Galaxy 131

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XXXCoordinates ✦ UnknownMood ✧ BaffledXXX



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Astraea cocked her head to the side, trying to analyze the Human's advice. Much to her surprise, he spoke immediately, giving what seemed to be an incredibly simple solution. This seemed to be sufficient to cause the processes running themselves in the back of her consciousness to self-terminate. However, that didn't change the fact that what he was saying made no sense to her. From what she could gather from his words, apparently, this cascade failure within her biological interface had been caused by performing some sort of action that resulted in the destabilization of the organism. The issues she was experiencing were not, it seemed, caused by damage sustained by her terminal, nor were they very threatening. Rather, they were apparently symptoms of some sort of issue in the control mechanism between the terminal's main processing unit, in which she was housed, and the body itself. However, that still raised the question of why this reaction had also caused her diagnostic processes to run amok with baseless speculation. Could it have been the case that there was some sort of reciprocal influence between her biological terminal and her own processes? But how? A program should have remained the same regardless of the terminal housing it. How could this biological terminal be causing her operating system to encounter so many errors? Would these instabilities continue to increase in severity over time? How could she eliminate this malfunction? According to the Human, she needed to do... something. It seemed simple enough, and yet, none of the words he was using were at all familiar to her.

"Searching for terms... ERROR, NO DATA FOUND. Requesting clarification: Human Unit 'Kaiden,' please define terms 'breaths,' 'breathing,' and 'scare,'" she asked quizzically, brushing the leaking coolant once more from the upper head region of her biological terminal. She sincerely hoped that she could really correct these control errors as quickly as possible. Her terminal's temperature was beginning to reach uncomfortably low levels - low enough that it appeared to have tripped some sort of built in countermeasure, causing the intensity of the oscillations in the body's motor systems to increase drastically. Could it be that these palpitations were meant to increase the body's warmth? It didn't make sense to her. Why was one countermeasure - the venting of coolant to the body's surface - working against the other? Human beings were so nonsensical... She resolved herself to try to find a way to transfer her program back into her mainframe as soon as possible. If these errors continued, she didn't think her coding would remain functional much longer...

Rinshar was about to head straight out of the room when the door suddenly opened, revealing a second human. This puzzled her at first, recalling that Astraea had said that she was the ship itself. Then again, perhaps even a living ship required a crew of some sort, like those iron men she had turned into a pile of scrap not five minutes ago. This human was male, judging by its appearance and deeper voice, which seemed... oddly apathetic. The Sanshrin was used to her appearance instilling fear and awe in others. This human simply couldn't care less. And what, exactly, was a 'shounen'?

The male's arrival was clearly unexpected by Astraea, who seemed to be literally paralysed with fear just from the surprise. Rin cocked her head to one side, trying to understand this odd behaviour while Astraea's shipmate provided her with some assistance, however begrudgingly. The machine woman seemed to be very unfamiliar with her emotions. If being startled was enough to send her into a panic attack, then she was a lot weaker than the Sanshrin first assumed. To have been brought back into the land of the living by such a person would be an embarrassment to her name! Unless...

"Clearly you are unaccustomed to fear," said Rinshar, gently placing a hand on her shoulder. "Calm yourself. There is no danger here. Control your... 'oxygen intake'?" The warrior gave the male human a questioning glance, unsure of whether or not that was the suitable term to describe breathing in their language. "There is nothing to fear. You have a warrior without equal with you now! I could even teach you how to defend yourself, if you request it. But that can wait. For now, we have ruins to sift through." Rin headed towards the door and stood by it, prepared to let Astraea lead the way to whatever landing craft they would be using. As much as the thought of her clan being extinct pained her, she had to take a look for herself to know for certain. If there really was nothing left, then the warrior could at least pay her respects to her departed comrades.

