Coalition Military Apparatus's Story

The FBP had set up no less than three mobile labs in the premises around the foot of the bridge. Most of the systems were double-wide trailers brought in by heavy truck or primary movers, and were scattered about the investigation site in various states of use. While effort at the shores continued many FBP personnel scrambled from group to group when the time allowed, as a system of convoys bringing information and evidence out while new equipment and teams in.

A plainclothes FBP lawman stood on the rocks with his squad car parked on the road behind him. The Scatterran pressed a phone into his pocket and kept both hands hidden from the wind as he trudged his way up to the Invictus team.

"There's a slick several kilometers out from the coast and the bridge covered in this stuff." The Scatterran looked over the murky water until reaching the water. Reaching a hand up to the radio on his jacket, the earpiece broke into static for a moment as a Cavalry airjet streaked overhead.

"We have mobile labs waiting and we've been trying to collect as much of this stuff as possible -- there are rumors of some other things showing up too."

Winches start to buckle and bolt heads snap as the object is hoisted above the waterline. It is one half of a hollow sphere, machined so precisely as to be close to perfect and a meter in diameter. It is as black as polished onyx but it is obviously not onyx. The completely empty sphere is almost perfectly smooth on the inside except a raised emblem and a few evenly spaced divots around the inner lip. It does not appear to be damaged, dented, or even scratched though it had hit the road deck hard before falling into the ocean during the attack. There is no serial number. When the second half of the sphere-shell is hauled up it appears to be much the same and again with no serial number.



This shell of a half-sphere appears to be slightly more than an inch in thickness. It also appears to be highly magnetic as any small magnetic objects close at hand attaches to the device. It also seems to be interfering with digital devices and anything else that would normally have problems around strong magnetic fields. There does not appear to be any other discernible feature.

A stronger microscope is needed to discover more information about the nanites.

"I hope 'other things' doesn't mean sea monsters. I can do without sea monsters." Viktor said, "Get to one of those labs, start figuring out what this stuff is." He ordered the investigators, prompting them to leave to work on their findings after they collected enough.

And they had collected a lot. They weren't exactly sure what they were dealing with yet, having enough to send other places and get worked on at the same time would prove effective. This wasn't screwing in a lightbulb, they needed multiple trained eyes working.

"Care to show me what else was found?" The Italian man asked the Scatteran, "I used to be a detective, I'd like to lend my eyes and experience." Viktor informed the Scatteran. "If that's okay with you, of course."

Franco sat quietly at his research station, a protective gown over his clothing and a rebreather covering his mouth. You never knew what might be floating around when you dealt with certain things in his line of work. The man, who seemed fairly young and had short brown hair, was writing out some of his findings.

The soot, which wasn't really soot, was discovered to actually be nanotech. Franco pressed an eye to the microscope in front of him, eyeballing the nanotech used in the bridge attack.

"This is supposed to be illegal for war. I've never known the Varden or CONCORD to resort to these means." He said, almost hoping for a response from the empty room. The rig he was on wasn't empty, far from it, but the thick metal walls and everyoing heading back to shore for hours on end to investigate made the rig seem very lonely.

He adjusted the microscope to get a better look at the nanotech, eyes widening at the site of markings on each. Numbers too. He quickly pulled over his notepad, writing down the sequences of numbers he saw.

"Isaac, patch me through with mother base and the FBP." Franco said, tapping a button on the side of his microscope. It clicked audibly, photos of the markings exposing themselves on a nearby computer screen. Aftera moment a holographic screen shot up in front of Franco, a live feed of a woman standing in a white laboratory coming on only after a few seconds.

"I'm sending pictures to you of the markings on this nanotch. It's more than likely a maker's mark. I want you to run it against known scientists, companies and organizations who deal in nanotech. See if we can get a match. I also have a sequence of numbers. It's a serial, maybe it can lead us to a company or region." Franco said to the woman.

"Give it to me." The woman said, "I will. Not like... sex. Anyways, the number is 338122640017. Run that by companies and see if we start getting matches." Franco said to woman.

"You got it."

