Cally Tallymadge's Story

James nodded and returned the hug. "Anything for you." he said calmly with a wink before she vanished. As the flow of time resumed and the sunlight returned, his illusion fell into the shadows as well, leaving him in all his armored glory as the Ereb Alpha Trooper known as Storm-Shadow.

The trooper then looked over to the shadows and held out a clawed hand, pulling hard. The shadow from the tree came towards him and enveloped him, allowing him to vanish within it so that he could return to his base almost instantly.

ithon observes the two from afar in a tree. "i wonder if they need an assassin for hire? Who doesn't these days?" he says to himself. He stays in the tree and waits for someone to find him since he isn't hiding.

The 6th Order's flagship hung in the void of space, drifting above the aurora while it's forces trained and worked on various tasks. The ships were crude...very crude but there was some promise amongst these humans. One entity was watching them and they were all very intruiged by what they say. Its true they werent the only one of their kind, human centric groups were a dime a dozen. Yet these individuals operated almost in a cult like way, harvesting knowledge and technology as they went. That is what drew them to the entity's eye and what made it watch what went on with the ship. She would go herself, Cally thought. Deep within the Nucleus, a small amount of Unimatter slipped seamlessly out of space. Barely a blip on the radar of the 6th order's flagship as the entity floated towards it.

If one were to look and see it, all they would see is a small blue light coming from a pitch black crystaline body that appeared vaguely humanoid. Tall yet lanky the entity drifted towards the bridge of the lead Flagship and towards one of it's airlocks. "Primative technology" She said to herself, lifting her "hand" up to raise the door forcefully so she could enter inside.

"Yet it does show promise. Perhaps these mortals may yet provide me with the knowledge and technology I seek"

The entity moved her way towards the other end of the door while the rear airlock door shut itself. Three hard knocks would come from the metal door while the entity made herself a bit more presentable. The crystal radically shifting and altering appearance. Its lanky, roughly humanoid form soon turned to that of a full human, a female with brown hair and brown eyes, garbed in what appeared to be a Mark Five series MJOLNIR armor with a Plasma sword on her hip. The Consulate always wondered why their CEO preferred the form of who she used to be, but she often paid them no mind. She was here for business...

The fighters in the midst of their training scrambled, many men aboard the flagships began to prepare thinking this entire situation was an enemy attack. This mindset was furthered by the sudden opening of an airlock to let a being in, said being quickly shifting into another form entirely. Soldiers of all kinds found their weapons drawn before they could even think much further.

From the doors of the ship came a tall, older man garbed in an all white military uniform. He bore the naval attire proudly, following behind him were four guardsmen who wore their own Grade-D Powered Armor. Their weapons were swiftly raised, and the older man raised a hand in the air to signal to his men to stand firm. He wasn't going to have an immediate attack if he could help it. Especially on their own ship no less, battles with kinetic weaponry were bad enough - they often led to damage that sometimes could be irreparable.

"That is far enough, Unknown." He stood firm, hard eyes staring at the suit of armor like it was one of his own men ready to be disciplined. "You are trespassing on our ship The Punisher. State your purpose here. Noncompliance will be met with force, especially if you are a hostile. Understand our conditions, and our reasons for these conditions."

As the commotion aboard the Punisher settled into talks, ship sensors would pick up a disturbance out in space, five void units or fifty thousand kilometres. A multicoloured tear would seem to open as the warp opened up. lightning lashing out at anything and everything within a void unit of the widening tear and from it three ships would exit.

leaving a cataclysmic shock-wave to ripple out into the surrounding space, nothing to stop the wave of force from

Rocking

the Punisher the first of these three ships was much larger than its escort frigates. The Retaliator class grand cruiser reaching six kilometres long and its assortment of macrocannon batteries, Prow lance and its launch bays capable of supporting upto four squadrons almost made the escort frigates redundant.

Although, they weren't gunboats, they were troop transports filled with slavering maddened psychopaths which wanted nothing more than to: maim, slaughter and burn, all that opposed them. Moreover, the grand cruiser would attempt to open communication with the Punisher "this is the Bloody Reaper and I am the Chaos Champion Vrosh Tattersoul, for now, we will not bring our weapons to bare, but one slight will change that, i wish to speak to your commanding officer" the Comms go dead as the the Bloody Reaper await a response, staying only at the range of their Lance cannons.