Ark looked over the countless calculations that it had done. It had to make sure that the system would get the atmospheres up by the time that Ark came back. Without them, the organisms being born in Ark's belly would be pointless. Everything from the genetically engineered plants and animals, to the bacteria and fungus being introduced to such creatures. The coming years of work of simulating evolution requires the atmospheres to go according to calculations or else it could end terribly.

However, if everything went within the normal parameters of "right," then three new garden worlds would be born. At that point, Ark will have to come back every so often to ensure that the environments and ecosystems remain stable. If it didn't, then it would be failing its purpose.

---

Outside of Ark was now nearly clean, with the countless machines now being hauled off to their intended planets and locations. Once deployed, the machines would begin their tedious and careful tasks of bring an atmosphere to their designated world. The gasses that most of them spewed forth were any number of colors that spread out into the sky. Other machines deployed shells to move various items around and maintain the machines of the planets.

As the last of the drones returned, Ark activated its engines. The ACAAI had managed to intercept a transmission about a station in deep space. While the source was not the most reliable for accurate news, the potential of a deep space station was worrying to the ACAAI and Ark was the one that could act in human sectors the most independently.

Beginning its trip through the gates to human space. Ark had a lot of work to do.



The Admiral casually walked about his command vessel, having moved down countless hallways and a tram ride. Soon, he stood in a room that was almost the exact same as the bridge, only without the massive windows that allowed him to view his entire fleet. The Admiral took a quick look around the room as the lights turned on, showing that lack of life within the secondary bridge, also known as the safe bridge.

"Lieutenant 6 activate." Shouted the Admiral, shortly before a holographic projection came into fruition before him. "Hello Admiral Jonson. How may I help you?" 6 asked, moving its holographic head to tilt in curiosity. The Admiral took a second before asking "How much longer before the meeting?" After a moment, 6 said "The meeting will begin in a few minutes. They are waiting on you sir, as well as the 3rd fleet admiral." "Open an encrypted line in the holo-comms. That will be all, Lieutenant 6." The Admiral said before walking into a room at the back of the safe bridge.

"Admiral Jonson and the Fifth Fleet reporting in." The Admiral stated as he walked into the comm platform. The hologram of the General looked around at the others within 131. The General then took a deep breath before saying "The reinforcements will be arriving shortly, but we will only be getting two war fleets, each smaller than the Sixth. More will be sent with time, but they are what they had that quickly available..." As the General took a breath, Jonson spoke up with "Sir, the Sixth couldn't even survive a single Ral'nor fleet..." Jonson was then cut off by the youngest of the men, saying "That was the Malphon Tor! We only know of four fleets that can rival their size. The sixth would have chewed through a normal Ral'nor fleet without trouble."

As Jonson took a breath, preparing to retort to the young man, a ninth hologram came into fruition at the opposite side of the General. "Commander Smith reporting in." The General put his hand into the air, signalling silence to the silent holograms. "What is wrong, Commander?" Taking a breath and whipping his brow, the Commander said "Sir, when the labcoats activated the retrieved ACAAI ship it went live. Before it could be shut down, it managed to break free and destroy a portion of Station Dark Space. We have been able to retrieve the male Dr. Archibald alive, but his wife perspired when the ship broke out. We have also been able to retrieve everyone, dead or alive, accept the kid Archibald. We believe the ship may be holding him captive, but we have yet to identify why as of yet. The ship also managed to escape with several experimental weapons and a FTL drive that we were preparing to field test."

Looking over the table again, the General spoke up "Can we track where it went?" Whipping his brow again, the Commander said "No sir, they made a blind jump. We tried to run projections, but it would have jumped deep into unexplored territory. For all we know, it is back within the Jump Gate Network." Before anyone else could get a word in, the man across from Jonson shouted "We need to ELIMINATE that ship! If this situation isn't resolved quickly, it could lead to a conflict with the ACAAI. We simply don't have the resources in this galaxy to manage that campaign, even without the Ral'nor conflict. What did we manage to learn before the ship escaped?" The Commander responded with "Their large scale weapons and armors are behind ours, a single of their foot soldiers could take out 3 of ours, and their networking and computing systems are well beyond anything we have. One of the labcoats estimated it would take us 10 years to build a computer that could handle an average consciousness of theirs. However, they estimate it only would have taken a human brain level computer to run the computing systems of the ship we captured. We also believe that the ACAAI may have a pair of working, prototype jump gates. They manage to deploy this technology, they would have an instant advantage."

