Leia Nash's Story

Despite millions of Daemons infesting the planet, the Aschen on the ground remained defiant to the last man, from the towering Bloodthirsters of Khorne, which after peppering them with disruptor fire that was found to be useless, would be subject to heavier weapons for now.

Across a town square, roughly a hundred feet or so from a raging Khorne Bloodthirster, a small squad of Aschen were calibrating their laser rangefinder, surrounded entirely by Chaos and raging daemons, they kept to their objective, even as the voices slowly crept into their minds.

"I've got one, Two seven three carom one nine six, requesting aerial support."

"Acknowledged, Aurora Alphas inbound!"

---

The Rampaging bloodthirster would be subject to the full might of this particular sortie, two Aurora Alpha tactical bombers launched from a nearby airfield, and at hypersonic speeds they passed over the greater Daemon of Khorne.

Each of the two Aurora Alphas dropped four 15,000 pound Joint-Direct Attack Munitions, which were a guided bomb directly upon the Daemon, with enough explosive force to level an entire city block it was hoped the Bloodthirster would be torn to shreds by the massive explosive force wrought by the munitions.

As quickly as the bombers came, they were gone.

---

Aboard the Absolution, Admiral Nash was going over every possible scenario, alarms blared all around her, and CIC officers worked diligently, shouting orders, but that was quickly silenced as the entire vessel shuddered, with all it's might the blade that had tried to skewer the ship, found that the ship still stood in defiance, the tip of the blade trapped in a shimmering milky white barrier that extended all around the ship.

The initial impact rippled energy across the barrier outwards in all directions, but all forward momentum of the blade was stopped then and there, though the shields began to protest and ripple more under the pressure of the blade as it attempted to skewer the ship.

"Admiral! Ventral shields are collapsing! The Planck packs are overloading! That rift isn't closing!" A Bridge officer shouted.

"Ventral shield emitters are beginning to overheat! That thing is trying to drag us into the rift!"

Grasping the railing, Nash called out. "Get two Tricobalt warheads primed and fire them at that rift! Let's hope the spatial tearing will destabilize the rift! We are not losing this planet!"

While the blade failed to pierce the powerful defense shields of the Absolution, the Reverence II was still struggling to keep from being pulled into the warp, it's massive engines fired in protest, attempting to dislodge it from the Blade, but also divert power to it's ventral shields, which shimmered even brighter in defiance.

Two armored panels retracted on the dorsal side of the carrier, and a pair of Thunderbolt missiles rocketed fourth, surging towards the event horizon of the rift, and detonating into massive spatial tears of their own, these tears were tears to subspace, with the resulting eddies from subspace starting to destabilize the very fabric of reality

The warp tear included.

"Sir! Shields are not going to hold forever! I've also got a DRADIS Contact! It's a Thunderbolt missile! I'm detecting Thalaron signatures!"

A snap decision had to be made, and Admiral Nash prepared a daring escape. "Disengage the Planck packs, the moment the planck packs disengage, disengage the shields and jump!"

The Absolution's XO Shouted in protest. "Coordinates?"

Nash quickly shouted in response. "No time, just do it, Colonel!"

---

In a Synchronized fashion, the Planck fields and the Absolution's shields disengaged, freeing the blade, but before it could make contact with the hull, the massive carrier winked away, the resultant void causing a massive rush of air and spatial energies to fill it.

Immediately after there was a brilliant flash of green in the skies above Illumene, and in an instant the entire Blackout Zone would be rendered devoid of life, as the Thalaron radiation spread quickly, destroying all organic matter, Human and Daemon alike, turning them into petrified statues where flesh once was.

The blade withdrew from realspace, a dark laughter filling the minds of all upon the planet, the subspace tears being eaten by the warp tear forcing it to grow, risking the creation of a permanent warp rift, however the tear would of its own volition close, or so many would think, feasted the daemons faded from reality, no evidence of their being there apart from destruction wrought by them and the aschen, and the added destruction caused by the thalaron device, only hit them with further blame.

