Sullen Enterprise Space

“SEC this is Varden...” The transmission was interrupted. “SEC this is Captain Gordon of the privateer...” The two garbled communications intermixed now across faster than light communication as a small ship pursued by two others, more than twice the smaller ships mass dropped from hyper-drive speeds and into much slower faster than light warp speeds. “... we are in pursuit of a...”, “..requesting assistance...”, “This is Captain Gardner of the ship...”, the communicators said.

The warp fields dropped away at the system's heart, the star as the frigate exited warp with the two larger corvettes exiting warp a second after. Nearly immediately all types of electromagnetic warfare started to sound off. Micro-energy streams wrapped around the frigate and one of the corvette’s in return as it burned away and turned hybrid turrets back at its pursuers. The ships ducked and dived between coronal loops of electromagnetic force dancing between empty space and the solar storm.

Soundless shots of hybrid antimatter munitions detonated against the lead corvette’s shields as it launched a warp field disruption probe into the path of the frigate as it tried to burn away. The smaller ship's discharge jets ballooned as it activated a micro-warp drive and burned away only to slingshot in reverse to use the larger ships' mass and inertia to its advantage. The larger ships overshot as the smaller frigate buzzed them to start aligning out.

Communications continued to overlap and remained garbled. “... requesting assistance...”, “... wanted criminal and fugitive.”, the communicators continued on as the larger vessels turned and attempted to catch the smaller ship once more before it burned out of the warp disruption field that ballooned out and which now encompassed all three ships.

Normally this far out in SEC space a small patrol force would be expected to respond to any signals about a criminal force but at this time the boarders of the SEC were being heavily patroled due to the state of war with the Cybrans. In a matter of moments A sizable taskforce of a carrier and a squadron of fast attack ships transited to the location they had only recieved a partial message but it was enough and the Varden Call signs were recognized.

"Attention Captain Gordon this is Grand-Moff Tarin responding to your distress call. "Under normal circumstances I would offer to attempt to capture the criminal but I cannot risk the loss of a ship and there for I am authorizing the use of deadly force." As this transmission was sent hanger bay doors were open and a squadron of fighter bombers took off.

They circled the warp disruption field as if pondering weather they could successfully pass.

"Shadow Squadron this is Shadow Leader all wings report in."

"S-2 Reporting"
"S-3 Reporting"
"S-4 Reporting"
"S-5 Reporting"
"S-6 Reporting"
"S-7 Reporting"
"S-8 Reporting"
"S-9 Reporting"
"S-10 Reporting"
"S-11 Reporting"

"All Wings Accounted for Awaiting green light to engage."

"SEC. The frigate...", "Thanks SEC. This is Captain Gordon sending a fond farewell!", was transmitted just as the frigate crossed the outer perimeter of the sphere. The two corvettes were in pursuit but were much slower than the frigate. They had each launched four drones which had closed half the distance that separated the corvettes and the frigate just as the frigate's image shimmered and it went to warp, vanishing off the grid.

With their target gone the lead corvette deactivated the warp field disruption probe. "This is Captain Gardner, Drift Class Corvette - Horizon of the VEF pursing a stolen vessel and the criminal in possession of it. We apologize for the intrusion into your space." The other corvette aligned in pursuit of the frigate and its image shimmered as it entered warp, also vanishing off grid. Captain Gardner in the Horizon remained on grid to communicate with the SEC carrier which was much larger than the one kilometer tall corvette.

Tarin stared a moment as he realized what was happening. "Has there been two transmissions coming in this entire time?" Tarin asked his staff his face clearly flushed. He watched as two of the ships disappeared off grid, before he turned to open a comm to Captain Gardner.

"Roger that captain Gardner sorry for the miscommunication it was due to a communications officers incompetence and I apologize for my mistake in identification. " Tarin said. "As for the entering of SEC space I would say you followed proper procedures and I believe no major issue is to be made of it." He added as pondered what to do next.


"Though I would be very interested in a briefing on this criminal if you can spare the time." Tarin said, he knew he had time to spare the charts were dead anyways and he had finished the organization of defensive preparation of SEC space. He was also dreading the mountain of pointless paperwork on his desk and this was an amusing distraction for the man.

