more common occurrence.” Grierson said. Terwilliger’s face lost what little composure it had. “In order to facilitate maritime security operations in BB-1, we will need a naval anchorage. Due to cultural and geographical considerations we feel that Meinhoff offers a perfect location for such an installation. I’m sure you would agree.”

“Am I to understand that Meinhoff’s independence is at an end?” Terwilliger asked weakly.

“Nonsense! What do you take us for, some imperialist autocracy?” Grierson waggled a finger. “We will of course be compensating the good people of Meinhoff for their troubles, through monetary influxes and infrastructure improvements. We will even be installing a Skyhook, which will be available for commercial use when not used by the GDN.”

Terwilliger perked up at that. A Space Elevator would greatly improve the economy of Meinhoff. The planet was so backwards that chemical SSOs were still the primary means of getting stuff to merchants in orbit.

“Of course, Meinhoff will also come under the protection of the DCMA. A Garrison force will be left behind to ensure that naval and DCMA facilities will be well protected.” Grierson smiled brightly. Terwilliger resumed sweating and fidgeting. “This is, after all, a dangerous sector without a central authority. Pirates, Xenos, outlaws, the intrigues of the TDR. I’m sure you agree.”

“Of…of course.” Terwilliger said. He knew that the arrival of the Dominion Colonial Management Agency signaled an end to Meinhoff as he knew it. “I, uh, will have to discuss this with the Congress…”

“Naturally, I am sure that a man of your means will be able to make that a formality.” Grierson said. “We are already surveying an area outside of Whiskey River for the DCMA compound. Director Davies believes that it will be ideal.” Grierson stood and walked over to Terwilliger, suddenly shaking his hand. “I appreciate your help in making this as smooth as possible. The Gunny will escort you back to your shuttle.” He reached over and opened the door, standing there was a towering Assault Marine in a Marauder combat armor. “Gunny, I believe the President understands what’s expected of him. Escort him to his shuttle.”

“Aye aye Admiral.” The Marine laid a huge armored glove on Terwilliger and shoved him down the corridor.

Results: The Grand Dominion begins construction of naval support facilities in Sector BB-1.

[Simon_Jester]

So, when we have spied on the path of their host,
One flieth to carry that word to the coast;
And, lest by false doublings they turn and go free,
One lieth behind them to follow and see.
-Rudyard Kipling, Cruisers


Corsair-J class ELINT cutter CG-85484 “Heavenly Body”,
On station in the Bannerman Gap, Line Alpha, Zone D-3
January 25, 3400

“I might have another one.” Lieutenant Choudry blinked, trying to clear the gummy feeling from his eyes. The crew had enough time to sleep in shifts in theory. In practice, catching more than a cat-nap was almost impossible. Most of them were running on stims by now, but at least it was almost the end of their shift and they could return to base for a good solid rest. Mary, the EWO, was the only one who still seemed as crisp as she’d been at the beginning of their sortie.

The pilot replied with the bright, glassy alertness of military stims. “What’ve you got?”

“Looks... wow, this one’s a speedy bastard. Not small, either, to be throwing that much out on sidebands. And... lost him again. Looks like a military drive.”

“Must have changed course. Keep looking.” Mary’s hands flickered over the controls for a good twenty seconds before she reacquired the contact.

“Found him... no... wait. Got it. He’s throwing some kind of active jamming, probably a warship. Estimate... could be anywhere from heavy corvette to light destroyer range.”

“Can you nail down a course?”

“He’s dodging all over the sky and throwing out noise. Working on it.”

“Good. Jiangqi, alert Directrix; this one could be a toughie.”


USS Directrix,
Deep hyperspace, near Bannerman System

Commodore Hazarika had just woken up and headed down to CIC when the news arrived. Another ship, probably military, ducking and dazzling its way through the Gap. Standing, she leaned over towards her chief of staff. “Something tells me that’s not a private smuggler.”

“Wouldn’t think so, ma’am. I’m surprised the Pendletonians could bear to part with it, with a major fleet action coming up.” If the upper bound estimate on the bandit’s drive power was right, the ship coming at them might be as heavily armed as some navies’ line destroyers- including Umeria’s own.

“Hm. Either that ship mutinied and is planning to turn pirate, or... wait.” Her eyes went wide. “Weren’t there reports of some very well armed pirates harassing the Anglian convoys during the last occupation?”

“Believe so, ma’am. You think those were naval units?”

“Exactly. Some of the ships they were supposed to have were never accounted for in the mopup after Tenth Pendleton. The Anglians figured the money for the ships had just been embezzled, but... what if the ships mutinied and turned pirate? No, that can’t be right; they wouldn’t hang around to attack the Royal Navy then...” Suddenly it fit together. Shit, we’ve got to catch this one.