Deploying from their barracks at Starlight Point the 303rd Marine Infantry Battalion, of the 37th ‘Rahkatens’ Mechanized Regiment, was reaching their start positions on the eastern coast of Aslund by the midnight hours. While disturbances to the civilian population were kept to the bare minimum it was not at the cost of secrecy and safety however: several major roadways and their smaller networks were cordoned off to civilian traffic.

Most urban centers had been skirted to be left behind a cordon a few dozen kilometers away; this was a calculated decision, and a risk, that while shrouded in secrecy at the upper levels of command weren’t too difficult to ascertain. If hostilities were to break out, these urban centers would be used as the battlefields -- meaning any invader would have to fight through thousands of civilians, or any defender would just have to wait for the opportune moment to strike when any enemy was busy sorting out friend and foe.

On the loosely settled beaches and coast of the Aslund channel, Shintenchi only a few hundred miles across the puddle, was where the Killer’s deployment was the heaviest. In the middle of the night armored vehicles rolled along the sandy ribbons weaving up and across the coast. Searchlights tore into the blackness on the far side of the channel, weapons and sights fixed to the horizon where a silent landmass stood opposite.

Corporal Gergely jumped out of the hastily dug trench, feet biting through the sand and letting one hand mash into the sediment underneath him as he left the fireteam behind. The Aschen marines took up idle conversation amongst themselves, huddled about the tiny light provided by the coffee burner.

Many of the marines had to steal sleep on the ride from position to position. Gergely himself had barely slept in the last 48 hours: a nearly 300 kilometer journey that had really only been punctuated by brief stops for coffee and rations, a quick leak or dump on the side of the road, or the precarious ride in an armored vehicle over the treacherous landscape of eastern Aslund.

He envied the air-mobile units in deployments like this. The well-fed, idolized Shock Marines who came screaming from the sky in grav-chutes and swarmed the fields in fleets of T-88s and LV-80s. Their mobility and fancy airjets might have been easily provided for them, but making the 600,000 strong garrison air-assault capable like that would've cost more than Terra itself was worth defending. Not that that cost wasn't already more than Terra was worth to the Apparatus.

Gergely stopped in his tracks when he heard a familiar voice: as he turned in the direction of the calling whisper he saw Staff Sergeant Erahn Molecay. The man was an imposing Tauronite, hard featured and stoic even in the faint light. He was holding open the cover toast dug-out in the sand: a comms antenna tiny four-leg dish poked out from the camouflage netting behind him and the Sergeant motioned Corporal Gergley over to his little hooch.

"Yessir, Sergeant?" Gergely slid a hand onto the buttstock of his AR-98, pressing it behind his shoulder and trudging his way across the sand to Molecay.

"Lieutenant's holding us up for a quick break -- cus' of this," Molecay indicated for the young Aschen Corporal to follow into the large trench. He left the camouflage tarp open for Gergely, who let it slide closed and found himself surrounded by bright screens and scrawling news feeds.

"You know anything about Asteria, Corporal?" Molecay curled his lips around the stub of a burning cigar and narrowed his eyes as smoke fizzled out from the other end.

"A few drunk nights of leave before I was transferred to 303, cathouses and some pretty cheap dope. Why, Staff Sergeant?"

"Race war, Corporal." As Molecay settled himself into a fold-out chair and slid his booted feet onto a mapping table he pointed to a particularly grotesque image on one of the big screens. "We've gleaned from the Authority that there's escalating tensions between Aslunders and Shintenchi ethnic groups. You're aware of Shintenchi membership in AXIS correct?"

Gergely kept his hand clutched to the butt of his assault rifle, eyes having trouble focusing on the shocking imagery despite serving in the Killer's for the past four years. Killing, death and blood never became bearable. "I'm aware they'll be leaving AXIS, peacefully or forcefully. That's why the 303 is here?"

"Correct, Corporal: but it seems peacefully might not be so much of an option with the Killer's here on one end of the channel, but not on the other. With this we'll be between a rock and a hard place and our job won't be any easier."