"It was no fault of your communications officer. The criminal was overlapping on our communications channel as the ship he is flying is a stolen Varden frigate and he himself was formerly a brother. I can have EGO send you the dossier on the criminal. It is only chance that we happened upon his sensor signal in your space. We had been sent to make contact with SEC and ask for an exchange of diplomats. Do we have your permission to deploy a cynosural field to bridge a capital ship onto grid?"

EGO transmitted criminal's dossier.



Name: Letch Gordon
Race: Human
Sex: Male
Age: 26
Call Number: A215-Z98-H9431

General Description: Dark brown hair and brown eyes. Average build. No distinguishing marks.

Offenses: Murder (Multiple Counts), Smuggling & Distribution of Illicit Substances (Multiple Counts), Theft of Military Property (Multiple Counts), Evading Arrest (Multiple Counts), Damage to Military Property (Multiple Counts), Treason (Multiple Counts), Rape, and Kidnapping. Other offenses pending judgement.

Other Information: This criminal is dangerous and has as his disposal advanced weapons of the highest military grade. Capture alive is possible and secure stolen assets.

Tarin listened to the response and pondered his response. "Yes, Permission Granted, but I think it would be best if we hold negotiations elsewhere, there is a command station where my action fleet is stationed at a few minutes jump from our current location I can have a diplomat meet us there. "


"I a transmitting coordinates as we speak I am also forwarding this dissier onto our records and having him placed on our criminal registry to allert our patrols of him along with the stolen ships credientals." Tarin said. He began to punch in

The Horizon aligned and picked up speed. "Grand-Moff Tarin this is Captain Gardner, Horizon sending confirmation of coordinates previously sent. I am aligning to coordinates and setting faster than light drive to arrive 100 Metra off transmitted coordinates from current point of alignment. Waiting on your go SEC gang.", Gardner transmitted.

metra - A unit of length roughly equivalent to 1 kilometer. It is the most commonly used sub-grid size measurement in Ayenee and Eden.

Several large ships began to enter the SEC's territory, there were at least forty of them in total. Each one at least a few thousand kilometers long and nearly a thousand wide. Whatever, whoever, these ships carried they were large, or in large quantities. The ships were heavily armed with several different kinds of weapons, whoever built or modified the ships had made sure they were prepared for anything the ships could encounter while travelling.

Or for anyone they could encounter in battle.

The ships were slow on their approach, but didn't seem inherently hostile. They could have been wary of any defending forces or holding cargo they didn't want damage by going too fast into any space debris along the way.

They'd prove themselves friendly by sending out a hail to all those nearby and approaching, the hail in form of a message from their commander-in-chief.

"My name is Lochlyn Haley, I currently hold the most stock here within the SEC. These are my ships, and my crews, to protect my assets, but they are also at the disposal of any military leaders who think they may need some extra firepower or menacing ships to patrol an area."

The message from Lochlyn concluded and then would repeat itself, maikng sure there were no mistakes. That everyone got it.

Surprisingly there was no ship response to the ships entering the space instead a transmission was sent a few minutes later.

"Attention Mr. Haley this is Grand-Moff Tarin regional oversight for this sector is under my command. We were told to be expecting you. I have orders to ask you to divert your course to Belta Station it's a few systems in and I can provide coordinates. I have alreadly Alerted Mr. Teller of your arrival and he would like to greet you personally aboard the station to discuss how you can best assist us. Please be advised your ships will be subject to scanning, as previously stated we will need full papers for all of your crew. "

It was clear that Tarin and other Military personnel had been fully briefed on the situation. Lochlyn may have great financial sway with the SEC but it was clear that did not curtail to his people or employees the customs process could be lengthy but obviously that was what they wanted.

"Mr. Haley is not aboard this ship at this time. What you are hearing is a recording because he has business elsewhere." The ship's captain responded, "We can't give you an exact timetable of when he would be able to personally see to things, but for now it's just us." He continued.