Sigun watched through his powers of prescience watching the aschen ship abandon the planet to its fate, he left a message ingrained in all minds upon the planet and even those of the crew of the fleeing reverence II class ship “you squabble and fight fate, the fate that my lord Tzeentch has written, know this mortals of the aschen, this war is already won, you haven’t realised it yet, your own governments resort to self destruction, consigning billions to oblivion, at the mere presence of a single agent of mine, they do not hold any safety for you, bend your knee to chaos and know freedom, know the power to decide your own fate. The choice is yours…”

Sigun strode through the Lost hope spacehulk towards the Armageddon once aboard his ship he made his way to the bridge and looked across his crew “ALL WARRIORS OF THE ARMAGEDDON HEAR YOUR LORD, WE READY TO JOIN THE FLEET IN THE AURORA![/b]

Falling back to seat down in his throne, Sigun looked out into the warp beyond those windows and low under his breath he spoke “The seeds of chaos are sowed…” The 20km ship disengaged from the spacehulk and floated away from the moon sized amalgamation of ships rock and flesh, other smaller ships, those of heretics, renegades and traitors flooding to join the crimson slaughter the [i]Armageddon began its warp jump to meet with the fleet.

For ill or better.

For every action, there was an equal and opposite reaction...

The small colonial world of Chaya Sar would be avenged, that was the promise that Emperor Prince made to the Imperial Admiralty after receiving the distress call.

"They will be avenged..."


"..We've tracked the hostile vessels to this sector of the Ayenee galaxy that we've identified as Cobalt Edge, a previously Varden territory under the occupation of an Emperor Mor, and Something called a Sith Empire." Lieutenant Ogilvy reported, handing the paperwork to Admiral Leia Nash, the supreme Commander of Operation 'Sword of Retribution.'

"I've compiled reports from preliminary long range scans of the area from Prowler flights in and out of the system, it's heavily fortified, but intelligence reports that our warships outclass theirs by a fairly wide margin." He added, maintaining a rigid posture.

Admiral Clegg stood in silence as he listened to the preliminary planning session, at roughly a thousand light years away, masked by a dense radiation cloud.

Nash kept a stern look, the interior of the Absolution bearing the fresh scars from their fight over Isiria, the outer hull was spared no exception, but fortune smiled on their blind jump, and they had managed to jump somewhere close enough to regain their bearings and jump back to the Empire.

"We'll launch forward reconnaissance elements, tag the positions of their vessels, and initiate with a quantum plasmid and thalaron volley from our missile cruisers, from there, Task forces one and two will jump in here... and here." She said, gesturing to the holographic map.

"They will acquire targeting solutions, and open fire immediately after jumping." Nash explained.

"Formations of Gemenon class cruisers, and Athena missile cruisers will jump here, beyond this dust cloud, they will use telemetry from the Datalink to saturate the enemy formations with high-yield warheads, ensure the Commanders of these ships avoid friendly fire."

"Inform the fleet to synchronize their jump drives, We'll initiate the operation in one millicenton." Nash said confidently. "You're dismissed."

Bryon was the first to depart, leaving the embattled Absolution to board the Keeper of Abbasid.


Everyone conferred with their crews, plans were being drawn up, attack plans disseminated and prepared, a well as jump plots, but one ship in particular, a Reverence S Class jumped into the system itself, carefully positioned behind the moon of a gas giant.

Engaging it's cloak, the singular Aschen ship moved silently, garnering telemetry on both planetary position, and the positions of almost every warship within Cobalt Edge, critical information for the coming strike.

As soon as Choi left the Sith Emperor concentrated upon every force adept under his sway within Cobalt Edge. Those silver masked coteries aboard every vessel and stationed on every planet within this nexus of the Force began to divide and conquer as the vessels and planetary defenses of every nation within the sector began to act cutting off entry and exit through the now not so strange technology that the previous inhabitants left for them.

The Infinite Empire seemed to fully come alive as ships from every quadrant came to life both those manned by droids and organic soldiers alike. Every ship that was not fully automated by a compliment of a droid crew felt invigorated and pushed by zeal alone as Mor and all his coterie he connected with amplified his battle meditation.

Meanwhile Atom 7k awoke to several disturbances within his grid and began to examine the stars and planets helping speed the information along as Mars Corp. and the Crimson Legion began to implement the information and direct fighters and activate planetary defenses upon their own accord.

The Icy planet bellow began to erect a planet wide shield whilst several silver masked force adepts kneeled before their Emperor and offered their own essence to amplify what Mor already had. Soon he would look upon his space he controlled not through the use of a control panel or a communications screen but simply through the Force. All life and all things would be clear to him as he expanded upon the principle of battle meditation only to amplify it more.

(Posting Order. Princess, Marcus, and then Fife. Sorry for the small post guys.)

It didn't take long for the singular Reverence S to acquire the signature of the battle station, though it's shields were active the moment it jumped in, they did everything they could to defend the lone Aschen ship from the weapon's impact.