She continued. “Unless this is deliberate! I don’t think we’re looking at a would-be pirate at all; that’s the would-be flagship of a naval guerilla force.” She turned to her signals officer. “Call Black Knight, tell them that we have a priority target. Get to the Alpha line, see if they can refine that trajectory enough to generate an intercept, and alert Bravo line that we may be needing all of them for this one.”

---

Anon we return, being gathered again,
Across the sad valleys all drabbled with rain --
Across the grey ridges all crisped and curled --
To join the long dance round the curve of the world.
-Rudyard Kipling, Cruisers


Corsair-F class customs cutter CG-88312 “Shooting Pains”,
En route to intercept at maximum military power

This is all pointless if we can’t get a vector on that bastard. Commander Bob Copeland grimaced. They were massing the entire Bravo line cutter force to catch the oncoming Pendleton ship, at their best guess of where it was bound... but the chance of it actually being there for them to catch was still less than one in ten. He’d seen the sensor take from Delta Three, and it wasn’t promising; the target was throwing out waves of jamming that made gauging its exact course and speed almost hopeless.

Making a reasonable guess at its drive power, it was quite possible for the enemy frigate to run the blockade entirely, getting far enough beyond the Gamma line that catching it would be impossible. They had to be lying in wait when it came out from the shoals, and they had to have a starship on the way to support them or they wouldn’t be able to hold something that big in normal space- a frigate could kill his entire force in a sustained engagement. To catch their prey and hit it with something big enough to kill, they needed a fixed intercept point... and Copeland couldn’t think of a way to get one. He spoke on the wing push, contacting his units.

“Squadron leaders, report position.” The replies chimed in; Cardwell in Greyhound was closest to the rally point. That much he could control, but it was going as well as could be expected. Trying to find something to do, he turned his attention to his own craft, calling to his weapons officer. “Nadia, did you manage to clear that software bug?” Trying to reset the fusing in the Mark Fives had been problematic, and they were going to need those warheads set for point blank and tight focus if they wanted to get anything through destroyer-weight shielding. Times like this made him wish the Corsair-F could carry the Mark Six; that was at least a decent antiship missile for light work, if you threw enough of them... but all they had to do was keep the bastards in play for a few minutes; the starship support would take care of the rest.

The reply jerked him out of the thought. “Yes, sir, software is green. All birds are set for minimum standoff and minimum dispersion.” Nadia was still a bit fresh from the academy; he kept trying to wear the formality off but he couldn’t get it to stay. She didn’t freeze during combat, and that was what really mattered. Or would matter... if the Alpha Line boys would hurry up and get them into combat.


“Heavenly Body,”
On station in Zone D-3

“Any more luck beating that jammer, Mary?”

“Afraid not, sir.” The EWO had kept a fairly steady trace on the incoming warship, but she kept losing and having to reacquire when the enemy’s active countermeasures threw her off. The risk that they’d manage to shake Heavenly Body’s tracking entirely was very real.

Mary’s assistant spoke. “Ma’am, I think we could track them if it weren’t for the relative motion being so high. In that case we could probably keep them locked with the high-gain, instead of losing them every time they sidestep a few points under cover of that jammer.”

“Tempting... Dwight, can you take us in closer to their base trajectory?”

“Have to push the engines a bit, up around sixty-five percent. Think they’d spot us?”

“Hmm.” She did some quick calculations. “Well, we could spot us. Think their sensors are as good as ours?”

“Willing to take the chance. Have any of your trademark brilliant ideas?”

“Sorry. We’ll just have to try sneaking by the book, I’m afraid.” The Umerian pushed her helmet visor back, looked over her shoulder at the boat’s commander, and grinned. “Shall we?”

---

As maidens awaiting the bride to come forth
Make play with light jestings and wit of no worth,
So, widdershins circling the bride-bed of death,
Each fleereth her neighbour and signeth and saith: --

"What see ye? Their signals, or levin afar?
"What hear ye? God's thunder, or guns of our war?
"What mark ye? Their smoke, or the cloud-rack outblown?
"What chase ye? Their lights, or the Daystar low down?"
Rudyard Kipling, Cruisers


Lieutenant Choudry swallowed. The warship hadn’t shown any signs that it could see Heavenly Body as they crept into position along its line of flight... but if it could, the smart tactic would be to draw the ELINT boat in and destroy it in passing, rather than risk scaring it off. There was little question that they could kill the cutter if they had a mind to; Heavenly Body had neither the power to cut a tractor beam, nor to resist being dragged out of hyper in a grapple.

