Elisha Whitcomb's Story

Unfortunately for CORE, the countermeasures, along with the decoys, and the sheer number of dropping pods made target acquisition on them difficult. They tore through the blockade with relative ease, dropping drone decoys behind them, fooling the engineer bots.

Admiral Whitcomb watched the display with intent, while the Reverence's Shields shrugged off incoming ordinance with relative ease, culminating in brilliant white flares of energy welling up with each weapon impact.

"Athena carriers report targeting solution; we've incurred losses deploying ground troops, but all ship commanders report ready to proceed to the next phase of the operation." Lieutenant Kestral reported, passing the dataslate to the Admiral.

"Very good." She replied, grasping the console. "We'll wait until the Athenas launch their payloads, and then we'll mop up the stragglers."

Her eyes briefly went up to the display, they were going to have to give their ground troops some room to breathe, which meant taking out the ships in orbit; with everything synchronized through the Aschen's tactical datalink, it was time for Admiral Whitcomb to give the order, and put an end to this fight.


Since no major Aschen vessels, other than the nearly imperceptibly fast drop pods approached the Core Blockade, the Engineer bots, and their following space charges were dispensed with rather quickly, and easily by the Aschen's Aegis cruisers, which threw up thick, dense fields of flak, and shrapnel. Their aim was to shred any machine that dared get too close to the field of fire. Those that weren't dispatched by the Aschen aegis cruisers, would find themselves being hunted, and engaged by Aschen Apollo, Viper, and Raptor Talon star-fighters under escort by thousands of Furie class drones.

The Aschen fleet moved into position, and the next moment would come with sheer overwhelming destruction.

Thousands of Aschen Athena missile carriers unleashed their payloads, roughly two dozen Thunderbolt missile systems unleashed from their silos, these missiles traveled a short distance, before vanishing and re-appearing near the Core Fleet around Blackrock.

Thousands of High-yield tricobalt MIRV Warheads unleashed themselves from the thunderbolt missile housings, traveling an additional distance before detonating in massive tears into subspace, likely engulfing Core Ships by the thousands, and carving massive voids in their formations, tearing them asunder and bringing ruin upon them in an instant.

The Aschen ships followed up with a precision salvo of ordinance from their Ajax, and Hercules long range missile batteries, engulfing those that escaped the initial tricobalt explosion within the equivalent of a small supernova, quantum plasmid warheads detonating by the thousands across the remaining Core positions.

The Aschen in orbit weren't finished, as the Reverence began final preparations to unleash it's Singularity gun, even as the Angel Descender opened fire.

Whitcomb watched the displays intently, gritting her teeth and calling out.

"Shields double front! Divert power from weapons batteries and instruct the crew to brace for impact!"

The Solar flare like weapon impacted the shields of the Aschen Reverence II like a mighty hammer, and the shields flared brilliantly in protest, but they did not give way.

The Reverence II bucked violently, as the shockwave traveled along all thirty kilometers of it's superstructure. Sparks showered all around the CIC, but damage was minimal.

"Shields are down to seventy five percent! Secondary shield arrays are down!" A Tactical officer called out.

"We can't keep taking hits like this!" The Lieutenant called out.

"Gravton flux capacitors are charging... fifty percent and increasing." Kestrel called out from his display.

"We have more ordinance incoming!" Another tactical officer called out, and Whitcomb gritted her teeth.

"Where the frak are my aegis cruisers!?" She called out, while thousands of Furie drones, along with Raptor Talons moved between the Reverence, and the Engineer bots, and space charges, creating a buffer zone of destruction, likely tearing them to shreds with their 30mm MEC-a6 Kinetic energy weapons.

With the operation executed, the battle for blackrock was likely suddenly turning into the Aschen's favor.

---

On the ground the Aschen were ready for a fight, the moment their pods deployed the behemoths that were close by would be met with the fierce resistance of an Aschen war adept, whom unleashed a hail of 20mm heavy magnetron rounds that were easily capable of tearing through metal, and flesh alike. With hundreds of adepts on the ground thirsting for combat, the Behemoths would likely find themselves quickly overwhelmed. Aschen troops held their ground in the coming onslaught, and with the orbit cleared of enemy ships, Century, and Vindicator tactical bombers could make their way to the surface, unleashing their High-explosive payloads against ground based Core Targets.