"Send us those coordinates and we'll be on our way to Belta Station."

The ships began to slow down, clearly waiting to see just exactly where they had to go before continuing any further.

In the outmost reaches of SEC controlled space the sky lit up as a fairly large amount of ships exited an FTL jump. The space was cold and foreboding and all that appeared to be notable in this sector was the last outpost in the confederation. It was a fairly large asteroid though only two small corvettes were docked and a hanger with one squadron of fighters the force that stopped here though made it look like rush hour as 30 large cargo vessels stood over the station. Around the vessels were a single carrier, three destroyers and about 8 corvettes. The Cargo ships themselves were mostly defenseless minus their two outdated laser cannons.

Fen Tarin stood on the bridge of his carrier, Triumph and looked out over the small trade caravan normally an escort wouldn't be provided but with Lochlyn and other enemies to deal with the enterprise wasn't taking any chances.

"Send a shuttle to deliver the supplies to the station then we depart for Niihama we need to get these supplies to our forces that were sent there on the double" Tarin said. This would be an easy mission or so he thought it would.

Perhaps alarms would sound aboard Triumph's bridge as ships unknown parted the void and slinked into view. Whoever they were, they had been waiting in ambush and long. They had waited just for that moment to attack. Sensor pings and quick scans would immediately pick up materials and technology foreign and yet similar to something the SEC had seen before. There was no attempt at communication. No quarter was given.

Deployment mechanisms on each of the ten rust colored frigates spat forth a spherical device as they dove down at the SEC fleet from directly overhead and as soon as they had appeared. Each frigate launched six large missiles, easily five meters long. These were torpedos specifically designed to destroy and cripple capital ships such as the carrier, Triumph and it was the carrier that the torpedos targeted but these were not the first threat that would need to be dealt with.

The frigates did not stay on the grid to watch the fireworks. The moment they released their payload they were gone, warping directly through the SEC fleet without impact.

Released from one-hundred kilometers away and above the main fleet the spheres shot forth, un-targetable by most as they bent space-time with their warp fields and exited their conduits amidst the SEC fleet. Those ten white banded spheres hung in space for only the tiniest fraction of a second before detonating in a massive and brilliant explosion of titanic force. Each bomb's potential energy at point blank range had been calculated at thirty exajoules, about one-hundred and twenty-three times more powerful than the most powerful nuclear bomb every dropped on Earth. This would disperse across sixty kilometers. There then were very brief, blinding flashes of brilliant light as millions of adamant ball bearings exploded outward to shred ships. These were 30EJ anti-matter and adamant shrapnel bombs.

The torpedoes curled down at anything left of the Triumph armed with one-thousand megaton fission warheads as they picked up speed steadily. Two of the torpedoes were knocked off course due to the wave of semi-solid adamant shrapnel. With no interdiction on the field anything still left of the SEC fleet could flee and likely should baring the arrival of reinforcements.

The fleet was sprung upon with no warning ass alarms sounded but it was already too late. Around the fleet the space would erupt in bright light as the inferno enveloped the cargo and smaller vessels. Thousands of lives would be ended in an instant and the blast would grow larger as the ammunition on board along with the nuclear reactors fueled the explosion. The asteroid station would be knocked off course many of it's crew lost.

On the triumph Grand-Moff Fen Tarin looked up as the alarms went off. "TORPEDOES INCOMING!" An officer screamed "Brace for impact!" Another officer shouted but Tarin knew it was too late they hadn't bothered activating the shields after the jump while still in friendly space. He gripped the rail on the command deck and closed his eyes. What a fall this had been with the loss of Luke he ended up here in this back water position and it appeared this would be where the story would end.

I deserved better than this.He thought as he closed his eyes as the inferno took the entire ship. Besides the damaged outpost nothing would remain of the supply caravan. An entire force had been decimated in the surprise attack.

From the remnants of the station a probe would be launched that would travel directly to Belta-Station. Under a priority-alpha message as the entire military command chain would be informed.

Asteroid has arrived, coming from Celi-Venari System.

Asteroid vanishes into nothingness, but you get the feeling they are heading somewhere else.