The green beam slammed into the milky white shields of the Aschen ship, which flared brilliantly as the energies were dissipated across the entirety of the bubble, but even Aschen shields could not repel firepower of that magnitude.

A small tendril of green pierced the veil of light, and impaled the Reverence S, gouging a hole several meters wide into it's Kanvium hull, exposing decks, and venting debris and a few people that weren't vaporized into space.

The entire ship shuddered, and the CIC was pandemonium.

"Shields are down! We have hull breaches in all decks, aft section! Engines one and two are down! FTL is down!"

"Damage control to Aft Sections! Put those fires out!"

"All hands defensive positions!"

Finally the Commander managed to regain order, with an axial spin, and several key systems offline, he made a snap decision. "Take us out of phase! Now!"

"Phase Shift generators are still active! Transitioning now!"

As the Droid star-fighters closed in, the crippled Aschen ship managed to completely disappear, vanishing from even the most sensitive scanners.

In this mode, the Aschen ship was outside realspace, and could not interact with anything outside of it's phase shift bubble, likewise further attacks would pass right through the Aschen ship as if it wasn't there, as it technically wasn't.

However, though they were out of phase, the engines and FTL were down, which meant the lone ship was dead in the water for now.

---

The main fleet had finally arrived, utilizing the telemetry, they jumped in just beyond the Ice Planet's star's Heliopause, the debris from the Oort cloud obscured the true number of Aschen vessels, and both the Keeper of Abassid, and the Absolution were the first to take position, as a dozen or so Aegis cruisers took up formation around the two command ships.

Bouncing energy back and fourth among their position, a massive canopy shield was erected around the two Command ships and their escorts, a canopy shield that could withstand even a fully powered super-laser shot, or even a sustained turbolaser bombardment.

Thousands of Aschen ships took up position, from Reverence Is to Hastati class cruisers, settling into combat formation, hundreds of Galaxy and Hera class robotics cruisers, along with Satyr and Gemino class Drone Carriers took up formation among the fleet.

The Electronic warfare would be the first to begin.

Broadcasting on a powerful wireless frequency, the Droids aboard the Sith vessels, and the Starfighters would likely begin to experience glitches, perhaps a delay in executive functions, as the Aschen began to broadcast powerful jamming fields, Planck fields around their formation to prevent any unexpected surprises, and ECM Jamming fields, which meant the Sith vessels, including the Death star would find it oddly difficult to target the Aschen ships, and at these distances, hitting anything below a Reverence II in size would be next to impossible.

Millions of Signatures appeared all throughout the system, false signatures broadcast from the Robotics cruisers. Both droids in ships, and those in space would likely find it increasingly difficult to function, as the hacking became relentless.

Missiles would be unable to find their targets should the Sith choose to launch them, diverting wildly off course once exposed to the Aschen jamming fields.

Hundreds of thousands of Drone Starfighters poured fourth from the Drone carriers, with massive AI Banks controlling entire squadrons at a time with a computation rate that was beyond even the human mind.

Each Furie class Combat Drone was armed with twin 30mm A6 Mass Accelerator Cannons, mounted under the wings, and inside the wings themselves were enclosed missile bays that contained five 150 kiloton nuclear warheads mounted on a rotating rack.

Hundreds of Thousands of Furie class drones surged fourth towards anything they could find, and the enemy would find that ray shielding was useless, as the solid mass slugs tore through shields unhindered, and shredded armor alike. Even the most resilient starfighter would likely be torn asunder by the sheer number of unmanned drones being deployed.

They never seemed to end...

With each Fury drone killed, ten took it's place as they seemed to keep pouring from the Drone Carriers, manufactured in real time via Light-Mass fabrication.

They merely served as a distraction...

Moving fourth, executing tactical jumps the Aschen encroached on the defending ships, some of them jumping within scant dozens of meters of an enemy ship.

One Star destroyer was unlucky enough, that a Hastati Cruiser jumped within three meters, hull to hull, the resulting spatial displacement would ripple across the Star Destroyer, before the Hastati Class cruiser brought it's ventral Turbodisruptor banks to life, unleashing a withering salvo against it's Shields, which likely wouldn't last mere moments before the unstable energies from the Aschen weapons fire overloaded the generator.

The Keeper of Abassid executed it's own jump, as Admiral Clegg opted to jump directly into the din of battle.

The 16km Command Carrier winked in amidst a formation of Star Destroyers, it's gargantuan shields easily shrugging off even the most concentrated turbo-laser fire.