The Aschen were determined to reclaim their world.

A rapid succession of impacts cause the cavern to lightly shake. Popping loose several sections of the roof and setting them on a short round of travel down to the damp dirt below. Hadleth looked up as his eyes scanned the upper terrain and his tongue flicked in annoyed anticipation, his com once again speaking up. "We are reading seismic activity in your area runner. Is everything nominal?" Hadleth shrugged for a second as he began to respond. "It's just the neighbors acting up again..." A common occurrence at this point unfortunately, both something that he had been going out of his way to avoid and ignore altogether.

He was far enough below the ground level to be safe from what was transpiring up above. However the sudden shift had caused everything with a heartbeat to flee the immediate area.
"I'll make my way to the next ark system. Radio silence until then will be advised unless an emergency arises." He communicator is silent a few moments until the voice returns.[/color=teal]"Agreed, nest is going silent until further notice. Out"[/color] The sound of his communicator pops out one last time and once again he was alone. A situation that he was not at all at odds with.

His eyes cast up once more as a sliver of light breaks through the ceiling of the cave over head and his eye catches the sky for only a split second. The route behind him having closed up right when the commotion began. He quickly weighs the notion that is coming over his mind. Seeing that he is only a few dozen meters below the surface and that only meant that a few hundred tons of rock where residing over him. He makes the decision to climb.

The jets on the back of his armor began to whir up as he takes three long steps and jumps. The initial burst carrying him up to a short ledge, while the second sends him careening up to a secondary outcrop. Off this jump he pulls his carbine and begins to fire several burst into a target location. Shattering away much of the already crumbling rock and holstering once again before digging his claws into the collapsing ceiling and pulling himself up. His arms and shoulders began to barrel a way through the ground above. The dirt had very little choice but to give way to his own path, pushing up as all he could do was keep his eyes situated on the beams of light that could be made out in the shifting darkness ahead. Were it not for his physical prowess, his own progress would be slow going, yet it seemed like he was almost born to such a function. This was despite the fact he had done so on more then one other occasion before.

As he climbs, a broadcaster is triggered from his suit. A call being sent out from his ship to come and meet him, knowing full well he would be in need of a quick extraction.

At velocities approaching relativistic speeds, at which Irral was approaching at .05 the speed of light, the Aegis cruiser would stand little chance, with his full dragon form in force.

It would take a paltry second to cross the vast distances between the edge of the aegis field, and the Aegis cruiser closest to his position, and upon impact, Irral would first strike against a shimmering curtain of light, the Aegis cruiser's shields flared brilliantly, but was ultimately incapable of repelling kinetic energies of that magnitude.

If the impact at near relativistic velocities didn't liquefy the insides of the dragon, he would after a split second find himself still sailing through space, with the Aegis cruiser broken in two, and drifting apart.

Flames, gases, and electrical arcs, along with hundreds of bodies danced through the blackness of space. But he would still be within the influence of an albeit slightly weaker anti-magic field, which meant he was likely unable to orient himself until he passed through, and outside the aegis field.

---

Aboard the Command Carrier, Montrose grit her teeth, as EVE informed her of the loss of an aegis cruiser.

"We cannot afford to lose any additional cruisers, if we do, the creature will regain it's magical capabilities and be able to attack us. His current velocity also makes any firing solutions ineffective. It's anticipated he will attempt to disable all of our aegis cruisers."

She keyed the fleet interface once more, ordering the robotics cruisers to begin launching drones, and they began to comply.

The two Hesperides class drone carriers began to release their compliment of Furie class drones, each Furie drone was spherical in appearance, wielding four MEC-A6 30mm KEWs, which fired a High-Explosive Armor Piercing round with a carbide penetrator.

Hundreds turned to thousands, thousands turned to tens of thousands, like bees spewing fourth from an angry hive, Irral would find himself contending with nearly two hundred thousand Furie drones that began to quickly close in.

"Initiate diversionary tactics, keep him from attacking the Aegis cruisers." EVE Recommended.

"Launch all fighters!" Montrose called out.

Two of the Hastati class cruisers followed suit, coming about, their shields flashed angrily as they moved into attack position. They too began to open fire, discharging brilliant green streams of turbodisruptor energy towards the dragon.

