Setting
“Summon them, girl.” One of the staff, the one that hadn’t hit her commanded.
Alyssa rolled her eyes and glanced up towards the ceiling, flopping back onto the bed she had been sitting upon. Her long legs stretched out and she moved both arms behind her head, using them to prop it up so that she could stare at both of the staff members. She smirked and glanced away, her tongue poking once again at her split lip. She was starting to feel a little stubborn and although she was generally compassionate and seemed extremely innocent, today’s encounter with Bertha had pissed her off and made her not want to do a thing.
“No.” She glanced back at the doctors, making it obvious that she wasn’t going to cooperate.
“Do it!” The same individual growled and grabbed a towel and a bucket of water. Before she had a chance to react, two armed men had stepped forward and strapped her down onto the bed. Snarling as the towel was placed over her face, Alyssa tensed her body up, refusing to perform for them just because they were trying to make her. So, when they dumped the water over her face, she clenched her fists and fight to get free, but did not use any of her abilities, which just pissed the staff off even more. It wasn’t long before they were pouring bucket after bucket across her face until she completely passed out after nearly drowning.
“Take her to the common room.” The one who was in charge of the others spoke cruelly after removing the towel and drying her face off, leaving her hair soaking wet.
“Sir, she’s unconscious.” Another one spoke, albeit hesitantly.
“And? Do as I say.” The first male walked out while the other one put her in a wheelchair and did as he was instructed. Leaving her unconscious in the wheelchair, he simply shrugged and left her in the room with the other subjects and staff in the room.
To his fellow Warden these badges would allow another to note his rank of Admiral at a glance and that he was a mancer, a wielder, and part of CONCORD's Core. A pistol sat upon his right hip, a sheathed knife upon his left breast, and an assault rifle upon his back. When he got down the ramp he would step in front of Jester. "Greetings. It is good to finally meet you on friendly terms."
They stared at each other for a while, and admiring the look in each others' eyes, the gleam that shone from both of them, connecting to the other and dancing in a swirling gaze of happiness. Tetri drew in a deep breath and patted one of Roger's cheeks before lowering her hands and waddling away towards their small kitchen. "Stew again tonight?" She asked, turning around to him while he took a seat on the couch.
"Yes'm," he replied. Tetri nodded and began to dig the pots of ingredients out of the fridge for mixing the stew, and then halted her actions when a sharp pain shot through her abdomen. "Ack!" she cried, holding her bulging stomach, and threw her side against the wall, slipping down to the floor against it.
"Tetri?" She looked up, a frazzling amount of pain plastered on her face as she responded to her husband calling her name. Shock filled her system entirely when her eyes traveled down the length of his body, to the floor, and then down to herself where she saw herself sitting in a small puddle of blood that only seemed to be growing. Her eyes were wide, and she remained speechless. "Roger....." she huffed out, and threw her head against the wall, unsure of what was actually happening.
--------
"Mmff.." Tetri groaned as her eyes fluttered open. She let out a small, tired sigh and picked her head up from the table it was resting on, and slid her hands off of it to place them in her lap. She drew in a deep breath and exhaled carefully, confusingly glancing around at the open common area of other patients. She cocked an eyebrow at the mass of people here now, taking note that this was most definitely not where she had been recently.
She turned her tired eyes to face her escort, Shenz, who was sitting across from her at the table, toying with a thin rope that seemed to lead back to her wrist. "What?" She forced out, her high voice sending a shrill ring through Shenz's ear. "What?" he repeated back to her, confusion now overcoming him as he realized she was finally awake.
"What?" She asked again, and then pointed out at the many patients occupying the area.
"You're in the common room, go read a book or something." Shenz suggested and went back to toying with the thin rope.
"What happened to Roger?" She asked, her voice becoming shaky as fear began to set in.
"Who? Look, just go fuck around until your time is up, okay?" Shenz wanted no part of Tetri's delirious confusion. He was still pretty pissed at her for kicking him earlier in the experimentation room and he wasn't just going to let that slide due to her off-set mind.
"That girl.... She's sleeping..." Tetri commented, staring down the way at a woman who was resting in a wheelchair. "I think she forgot her towel." Tetri shrugged and stood up from the table, balancing herself to make sure she was okay to walk around for a little bit. She still felt somewhat dizzy from the procedure.