It was a sobering thought. He’d fought before, in boarding actions and skirmishes with pirates. But even when he’d been aboard ships waiting to ambush an enemy, those ships were armed- well armed. He’d never had to sit dead in space, with his only hope of survival that the enemy wouldn’t notice him. The Umerians seemed confident enough that the Pendletonian frigate would blow past, blinded by the engine noise created by its own churning progress through the shoals. He hoped they were right.

“Jiangqi, have you got us patched through to Delta Two?”

The assistant EWO answered the pilot. “Yes, sir. They’re standing by to relay the data.” That would keep them from having to fire burst transmissions past the enemy ship.

Mary spoke. “Picture is clearing now that we’re stopped... that’s... no. Hmm... think I’ve got him.” The others held their breath. “Ha! He’s on scope! You were right, kid, I’ve got a lock with the high gain antenna. Here comes another round of jamming, let’s see if we’ve still got him after... YES! Think we can keep up with his course changes now. Start sending updates.”

The Umerian crew cheered; the wild-eyed glee still hadn’t settled when the enemy ship came roaring past, less than a light-day away without even noticing they were there.

---

So, times past all number deceived by false shows,
Deceiving we cumber the road of our foes,
For this is our virtue: to track and betray;
Preparing great battles a sea's width away.
Rudyard Kipling, Cruisers


“Shooting Pains”,
Holding Pattern at Bravo Line Rally Point

The voice of the CIC operator on Directrix came as a surprise. “Bravo Leader, this is Directrix. We have a vector. Move your group to box 582 by 319; target will be coming through at 1715 sigma five.”

He was quick to reply. “I copy, Directrix. Query: What’s our starship support?” That box was in the Haruhiists’ sector; probably be one of theirs.

“Rie Kugimiya, Aya Hirano class missile frigate.” The class name made it click for him. The SOS Imperial Navy went for big ships; their idea of a frigate was damn near cruiser strength. Should be good enough for this job.

“When will they be on station?”

“Black Knight is vectoring them in now; they’re due at 1700 Coalition standard time.”

Yes! Copeland’s worst fear had been that the intercept would simply fail, that the Alpha Line wouldn’t get a vector. But now it was all coming together. The only challenge would be keeping the Pendletonian frigate from causing too much damage during the opening stage, before Rie Kugimiya arrived... and that shouldn’t be more than a minute. No problem. And if the frigate tried to run in the interim... His lips skinned back from his teeth. Oh, please try to run, you big son of a bitch. We’ve got four hundred nukes to throw at you, and I want see how many I can make stick. “Moving to intercept the target, Directrix.”


Now peace is at end and our peoples take heart,
For the laws are clean gone that restrainéd our art;
Up and down the near headlands and against the far wind
We are loosed (O be swift!) to the work of our kind!
Rudyard Kipling, Cruisers

---

Strategic Carrier Black Knight,
On Station, Outskirts of Bannerman System

The signals rating on Admiral Paktu’s flag staff keyed his hyperwave transmitter to the Haruhiist contingent’s frequency. “Black Knight calling HSS Rie Kugimiya. I say again, Black Knight calling HSS Kugimiya.”

The voice that replied was distinctly accented; while English was an official language of the Holy Empire, their idea of what constituted “English” was heavily influenced by Japanese- their other official language. “Kugimiya copies, Black Knight.”

“Update on Bandit 58; target is bound for box 582-319, in your sector, due to arrive at 1715 hours. Bravo Line forces are heading to intercept. Take up an overwatch position four light-hours back from them at 1700 hours.”

There was a pause at this point.

“Wilco. Preparing to take up supporting position.”

“Kugimiya, be advised that the target is agile and may have modern sensor capability; proceed with caution.”

“Wilco. Will move with all possible caution to avoid alerting the target.” That was a real risk; several Pendleton smugglers had spotted the warships moving into position through hyperspace and tried to dodge to the side. The cutters had chased most of them down, but it had been a close-run thing- and at least a few had gotten away cleanly, though one managed to blow up his drive pushing through the edge of the shoals at maximum military power.

Speed was important for this operation, but so was surprise; Admiral Paktu’s orders had struck the best balance possible under the circumstances.


Aya Hirano-class frigate Rie Kugimiya,
Preparing to Depart for Intercept

“Helm officer, calculate a course to the intercept point under all possible stealth protocol consistent with arrival at 1700 hours.”

“Aye aye, captain.” The navigator turned to his controls; soon he had computed a low power course scheduled to bring her into position to support the Umerian pursuit forces at 1700 hours. Sadly, the course had been calculated for Hyogo Planetary Time, as defined by an observatory a short distance from the Holy Empire’s capital.