Each turbodisruptor bolt contained millions of degrees worth of thermal heat, enough to liquefy metal, and penetrate most ship hulls with ease, it was the standard mainline weapons platform of Aschen capital ship warfare.

Roughly 150,000km away from the Aschen formation, additional surges of energy came fourth, and another dozen ships jumped in.

A single Reverence II, the Perdition's Flame, escorted by a trio of powerful Iconoclast class battleships, a duo of Punisher class battleships, four Hastati class cruisers, and two Hera class fleet tenders.

The Fleet Tender began to make course towards the broken Aegis cruiser, where it would attempt combat rescue operations, and salvage.

The Reverence II slowly began to come about, bearing all one thousand five hundred starboard turbodisruptor batteries against Irral.

"Concentrate your fire on that creature!" Admiral Whitcomb bellowed aboard the CIC of the Perdition.

"Launch fighters!" She called out.

The Reverence II began to launch it's contingent of Raptor Talon, and Apollo fighters, by the dozens they streamed out of launch tubes located within the ventral sections of the ship, hundreds of glimmers of light, as squadrons of fighters began to deploy.

Aboard the Pride of Langara, EVE Chimed in.

"Additional fleet elements on station, Identified as Task Force Beta... Task force Constellation will arrive in two millicentons!"

The Emerald Eye, amidst explosions galore, began to rapidly absorb light once again. The catastrophe began to dim. Hundreds of glimmers of lights faded and flickered, those closest going out completely within 30 seconds of impact.

As the light absorbed, the wielder of the emerald eye pendant would have noticed a strong pull, an invasive thought, a growing itch. The Eyes were meant to be together. This one wished to return home.

The Green Beam of light, meanwhile, strengthened, widened, until it was a great beacon shining onto the wielder. It was almost as if the pull itself was coming from the green beam.

Irral's body shuddered with the weakening of the Aegis field, and now he could breathe again, his Magical abilities being slightly less restricted. Managing to turn his body, a majority of the incoming fire would likely miss him due to his speed, what did hit him would be distributed among his external scales, the tough material shining brilliantly as he let out a small growl of annoyed pain. That was hot! Once he was outside the Aegis Field, he immediately shrank to his human form again - figuring shooting at and tracking a twelve foot human form was much harder than a massive Dragon. However that also made the drones swarming him much more annoying. Twirling his Lance, he aimed to quickly dispatch them while his body began to radiate Draconian Light, and he zipped around the edge of the Aegis field, an arc of light trailing behind him similar to a comet tail. It was clear indeed that anything with anti-magical properties became his main focus, and there were three more Aegis cruisers for him to destroy.

The impact on the shield had acted as a Cushion, and the impact through the ship itself had slowed him down despite his high kinetic energy keeping him going. He couldn't handle more than two more of those kinds of impacts, he reasoned, before he would suffer permanent damage. Already he had Micro-Fractures along his body where he had impacted, and his muscles were highly strained. His Magical Healing properties wouldn't kick in unless all four of those cruisers were gone, and he was going to be unable to leave this place until they were dealt with as well.

At the same time, the Emerald Eye Pendant needed to be returned to the Door, and now it was showing him where it wanted to go. Irral paused, letting out an annoyed, yet pained grunt while keeping his speed as he darted around in an erratic pattern, not thinking about it, and thus making it all the more random as he moved. After a few seconds, he let out a mighty roar and, with the same speed as last time, charged the next Aegis Cruiser in his sight. Very much the same thing happened, with him transforming and maintaining his speed as he headed towards the Cruiser at break-neck speed, claws outstretched and now, roaring the whole time, an additional intimidation factor to stack upon his speed and size.

Straining himself, however, Irral did something different. Flaring out his wings, he was able to use them and just enough of his Magic power to slow himself down to the point where he would still be able to land on the surface of the Aegis Class Cruiser, and then jump off of it towards the next, and then to repeat that process for the fourth and final Aegis Cruiser. If he was successful, and didn't simply shatter the Cruiser into oblivion as he had the first, Irral would use his massive Blade-like tail to finish off the damage his initial impact would do, and aim to complete the cut, snapping the subsequent cruisers in half as well.