"Hey!" She shouted across the room, hoping the girl would hear her. She chewed on the inside of her cheeks and turned to Shenz who had release the thin rope to let it dangle down on the floor from Tetri's wrist.. "Just go..." Shenz waved her off and turned around to face the other direction, observing the other patients in the room.
Tetri nodded and drew in a deep breath and made her way on over to the woman sitting in a wheel chair, her hair dripping tiny puddles onto the slick floor. "YOU FORGOT YOUR TOWEL," Tetri screamed into the woman's ear and hiked her skirt up to rip a piece of it off and placing it over the woman's lap. "There."
Proud of herself, the frail woman gave a wide smile and looked around, her attention settling on two men sitting in another area that was closer to the library portion of the common room. A disgusted look quickly replaced her smile and she scoffed at them, noticeably. "They killed my husband, you know," she tried explaining to the wet-haired woman she stood next to. "They did, and I see'd them do, it, I catch'd 'em and I think they're gon' keel me, but I tell ya, my Roger, he is goin'ta whip'um. Say, that fool is somewhere hangin'..."
Her fidgety fingers made their way towards a close by dull pencil and she picked it up, placed in her pocket, and patted it against her leg. "Can't fool me, Roger, you jus' stay safe in this pocket'ere." Tetri then turned back to the wet-haired sleeping woman and shook her head, unsure of what to think of this strange person who would just wet their hair and forget a towel. What was she even thinking? Surely, she wanted to catch a cold, otherwise she wouldn't have forgotten a towel! But Tetri was ultimately glad that she was able to assist the woman with something that would help dry her hair. Hell, maybe the woman would even keep the piece of the skirt so that she'd never run out of a towel again.
But her eyes did lock on the new face, as if a beacon and lights had lit the way. It had been a while since the last new face had been added. She tilted her head and stood, moving over towards Vallen.
Her bored red eyes bore into him, as if she was trying to figure out every detail of his face. The last time she had done this, the girl had half her hair pulled out.
“…Hi? I’m Alyssa… Alyssa Callahan…” She used the strip of the dress to dry off her long crimson locks before releasing a deep sigh and slipping out of the wheelchair. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Bertha and shot the pig-woman a look before returning her attention towards the woman that seemed a bit off about things. Taking a moment to peer around at the others in the room, she realized there was at least one new person she didn’t remember seeing, but since she primarily kept to herself, she really didn’t know anyone.
“I’m going to get out of here… I’ve had enough.” She muttered softly under her breath, her eyes glaring over at the staff.
As he thought about that first meeting, his stomach growled, reminding him of how hungry he was and how he wouldn't get to eat until the next morning, which at the very least was ten hours away. He didn't really trust the clocks in the library to work, but they were digital so he supposed if they were wrong it was definitely due to manipulation rather than the mechanisms falling behind.
He glanced around him, not sure what the heck he was supposed to do next. People were screaming, chatting, reading, playing ping-pong and he noticed at least two were watching him far more closely than he'd like. His plan was going about as expected as it had during his nightmares in the lead-up to the commencement of the operation, but now he was here he had absolutely no choice other than to deal with it through wits and improvisation. The first and most obvious step was escaping the security grid they no doubt had placed around the room in order to keep everyone under control, but how?
To start with, chaos. And so Vallen took two books form the nearest shelf, the heaviest pieces of hardback literature he could find and, one in each hand, threw them at the first two people he saw.
He heard a commotion that sounded like book throwing. He went to its origin, and the man was there, starting a ruckus. Casper had to act fast. He kept his body moving as if he was dizzy. "Hey, you have a silly face. And your new. You not like those books? Neither did I. This is my favorite book".
He talked quickly and with varying tones, making himself sound drugged. Someone was yelling off in the distance about someone named Rodger, but he kept focused. Casper showed the new guy the book he was carrying. The Odyssey, a story about a great journey. "It's got Dragons, and escapes, and more dragons. The dragons want to escape, but the mean sky people won't let them. Then this hero comes, and leads the dragons to freedom".
Casper knew the book had no dragons. He hoped the man realized however Casper wasn't crazy, but in fact speaking in code. He was hoping his suspicion was right that he threw those books as a distraction. Casper didn't know enough to escape on his own, but this man might know things. Still, he kept up the ruse, to avoid suspicion. "These men, they treat me bad. But I am very special, my mommy told me this. Like, I can drain energy from things. Anything and anywhere. She is really nice, talks to me sometimes, Sillyface. Sometimes she says 'Today is the day you leave on an adventure'. She also tells me to help people. Do you need help? What can I do?". This last part, he said softer, and in a much more normal tone, but you would have to be close to actually hear a difference. "When should I help?"