The woman raised a hand upwards, palm out to signify a stopping motion as she then reached out a hand forward to the one who spoke "You must be the captain. Right on time..." The woman smiled at him, taking a few steps forward towards the captain. She knew full well that there was very little they could do with their weapons to damage her, not to mention it would make her men look rather silly to try and blow her to pieces on the deck of the ship. After a few steps, she stopped.

"Recognized and understood. I apologies if my boarding was a bit impromptu but I was not able to materialize enough of my Unimatter to form a communications array. I decided to come alone on behalf of the VARIAtech Consulate. I am CEO Cally Tallymedge, President of the VARIAtech Consulate. It is a pleasure to meet you"

The Spartan soon bowed her head in respect while still having her hand out.

"I am here to make a business proposition to you in your quest for..." She stopped as she looked to her arm, the top of her forearm turning into a jet black crystal for a second then became a data screen with which she began to read from

"Intergalactic conquest and subsequent subjugation of the Mulitverse. Not uncommon but I feel our goals would accomplished through a mutual beneficial relationship. Permission to come aboard?"

The sounds coming from the new arrivals brought a beaming smile to Cally's face as she snapped the fingers on her left hand "Ahh right on time! Looks like its all going as scheduled! We shouldn't delay, perhaps we should best speak on the bridge of your vessel if you are willing!"

Listening to the words of the being in the female form, Ackyas placed his hands behind his back and gave a small nod. "Granted. Men! At ease." He stood tall, ready to turn to lead the woman up to the bridge of the ship however the shaking from the shock-wave that tore through space. 'Surely the pilots of the training ships were in for a treat with that one', he thought as he let out a grumble. The comms would indeed be open for them, the technicians set it to broadcast the message to the Admiral's own personal commlink for convenience sake.

Opening up his commlink as he turned to lead Cally to the bridge. "This is Grand Admiral Ackyas Rishon, overseer of The 6th Order's Training Corps. We will be opening our ship for your men to board, meet me at the bridge. We shall talk more in-depth once you're there."

Once he arrived to the bridge he opened the door leading inwards, stepping inside and overlooking the space beyond the hardened glass of the command deck. With his hands behind his back once more, Ackyas turned to glance at Cally with a raised eyebrow. His wrinkled face was giving a look of confusion at her, trying to figure her out and her motives...at least, any beyond those outwardly said. "Well, Cally Tallymadge of VARIAtech. I'm sure you heard from the comm broadcast I am Grand Admiral Ackyas Rishon. This is my ship you've happened upon." With a turn to fully face her, he held his head up and kept his eyes focused on her in case of any potentially threatening moves she may take. "You understand our goals, our interests, and who we are...that is interesting. If you wish to work with us, we won't deny such an alliance. However, I'm sure there is something more to this that I'm not hearing quite yet, and I do wish you'd go on. I wish to know and understand the full details of your operation, your purpose for coming to us and aiding our goals, and what you seek to gain from working with us." With that, he grinned, awaiting a response.

Cally followed along behind the Admiral, hands behind her back as she walked along to show non hostile action. As he talked, she pulled her right arm forward and skimmed over the datapad that was displaying information at an alarming rate. The scrawl moved so fast the eye could barely catch it yet she just read through it with ease.

"To put those in order, of course. My company is interested in the acquisition of lost and forgotten information, technology and possible life forms to add to our Consulate. We seek out the betterment of our own knowledge base and we desire to learn more about the Multiverse as a whole. With so many infinite worlds, we simply cannot see them all from within the Nucleus. My purpose for coming to you is your very nature. You seek to subjugate the alien races and lead a purge of all non human life. I dont care about that in the slightest. What I am after is my previously stated goals. I came to you because your interests align with ours. You take scraps and pieces of technology and make your equipment. Lastly I seek to gain knowledge, technology and to offer those denizens captured a chance to join the Consulate. Simple as that"

She spoke in a flat speech, as if reciting from a script of some sort in the back of her mind "What I am here to offer you is something you lack. Firepower. I have been watching you since you arrived in the Nebula and I seen the actions of your forces through the galaxy. I believe you can be of use to us and we can be of use to you"

there is no response as the the bloody reaper's engines power to life, the two transports following the much larger ship, it would take almost an hour before the ships were within 'visual range' and all across the hull of the bloody reaper lay in wait, the drake like constructs hang onto the hull in the shadows, counting them would be nearly impossible, on estimates there are upwards of one hundred of these daemon engine machinations, Helldrakes. From one of the landing bays a thunderhawk gunship would exit the bloody reaper's starboard side, two of the helldrakes take off, escorting the thunderhawk to the open hanger, the helldrakes break off once the thunderhawk has landed, Circling the Punisher as if birds of prey or vultures.