The Furie Drones however began to pose a problem, chipping away at his thicker scales on his back and flanks. As he continued his attack on the Aschen Fleet, Irral made it increasingly more difficult to target his belly and under-side, knowing that the rounds the Drones were firing would be able to penetrate his softer scales, and harm him. His Slowing down aided his efforts by allowing him to crouch low to the hull of the Aegis Cruisers as he attempted to hop between them, keeping his vulnerable belly safe, for the most part. The Fighters that were incoming, as well as the continued fire from the Hestati Cruisers and Reverence II concerned Irral greatly, and his body actually was reacting to the impacts now, scales and skin rippling, scales flaking off, and some rounds even penetrating, sinking slightly into his thick hide.

If the second Aegis Cruiser was successfully destroyed, Irral would not need to leave the field to regain control over his trajectory, and would be able to move as he pleased. The third would allow him to begin to heal himself and absorb insane amounts of Damage once more, and the forth would allow him to access his full strength, and teleport himself back to Terra without threat of being interrupted.

But he still needed to succeed in his efforts to destroy his targets first.

It took Irral moving at near relativistic velocities to destroy the first cruiser, and without moving at such velocities, he would likely learn quickly that the Aschen vessels were much more resilient than he gave them credit for.

They were anticipating these kinds of attacks now, and EVE had dissemenated the tactics and attack patterns Irral was using to the rest of the ship captains, along with tactical suggestions and possible ways to mitigate the damage he could deal.

"Utilize hard light shielding to protect from kinetic impacts."

What was at first a pliant cushion of shield turned into a hard, fast shimmering series of interlocking hexagonal plates, which radiated brightly with Irral's impact against the second Aegis cruiser. The hardlight behaved as if it was solid matter, providing a several meter gap between the shield barrier, and the hull of the cruiser itself.

"Hard light shields are holding." EVE reported.

It wouldn't be long until the Furie drones caught up with him, and while he managed to eliminate a great many of them outside of the magical suppression field, it seemed the two drone carriers simply continued to pour additional drones into the battlefield, though these drones seemed different.

Spherical in shape, like the furie drones, these Sentinel drones sported dozens of mechanical tentacle like appendages on their backs, multiple glowing blue eyes, and claw like appendages on the undersides of their chassis, which included things like sensor arrays, high powered cutting lasers, razor sharp hardened titanium claws, and all sorts of tools to carry out their objective.

They behaved much like a swarming, writhing mass as they moved from the nearest drone carrier.

Irral would find that each Aegis carrier he hopped to, would throw up this strange hexagonal barrier to protect itself from impact, but if Irral chose to try and strike the hexagonal plates of shimmering light, he would find with each impact, the hexagon would shift slightly red, along with the plates that endured weapons impacts from the nearby cruisers.

If the Furie drones reached him, they would form a sphere around him, constantly pummeling him with 30mm HEAP rounds until they were depleted, destroyed, or he managed to escape.

The Sentinel drones too, began to close their distance, their objectives clear, and while Irral could challenge the Aschen fleet, and EVE's increasingly optimistic predictions, escape was possible outside the aegis field, but that window too was closing fast, as the Command Carrier prepared it's planck field generator, which would inhibit forms of teleportation, portaling, FTL Jumps, and the like.

Among it all, Admiral Montrose continued to watch the holographic interface.

"Nobody challenges the Empire." She muttered to herself.

Irral's assault was halted. He hammered away at the hard-light shields for a good few minutes before the Drones formed their sphere around him and began their assault of 30mm fire. A single pained roar echoed from Irral's throat as the rounds started to shred his wings, which quickly spread out and rotated, swatting at a good majority of the drones around him while the Dragon flicked out his massive blade-like tail, aiming for another large portion of them while he turned towards the nearest edge of the Aegis Field.

He was taking far too much damage to sustain this much longer, and was going to be weakened to the point of capture, if not death if he wasn't careful. The Emerald Pendant had become a part of his magnificent scale formation on his chest, almost as a center-piece of the armor-like formation of Scales. It glowed madly, and its incessant pull towards Terra was getting on Irral's nerves. He would silence it by giving it what it wanted.