He would have noticed his error and corrected if Coalition Standard Time had differed from the standard used by the SOS Imperial Navy drastically; by unlucky chance, the two measures disagreed by less than half an hour. He would have noticed and corrected given more rest; it was near the end of his shift. He would have noticed and corrected given even a few days more practice, but the Coalition against Pendleton had gone from being unconceived to a multilateral alliance of nearly a dozen nations in less than three weeks.

In consequence, the Haruhiists had been given less than two days to work up as part of the Coalition task force under Rear Admiral Paktu before the fleet departed. It was a miracle of luck, skill, and twenty hour work days by the ships’ programmers that the Holy Empire’s ships had managed to establish unified communications protocol and data exchange system to talk to the Coalition fleet at all. They hadn’t had time to reset their navigational clocks to the standard set by the admiral; too many other concerns had demanded their programmers’ attention. Instead, the Imperial contingent had been forced to rely on their officers entering the adjusted Hyogo time corresponding to Coalition Standard. This time, that reliance had failed.

HSS Rie Kugimiya’s drives rose to 40% power and the missile frigate was soon underway... on a course that would make her twenty-five minutes late getting into position.

[Shroom Man 777]

Battlestar Annapolis

"I'm sorry, but you want me to do what?" shouted the commander of Annapolis as he ingested the latest orders from Fleet HQ.

"Yes, you heard it right. Your light battlestar will be chopped over to the Special Ops division of the Fleet; for the duration of the Pendletonian operation; and will be under partial Bragulian control while they extract their men on the ground. I expect you to display full courtesies to the Bragulian representative who will be arriving on your ship shortly."

"You're putting me under the command of a fucking bear?"

"If you have problems with this, Commander, then I can find other suitable replacements.

"Goddamn it. How long will the bastards be on my ship then?"

"Not long. A couple weeks at the most. Commander...look at this as an opportunity to acquire some nice Bragulian spirits for uh, retirement purposes."

Brought to you in GODDAMN UNREAL TIME

BATTLESTAR ANNAPOLIS, Lochley's Retreat, XYZ-hours prior to fleet departure



The Shepistani light battlestar was docked in port. There were some last minute technical issues that had to be resolved, primarily problems in integrating the Sheppistani non-networked computers with the greater CI-controlled battlesphere management systems used by the rest of the joint Anglian-led coalition. The stuffy Anglians also insisted something be done with the battlestars' primary in-ship communications systems, namely the corded telephones, but the Shepistanis just laughed and installed some token cordless phones to make them happy.

But truth be told, all that was merely a delaying tactic to buy some time. The other Shepistani battlestars had already finished their preparations, but still it seemed as though the Annapolis was taking unusually long to finish its modifications for some reason. Even the other Shepistani ships' crews knew not why the Annapolis was taking so long in particular.

This was because the reason for battlestar Annapolis' delay, which in turn held up the entire Anglian-led fleet, was not actually in its systems integration. Rather, the real reason, which even the commanders and crews of the other Shepistani ships didn't know, was that they were waiting for a small ship that had just arrived in the Lochley system. It was now docking with the docked battlestar, and its precious cargo soon entered the Annapolis.



Commander Louie Hushy stood sternly before the airlock, the feeling of trepidation gnawing at his gut. Originally his mission was to command the Annapolis in proudly representing Shepistan in the multinational taskforce dispatched to deal with the Pendleton slavers once and for all. It was a great and historic responsibility as the shithole's slave-owning denizens traced their lineage back to the Astarians of great old Nova Terra, the Astarians who, in ancient times, were nearly eradicated by a legendary Shepistani biochemical attack. To this day, Shepistanis throughout the Republic celebrated that great historic moment with The Running of the Astarians where they threw rocks at Astarian or Pendletonian effigies dressed in paper mache chemical suits. But now, Hushy thought, his great mission had been superseded along with his command - which he was now about to give to the damned Bragulians who he would be subservient to for the duration of the mission! What the hell was command thinking?!

Suddenly the airlock hissed evilly and began to open. Commander Louie Hushy stifled his squirms of discomfitude. It was the moment of truth, now he'd finally meet the damn dirty commie-bear who he'd have to kowtow to. He had heard stories about them, how they liked to beat subordinates with sticks to ensure ideological correctness. But now this wasn't a story, this was reality, and Hushy faced that it with steely resolve as fog spewed forth menacingly from the airlock, eerily lit up by the deck lamps and such and such. The fog slowly subsided, and when the all-clear was lit, the Bragulians began marching forward.

No, it can't be. Commander Louie Hushy thought at that last moment.



"Greetings Comrade Commander! Permission to come aboard your vessel?" asked the Bragulian who stepped forward to the edge of the airlock.

"Permission granted," Hushy muttered as he forced himself to near the damn inhuman thing.