Casper really hoped he was right. If not, this was all for nothing and might even get him caught. Again.
She glanced around the common room, taking note of another unfamiliar face that had just risen from a knocked out state. Admiring the silver locks of the new face, Tetri tilted her head and observed her as well. She was kind of pretty. "Mmmmnnnnn...." Tetri hummed along with her disinterest in the girl, and then shifted her eyes towards the direction the woman was now looking. Curious as to whom she was staring at, Tetri laid her misty eyes upon the two fellows who now seemed to be working up some sort of conspiracy in the common room.
Between those two acting seemingly shift, the silver haired girl on the other side of the room watching them, and Alyssa's faint comments about getting out of this place, Tetri didn't exactly know what to think. Her mind was spinning. What was going on here, and why were these people all exchanging glances?! This was madness. It didn't take long for her to realize that the dark haired man looking through the book case was up to something. Tetri narrowed her eyes and chewed on her bottom lip, peeling off a small piece of skin in the process. Her eyes then quickly shot open, following a book that was now flying through the air at a vast rate. Slightly taken aback by this action, Tetri darted her attention to the second man who was spouting off about dragons and mean sky people. "YOU MEAN ROGER?" Tetri shouted to the man, attempting to gain his attention so that she could not only find out what was going on, but to also ask for extra assistance in locating her deceased groom.
Shifting her gaze back over towards the woman that seemed to enjoy screaming, Alyssa really hoped she was finished shouting, because it was beginning to give her a headache. Well, more than the one she currently had at the moment, which was getting pretty bad. Squeezing the bridge of her nose, she took note of another female, one with silver hair and wondered just how many people were in the room that she didn’t recognize. Maybe she should take the time to get to know them better. Then again, if she was planning on leaving, then that was sort of a moot point. Sighing, Alyssa cringed when the lady next to her shouted something about Roger, the volume enough to cause her to move away.
“Do you want to walk over and talk to those guys? I can go with you so you don’t have to go… that way you don’t have to keep screaming. You’re hurting my head…” Alyssa asked gently, not wanting to offend the woman.
"Apologies in advance if we showed up at an inconvenient time. Investigation, ironically was more of an excuse than serious inquiry." The man chuckled. "We've been stuck on that rock keeping a low profile for a while now."
He assumed they would want to go elsewhere to discuss why CONCORD was there, matters of diplomacy, or of trade.
CONCORD had no choice but to display rank on their uniforms and on their equipment because of how many different organizations they had to deal with on a day to day basis in Ayenee and Eden.
Cynosural Field: A cynosural field, also known colloquially as a "cyno", is a cosmic anomaly that acts as a pseudo-gravity well. With the correct calibration information, jump drives and bridges can lock onto the field and create what resembles a portal to the destination anywhere in the universe for instantaneous travel.
Solari Pilater Day Parad: A loud event on a day of celebration dedicated to the Solari war hero, Pilater. It is strictly a Solari holiday and those that honor Pilater get very intoxicated in their revelry.
Within the confines of the cockpit of the ship, the bounty hunter Tenna read over his instrument panels and vid-screens to determine whether or not the ships were hostile. He sighed, not recognizing either from his experience. Rather than trying to make a break for it, which would likely alert the others to his presence, he powered down what systems he could and turned on a stealth system he referred to as Chameleo.
As the system booted up, the ship's outer surface shimmered slightly before melting from sight, the starlight from behind him shining through. Tenna kept his attention on the monitors, his curiosity over the goings on nearby overwhelming his caution. He opened a Coms channel, allowing to scan for the frequency the other ships might be using for outbound transmissions.
In the dead space where the Tiomanai and the Apophis were meeting, a single FTL jump flashed in at the very fringes of the grid as the Ayen would term it. The FTL jump presented a ship, no more than a few hundred meters in length, and coated in a dark colored hull.
The vessel drifted for a few seconds, before it's Luminomagnetic plating shifted, and light began to bend around the vessel, causing it to slowly fade out of visuals, shifting into what could be described as sunlight shimmering on water, until the phase cloaking kicked on and the ship disappeared entirely from sensors.