Heading as fast as he physically could without his magic to propel him, a good one-thousand times the speed of sound, Irral made a hasty retreat to the edge of the Aegis Field. Once he was outside, his body began to glow again, and his wounds began to heal rapidly. He turned, shifting into a humanoid-version of his Draconian Form, retaining the twelve-foot height, but now sporting his Scales rather than the armor, the scales forming a natural Armor as he turned, wings flared out to a twenty-five foot wing-span as his eleven foot tail twitched behind him. As he finished healing, he reverted fully to a Human form, the Armor returning, and his Lance appearing in his hand.

A Portal of Holy Draconian Light appeared behind him and he spread out his arms with another roar. A blinding flash of light would spread from his body, aiming to disrupt sensors and visual confirmation not via magic, but by sheer amount of Light being thrown around. Regardless of effectiveness, he would sink into the portal, heading back for Terra.

"Subject has retreated..." EVE reported. "It has taken the magical artifact with it, based on previous intelligence, I have extrapolated it's location, and am forwarding intelligence to the Imperial Intelligence Agency..."

"Update! Your task force has been redeployed to the Outlook system, I am uploading coordinates to Task forces Beta, and Constellation... it is recommended to commence jump."

Montrose huffed, while the wider Aschen fleet fell into formation, then disappeared as jump drives were engaged.

The strange cluster of stars in Pramia's night sky disappeared, one by one, as the battle came to an end.

Omnia giggled, thoroughly entertained with the show. She probably could've halted Irral's retreat long enough to see him torn asunder by the Aschen, but the Dragon was no issue and she was here only as an observer. "Guess that is that then... She decided to leave before the Aschen got their Planck field up and in range of her.

With a flash of light and distortion of space, Omnia was gone, off to Orbit Terra and provide tactical assistance to her Captain. The need to hurry was for naught, however, as the Aschen left the scene to pursue their quarry.

The Century Bomber continued to ascend into the sky, and it had quite the head start by the time the Battle-fighters had managed to get off the ground.

“Tango One, bogeys inbound on your six...” The Aschen radios chirped, and the trio of Raptor Talon starfighters began to enter combat formation.

Icebrand, Nacho, Husker, on me! The lead Talon pilot called into his radio, as the Battlefighters closed into their position.

The bomber pilots too were aware, as gunnery crews moved towards their turret emplacements, which swiveled to life along the length of the Century Bomber. At that moment, as Ashia closed in, the Raptor Talons broke away, flying in multiple different directions.

“Squadron, check... we have the target, weapons free!” Icebrand called into his radio.

Spinning around, Icebrand oriented his fighter around, and back towards the approaching Battle-fighter.

“We got a figure on the hull... I’ll try to target.” Icebrand reported.

The Century began to open fire, rapid-fire Voram-Thraxon A-6 MECS system that propelled a thirty-millimeter projectile at hyper-velocities. These projectiles peppered the battle-fighter, and were easily capable of penetrating the armor Ashia wore, though, even if the armor could stop the projectile, the sheer kinetic energy imparted would liquefy her insides.

“Target lock, fox one away!”

One of the Raptor Talons launched a missile, which seared towards the Battlefighter, drawn by the heat of it’s engines. The shaped charge would detonate on impact, this was timed at the moment Ashia fired her plasma beam, which meant it would likely miss the bomber entirely.

They had reached the altitude where Aschen ships in low orbit were garnering targeting solutions on Ashia’s fighter, if she continued to give chase, she would find herself up against an Aschen aegis cruiser, ready and willing to take her battlefighter down.

The Aschen Empire had established near total orbital supremacy over blackrock, and it was clear from the vast numbers of Aschen warships in orbit.

—-

Admiral Whitcomb was watching the displays rather intently, as EVE Fed her the data in real time.

General Nabaal was already planning her ground campaign, and the last pockets of resistance would soon surrender, or be wiped out.

The Aschen would make one thing clear, the rebellion against their authority would not be tolerated, calls for the RFE and the Militia to surrender were beginning to propagate across the planet. Those who joined the RFE after the bombing found their shanties burned to the ground, and their families executed.

Things would only get worse once General Nabaal arrived.