Vrosh would be stood just behind the assault ramp as it lowered, even before the ramp lowered fuel canisters, pipes and even electrical cabling would ooze blood or begin to levitate figments of ghostly visages fading in and out around the thunderhawk.
Looking inside, any service crew would see Vrosh and stood behind him a 'Hellbrute' a sick perversion of the honourable space marine dreadnought, the hull of the hellbrute looking more like flesh or skin and further behind this monstrosity was twenty four chaos space marines, each wielding boltguns and chainswords, clad in the dark red and gold armour that is of the crimson Slaughter renegades.

Vrosh would step forward down the ramp, none of his retinue following, they would all wait within the thunderhawk, a miasma of fear forming. from the mere presence of these haunted marines, Vrosh's power axe mag clamped to his belt and his combat knife on the opposite side. Chained over the powerpack of his armour was his combi-melta and anyone looking on at the eight foot eight armoured titan from behind would see a skinned face, nailed to the powerpack, this face once belonged to an inquisitor, Vrosh doesn't remember who it was or where he killed the zealous fool, nor did he care.

Arriving upon the bridge Vrosh would look about at the mortal men about him, the voices a cacophony in his head

slaughter them, kill them all

he curls his dominant hand into a fist and moves further in looking about for the so called commander "you are unbearably trusting human..." Vrosh's presence on the bridge further caused Abnormalities , consoles becoming unresponsive and drinks tainting with blood.

Ackyas crossed his arms as he listened to the being speak to him, his eyes narrowing as she spoke. The proposal was interesting to say the least, he would have to bring it up with the other leaders of The 6th Order to see what they thought. Sharing information, knowledge, and firepower was beneficial. Furthermore, it was what they wanted. Subjugation, eradication, and then...silence. Once they were done with their work, The 6th Order would dissolve itself as it had no other purpose. Humanity would reign supreme, and for once they'd be able to rule rather than be 'the race that is numerous among the galaxy, like ants'.

"Assuming the higher ups agree with me, this proposal seems doable. More firepower for us, more knowledge for you." He spoke,
then turning his head to look towards the door to the bridge and having one of his men open it so the new arrival Vrosh could find his way to the meeting room. "As for our new arrival, I'm curious as to what they have to say."

Cally listened to the Admiral's words before her head turned to look upon the Crimson Slaughter leader and slowly nodded her head "I was wondering if you were going to show up on time" The two had never met but there was something about the Spartan that didnt sit right with the man. Yet the female soldier moved out of the way to lean up against one of the chairs on the bridge. She was far enough away from the two so they could have a dialogue. Her proposal had been given and now they were going to see what brought the Crimson Slaughter this far out for a simple meeting.

The spartan's right arm was brought up and she began to type onto the data pad so she could record and document the exchange between the two. Something told her this was going to be rather fascinating "I am also intrigued as to the purpose of a Chaos Marine's ship in this sector. Id have thought you would be in the middle of an engagement with the forces of the Imperium in this galaxy rather then all the way out here in the middle of nowhere"

"i need not deal with pleasantries" Vrosh didn't remove his helmet, the design in the helmet a perpetual malice filled scowl, the larger being looked between the spartan and then the admiral "many a rumour has said that this so called 6th order, fights against the forces of the Imperium" Vrosh looks about the room as of looking for something "where are your trophies?" he laughs sadisticly shaking his head.

"so what say you?

Admiral

would you join the Crimson Slaughter in bringing carnage and destruction upon the imperium?" Vrosh returned to his neutral position, in the windows looking out into space the figment ghosts formed again speaking out to the room, the warp wraiths voices twisted and ranging from that of children women and men whispering

kill them,
slaughter, destroy them

Vrosh again curls his hand into a fist, he was ordered not to kill, for now.

*Retconn*

It wasn't long before the two strange alien vessels began to show up as anomalous readings on long-range scanners, through the carefully watched regions of the Aurora Nebula. Since the Avaeon attack against the Aschen in Isiria, the entire region of space has always been relatively carefully monitored, though not as extensively as the Imperial Core.