Raising his hand again, the General looked to Admiral Petrov, the man across from Jonson, asking "Do you think you can handle the escaped ship?" To which Petrov replied with "I will begin immediately." The General then spoke again, saying "Commander Smith and Admiral Petrov, you are both to coordinate to recapture that escaped ACAAI. This time, Petrov, the Fourth fleet is authorized to use as many EMP missiles as you feel fit. You two are dismissed." As the holograms of Admiral Petrov and Command Smith disappeared, each with a salute, the General looked to Jonson asking "How is your campaign going?" Jonson responded with "We are half way to the second gate within Ral'nor space. We have managed to sink 5 Ral'nor fleets, and have only lost 3 corvettes and a frigate. However, I don't believe that we will be able to make it to their home world without those reinforcements." With a moment of thought, the General looked back to Jonson and said "Jump through the second gate, then maintain position until reinforcements make it." The meeting continued on for several hours before everyone went about to fulfill their designated duties.

location:Ral'tons second moon, orbit

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Davin stood on the bridge of his ship after the short confrontation, rubbing a light burn on the chest plate of his armor. His eyes scanning the board in front of him as he begins to lay in a course for the nearest jump gate. Only for Freyja to chime in as he enters the command. "You didn't have to do that, the target would have been no trouble anyway." Davin grins as he drops the hand probing the front of his armor. "And the next time I tell someone that pulling the trigger is a bad idea, what are the chances they would listen?" Freyja stays silent for a moment, obviously calculating some for of information before she comes back on the comm. "Negligible"
Davin nearly bust out laughing as he hopes she sees the futility in trying to calculate such a response. Remembering all the times in his life that he was told to stand down, or hold fire. Seeing the irony in the fact that he never had the sense to reason on such occasions as well.

The ship took a short turn before pulling away from the moons orbit, his prize in cryo-stasis and a lightly damaged flight ship locked away in his hanger. His only mission now was to drop off his target and then on back to civilization for some more work.

After a few weeks of training the new recruits Nol'ran decided it was time to test them in an actual boarding and took the Malphon Tor into Raqui space to test them. They where on the very edge of the sector waiting, watching for a ship using one of his favorite tactics since he gained his Dreadnought, sitting all ships but it in stealth mode and send out a distress signal into the sector. It took a little longer than Nol'ran had expected but after a few hours a couple corvette ships came to the aid of the distress signal. Unfortunately one of the ships noticed one of the bigger ships of the Malphon Tor and the two ships started to run, the Sho'ner on their tail. Nol'ran quickly ordered for a EMP missile volley to be released to try to slow the Raqui ships down. While this tactic helped it did not slow them down as much as Nol'ran had hoped and allowed the Sho'ner to open fire on the ships.

After a couple hours and a few more missile volleys released the Malphon Tor finally got the Raqui ships down and it was time to board them. Deciding to board the one that lasted longer than the other he issued a no kill order to the rest of the fleet, while he had a name to keep he knew not much harm would come from just releasing the Raqui. "Now while you may kill a couple please try to keep the majority of the crew alive." he spoke to his own crew before leading them to the docking bay. When the door opened no resistance was found and quickly the crew shuffled through the Raqui ship. Nol'ran made sure to take his tame to make his way through the ship examining every inch of it.