"Thank you," the big bear replied as he took his green hat off in a gesture of politeness and adjusted his tie. Then he saluted, clenching a fist and placing it on his chest. "I am Colonel Zupyr Velkro, of the Bragulan Star Empire and the Imperator's Emerald Guard. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Commander..."

"Louie Hushy, of the Republic of Shepistan Navy." The Bragulian offered his paw and Hushy tried not to wince as he took it and shook hands with the bear, fully expecting the creature to rip his arm off its socket. Fortunately it didn't happen. Hushy sighed in relief. "Colonel, welcome aboard the Battlestar Annapolis."

"It is a fine ship, Commander. May my comrades enter?" Colonel Velkro asked.

"Of course, by all means." Hushy assented. Then, from behind the Colonel Velkro, several even larger bears came into the hangar. Unlike Velkro with his coat and green tie and slacks and loafers, these other bears were decked out in camouflage uniforms, obviously military though not carrying weapons. A few of them even had military regulation flattop hairdos. Probably special forces.

"As a token for our appreciation of the Shepistani Republic's helpful assistance to the Bragulan Star Empire, and as a gesture of goodwill to you and your crew in the spirit of cooperation between our great peoples, we have brought you these," Velkro gestured towards something some of the bears were lugging with them. They were carrying massive cases, each easily several times larger than a man, containers vaguely resembling refrigerators or something. Velkro smiled, showing his fangs. "We did not have much time to get much, but we did get what we can. These are Bragulan brewskis, good for use perhaps when off-duty or when we are going home after the succession mission, da Commander?"

"Yes, very good," Hushy made a weak smile. After this mission, he definitely could use a stiff drink or two. He just hoped the Bragulan brewskis wouldn't make him blind. "Now, Colonel, if you will, the rest of the Annapolis awaits us."

"Of course," Colonel Velkro gestured forward. "Lead on."

"I shall," Hushy showed him the way and they moved on, out of the hangar and into the rest of the ship while loadlifters began transferring the Bragulan cargo. He did not like being told what to do, or receiving orders from someone who wasn't his superior in the chain of command, particularly from someone ranked colonel. But he did not get the prestigious assignment of representing Shepistan in the coalition forces by being hardheaded or difficult. Like any good officer he knew when to suck it up and take it, and this was particularly one of those situations. "Colonel Velkro, I've been instructed by my superiors to relinquish partial command of the Annapolis to you for the duration of this mission. So, if there is anything I can do to aid in the expediency of your mission, and if there are certain arrangements you'd prefer?"

"Commander, my mission is to extract Bragulan personnel operating in Pendleton. I only request your assistance, as well as that of your crew, in the planning and carrying out of this. Aside from that, I will try to minimize our interference with the normal operations aboard your ship. I understand my sudden presence here, and that of my men, wasn't exactly expected."

"No, we didn't really anticipate the Bragulians suddenly joining the coalition against Pendleton," Hushy said dryly.

"Perhaps the beverages we brought with us could be of some assistance then," Velkro chuckled. Then, back to business. "Anyway, as for our accommodations, I trust it has all been prepared?"

"Yes, everything is ready." Hushy suppressed a neurotic tick of irritation. As the commander of the vessel, he was unused to preparing 'accommodations' for anyone on board his ship. But since this was what his superiors had ordered, and since the mission was now Special Ops, he had no choice but to personally supervise babysitting the Bragulan bears.

"Thank you," Velkro replied coolly.

“You're welcome.” At least, Hushy conceded grudgingly, the Bragulian who was now his superior was polite.

"So Commander, when will be we making for Pendleton?" the Bragulan asked as an afterthought.

"In a few hours. We'll take a few days to get there," Hushy answered. Now that the Bragulians had finally arrived, the Annapolis could finally finish its 'preparations', which were way behind schedule, and then the fleet could depart for Pendleton shortly after. "The Pendletonians only have a pair of medium cruisers, their fleet is mostly composed of lights and ultralights. They'll be pushovers, it'll be a piece of cake."

"Hm, I wouldn't be sure of that," Velkro said to himself.

“Pardon?"

"Oh, I'm sure of that," Velkro hastily corrected himself. “Absolutely 100% sure!”

“Yeah. We'll have your men out of Pendleton in no time, Colonel," Hushy replied. And then I can have my ship back, you goddamn commie-bear.

HMS Dauntless, In Orbit
Lochley's Retreat, The Outback

Everything was finally in readiness. The main attack fleet was gathered and ready to traverse the Gap; the blockade ships were moving toward Bannerman. All that remained was departure.