Ashia got a holophone prompt as she was flying around and trying to dodge the kinetic missiles the Aschen were sending her. Her plasma beam would have hit perfectly, but the Aschen had performed a maneuver which caused the laser to only hit a bit of the rear - a little bit damaging, but not nearly so much as it could have done. Overall, it had little effect on the bomber, which continued to pepper the RFME troops.
"No, Rome, I do not have an escort and I do not need one," Ashia said sufferingly. "I can handle myself, so you focus on the ground combat while I worry about the aerobatics. Besides, it would have cost way to much to make two or three more of these suits. I'll be fine, I promise." Then, after a moment, she pitied him and said, "I love you. Be careful."
She then switched off the holophone and focused on dodging those kinetic missiles. She had to pull a bit of bait-and-switch, and finally managed to throw them off course, but it had taken way too long. The Aschen began to gain ground. Ashia cursed softly. I need to figure out how to reduce their numbers. If we can whittle them down, we might have an advantage. But how? she wondered.

FOB Lyra
100 Kilometers south of Ruston
Provisional Command and Control Center
Blackrock Garrison



"--Aschen forces continue to encounter resistance in these pockets." EVE reported, as Admirals Clegg, and Whitcomb surveyed the hologram of Blackrock before them.

"These Rebels... they call themselves the Militia... and this Roman Fell Empire..." Whitcomb muttered, bringing her eyes up to Clegg. "They challenge our authority, attack our soldiers, and threaten to undermine everything we have built here." She growled, as Clegg nodded. "I hope that when General Nabaal arrives, we can put this rebellion down once, and for all."

Their conversation was drowned out briefly by the low rumble of a Reverence passing overhead, they had been coming and going for some time now, dropping cargo, soldiers, and materiel for the final push into rebel held territories.

Bryon considered the map before him, and then looked up to Whitcomb. "Why don't we just cut our losses, and hit them with a Thalaron device?"

"We can't do anything until the General arrives... but we can send a message."

Whitcomb then turned to EVE.

"We'll demand their surrender, failing that; we'll crush them."

EVE offered a brief nod. "Submitting authorization for Thalaron weapons deployment... authorization granted."

"Recommendation; surround, and encapsulate enemy forces while cutting off food, and medical supplies. Ensure local cooperation through the diligent enforcement of Aschen law. Victory is assured."

Whitcomb nodded.

Tentatively, she picked up the reciever, and began beaming a wide beam transmission towards the Roman Fell Empire, and the Militia.

"This is Admiral Elisha Whitcomb of the Aschen Empire's Blackrock Expeditionary Force; Requesting to be patched through to the entity in charge. I am calling for the total and unconditional surrender of the Militia, and those calling themselves the Roman Fell Empire; challenge us at your own peril. You have twenty four hours to respond to our demands before we commit to your complete, and assured destruction."

Hanging up the reciever, Whitcomb would await a response.

Once in range of the Aegis cruiser, it opened fire, sending up a thick wall of explosive flak towards the battlefighter, while the Century Bomber made it's final approach into a Reverence I Assault carrier.

At this point the scale of the Aschen occupation made itself evident, there would be no whittling down their numbers, because they would keep coming.

This was made clear as another grouping of Aschen ships winked into view in the distance, General Nabaal's fleet.

General Nabaal's fleet was immediatly under fire from countlless C.O.R.e. ships coming for reinforcements to re-uplink their forces on the planet. The hundreds of C.O.R.e. ships could not be destroyed easily, neither could their billions of troops that were coming as a never ending onslaught. General Whitecomb's ship was also being heavily bombarded.

--------

Down on Blackrock, some of the C.O.R.e. ships hit, and causing an immediate battle between the two. During the madness, Rome transmissioned all troops this simple message,"Blackrock is lost, either to C.O.R.e., or the God damned Ashcen. Get to a evac zone, my battalion and I will guard it untill all are gone, then we will follow. Good bye, and Godspeed to you all." And with that, all coms were cut with Rome, even between Ashia and him.

With that, all 23 battalions retreated, ecept that of Rome's.