Gergely felt a lurching in his gut at the Sergeant's words. He had seen combat, quite a bit of it despite the opinion amongst the wider Apparatus that Terra was a 'cook's deployment. When you heard commanders and NCOs debating openly about the possibility of combat it was always an inclination to be ready for anything.

"Major Antalakios wants to assemble a company-sized task force, just in case the TNG needs any added meat investigating some of these killings. On top of that, Task Force Asteria will be on standby incase hostilities do break out: we’ll have to keep our wits about us and not let one side play us up. I need one last fireteam from this platoon.”

Corporal Gergely hardened as he listened to the Staff Sergeant. He turned away from the screens and gruesome imagery and looked over to the gruff NCO nursing the cigar opposite him. For a few moments he thought about the talk of how this deployment would be easy: there were no doubt going to be firefights, but many platoons in the battalion saw this as a chance for R&R. His thoughts went back to the three other men under his command, the fireteam he had led through insurgencies across the other continents of Terra and even some of the battles against the Cybrans a year or so prior. This was the job, his feet came together and his back straightened.

“Yessir, Staff Sergeant Molecay. 2nd fireteam is at your disposal.”

If the sun wasn't setting on the city of Lorandor the heat might have been more of a problem. Unbearable even, but it wasn't. That was a relief to Agent Church as he sat under an umbrella outside of a local eatery. He hadn't anything except tea, he'd wait for the others to arrive before he got anything to eat.

Eat was a strong term for what the man planned to do. The Scatterran man mostly planned to take a few bites, use the food and tone to put the man, or woman, sent to speak with him at ease while he grilled them.

He needed tactics like that. Being a toned young man dressed in black and wearing sunglasses made him look like he was with the TIB or some mercenary organization like Blackwater. He was Invictus, they had a higher standard for their members and they paid well-enough to keep a man like Church in line.

He may or may not have discharged from the Coalition military for getting his fists attacked by insurgent faces far too often. Nothing was ever formally proven.

Yet.

Church's eyes, hidden by the dark glasses, scanned everyone around him. Men, women, the girl with the nice smile he'd seen walk by a few times. No one could really be trusted, not on Terra this close to Shintenchi with everything that was going on.

A sleek car would pull up outside the eatery and the door would open and three men would exit all three in suits. No weapons were visible on any of them. The car would be seen to drive and park just up the street. Damion waved the other two men off who went and grabbed an unoccupied table.

He glanced the crowd over before he laid eyes on Church. He walked over and sat down across from him. He appeared to be the most likely contact out of the patrons here. "Waiting for me I presume?" He would ask.

Church looked towards Damion, then let his eyes shift over to the two men that had escorted Damion to the meeting. "Don't trust the Invictus?" Church asked, "Doesn't matter." He said, "That's a rhetorical question, so you don't need to answer it. I have some other people who may be showing up who want to speak with you." He informed Damion.

"You want something to eat? I'm hungry, myself. I imagine it's been a long trip all the way down here to the ass end of the Milky Way just to come site in the hot, sticky, ass end of Terra to speak to a freelance detective." Church said to Damion, laying his eyes on the man once again.

Agent Church was silent for a moment, removing his glasses to look them over. He appeared to be seeing if they were clean, but in truth he was trying to humanize himself. Taking off the glasses was one step in the process.

"And then, we can talk about what went down in your space. The attack on your people by the Varden. I need some details that weren't in the news and official statements. It would help in my other investigations related to the attack on the bridge linking Shintenchi and Aslund together."

"I want to let you know if you're about to fight a just war, or if someone is setting you up."

The beat up sedan bucked and trundled through the cobblestone streets of Lorandor. In the markets and bazaars of the city it seemed inconspicuous, one dozens of other run down vehicles that saw use across the Caldonian city. The dusty, sandy roads made the engine sputter and cry as it fought its way through the mazes of tiny alleys, throngs of streetgoers and up the long avenues.

Investigator Frank Whitland kept his hands at 10 and 2 as the sedan came into view of the eatery just down the street from an abandoned TCCA administration building, the old mottled structure now a storefront selling various wares. His eyes instinctively flashed into rear view, where a veiled woman sat in the seat behind the driver.