"No doubt it was a Cyno, there's Varhegs somewhere in this sector." A lieutenant reported, as he turned to the ship's Commander. The Commander however turned and shook his head. "Run us dark and start monitoring communications. We're in dead space, so we'll need to open up wide-spectrum systems, and run a gravity scan of the area. If anything's out there, we'll be able to pick up on it's gravity well if it's cloaked." The Commander said, while the Aschen ship slipped silently through the void of space.
"Gravity scans might reveal our position, Commander." The XO protested. "We're also in what is claimed as TNG space, discretion is prudent." The XO Added, and the Commander nodded. "Gravity scans, we'll need to report our findings to SOLCOM so they can dispatch a fleet. If that's indeed a Cyno and there's Varhegs here, we'll have to signal the fleet, the Ordo Xenos was clear that anyone with Varden Affiliation is an enemy of the Empire, and must be purged."
The XO nodded.
"Emperor's wish, our command." He relented, before he keyed up the AI.
"Initiate gravity scans of the sector, report findings to the Commander. If you find anything, signal the fleet." The XO ordered.
"Acknowledged..." The AI Parroted back, and the lone Aschen stealth Corvette began gravity scans of the system, with maximum sensor ranges up to 50 SU. With the Gravity scanner, given that most ships had sufficient mass to have a discernible gravity field, the scanner was even capable of detecting the ship's own artificial gravity, and thus this particular form of scanning was difficult to hide from unless specific countermeasures were deployed
"Two signatures." The Lieutenant reported, turning to the Commander. "We have one cloaked signature, and confirmed visuals on the second... there's a... Gods damn look at the size of that thing.." The Lieutenant said, trying to pull a better look.
"That one looks like a UDW Configuration and the other...." The Lieutenant said.
"By the Lords..."
The Lieutenant's eyes went wide, and he turned to the Commander. "There's a Varheg ship there, docked with the UDW Ship."
The Commander nodded. "Log the visual data, the Ordo Xenos is going to want to know about this..."
While the ship was running through Phase, the transphase arrays allowed the ship to observe it's surroundings while out of phase, this 'periscope' of sorts would appear as a sensor anomaly, static and noise where there normally was none. A strange soupy series of electronic signals coming from nothingness. A grey pebble in a field of black pebbles. A proverbial needle in a haystack.
"Log those two ships, and work on finding the second signature." The Commander ordered.
Once ensconced within the conference room, Jovis glanced about, using his implant to raise seats, adjusting the lighting, and opening a channel to Comms. A burst of signal carried a message to get a secure signal to the Vice Admiral Grieves on Terra, while he came to rest next to the conference table, leaving the Admiral his pick of seating. Jester flicked a hand over a sensitive panel, drawing out a holographic control unit, extruding a bulkhead seat and placing himself in it.
"We're working on establishing a channel to a local superior who has the authority to make some decisions above my paygrade, but we can begin as you please. What Jester and I can't answer, we'll let you know."
Jester nodded, finally speaking himself. His voice was oddly modulated, masking any form of accent and concealing personal nuances. "Precisely. And while it might be assumed such subjects are mostly anything of substance, while I bow to Captain Korsican in matters of naval importance," the man smiled slightly. "I outrank him politically. It's an unusual arrangement in our government, but simple enough, with familiarity."
Elsewhere, on the bridge, Sensor team was busy keeping an eye around, interfaced with one of the Apophis' six AI's. Sifting through terrabytes of data at speeds nearly incomprehensible to a standard human mind, anomalies were taken note of. Faint drifts of energy, some cosmic radiation, yet between the twelve man team and the dedicated cycles of the AI Minerva, they pored over each as would wolves scenting for a trail. And currently, a pair of the flagged signatures were attracting large amounts of attention.
>Looks like flare bleed.<
>Don't think so. Those particles are distorted, by if you apply a twist to them, the arrangement appears artificial. Minerva<
>Agreed. Percentages of artificial origin scale higher than unusual natural phenomenon. Concurrence: We have guests.<
>Start doing flash panes, EM spectrum. Might get lucky, find a hole in the coverage.<
Sensor began to trigger burst imaging pulses around the ship, starting with EM spectrum images. This turned the data image of the surrounding space into shades of color, representing baseline cosmic radiation, with "hotspots", indicating cleanly identified cosmic bodies. It was a relatively low tech version of hunting around, made high tech by the UDW's overlay of simulated hotspots of non-visible shading differences. The addition of these points used detection through a sudden cut off of the overlayed images signal for seconds at a time, adding more points of masking to the background with which to isolate a ship running dark.