Swiveling it's Frag Cannons, the Keeper of Abassid unleashed a torrent of slugs in all directions, with each slug easily capable of putting a hole clean through even the mightiest Capital ship. The Backbreaking release of kinetic energies likely making short work of the Sith vessels, as the Frag Cannon was almost unstoppable, and shields were a useless defense against them.

The World Devastators were not spared either, as a dozen Iconoclast, and Punisher class battleships jumped into a wide delta formation, concentrating their punishing SuperMAC Batteries on the World Devastators, each Ferric-Tungsten slug moving at 36,000 Kilometers per second, which was a staggering twelve percent of light speed, and was highly likely the World Devastators would be unable to withstand such withering firepower.

That left the Death Star...

Hundreds of Thunderbolt missiles from Athena cruisers Light years away would make quick work of the heavily armed and armored battlestation, as they jumped in within a scant 100 Kilometers, they released hundreds of individual Independent warheads, each containing a 25,000 Teracochrane Tricobalt warhead, these warheads were self guided, and immune to outside influence. Among those hundreds of warheads were decoys, which meant that any point defense systems would have to contend with both live warheads, and decoys.

Each detonation on the hull of the Battlestation would tear a hole into subspace, the resulting rift in the very fabric of space and time would be almost impossible to defend against, the resultant yawning chasm into subspace threatening to tear the Battlestation in two, and this tear only got worse with each Tricobalt detonation.

The withering salvo of Tricobalt munitions on the fabric of space and time in this system was akin to someone taking a machete to a carpet, hacking, slashing, and rending asunder the very reality of space.

The Battlestation would likely stand little chance, as the mightiest of shields and the thickest of armors were all but useless to these types of weaponry.

The Battle was now underway, the full might of the Aschen Empire coming to bear, seeking retribution for their loss.

Whilst the emptiness of the void was suddenly filling with metal and energy and plasma and death born upon firey wings, something dark and distant and unnatural was birthing itself. The region was saturated with the filth of hyperdrives and slipstreams of interstellar travel, the fabric of reality was sundered into infinitesimal fragments as the veil between the void and the emptiness was split over and over and over as craft by the hundred slipped through the passage of worlds.

And as they tore across the galaxy in their vain quest to wreck a great plague upon each other, they in their folly and their haste caused something very dark to strike not just their location but their very reality itself. Where the thin veil was already weakened, a probing tendril was able to locate this thinning and with the force of an inexorable god sundered it.

Light and time and matter and nothingness converged in on itself as bolts of green energy and light shattered in an open space just within sight of the growing battle of foolhardy ships. And as the bolts grew in size they grew too in frequency until they warped and crackled together and in their combined might they tore the heart out of creation itself as an impossible tear elongated and warped as though it were a bubble born from the crust of a planet.

This bubble of light and energy which seared at anything that dared venture too close elongated and stretched until it was just over a kilometer long and near half as wide, a double curve like some form of extraterrestrial egg and as sudden as it had formed itself the egg cracked and shattered, revealing a vast and utterly alien ship.

The ship hung there, silent and unmoving until a shock of purple light seemed to sliver up the sharp edges of its armour, hard points fluttered with an energy that blinked out of existence should one dare to look at it for too long. Energy began to spike to a point beyond counting as it escalated to a point that hardly seemed even possible by any standards. The ship had awoken, with shields that barely registered in the visual spectrum and a great incandescent glow that seemed to glitter at its edge. Though what it's purpose was remained unclear for now.

Yet at the prow of the vessel, metal plating retracted over view ports and screens to reveal the bridge to the outside world, hiding from whatever maddening realm they had passed through in order to reach here. The bridge was small, only room for seven officers as well as the ships commander. It was from here that they could observe all that stretched before them and what they saw did not please them.

"Ship-Master... We have arrived." These aliens, all clad head to toe in armour which made detailing their physical form impossible, spoke not with their voices but with their minds, through the very ship they piloted they were connected to each other and could communicate at the speed of information itself.
"Where is here exactly helm? Have we found something new?"
"Impossible to tell right now sir, readings are recalibrating but... It seems we have been successful, we breached the dimensional barrier. We may be the first beings to enter the third dimension." The thoughts of joy and wonder were so rapidly shattered that it seemed they had hardly taken a chance to blink.
"Sir, I'm afraid that's not entirely correct, this region seems to be populated... And not too friendly either. I'm reading multiple hostiles with more incoming."
"Understood, power up all systems, prepare the Constructs for combat, it would appear that we have not yet left the threat behind. We are the last hope for our people, we cannot allow it to end here."