It was through these circumstances that this exchange hadn't gone unnoticed, but it had taken some time for the Imperial authorities on Arastel to determine a course of action, which task force to divert and scout out the area.

The Hastati Class Cruiser 'Mercurial Strike', commanded by Commander Dion Costas was the one to draw the short straw that day, along with her escorts, the Athena Class Cruisers 'Fairway' and 'Pelops." These Athena class cruisers were supported by a single Astras class robotics cruiser, and a quintet of Picon class frigates, along with their support vessels their support ships, making for roughly fifteen vessels in total, warships and their support craft, these fifteen ships made up the Cruiser Strike Group 10 of the Classis IX Provincia Arastel, out of Arastel, Isiria.

The Strike Group had just completed it's jump, roughly 800,000 Kilometers abaft from the meeting ships, settling into a staggered claw formation, with the larger ships holding center position, specifically the Astras and the Mercurial Strike

The Mercurial Strike, at two and a half kilometers in length was the largest of the vessels, and the Astras was second, though the Mercurial Strike sported heavy firepower, the Astras was far more dangerous, feeding precise targeting information to the pair of Athena class missile cruisers, as well as providing potent Electronic Warfare suites which were capable of taking down a planet's internet and communications should the need arise.

With the jump completed, Costas had prepared his men, and the ships were all battle ready. The Mercurial Strike's massive deck mounted Turbo-disruptors, armored missile tubes, and spinal mounted frag cannon, she was a fairly capable vessel, with heavy stormbringer pulse laser batteries to provide point defense.

Once they were in position shields were raised on all vessels, and the claw formation quickly turned into a staggered frigate line defensive formation, while the Astras began working quickly to decipher the ship's communications and perform intensive point-scans to analyze metallurgical composition, power plant, and weapons capabilities while feeding this information in real time to the rest of the Strike group.

Aside from these defensive actions in anticipation of a coming attack, the Aschen flotilla did not move, or engage the ships before them.

The Grand Admiral held his head high to his other guest, Vrosh of the Crimson Slaughter. Ackyas listened, intrigued by him. He watched the way he moved, the way he acted...he was more of a warrior than a diplomat for sure. Not that the Grand Admiral would mind, they were all cogs in one great machine and they needed folks of all sorts to make that dream true. "Trophies? Unless our men have been taking them without my knowledge, we have none. However, our goals upon success do include salvaging all technology we can and applying it in new ways...experimenting. Making newer and better weapons."

Ackyas met Vrosh with a wide grin as he heard the offer, and taking note of the clenching fist...something was certainly off about this man, but that's alright for now. He wasn't causing any trouble quite yet. "Carnage and destruction upon the Imperium? I see no reason not to." With a slight chuckle, he placed his hands behind his back.

The beeping of one of the consoles sparked to life, causing him to turn his head with a perked eyebrow. The technician stationed at the console spoke up as he cleared his throat. "Sir. Unknowns have made themselves visible. They're not approaching...and they're most certainly not any of these people's ships." As they began doing their scans, the same technician piped up. "Aschen, sir!"

Those working at their stations became very tense, wondering what this meant for them. Were they about to get into an engagement? The Grand Admiral had lost his grin, yet he kept his composure about him. "Men, get yourselves ready. Prepare the pilots, make sure our men are able to fight." His eyes shifted around the room before meeting Cally and Vrosh. "I doubt this will be pretty, however if you wish to see some action then this is the time to do so."

In the midst of the Astras trying to decipher the ships' communication frequency as well as the safety measures they've taken in order to encrypt it, The Punisher sent out its own comm broadcast under orders of Grand Admiral Ackyas who now took the position at the command deck, seeing if the vessel would take their transmission to speak before the inevitable happened.

Cally began to document Vrosh's words into her datapad, noting some form of interest in the man. Of all of her studies of Chaos and Warp, his warband was by far one of the most fearsome in the order of the Unaligned. She found it fascinating how primitive he was yet he took great pride to show his strength. Admirable, if undesirable. They would not make great candidates for the Consulate. However her thoughts soon turned towards the viewports and the reports of a small fleet of ships that just transported into the area. Her eyes looked out towards them and nodded twice

"Fascinating...who knew the arrogance of the Aschen would go so far as to interrupt a negotiation such as this. Typical"

Cally's head turned towards the Admiral and offered him a small smile "If we did not offer our allies some assistance on the eve of battle, what sort of allies would we be at all?" She asked then turned her head towards Vrosh.