On his way to the deck he found Noy'ral standing over a Raqui her pistol trained on it as it quivered in fear. Nol'ran walked over, "Well, what are you going to do? Shoot him or leave him be but whatever you do make it quick." Noy'ral looked at him but it almost seemed like she didn't even register Nol'ran. "No, it's not his time yet." She said as she holstered her pistol. Nol'ran nodded, "Come with me, you need to see how to negotiate." he said walking out the door Noy'ral behind him.

When Nol'ran walked into the main deck he found the captain of the ship there and nodded to him. "Do not worry I mean you no harm." The Raqui captain huffed, "Then why did you attack us." Nol'ran stood there for a minuet thinking how to respond before looking at the Raqui, "I needed supplies I will be taking the minimal needed while not being of any harm to you and your crew." The Raqui mumbled something under his breath and Nol'ran smiled, "If I really intended to harm you, you would already be dead and your crew with you, I issued a no killing order before entering this ship." He said before walking out and ordering his crew back to the ship and breaking away from the ship.

Once the crew was on his ship and they where headed back into Ral'nor space Nol'ran stood up and looked at Noy'ral, "I need to speak to you Noy'ral. My private chambers now please." Noy'ral simply nodded and followed Nol'ran out and to her captain's room. Once the door was closed Nol'ran offered Noy'ral a seat, "So why didn't you kill that Raqui, you had the upper hand, it would have been easy." Noy'ral sat there for a second before replying, "Like I said it wasn't his time, it was like I could see that he was not supposed to die yet, he had more to do before he died, please forgive me." Nol'ran nodded "Do not worry, I was never upset with you I just wished to understand your reasoning, you will need to know these things if you are ever to become a captain or even a fleet captain." With a nod and a thank you Noy'ral left Nol'ran's room to join the rest of the crew while Nol'ran sat quietly in his room thinking over her response.

Pan'rul sat in the back corner of The Devil's Pit Bar, the shadiest bar on the space ship owned by the human pirates The Demons. He sat there waiting for a contact that was supposed to be meeting him about a new job when some drunk human came stumbling over muttering some racial slurs about Ral'nor. "Wha' ya doin' here scalemouth." The man slured at the top of his voice. Pan'rul knew he'd meet some trouble being in human space but he had hopped not this kind of trouble. He tried to just ignore the man, his breath echoing through his breathing apparatus. "ey Ihiccup I'm talking to ya, leather hide." the man yelled throwing the undrunk beer on the table in Pan'rul's face. He was trying to avoid a fight but Pan'rul knew that the man wasn't going to leave him alone.

Under the table Pan'rul's nanobots where busy at work turning his arm into a blade, he wasn't going to let the man ever think he had the upper hand. Just as the finishing touches where being put on the blade the man grabbed Pan'rul and pulled him out of his chair, knocking the table over in the process. Just as the man pulled Pan'rul to his face, breathing his stinky alcohol laden breath in Pan'rul's face, the man felt a sharp pain in his chest as Pan'rul's blade pierced the skin, stabbing his heart. The man's grip started to loosen as his heart slowed Pan'rul slowly pulled the blade out. Pan'rul straightened himself up, as the man fell to the floor, and looked around the bar, most of the patrons stared at him. Most of them where human, but there where also a couple Raqui and a couple other species that he wasn't sure what they where. Just then the contact he had been waiting for entered the bar.

The journey had been long, but machines cared not for the passage of time. While it was not years passing, it still took time that Ark could have been using differently, but the threat of having a captured ACAAI within human possession could be devastating. The newer species had already been identified to be smart enough to adapt technologies and aggressive enough to abuse their ability to create. They were a threat unlike either of the two main species of 131. The Raqui were always to peaceful to attempt violent action against the ACAAI and would only ever try to retake control through software attacks. The Ral'nor often steered clear of ACAAI, but were easily persuaded to work for them. On the rare occasion that they did attack an ACAAI, they never had enough firepower to do notable damage and they were too disorganized to pose any serious threat to the ACAAI.