Lord Fisher came to the bridge in full uniform, as befitted a man of his rank and station preparing to engage in conquest. He nodded sternly at the boastswain after his arrival was announced by whistle. Ahead of him, through transtanium windows, he could see the fleet arranged. The other five Star Cruisers, led by HMS Imperator herself, the Altacaran HMS Impressive, the Hiigaran carriers, the contingents from the NenAltKik, Shepistan, Gotham, and other states offering aid and paying homage to the task faced by the Empire. This was to be a demonstration of the will of Galactic Civilisation; that no state may proclaim slavery legal and survive its wrath.

"Send to Imperator; Ahead at in-system cruise, move toward the hyperlimit and prepare for transit," Fisher ordered. The Comm officer obeyed immediately, relaying his instructions. Every vessel in the fleet brought their sublight drives to life, creating heat plumes on every set of sensors in the system. And with all the finality of a tidal wave lurching closer to its point of impact, they began to burn out toward the hyperlimit of the system to begin the 80 hour voyage to Pendleton.

Without further ado the Battlestar Annapolis joined her sister ships and the greater multinational fleet of warships in their days-long journey to Pendleton. Delays and odd unexpected mission reprioritizations aside, the Annapolis would soon finally have her chance to represent the Republic of Shepistan in its rightful place in castigating the thrice-damned Astarians for their wickedness. It was just as Shepistan did during the Great Age of Obscurity, raining plaguebombs around, as written in words long written down. Everything was as it should be.

The mood aboard the ship was of palpable anticipation and merryment. Exhaustion over the Amplitur Wars had long since taken hold of the men and women of the Shepistani ship, they were tired of wasting xenos and were now curious, and even eager to feel the excitement of killing their fellow human beings en masse. The nature of the Pendletonians, the sons of Astaria, made such mass murder acceptable, and even encouraged. So did the Shepistani spacemen set about doing their noble work. They cleaned their great and terrible thermonuclear weapons, wiping the emissions and discharges off the bomb casings with wet rags. Some humorously wrote epithets onto the warheads with crayolas, epithets such as 'SPITROAST THIS MOTHERFUCKERS' and thus. They sang songs of celebration as they did so, songs like Napalm Sticks to Slaves, Bioweapon Blues and Bomb Velaria.

In the commissary, the Shepistanis treated their guests as any gracious host would, and a great feast was had. The Bragulans, or Bragulians as the Shepistanis called them, as good guests likewise brought gifts with which to celebrate their rare cooperation with the humans.

“Comrade, you must try this, it is great Bragulan delicacy!” Colonel Velkro declared as he passed a dish to Commander Hushy. “It is called Bragule Egg, after great and glourious homeworld mighty Bragule!”

“I... thank you...” Hushy hesitantly accepted the food, which looked like nothing so much as a giant scaly ostritch egg on a platter. “Oh... Bragule egg, how lovely, ah. How did you say this was cooked?”

“Not cooked, nyet!” Velkro gulped down a bottle of brewski and laughed.

“Not cooked?” Hushy gasped, unsure of the prospects of eating unsanitary, inhuman, Bragulian foods. Not that he minded their booze.

“No, it is steamed!” Velkro proudly pronounced. “Raptor fetus inside is steamed to death and softened by heat into delicious meal good for whole family. They say it taste better with salt, but I do not use the salts. Come, comrade Commander, break the egg open and enjoy feast!”

“Wait, isn't that like balut?” Hushy raised an eyebrow.

“What is this balut?”

“It's steamed duck eggs, I hear they make it in the Feelipeen system we annexed some years ago,” Hushy recalled. The mess chef was a Feelipeenii and had mentioned it once during one of the Annapolis' cooking classes Hushy attended.

“Bah, that is merely human thievery of ingeniously designed native Bragulan cuisine. Silly humans!” Velkro dismissed. And then, he added: “No offense to present company, of course.”

“None taken.” Commander Hushy shrugged and then raised his spoon and fork. “Alright, let's try this baby egg.”

Then, in that moment, the giant egg hatched.



“No, it can't be!” Hushy screamed in horrer, for he beheld a horrible sight emerging from the egg. It was the raptor fetus, burned and scalded by the steaming of the egg, and very much pissed off and in pain. Upon seeing him, the fetus screeched and instinctively lunged at him, shrieking and wailing as it began to claw at him. “No! NOT IN THE FACE! GET IT OFF ME! GET IT OFF ME!”

“Commander!” Executive Officer Tight, Hushy's XO, rushed to his aid and punched the raptor in the face. In revengeance, the raptor snarled and threw itself at Tight's face, clawing with its vicious toe-claws and gnawing with its bloody beak. “JESUS CHRIST MY EYE! FUCK! MY EYE! AAAUUUUURRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!”