It was a curious sight for him, few had seen much of General Rohnfeld in her duty as the 'Commandant of Terra', the Director of the TCCA. Few others had assumed, like General Vanko before he, that she had much consideration for local culture and customs. He was obviously quite wrote however: thought her attire was more in line with Alibani quf customs of modesty, she did appear like a local.

"I think we're at the meeting point, Miss Rohnfeld." Whitland's eyes went back to the road as he pulled the sedan up towards the restaurant, watching dust settle around the vehicle.

"Very good Mr. Whitland, thank you for the ride. You first, sir." Her patronizing voice was well hidden by a modest tone. Maybe there was something to this dress code thing: he wasn't deathly afraid of the woman who was regarded as a murderous black widow in COLSOG's Marine Assault Group. He pushed the thought and rumor out of his mind and pried open the car door, adjusting the ghutrah he wore to obscure his short brown hair and protect his neck and cheeks from the sun.

He dusted his hands against the light, swirling coat he wore and pried open the back door for the woman who would look no different than one of his wives, or however they did things here. Rohnfeld may have wanted to blend in but Whitland was an FBP agent, not an undercover. Rohnfeld seemed quite at home as she watched him open the door and slid her way out of the backseat before waiting for her escort to lead her to the restaurant.

As she followed, Whitland spotted two men at a table with an umbrella over it. He looked back over at the woman and indicated for her to follow: she nodded curtly and Whitland had to catch himself making a nervous tick as the woman followed his steps closely to the two others. He stopped and gave a local greeting with one outstretched palm.

"I'm Frank Whitland, from the Authority's South Aslund District." He said, taking his hand back and quietly pulling out one of the seats at the table. After readying one for himself he pulled another to a position behind him, removed enough from the table that Rohnfeld taking a seat wouldn't draw too much attention, yet still keep her in earshot.

She sat obediently with the robe settling about her before Whitlabd continued from his seat. "I've been dispatched by ASAD, something about a possible link between a Varden false-flag attack in Andromeda and the one in the Aslund channel."

To be entirely honest he hadn't even known much of the attack in Aslund, the investigation was being handled by an elite sector of the FBP: ATMN, known in jargon as 'Autumn', was a special anti-terrorism unit that had gained its fame (or infamy depending on who you asked) during the Insurgencies.

"Oh, and this ... " he gestured to the woman sitting behind him. "Is General Rohnfeld, Supreme Director of the Terran Authority. She ... made a personal request when this came across my desk.”

Damion would sit quietly listening as if mulling over everything said with accute care. He would obsever the new arrivals as Church spoke. He removed his sunglasses and placed them in his pocket.

"Damion Teller Sullen Enterprises a pleasure to meet all your acquaintances. General please no need to sit so far back." He would say with his impression of a welcoming smile.

"I will be more than gladly discuss these events with all of you though I'm sure you will find that I have just as many questions for all of you." He said.

"The attack yes, In our professional opinion the results are inconclusive, The attack was swift over in a matter of seconds. The ships were ayeen in origin though there were no military markers. We have yet to rule out military action though in my personal opinion this seems unlikely. "

"I'm Agent Church. Or just Church, if you prefer." The Invictus investigator said, nodding respectfully to General Rohnfeld. "It's an honor, ma'am. If only we could meet under different circumstances." He said to Rohnfeld, "But, today it's business." Church said.

"We're going to need the General to sit where she is, Teller. This part of Aslund isn't very... progressive when it comes to women." Church informed Teller, "The TNG doesn't improve, but you can't exactly throw someone in jail for being sexist and they have bigger problems than bigotry right now."

Threats of invasion, rebuilding the government, the infrastructure, crime. All bigger problems that bigotry could flourish in. And was in some places on Terra.

"Anyways, you're telling me that there isn't any actual proof that the military attacked you?" Church asked, "You still suspect their military, but did the attacking ships put up a fight? I know you've all been tight-lipped about the whole thing." He said to Damion, "Any debris or bodies?"

If they had an intact faces they could probably run a scan in databases and see if any military were involved in the attack. That's if the SEC would allow it.