He motioned with his hands as he spoke. "If we did this ourselves then our findings would lack credibility. The recently passed council member, Warden John Rosenthal set events in motion before his death that would have the Invictus investigate the bridge bombing which we fear has roots deep in Ayenee. Our galaxy is far distant and to explore it without guide is to court death."
He would not ask why this huge vessel had remained on Terra for so long or if any government on Terra knew of it previously. The Union of Dark Worlds had always dealt with its neighbors with fairness from what CONCORD understood of them. They were not xenophobic like the Aschen and they were not imperialistic like the Taiyou. They were large enough to make a fair trading partner, unlike Terra. UCON and the Sullen Enterprise Confederation were the only other two that had been considered but SEC's internal political situation appeared to be shaky at best.
"We had actually wanted to meet with the UDW for quite some time now to discuss future trade arrangements that could benefit everyone involved, UDW, CONCORD, and the many multitudes of other organizations in Onyx. The universe is so big and so much of it is as of yet, unexplored. Even with each of our government's respective knowledge and technology there're still so many gaps in our quest for complete understanding."
While the current pilot of the ship was monitoring the local space she did not yet have cause for concern. The closer the Reverence S Class Stealth Corvette got the more likely it was that the Tiománaí pilot would dispatch its drones to investigate the anomaly. Unusual changes in direction and off ship communications initiated by the Aschen vessel would also raise suspicion further but if the Aschen vessel was careful and kept some distance, they would never be detected by the Tiománaí.
Inside, Tenna monitored what he could. His instruments were picking up odd readings, random noise in the background, but he didn't pay it much mind. What had his attention were two of the screens that served as his windows. Instead of the usual visual imagery of the space around him(Because they would act as a panoramic window when under normal use) with his HUD overlays, these two particular screens had been devoted to information.
On one, several lists were appearing and disappearing rapidly as the computer searched through a database of starships, their captains, who they belonged to, and whether they were still in service. It was only partially complete, and even as the mercenary looked back at it for a moment, he doubted it would pull up anything more useful than the alliance each ship came from.
The other screen, however, was showing a three dimensional model, still being formed as information came in. It was a depiction of the two docked ships, how they were coupled, and although it was simply essentially a model of the exterior of them, Tenna's eyes began to pick up on areas that looked suspiciously blank, or those that were more obvious weapon bays. If there was one thing he didn't want, it was for his ship to get shot.
"Damned I'd be if it hadn't been for UCON. I really oughtta make it up to them. Maybe once I pay off my own bounty." He chuckled softly, and as an afterthought he checked to make sure his com-line had been set to one-way. One expletive later and it was, but he was late. Although the signal might have become garbled on it's way through the Chameleo, it was an unmistakable radio transmission that left the Solitude in a sphere at the speed of light.
It was silently gathering sensor readouts, until the advanced Sensor suit got a positive ping on the cloaked ship, and the Commander looked at it on the HUD.
"Doesn't look like anything remarkable. See if you can clean this up and cross reference it with known ship designs." He said, and the Lieutenant nodded.
Though the Solitude was running it's own cloaking, the Bloodraven was running a very sensitive suite of transphasic sensor systems. Picking up on the slightest emissions, as well as comparing slight proximity movements along with high-sensitivity wide-spectrum sensors.
"I need to find out what the UDW Is doing with those Varhegs." The Commander said, narrowing his eyes and watching the scope.
"We need to get someone aboard those ships, but I don't want to risk attracting too much attention." The Commander said, frowning.
"Signal the Fleet, tell them we'll need to bring Jacque aboard to board the enemy ship, and ascertain their intent." The Commander said.
"And then we're going completely dark for awhile." He added.
The AI Nodded, before a transphasic bitstream signal was broadcast back and towards Aschen Space. The Signal to prying eyes would appear little more than hash, or cosmic noise, the sequence lasted roughly two and a half seconds, before it disappeared entirely, and shortly after, the sensor anomalies and the noise that was previously there, also seemed to vanish entirely as the Transphasic arrays disengaged, and the Reverence S Slipped entirely out of phase. At this point it would be completely undetectable, and unable to interact with the realspace plane until it came back into phase.