"Ill see you on the field" She said and levitated off of the deck and phased through the hull of the ship. A bright light appeared before their port as Cally herself disappeared.

After several seconds, another larger, brighter light erupted in space. Nearly twice as large as the 6th Order's ship, the portal soon grew a long, thick piece of black crystal. The same kind of crystal that Cally appeared to be made of that soon broke off into two smaller halves. The portal soon shut and the "ships" moved into an attack formation towards the Aschen fleet. These crystals measured at a length of 6 kilometers long and nearly 5 kilometers wide, these ships soon began to twist and contort their image to that of a diamond tip with a point that could barely be seen. Cally's ships soon moved to prepare for battle.

“Aschen?.” In all of Vrosh’s forays from the

Lost Hope

he had never come across these Aschen. either way he watched as the grand admiral of the 6th order began his command.A twisted grin of joy hidden by his helmet “To war, is it?, now that’s just too enticing” the menacing almost animalistic growl that rolled with his voice said it all.

Vrosh wanted nothing less than a blood bath. He’d subvocally order his thunderhawk gunship back to the

Bloody Reaper

but he’d dematerialise himself in a bright flash of light as the retaliator class grand cruiser’s, power draw spiked.

Redundant system after redundant system made it near impossible to get any exact reading on its weapons capability or what auxiliary systems the ship had. Any and all attempts to scan resulted in nothing short of software and hardware failures, this all due to the

Tech Sorcery

of the warpsmiths, it wasn’t so much magic. More their mastery over the

Machine Spirits

or Artificial intelligence. And their knowledge of technology being second to none.

Returned aboard his ship via the Teleportarium, Vrosh returned to the bridge and stood before his command crew aboard his grand cruiser and let out a hellish war cry “WARRIORS OF THE CRIMSON SLAUGHTER, IT IS TIME FOR THE KILLING TO BEGIN ANEW!” he watched from the command view deck. The thunderhawk he used to get aboard

the Punisher

fly by and dock in one of the rear landing bays, the plasma drive engines roared into life and

the Bloody Reaper

pulled away from the 6th order ship into clear open space with a clear line of sight of the Aschen fleet, looking out across to the two crystal spears?, ships? now fully forming a this point.

“Ready the warp engines, prepare for a short range jump” Vrosh turned to the Fallen imperial navy commander “Raven, i leave the ship in your hands” the man bows to his chaos lord and Vrosh hasn’t even taken note of the bow, already turned to leave the command deck and prepare to lead his brothers in bloody carnage.

The two smaller ships in the three ship Vanguard of the crimson Slaughter, fell into the flanks beside the much larger ship doing much the same preparing to short jump.

Vrosh made his way down the winding tunnels of the ship’s passageways, his fellow battle brothers chanting out Take from them Everything, leave only corpses in our wake.

Soon coming to arrive at a secluded sanctum within the ship. He’d open up the bulkhead and enter the shrine, sorcery took place here, in the name of the chaos god Tzeentch. Where twenty Rubric marines stand as still as statues watching over their charge “you are required on the bridge Psyker” there are no further words said. Vrosh leaves the door open and heads for the teleportarium with the rest of his boarding party.

Sorcery was in fact, a generous term for what was going on in the sanctum. Those poor Rubric marines had to suffer the presence of the eccentric sorcerer king that is Aren Markblac. The sanctum was for the most part, completely alight with colorful warp flames. The ground was just a little bit on fire while man flames just drifted around aimlessly. Occasionally one of the marines would have to make a routine sidestep because Tzeentch knows they don't want to get touched by that. Aren was at the moment as shirtless as always and about 15ft in the air, dancing on a floating disc while shouting a really distorted voice into the pommel of his favorite force dagger/daemon weapon. He even had a few pink horrors just standing around singing with him and dancing around.

Once Vrosh entered however everything just suddenly stopped. The horrors went quiet, the flames died down and Aren slowly descended to the ground. His expression went from joyous to a thousand yard stare with his one good eye shot in Vrosh's direction. That one eye shining all the colors of the warp and themsome. "I have a name, bruv." He eventually managed to grumble in a oddly sing-songy tune. Sheathing his dagger on his belt he began to walk out the sanctum while two marines frantically moved to get the sorcerer-king donned in his gear while he walked after Vrosh.

"Sir, the Alien vessels are assuming an attack formation, I've got several unidentified contacts on DRADIS, Three four five carom two nine six." The Tactical officer reported, while alarms began to klaxon throughout the cruiser.