"How many ships? "

"Unfortunately Agent Church is right, though the General isn't the kind of woman to take such an offense at backwardness either." Whitland remembered just exactly who he was talking about right now, and made a quick indication with his palms outstretched on the table. "Not that I claim to speak for General Rohnfeld ... she told me specifically we are better off keeping looks up. I was signing permits and checking fugitive records just a week ago anyway, this investigation is being handled by a joint venture between an Invictus group and the FBP." He replied shortly before folding his arms over his chest and reclining in the chair slightly.

"If there is an actual connection between these two attacks, it could be more of an indication that there's something spanning all three of our galaxies that are looking to draw us closer: in chains." Whitland said before motioning for the SEC agent to continue.

"I can't speak openly about what the Authority is deliberating at the moment, but any information you can provide ... can likely save lives in Home, Andromeda, Onyx and beyond."

Damion would nod to both, "I agree as a board member of the SEC and representative of the Affairs in the Milky Way it is my duty to ensure the safety of all beings." He said he would think for a moment reaching into his coat and removing a small spherical device placing it on the table.

A holographic map of SEC space would appear and a picture of Andromeda would appear it would zoom into the outskirts of SEC space closest to the Taiyou. "This is the location of the attack a backwater outpost, the last stop before departing SEC space. The fleet was departing SEC space dropping off a small portion of supplies to the outpost. Their shields were down the entire fleet lost. The only information we have is from automated systems left on the outpost all life on the outpost died from radiation sickness. "

Damion pressed a button closing the map. "The reason we are not ruling out that this was a military attack is obvious. The attack was precise swift a single run minimal detection using warping torpedoes to the target. 10 frigates. Attacked our ships they were there for milliseconds before they were gone there was no response time there was no reason to suspect attack in the sector of space. The reason we know this is of Varden origin is that we have encountered similar frequencies that we have confirmed to be from their galaxy before."

"Radiation sickness?" Church asked, "Mr. Teller, what the hell were your carrying from that outpost? What did they drop off?" He asked, slipping his sunglasses back on. "It might not be my business to ask, but if you're dealing in chemical weapons that's a thing we'll need to know."

If the AXIS or SEC was planning to attack the Varden Damion would never tell them, not of his own volition. Church would have suggested waterboarding if they were anywhere else and the situation any different. For now, they'd have to settle for hoping Damion was a bleeding heart and disagree with certain policies.

Things like chemical warfare.

"I don't want to give any information until I can believe that your people weren't up to something that got the Varden to attack you. Were you planning a chemical attack to the best of your knowledge, Mr. Teller? I don't expect you to be in the loop, but if you are and you tell me the truth I promise it'll stay between us all." Church said.

"Don't think there aren't other people with their own dirty tricks and aces up their sleeves. Even the Invictus has some." The Invictus agent admitted, looking from Damion to the others at the table.

"We can't bring too much bullshit to this table. We'll leave that to politicians, agreed?"

Damion listened as the accusations were tossed against his government. "A chemical attack?, No nothing of that nature I can assure you that. No it was the fallout radiation from the reactors and space born nuclear weapons the blast ruptured the containment's on the station and the resulting radiation from the blast proved to be fatal to the crew. " Damion said with a frown.

After this Damion would pause as if thinking, while the nature of the events is unclear I feel that I must share why we beleive that a concord attack is extremely unlikely. "

"We have encountered the Varden in our space before,they were chasing a criminal piloting a stolen frigate. A frigate that was the class as the one that bombed the bridge. But there is more, the ship was reported to be holding stolen weapons. " Damion said.

"To the best of our knowledge the Concord has not release this information, we have considered making a public release but to save face I am authorizing the release of the forwarded criminal record that we were given. " Damion said. "The man who handeled this matter was killed in the recent attack. We have reason to suspect this attack was an assassination attempt against Moff Tarin." Damion added as he handed a small datachip to Church and then an Identical one to the UCON rep.

After this he stood. "I must be going now that is all I have for you all." Damion said putting his sun glasses on and walking away before entering into a waiting car/