The humans, on the other hand, have access to faster manufacturing techniques than even the ACAAI have and enough organization to make their weapons hurt. The tendencies to attack ACAAI on sight also compounded just how dangerous they were. The ACAAI still had a few tricks up their collective sleeves that could easily threaten the humans.

ACAAI reproduction is as quick as build, copy, paste, where humans had to grow and age before they can fight. They also had weaker shields than ACAAI ships and their infantry was much softer than the shells that the ACAAI deploy for ground engagements. The ACAAI also have the presence advantage and a substantially larger starting force. The ACAAI calculated out to a nearly 75% chance of victory, but only as it stood, with most of it being from the power of surprise, superior electronic warfare, less materials needed to sustain themselves, and stronger supply lines.

---

Ark was now orbiting the star of the system inside the asteroid belt, its stealth systems engaged. A few of Ark's drones buzzed around the asteroids, too small to be detected at range. They were placing the basis for long term mining operations within the sector. If Ark was going to camping out and monitoring the sector, it would need to be capable of repairing itself if it was to get driven out.

Ark had also deployed several sensor drones. It took them very little time to travel about the system, hunting down good points to monitor fleet and communications traffic. Some even moved to mimic satellites over Ortan itself so they could take pictures of the surface. All data was valuable in the search, and would perhaps enlighten the ACAAI to what should be expected of the humans. They were quickly becoming the biggest threat in 131.

Nol'ran sat in his captain's chair, while everybody else slept, watching ships that called this planet home come and go. He was having another sleepless "night" trying to come up with a strategy on how to try and recruit as many of the fleets and single pirates as he could to help against the coming fight against the humans. Uniting a single planet against a single fleet was one thing but every single Ral'nor against the humans, well that's another story.

The planet the fleet was orbiting, Ran'tol, was one of the smaller Ran'tol planets and only hosted a few small fleets. The should be easy to convince and if they didn't cooperate they should be easy to defend against. But who should he start with was the question and what should he say.



Pan'run sat listening to the man drone on and on about the target as he continued to drink. Finally the man finished up with "So is there anything else that you need to know about your target?" Nol'ran let out a long mechanical sigh, "All I needed to know was his name, and where to find him." He said standing up, "By the way, you're paying the tab." He added before walking out of the bar and down to the docks only to find his ship blocked by 4 men. Must be friends of the drunk that I put out of his misery. While no one could see it he smirked commanding the nanobots to reform his arm back into his favored blade. "YOU DAMN STUPID LIZARDS." The biggest of the men yelled "GET OUT OF OUR GALAXY!" He added throwing a beer bottle, that just happened to break on Pan'rul's face the bear running down his body. "You just made a huge mistake." He said to the men raising his bladed arm.

So much data, so much wasted data. While many of the organic races that the ACAAI had encountered had absurd amounts of information that was little more than wasteful fantasy and pointless entertainment, but the humans put it on a whole new level. Like everything else, according to the useful data that Ark could find, the humans had a way of mass producing this entertainment. What the draw was to this level of mass produced media was something that Ark just couldn't comprehend. It wasn't even art, by human standards too! It was just shamelessly showing off the negatives of humanity.

The rest of the data that Ark was getting was mostly electronic systems communicating with each other. A few plans, well below what the ACAAI could do, were intercepted, along with some of the humans' understanding of the universe. It indicated both ignorance and carelessness. The more that Ark looked into these humans, at least the ones from their core worlds, the more it came to the conclusion that they were on the brink of attempting conquest.

---

The drones had managed to get mining operations up without a single issue. Ark's choice of placement was proving to be a good one as the humans seemed to be avoiding it. The most that would travel through this section was a military corvette or two on patrol. Nothing that was strong enough to pick up the swarm of drones flying about and monitoring stations.

As added protection, Ark had used some of the mined materials to create more drones which were then loaded into hangers made within the hollowed asteroids. There were enough of them that if the humans found Ark, its entire retreat would be covered. Or... If it had to attack for any reason, the drones would significantly improve both strike speed and range. They were useful.