Costas silently grit his teeth, it seemed they had walked into somewhere they weren't welcome.

"We have our procedures, open up a wide band channel to the alien vessels, I want all hands combat ready right now." Costas ordered, shifting his weight in his command chair, as holographic screens flickered to life all around him.

"Channel open, sir." The Comms lieutenant spoke, keying up a wide-band outgoing hail.

"This is Commander Costas, of the Mercurial Strike, we have no intentions of engaging your vessels in battle, as we were investigating anomalous activity in this sector. However if attacked we will be forced to defend ourselves."

Terminating the communication, Costas turned to his XO.

"All hands Action stations! Spool up the FTL Drives, we're going to get the frak out of here if things get nasty."

The bridge crew of the Mercurial Strike worked swiftly, like that of a well oiled machine, commands were entered, readouts were taken, and the tactical situation was considered.

They maintained real-time communications with the other Aschen ships, whom slowly began to spread out into a more defensible position. The two Athena class missile cruisers winked out first, flickering away to a position several light years away, beyond sensor ranges. Once positioned, they calibrated the guidance system on their long range Thunderbolt missiles. Each missile carrying a Quantum plasmid warhead, which was capable of unleashing an explosion not unlike that of a star going supernova.

The Astras, a relatively new vessel in the Aschen family of warships was fairly closely related to it's Coalition cousin, the Royarks class Robotics cruiser. And while it's scans on the Chaos vessel returned little in the way of results, their electronics, and computer systems did not suffer the intended faults and errors, thanks to a yawning gap in compatibility, and while the Technomancers may have been second to none in their own world, Aschen technology, and especially Aschen technology derived from Scatterran architecture was simply too alien. Eventually the attempts to scan had stopped, the Astras shifting to more of an Defensive ECW Stance, throwing up an odd jamming field, which acted upon quantum mechanics to make it difficult for the enemy weapons batteries to garner a firing solution, aiming to throw their accuracy just off enough to confuse their targeting systems, like a drunk man trying to fire a gun at his target, the Aschen ships seemed to shift, bob, and weave about, without actually physically moving.

The small cruiser task force was prepared for battle, having moved to a defensible position, their FTL Drives hot in the event they needed to flee. Their FTL Computers were locked to the Gaelian system, a highly defensible position and capital of Isiria.

Grand Admiral Ackyas watched the others leaving his ship with a satisfied smirk, his hands placed behind his back and head held high. His grandeur was interrupted however as the Aschen opened their comms and began to speak. He listened, intrigued, and found their statement of defending themselves upon being attacked to be rather amusing. Could they hold against his cruiser and the two factions that were fresh off the block and ready to fight once more?

The thought made him want to laugh.

Just as the Aschen were finished delivering their message, Ackyas opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by one of his technicians interrupting. "They've terminated the link, Grand Admiral!" His grin fell once more being replaced with an irritated scowl. "Should I attempt to re-open communication requests, sir?"

Letting out a disappointed and heavy sigh, he raised a hand in the air and waving it as if to say 'no'. "Don't bother. They've stated their terms, and I understand them clearly." Turning back to look at his men his grin returned as the prospect of entering battle swam about in his head. "Record this event and broadcast it to command. Or better yet...make sure you broadcast it to the Terran News. I'm going to ensure victory against these dogs, and I want everyone to know it was The 6th Order and their allies who did this." Clenching his white glove into a fist, he took in a deep breath savoring this moment before returning to his position.

Of course, the technicians would oblige by starting up a recording and trying to transmit that frequency out to News sectors out there. It wouldn't be hard to receive or trace back to The Aurora, but stopping it was another matter in and of itself. While the recording began to run, displaying the battle from many different security cameras inside and outside of the ship the weapons systems sprung to immediate life as well as the rest of the excess power being directed to the shields. If there was anything The 6th Order had to be proud of, it was their shields. It protected the ship and by product the men within, and it was damn good at it too. Otherwise all of their floating chunks of cobbled together metal would be destroyed within an instant. The only ships without good shields were the suicide bombers, and that was because where they were going they didn't need one...

The Punisher's engines roared to life as well, staying behind their allies as a multi-connected comm was sent to open between the other two allied command ships. This was going to be a show of power, patrol or not. They were the unfortunate ones tasked with this mission, and Ackyas was going to be sure to see them to their grave.