Whilst the battle began before the, the lone ship waited and watched for any that would be daring or foolish enough to move against them first.

Atom 7K would have simply scoffed at the idea of a foreign body invading his matrixes and initiation cyber warfare without even considering his background count. The Noise was ever present but the Council A.I. simply pressed the advantage by searching out the red herrings and sending viral code out towards the enemy ships. The artificial intelligence released his agents to work with a multitude of programs that ranged in the thousands as attack ICE began to search and counter the intense Aschen invasion as fragmented code began to derail the attempt at slowing down the Sith war efforts.

"I was baptized in Data, I'm Atom 7K....." The A.I. began to enjoy this little game of cat and mouse as those millions of signatures began to find themselves dwindling to just a few thousand. Within seconds the broadcasted signals then shrank to hundreds if not less. Even the droids aboard Vihn's ship would seem to work with more tenacity as they interfaced with the agents and their artificial master. So long as Atom remained operational those glitches and delays would be dealt with and dealt back tenfold as his patrol ICE would begin to slow and brick primary Aschen systems aboard their invading ships.

Meanwhile what ships that continued to fight with tenacity not seen before as Emperor Mor and his coteries continued to amplify the Sith Emperors battle meditation. The Droid fighters may have been under the influence of the A.I. but the biological troopers and ships with living crews continued to fight on. For every ship lost however two more would take its place as Cobalt Edge housed several Star Forges that seemed to continuously produce more and more droids and ships to wage this war.

Word filtered back to Vinh as she watched the fight from her flagship. Moving controls on a holotable before her she watched the fight unfold. A ring of five Death Star Battlestations formed and fired on a centeral point in space as a sixth death star fired on the beam of the other five, directing the shot at the main carrier moving things it seemed.

The delta formation of fighters and ships met a stiff wall of defense as countless droid starfighters swarmed the area and moved closer to the core of the delta formation to destroy it. The system was packed with ships as it was, how could they get in ? It didnt matter. Vinh was going to see victory for once her own way.

Behind her mask she watched everything carefully. Perfect. The battle was unfolding how she wanted. Exactly how she wanted. She smirked at the loss of a stardestroyer when another ship warped into the system too damn close. Directing her attention on the ship she used the Force, causing the reactor to shut down and then go critical. She felt the tinest hints of intrusion into her own mental systems of her rebuilt braincase but smirked darkley behind hermask as Lord Mor's Ai countered it easily.

The star destroyer that was destroyed wasnt a big loss, but when a few more were lost it didnt really matter, Vinh could make dozens more to fill their place. Sure Vinh was unhappy she lost ships, but she didnt lose her flagship, that would suck greatly

Her goal was to be met. She was in hope of forcing the attackers into a deadly trap she had the battlestations once more open fire as Super Star Destroyers rained hell on the enemy ships. An hour passed, maybe more as the the Sith observed the fleet of her own being bolstered by the numerous star forges churning out ships.

Vinh smirked in victory. The battle would be hers ? Hopefully so as they outnumbered the enemy fleet it appeared, even with the destruction on both sides Her happiness amplified through a radio hail from Victor that her stolen vessel had been recovered successful with no damage to the ship.

Vinh began building then what she knew was possibly thel argest ever vessel in the fleet, but it wasnt going to be enough. She knew that to begin building the vessel as fast as possible was one thing, but to have it have air to breathe was entirely another. So building the massive cruiser would take time. And hopefully it could end up the way she hoped

On one of the planets, Celos IV infact, just outside the battle zone, tempers flaired and a battle began on the planet,. Sadly Vinh couldnt be called upon to quell the sudden rebellion. As she herself had gone to face an old friend....

It was supposed to be a generic reconnaissance deployment for Admiral Nash and the Aschen Empires Reverence II class planetary assault carrier and her nameplate identified her as the Absolution.

The thirty kilometer long ship winked suddenly into the system with a brief spatial tear, and a brilliant flash of white light. She was escorted by about a dozen capital ships, which were glimmers compared to the size of this mammoth Aschen warship.

Settling into position inside the void, Admiral Nash looked at a mostly empty holographic display, save for what appeared to be sensor readings on the far side of the system.

"Unidentified vessels detected, designs and markings have no matches in all existing databases." EVE chimed in, her voice echoing through the interior of the CIC.

Admiral Nash grimaced, and then gave her orders.

"Order the fleet to move into defensive position, set condition yellow, and send hostile challenge and ID. Push the reply up onto the speakers." Nash ordered.