"No... No!!" Ashia cursed. They were too strong. Yes, they were the Aschen, feared throughout the Multiverse. But she actually thought they would have a chance.
But they were too strong. Despite the combined efforts of the Roman-Militian troops, they could not defeat the Aschen Empire. Plus, the C.O.R.e. had somehow made a comeback (apparently, they had been dwelling on other planets) and were now serving purpose as a wildcard.
As her troops were given command to retreat, Ashia felt herself torn between staying behind and retreating. She knew it made tactical sense to retreat, and staying here would get her killed... but Godsdammit, this was her planet! Her country! She'd been born and raised on Blackrock. To Rome it was just another tally to his empire, but to her it was her home! And no matter how cesspool-y it was, she would defend it to the death if she needed to.
However, she came to the conclusion that she should retreat as well. The R-M needed top rest and recuperate. Perhaps the C.O.R.e. would wear the Aschen down, and then-
Suddenly, there was the sound of roaring winds and a popping noise as a fleet of 500 battleships appeared in the sky. Each one gleamed with a chrome that seemed to reflect light even better than a normal metal. On it's side was printed a symbol; an azure shield with a white edge.
Oh, hell, Ashia thought, the color draining from her face. The Protectors. This should be fun.
A deep male voice was broadcasted to all of the ships present, whether R-M, Aschen or C.O.R.e. "You fascist fools. Did you really think your villainous deeds would go unnoticed by us? We were just waiting for the precise moment to strike, when we'd have you all in one place." An edge began to creep into the voice. "The Kreios System belongs to the people, not some fascist regime. We're here to make sure it stays belonging to the people."
Within the lead ship of the Protectors, General Reavus DuMarkel turned to his captains and soldiers. "Attack all enemy vessels, whether they are attacking or retreating. Especially target Ex-Captain Ashia Nova, who is wanted for high crimes against the sanctity of the planet of Blackrock."
With that, the Protectors began firing on the various ships present. Ashia Nova had to dodge the laser blasts of five or so W-Wing Blade-Runners that were firing on her. A blast seared the side of her armor; it wasn't very damaging, but every hit counted.
"Dammit!" she said, trying to contact Rome to tell him to retreat as fast as he could. But he had cut off communications for her.
This is going to be a rough one, Ashia thought. She began dodging all the attacks being made on her as quickly as she could.

(OOC: Yes, I know, I kind of pulled the Protectors thing out of a hat. But I actually have established their existence in prior posts before, and I have been planning to introduce them. Also, I felt the action was getting to focused on Ashia, and so I wanted something to preoccupy her so other roles could shine.)

Some time later...

"FTL Jump complete..." Admiral Hanley reported, taking special command of the Imperial Flagship Gigashadow for this proverbial round two of the Blue Heaven Opening. This time, though, the Emperor wanted to make an impression, and the fleet was to be immediately mustered for honor guard.

The Gigashadow winked into existence roughly 200,000 kilometers from the hollowed out asteroid, flanked on either side by the Esteem, and the Profound Solitude II.

50,000 kilometers to the bow of the Gigashadow, the Pride of Langara, a 16km long Command Carrier winked in with about a dozen escorts, mostly Hastati class cruisers, a pair of Triarii class cruisers, and a duo of Athena class cruisers, along with a handful of Aegis class defense cruisers. The Pride of Langara took point, as about a dozen more escorts winked into existence. Their hulls shimmered in the light, and their intentions clear to all who turned their attention towards the Aschen.

The Imperial Honor guard had arrived.

One by one, the escorts took up defensive positions.

"Emperor's Condor is away!" The radio chirped. A single Condor class transport, escorted by five Raptor Talon starfighters began their course towards the station.

The system they had happened into, somehow, some way, was bustling with activity, with a proverbial millions of individual starships formed in orderly starlanes that stretched across the vastness of space like a spider's web, providing shimmering tendrils that stretched out among the stars.

One planet, became two, as their orbital paths revealed another verdant, continental world behind the first planet, this second planet was teeming with activity, with hundreds of thousands of starships coming, and going from various points onto the planet.

But, the unidentified vessel was being tracked from the moment it entered the Pan'chek system so danger close to the Langara-Pangar Exclusionary Zone.

A single watchtower crew kept their systems hyper-focused on the alien vessel, an entire team of technicians, and engineers pinging it's arrival on a large holographic interface.



"Command this is Watchtower, I have positive weapons lock on the approaching vessel, request permission to engage, all orbital defenses show green." A Control officer said in a calm voice, while she reached up and manipulated a vast point-and-click interface that was sprawled across a gleaming white control center.


"Command, this is Commander Papadopoulos, of the Adriatic, I'm CBDR to the unidentified vessel, requesting weapons free!" Hailed the Adriatic, a singular Hastati class cruiser, roughly 1.5 kilometers in length, bearing from a far flung region of the star system.

