The talks are currently looking in the Humans' favor, as their multi-galactic empire clearly dwarfs that of the Raqui. However, there is significant resistance to the empires joining. Many raqui reference that there are significant differences in how the two governments work, and state that these differences could cause significant trouble if one side were to join the other.
As the ral'nor attacks on human convoys of every type, the humans have begun to slowly increase the number of military ships in every convoy. Bounties have been placed on the heads of every confirmed pirate fleet, with some ranging into the millions of credits for a single fleet captain's head. Despite these high bounties, and promise of rewards for every ship taken down, there is still few bounty hunters brave enough to hunt down those fleets that have bounties large enough to be worth something.
The ACAAI have nearly doubled their presence in systems close to human systems. No one has confirmed why this has begun, or the point of this build up of the galactic boogymen. However, the rumors of a successful capture have been denied by several different organizations and governments, with nearly every conspiracy theorist shouting about how much this is a lie. The most common evidence is a supposedly leaked document from the supposed secret human dock in dark space that held the capture ship.
On the other hand, many state that the ACAAI build up is one that is of curiosity, not hostility. This has come about from several ship captains admitting to collecting genetic samples of small colonies in exchange for high value metals from the ACAAI. Others have claimed that an abnormal rate of colonies disappearing is the ACAAI collecting research "materials." Most colonization supporters claim that this is from pirate attacks, and ensure that colonies will be better defended in the future. Those who support the ACAAI abduction theory use a report from the investigation of the lost colony Erros, in which the investigator constantly repeats how much the lack of bodies, or signs of resistance, bothers him.
Name: Ark
Location: Gate (16, 26), New Annor, Ex-Human Colony
Location: Gate (16, 26), New Annor, Ex-Human Colony
Ark drifted slowly within the asteroid belt of the New Annor system, its stealth systems engaged. Its focus was split between watching how long the humans would take to respond and how long the recovery time was on the neural shock bombs (NSB) that had been deployed to capture the system's populace.
While the deployment of the NSB on the colony of Erros was a success, the pirates who were paid to carry out the mission did not pay attention to the captives. This was evident by the fact that they didn't know when said captives woke, and that they were both badly starved and dehydrated. Ark did the capture personally this time because it needed to know the recovery time of those affected with the NSB, the response time of the human government, and needed to ensure that it got to study the captives before they become excessively traumatized.
Within the pressurized research section, nearly 20 shells were moving about monitoring and maintaining the captives. Seeing them, now stripped of what possessions they had before the subjects were clothed in simple test subject clothes. Ark had very specific plans for them. It needed specific data about how they react in groups, when isolated, and when watching others get operated on. Ark had found that psychological data was always the most valuable, often granting greater accuracy in predicting the next action of others.
On the outside of Ark, half of a ship was being torn apart by hundreds of drones, the scrap being moved back to Ark's cargo bay. The vessel had been a military frigate, the only one defending the system and all the colonies could collectively afford in the way of protection. Ark had been able to sneak up on it by coming out of the gate in stealth, then lining up a shot with its moon cracking cannon. By the time that the small ship had noticed Ark, the slung chunk of metal was halfway down the barrel, and ripped the ship in half right as the main thrusters began to activate.
The drones that Ark deployed took nearly a day to get the current half to it, but the other half was still being decelerated. Normally, Ark would not have bothered to salvage the ship, but it didn't have the materials or time to deploy mines in the asteroid belt, and it needed to replace materials lost to repairing the damage from the last engagement as well as almost its entire stock of combat drones. Ark was burning at full thrust, constantly being bombarded by 4 separate dreadnoughts until they finally punched through its shields and a shot ripped clean through Ark's munitions forge. Luckily for Ark, the forge was not in use and the shot missed the munitions storage.