“Comrades!” Velkro sputtered at the surreal sight. Commander Hushy's arms were all bloodied as he had shielded himself from the creature, but XO Tight's face was now being hugged by the wretched hatchling. Velkro regained his composure and immediately sprang into action. As Tight rolled on the floor with the thing on his face, Velkro reflexively began stomping on the creature – and, thus, stomped on Tight's face as well. “Die, vicious creature! Die! Imperator damn you! Argh, Motherland!”

Finally the creature died. Horribly scalded by the steam, and thus having its flesh and bones softened also, it was easily squished by Velkro's stomping. But, consequently, his boot also stomped on Tight's human face. Forever.

“Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell was that?!” Hushy gasped as Velkro helped him up. “Fuck! Colonel, what the hell?!”

“Hrm...” Velkro wondered how to approach the situation best, and decided on a course of action. “It seemed as though the egg was undercooked.”

“No shit!” Hushy spat. Then, seeing Tight's mutilated form and hearing his feeble moans of pain, Hushy yelled for a medic. “Medic!”



The medics managed to patch officer Tight up with an eyepatch. He had lost an eye, but it wasn't something the medbay couldn't clone. In a few hours, he'd get himself a new eye and everything would be fine. Except for the lingering pain, which was severe, but the Bragulians had given him a few bottles of extra-strong brewskis so by the end of the day, Tight had a slight smile on his face as the horrible occular pain gave way to horrible inebriation.

All in all, the day could have gone worse for 'Colonel Zupyr Velkro', Agent Spozavik concluded as he visited the lavatory. He washed gooey bits of the hatchling off his boot and, after the hearty dinner they had, he also went to defecate. Unfortunately the lavatory's facilities could not handle his bulky Bragulan stools and, even more unfortunately, he had ended up causing a great backflow after doing his business. So, careful not to get his newly cleaned boots wet, he merely finished wiping, washed his hands meticulously, and left.

On the way out, he passed by Commander Hushy.



“Colonel,” Hushy nodded to him. Spozavik could read his facial expressions and could tell that he was none too pleased with what had happened at dinner, but there was nothing anyone could do about it anyway, and it was not like he knew the damn egg was undercooked, so Spozavik didn't really feel guilty or bad about it. They would just have to deal with it.

“Commander,” Colonel Velkro/Agent Spozavik nodded. As he passed by, he looked back and saw that the Commander was heading for the same lavatory he had just left. Seeing this, he decided to quicken his pace and get out of sight before Hushy discovered the extent of his... leavings.

Spozavik succeeded, having managed to escape visual range and also just barely getting out of earshot of the Commander's screams of rageful indignation. Spozavik shortly afterwards entered the area reserved for him and his team. They were preparing diligently, as all elite Emerald Guard commandos should, so Spozavik left them to their business. Later, he would plan the mission to extract the IBGV's agents on Pendleton, and he'd do it with his men and Commander Hushy as well – after Hushy got himself cleaned up. But now, all Spozavik wanted to do after such a long day, just one in an entire week full of long days, was to catch some rest.

“Colonel Velkro,” saluted Major Sarvylus Kreilagug, the leader of the Guard team.

“Major Kreilagug,” Spozavik saluted him back. “How are your men?”

“They are getting ready for the mission,” the Major replied. “Guardsman Zhyvel has been able to interface with the Shepistani ship's computers.”

“Ah, Zhyvel,” Spozavik recognized the name. “The Hero of Gugafez, yes?”

“Yes, the hero for eating a poisoned human donut,” Major Kreilagug scoffed. “But he is one of the Guard's foremost humantech hackers.”

“The Shepistani computers are quite compatible with our own,” Guardsman Zhyvel said, looking up from his small portable backpack computer. “At least, they are more similar to our tech level than stupid Sovereignty quantum octo-core molluscs.”

“Good, try to look around and get familiar with these humans' computers, since they're a bit different from the stuff used by our good friends in the Sovereignty,” Spozavik mentioned. “But don't be too intrusive, lest we arouse any attention from our hosts. The Shepistanis have placed me in partial command of the ship, so I think I can get us the most pertinent of data by simply asking for it.”

“But where's the fun in that?” Zhyvel joked, but quieted down when his friend, the big interrogation specialist a.k.a. tortuer a.k.a. technician Pegidur went beside him and clapped his shoulder.

“It's not quite as fun, I grant you, but it helps to be polite,” Spozavik replied. “We'll begin planning tomorrow. It's been a long trip, so we better have our rest so we can begin early in the morning cycle. Tomorrow we'll have the whole day planning the mission with the Shepistanis and then we can prepare. Yes?”

“Yes, sir.” Major Kreilagug nodded.