"Acknowledged, Adriatic Actual, this is the Harbinger of Piety, I'll be providing support, while coordinating fire from the Magna Thraecia ODPs, steer clear of flying singularities, we're evacuating the region now!" Admiral Elisha Whitcomb called out over the comms, as she manipulated the interface of her Reverence II, the Harbinger of Piety, flanked on one side by the RII Commitment and Patience, and the Imperious Class Command Carrier Sakala, commanded by Commander Mashad Sidiim, a rugged native of the savannahs of Leonis, hailing from the city of Hedon.

"ETA to contact, one Millicenton." EVE reported from her position near Admiral Whitcomb's station. "Unidentified vessel matches no known designs." The Admiral offered a curt nod, and then turned to her tactical officer.

"Get a Marine strike team in their Condors and prepare for boarding action." Admiral Whitcomb ordered.

"Send hostile challenge, and order them to surrender." The Admiral added, casting a gaze to EVE. The AI Nodded, and began transmitting a simple binary message that could be easily translated into whatever languages these aliens spoke.

"Attention Unidentified Vessel, you are ordered to power down your shields, weapons, engines, and any defensive countermeasures, prepare for boarding action, and immediate seizure. Any resistance will be met with force, you have thirty [SMALL TIME UNITS] to comply, or we will prosecute your vessel with all haste."

The message was transmitted on multiple radio frequencies, and it repeated.

Quietly, the Admiral watched the interface, as her battle group began to close on the singular vessel.

The Discovery VII caught the signal, to slight panic of the helmsman that was quickly suppressed. The translated words washed over the intercom of the ship, then the beckoning of Paul to the other Oberon Astronaut. It was quite obvious they had been detected. They weren't quite sure what to do, but quickly decided on cooperation, as they weren't sure of the level of reception they were recieving, but any untranslated communication from here on out would be defaulted as hostility. Making no attempt to move forward any farther or even to send a response to the senders of the signal, they froze all movement. For the first time, Paul noticed a thin line of metallic-seeming objects, but there was no time to observe now. They wanted to show a specific lack of hostile intent, so they only good choice they could make was absolute cooperation. Paul quickly uses his BrainPal interface to put in a quick log of what had just happened. By now, three of the four crewmates were waking up and slowly beginning to regain their senses.

The Sakala, began it's approach towards the unidentified vessel, flanked on each side by it's escorts, a pair of Triarii class cruisers, the long, dagger shaped vessels flanked the Command Carrier, but one of the Triarii class ships began to accelerate, but not before the Adriatic began to spool it's FTL Drives.

It crossed from point A to point B in an instant, winking across vast distances in one single jump, this allowed the details of the Adriatic to be seen up close, it was sleek, appeared heavily armored, and quite large compared to the Discovery. It was bristling with what appeared to be weapons batteries, and they were all trained on the one lone ship. Unusual alien text, and a large phoenix shield crest were emblazoned on the side of the vessel.

The Commander watched the display closely, as the cruiser maintained it's weapons lock on the much smaller ship. They had come to the lion's den, and the Commander knew this. Two Condor's emerged from a hangar bay on the dorsal side of the cruiser, whipping around, they began their course towards the Discovery, each Condor was filled with a squad of about eight Imperial Marines, and two Adepts of War.

They would make contact in about thirty seconds.

For twenty of those seconds, the Discovery was a quick blur of activity. The second helmsman quickly threw himself through the zero gravity of the ship towards the CRYO room, and as he was doing so, the remaining crew were awakening. That was the first five seconds. In the next three, Paul, the helmsman, took three pictures of the large ship, and one of the crest upon it, which he quickly messaged back to Klendath. It would be an hour until they got it. While he was doing this, Will, the second helmsman, arrived in the CryoPod room. He quickly transmitted a stream of data into each of the crew's formerly dormant members detailing what was happening, which took about four seconds. One of them, different from the others by the fact he had green skin, a mark of the service in the Colonial Union, quickly reacted, getting out of the pod almost immediately. The others weren't as quick, but woke in about another two seconds.

And then they all stopped.
They had no idea what they should do.

The last six seconds was different for Paul, compared to the other crew. He was suppressing panic, and barely managed to do so. He grabbed up a wrench floating through the zero gravity, a heavy thing, and quickly moved to the airlock.