The flickering hologram of Eve offered a slight nod, before broadcasting with a monotone voice across several frequencies in a basic mathematical language that could be easily translated.

"Attention unidentified vessels, this is the Absolution. Please identify yourselves at once."

Incoming supercapital. The locals have arrived, madam.

Aurora could already feel them, the cluster of grit which had begun to scrape against her spiderweb of sensory nodes. She could smell the iron in their hulls, and she relished in the ochre burn which reminded her so deeply of her mission.

Initiate jamming, all systems status red.

she responded, immediately resulting in the emission of a wide-range band of radiation from the fleet's outermost vessels being blasted in a conical section towards the cluster of ships ahead of them. As the beams arrived upon their targets, they began to modulate and narrow towards any reflection or energetic emission, honing in on any potentially sensitive sensors or communication devices.

She glanced towards the deploying ships, which had already begun to make their slipstream towards their target. She nodded before looking over towards engineering, expecting a readout of results at any time.

"Admiral, I am detecting some form of radiation that seems to be focusing on points where sensor arrays are located on this ship, they appear to be trying to jam our sensors." Eve reported as the cone of radiation incoming from the alien fleet was highlighted.

Nash leaned forward and inspected the holographic readout.

"Bring our ships into defensive formation alpha, move our aegis cruisers into aegis field position. Move the missile carriers out of their weapons and sensor range. Power to shields and weapons."

Nash paused for a moment, before she turned to her executive officer.

"All hands, action stations."

Alarms began to blare, and the white CIC lighting shifted to a deep red. The holographic projection flickered into a tactical readout, displaying shield strength, and damage statistics across the entire ship, as well as linking the command systems of all escort ships through a tight band subspace frequency that could not be jammed.

The aschen vessel lurched forward, a milky white ribbon of light coalesced into a bubble around the vessel and began to easily disperse the cone of radiation around it.

A similar ribbon of light coalesced around the ships escorts as they moved into a tight formation around the Absolution.

A second message went out in the same mathematical language, as shields would block any attempts to further probe the aschen vessels with a staticky band of interference.

"Unidentified vessels, This is a military vessel aligned with the United Aschen Empire. Your actions are currently being construed as hostile, disengage at once or we will be forced to respond."

Target has engaged active shielding, giving us a lock.

the tactical officer reported with a smile. He had enjoyed the pleasure of activating the frame relay once before, a spectacle not many generations of Hegelians had the privilege of experiencing. The prospect of getting to use it again was tantalizing.

Let's probe their network,

Aurora said, rising to her feet. The more information about this new universe she could gather now, the faster she'd be able to secure her objective and move on to the next.

The millions of Hegelian ships which now dominated the region had apparently attracted the attention of a well-armed civilization, but one unfamiliar to her or The Hyacinth's genetically-encoded archives.

Charge status for Frame Relay?

she finished, injecting another order into Engineering's queue.

Fortunately, her born-to-fit crew were already synchronized with her intent, and had already placed the response on top of the stack.

Frame Relay ready for naught-point-five timedrag. 12 candidates for void recovery, with three distinct galaxies reporting linkages to the target. Satellite fleet secured, we have The Harrfeldt holding naught-point-two gamma five.

Aurora smiled, walking forward on the overlook towards the hundred-meter display ahead of them. She waited silently, staring down her soon-to-be prey through the filtered optics of her symbiotic host.

Staring at the display, these Xenos didn't back down, and with a sidelong glance to Eve, and then her tactical officer she spoke up.

"Any replies?"

The Tactical officer shook his head. "Nothing, Admiral."

At that moment EVEs voice interrupted the train of thought.

"Unidentified vessels designs, markings, and patterns have been logged for further analysis, however, their hostile intent is clear, and we are not equipped for protracted engagement with forces where strength and disposition are unknown to us." The AI advised.

"We should jump to a more advantageous position, and signal the fleet." Eve added.

Admiral Nash nodded in agreement. She would have to report this encounter to Admiral Hanley, and Chairman Inviere. From there she could make the fleet aware of what she found.

"Secondary FTL is spooled, and escort ships have synchronized for jump" Eve reported.

Running a hand through her hair, Leia Nash opted to give her next order.

"Lock ftl coordinates for the Tal'dor system." Nash ordered.

"Jump on my mark... Mark."

The small contingent of Aschen vessels would abruptly, and suddenly disappear in the same wink of light, and spatial energies that they appeared in, retreating from the field.

The wonderful thing about aschen FTL was that it acted nearly instantaneous.