“Well, then, if there's anything you need of me, I'll be in my bunk,” Spozavik finished and headed for his room. Behind him one of the Guard commandos, Jagrisha Urdarvus, the only female of the team, began sparring with Pegidur while Zhyvel continued tapping away at his computer and Major Kreilagug looked on.

Alone in his room, Spozavik laid down on his bed and thought of home – mighty Bragule – and thought of his family, safely tucked in the security of the Imperator's throne world. He pulled out a picture of his son, Buzagan, who he affectionately called Bu-bu. The picture was taken when they were visiting the Imperator's Natural Reservation of the People's Patriotic Natural Ecosystem in Bragule, where they had a picnic in the last domed patches of the Bragulan biosphere. It was a fond family memory from years ago.



Spozavik missed home so dearly.

He kept the picture and went to sleep shortly afterwards.

In the Sovereign Spire on Solaris, Senators Sidney Hank and Robert Space McNamara, along with Brigadier Flash Stalin, are all standing in the cafeteria line, patiently waiting their turn. Spozavik enters and passes everyone as he strides directly to the head of the queue. He is served immediately. Hank, McNamara and Stalin are baffled. What they didn't know is that a Hero of the Bragulan Star Empire has the right to receive service without having to stand in line.

[Dave]

Sector H:12 (Northern Edge)
Unknown System



The ultralight ICS Sussout had dropped out of hyperspace the moment the interdictor pirate vessel had started its transition to normal space. The pirate group had gotten more difficult to follow as they started moving into the fringe hyperspace shoals, but the increased hyperdrive emissions has made the job marginally easier.

The Sussout had emerged on the extreme edge of the system, a light minute or so beyond the pirate group. The Electronic Sensors and Systems Officer reported that the masking and ECM systems were working well, and the captain decided to follow the pirates at a distance. After a few tense hours, sliding forward to hide close to the pirate group and shifting around in the sensor shadow created by the engine wash of one of the pirates, they had trailed the pirates to an asteroid belt.

The Sussout eased its way out from behind the pirate ships and ducked behind one of the inner shepherding planetoids to avoid detection. This also gave them an opportunity to examine the data. The sensors operator pulled up one of the best composite images he had gotten off the main starboard sensor cluster.



"I was afraid of that." said the Operations officer. "Look at that. Recessed docking bay, dedicated radar and ranging station. Those massive rectangles could be anything from habitation to manufacturing to illegal drugs..."

"I would guess that the rectangles are habitation and equipment, and the domes are, ah, vegetation, type unknown." said the sensors tech.

"Drugs, you mean."

"You don't know that, you're guessing!" protested Sensors.

"Well," said the helmsman "I think we can safely say we found their base of operations."

"One of them." corrected the weapons officer. "There may be more, of course."

"Of course." said Captain Bhric. "And the suspicion of drugs is supported by the com traffic we heard from that freighter. I'd guess they're looking to expand and needed power for the environmental and processing equipment. Good work. Now we need to get this back home."

---

Cetafe Sector (K:14)
Leefe planet orbit, Lagrange Point 4
Merken Shipyards



Annan groaned and rested her head against the desk. This blasted paperwork was killing her. How the hell the yard was going to fit a heavy military destroyer into its work schedule was beyond her. It wasn't that they were already overly busy -- indeed, they had hit a bit of a lull in the last few months -- but the destroyer was going to take up the wrong slip at the wrong time. And, of course, the military wanted it to be a priority job, instead of just a normal one, so that really put a cramp on how much they could move things around to make it fit.

It wasn't really her problem. After all, she was in the Fitting (Power and Engines) crew, she didn't do the logistics and planning of how the yard scheduled its slipways. But it did mean the logistics people gave her more paperwork and regular work to do, and she had to finish up the passenger liner that much faster. The liner was really mostly done, and they'd even been able to roll her out of the slip proper so they could start prepping the slipway for the destroyer. But they'd come within 10 centimeters of disaster during that jury-rigged move, and she really would need another month on umbilicals before she could run off her own power. Even then it'd be whole lot better to rig up some quick scaffolding and maglines to keep her from moving around. The gods only knew what could happen if you just let a three-quarters done heavy passenger liner dangle on a string with her ass in the solar breeze.

She went back to typing, explaining for the third time in this document alone why she thought the schedule for the passenger liner could not be pushed forward, primarily due to the engine 3 alignment problem. The engine was half a centiradian off true, and some idiot had made things worse by grounding his arc welder to a signal bus. Zorched every single circuit in the engine control box. she fumed. Added nearly a week to the schedule, what with safely procedures, circuit testing and rebuild. Almost a shame he didn't zap himself. And there were still the integration issues with the auxiliary fusion reactor.

Annan grimaced and set herself again to her task.