The Absolution flickered into high orbit, an iff exchange was made, and the escorting ships quickly settled into position.

"IDF actual, this is Absolution Actual. Admiral Hanley, requesting secure channel..."

...

"Why don't you take the rest of your fleet, Admiral Nash. Return to the sector, pacify the hostile resistance you encountered, and complete your mission?" Admiral Hanley inquired over the holographic feed.

"Well, we don't know what kind of strength, and disposition they have; if we want to secure the sector, I need the assistance of at least one other fleet." Admiral Nash rebuked, as she shifted her stance at the console, pursing her lips.

"EVE reported the vessels are organic in nature, why don't you use Thalaron weapons to take them out?" Hanley asked, staring down at Admiral Nash from the large view-screen at the far end of the CIC.

"Admiral..." Nash tried to argue.

"Ad Victoriam, Admiral Nash." Hanley added before she terminated the link, providing EVE with a sequence of orders.

"Registering new orders, Admiral Nash, you've been instructed by command to return to the system with the fleet, pacify any local resistance, and continue surveying."

Grimacing, the Admiral turned to her XO.

"Spool the drives, lock in coordinates to the system we just left... Signal the fleet, and go to action stations.."

Twenty Minutes Later...

On the far end of the star system, there was another spatial wink against the backdrop of space. The Reverence II 'Absolution' appeared again, this time with a second Planetary Assault Carrier; the Reverence II 'Bloodied Spirit' along with a third capital ship, this one bearing a much different design from the bulbous Reverence class.

The Imperious class Command Carrier Athos, and the Iconoclast Class Battleships, Inomine Veritas, The Righteous Endeavor, and the Solar Wyvern.

Taking up defensive positions alongside the Absolution, the Aschen fleet began to advance slowly, as additional vessels began to jump into position. Specifically the Hastati class cruisers Bum Rush, and Flash of Steel which took up defensive positions roughly 1,500 kilometers above the Absolution's bow.

Hundreds of Aschen warships flickered into the playing field, from the 1.5 Kilometer long Hastati class, to the 500 meter Gemino, and Picon class frigates.

Each Aschen warship was armed to the teeth, jumping in with weapons at the ready, shields hot, and moving into defensive formation.

Four Aegis class cruisers took up positions in a rough diamond shape around the entire fleet formation, their Aegis field generators beginning to charge to provide fleet wide ECW, and shield defense.

Through it all, Admiral Nash checked the readouts. EVE reported that all of the ships had checked in. Four thousand six hundred combat capable Aschen warships moved into a capital phalanx position, spaced out far enough to provide overlapping fields of fire, but also far enough that Area denial weapons would have little effect.

"We have targeting solutions for all thunderbolt missiles. Thalaron warheads are being loaded into the missiles now, and they should be ready to deploy in one millicenton."

Admiral Nash grinned slightly, the use of Thalaron radiation would tear the organic vessels down at the molecular level, poisoning them and slowly turning the organic components to ash.

"Tricobalt Torpedoes in the tubes, and ready to fire!" Another tactical officer called out.

With the assembled fleet in position, and peacocking a show of force, Admiral Nash prepared to carry out her objective.

"Let's get Prowlers into the void and start taking pictures, we'll finish our survey and get out of here. All vessels keep your shields up! Do not fire unless fired upon!"

Licking her lips the Admiral continued.

"If they open fire; light them up!"

They've returned, with friends.

barked the tactical officer. The main display was glittering with data as the Aschen fleet spread out across the space before them.

Aurora turned her attention from the engineering data, which she had been carefully perusing for the past twenty minutes, gaining more knowledge about this universe by the moment. Course calculation was at 20%, given them just over another 90 minutes until a final solution was found. She looked up at the show of force before her, a familiar occasion with every expansion of the Hegelian Empire.

All fleet, hold solution. Prepare Standard for Broadcast.

The sheen of iridescence glittered in the dim, distant sunlight, extending at first to a few lithely tendrils before fanning out across a few kilometers from the closely-arranged ships. These translucent tentacles began to curl and wrap themselves around one another, merging into a nest of faint, transitory fields.

The star in the distance seemed to dim, almost as if occluded by some unknown debris field. Surely the debris scattered through this system hadn't vaporized already; what was going on?

Aurora stood, stern-faced, on the balcony overlooking her symbiote's command centre as the small fleet before her entered its formation. A new era, complete with new resources including the positive confirmation of void energy, and yet another smudge to remove from the Hegelian Empire.

Three Hecatoncheires class drone carriers took up position near the Bloodied Spirit, large bay doors opening up on the ventral sides of these dagger shaped vessels.

Hundreds of thousands of spherical Furie class drones poured from the bellies of these vessels, swarming around the Bloodied Spirit.

Admiral Nash resolved herself, steeling her mind for what was inevitably going to come next. One of the Absolution's bay doors opened up, but from the perspective of the Hegelians, nothing would seem to emerge. However that was not the case. About a dozen Prowler type stealth reconnaissance craft darted from the belly of the ship. Their Obscura Mk II Phased stealth systems placed each craft slightly out of phase, which made them undetectable to all those who did not possess transphasic capable scanners.

Armored panels retracted all along the Absolution, exposing thousands of dual-barreled Turbodisruptor cannons, each capable of delivering a nadion pulse within a plasma envelope, which delivered the equivalent of roughly 14.6 Megatons of TNT with each discharge. This was the staple of the Aschen Empire, and it was these weapons that felled countless ships in battle.

"Fleet reports Action ready." The XO reported.

Nash nodded, before she picked up the intercom, broadcasting a channel to the entire Aschen fleet.

"Men and women of the fleet! This is the Admiral! This system is currently being contested by a civilization we have not encountered before. Their ships are alien to us, we know not either their power, or their disposition. But one thing is for certain! We are the men and women of the Imperial Aschen Navy! Our warships are second to none! And what do we do with aliens we have not discovered? We suffer not the alien to live!"

She took a breath, before she cried out into the receiver.

"Ad Victoriam!"

Hanging up the reciever, the lighting of the CIC grew dim, and the Admiral watched her display.

"Bring us about, three degrees, move position one nine seven carom two one three, twenty degrees to port, ten degrees to down-pitch. Speed, twenty one." Nash ordered, as the helm officers slid their control levers forward.

The Reverence II began to slip forward, it's mammoth plasmic fusion engines igniting in the aft section with a brilliant dark blue glow, the Bloodied Spirit began to follow.

"Admiral, we have a targeting solution." EVE reported.

Nash nodded. "Let them make the first move, it will make it all the easier to justify their extermination."

Broadcast Standard.

Aurora punctuated, triggering the emission of a powerful burst of radio waves, spread out across the intergalactic band.



The beacon ended as abruptly as it had started, the starburst-scale broadcast burning out a number of unshielded sensors within the system. These distant pops weren't entirely unnoticed by The Hyacinth, but they faded into the databanks as Aschen ships maneuvered into offensive positions.

Ready neutron batteries, configuration Beta Three.

she calmly uttered, but of course the batteries were already glowing with the electromagnetic charge being drawn in from the space around them.

Capabilities analyzed, madam. Physics in standard configuration for this class of Universe, we have confirmation of vector potential.

the officer at the tactical console reported.

Aurora smiled, knowing this old dance wouldn't display the full capabilities of her arsenal, but through a useful demonstration of force she might yet draw out some worthy challenger.

The Aschen had once chance to submit, and this was it.

The message brought some confusion to the CIC of the Absolution, a few murmers in Anquietas was a sure sign of their confusion.

Admiral Nash tugged at the lapel of her uniform to smooth the crease down as the XO shook his head.

"Consumption fee? Are they demanding tribute?" The man asked, turning his attention to the console. The hardened sensors of the aschen ships were easily capable of handling the excess energy, and the longer this challenge grew the more they learned.

Now was not the time for posturing, now was the time to gather more information.

"Push a reply out." Nash ordered, she had to buy time for the prowlers to complete the mission.

"Hegalia Imperium, this is the United Aschen Empire warship Absolution, we would comply with your demands but request clarification on this 'consumption fee'"

Ending the transmission, she turned to her XO.

"Status on the Thalaron warheads, and the singularity driver?" She asked.

"Five centons, thalaron warheads will be ready in five centons."

Briefly Nash turned to Eve.

"Their weapons appear to be neutron based, based on preliminary analysis, I have calibrated shields, and have a sixty percent confidence that our shields will be able to resist their weapons fire. We are still outnumbered, but analysis indicates our vessels will be able to withstand their weapons fire with relatively little damage."

Hundreds of battles, wars with dozens of different civilizations all lead to this moment, the aschen warship, both feared and envied. Matched by few.

These aliens were charging fourth, poised to kick a hornets nest. Nash grit her teeth, these Xenos were arrogant. But it had been decades since a reverence was truly pushed. The battle of the razorbacks in galactic war one briefly crossed her mind.