Korsican nodded slightly. "Given our own remote findings from passive overviews, plus our contingent in Volaria who perused over the Volarians take of the data, we'd already come to the conclusion, from our brief contact with a drone that identified as native, that some potential of conflicting sides were at play. Given that nothing more than advisement and perspective was asked, Director Issane chose to leave us out of things. We're still somewhat light on presence in these parts of the Milky Way."
Eyes sliding into focus on something that seemed to be before him, Jovis nodded minutely, glancing at Jester. "Connections are made, pending encryption. ETA eight minutes."
"Comms earning their pay today."
The cue in question came in the form of a burst of binary code, in Morse of all forms. A simple message, translated to "Con. Pend."
The Comm team tasked their AI cycles to preparing the encryption scheme, while collectively setting up the process of spinning up a TD transponder unit. While generating a fair amount of static signature, the transponder bounced the comm signal directly into tunnel space, where it was then either snared by a waiting TD receiver, or "captured" into realspace by a complex and expensive communications unit. Namely, a large suitcase sized device that attended the upper echelon staff and members of the UDW's various branches. While to some, the method might seem an almost paranoid means of security, the nation's forte was discretion and a cultural tendency towards playing behind the scenes was an often prevalent influence on many of their technologies and practices.
Only meters away, and yet isolated in concentration, Sensor was growing decidedly more animated, as filtering through the ether turned up fairly consistent signs of what appeared to be passive sensor sweeps. Echoes of ghosts, yet the combined power of human-AI conglomeration made sense of the meanings hidden in the cosmic energies.
>It's definitely synthetic. There's a patterning, and whatever and whoever it is, they've marked us.<
>Not exactly designed to be stealthy, but we knew that. General isolation of direction?<
A concurrence was met.
>Minerva?<
>Agreed.<
>Kick this origin zone over to fire control. If it's friendly or neutral, then we'll be fine. Hostile, it'll never have time to realize the fuck hit it. Anyone isolated signatures on that squeal?<
>Yeah, some small tramp freighter. Glows like a fucking hotspot to EM. Rookies and those optical camo fields.<
>Alright. Maintain watch.<
"Alright, Solitude, we're gonna run hot-black. Give me full manual flight control, keep the inertial dampening system running high, and we're gonna see just how smart these guys can be." He'd known that he was letting himself shine about as bright as a city i most of the EM spectrum, and even though he held no animosity towards either ship, he felt like giving them a bit of fun. At least, giving their Ops departments some anyways.
He eased forward on the sticks, kicking his sub-luminals into life. twin jets of glowing ions appeared behind the ship, completely unaffected by the Chameleo system, moving him slowly. With the engines up and running, he counted to ten.
"One...two..."
As he counted, his fingers began moving through muscle memory more than thought. He was doing something similar to how he would normally escape from a bounty hunter pursuing him.
"Three...four...five..."
Several decals flashed across his HUD, indicating various systems coming online or being turned off. Power was being diverted at a rapid rate, with the twin ion drives and the Chameleo shutting down entirely.
"Six...seven..."
Different areas of the EM spectrum began to stop radiating from his ship. First heat, then gamma and x-ray were lost.
"Eight..."
Ultraviolet and visual dropped off the map as well, leaving only a scrambled amount of static and microwave radiation as his signature in the void of space.
"Nine...Ten. Solitude, let's make 'em see ghosts."
As the last EM radiation locked down and the Solitude entered Slipspace, a small but powerful EMP comprised almost solely of microwave radiation rippled out from where he'd been. Although he could no longer see anything of where he'd been, he'd only drifted about a kilometer since entering Slipspace. He chuckled and let his super-luminal drive system move him as he began to steer. He began making tight orbits around the two ships, popping up every so often long enough to give them a burst of random radio noise(usually some interstellar broadcast snippet), before diving into Slipspace once more. Each time he came in and out, he'd only let the radio signature show, meaning that, for the most part, all that was there for EM devices to 'see' would be smears of radio.
Inside the Solitude, Tenna chuckled to himself. It had been some time since he'd messed with anyone like this.
The Transphasic Array activated once more, this time in a much different part of the zone, activating just in time to receive a subspace reply from the Aschen Fleet.
"Signal acknowledged, sending response, ETA One half Centar."
The Simple Text Message from the Imperial Fleet signified their response, and given the proximity to Aschen holdings in Epsilon Eridani, and the TNG Demilitarized Zone, there would no doubt be an inevitable response from the Aschen Fleet. But the Empire had to mobilize a response, and so it would take time before anyone reached this particular sector of space.
And so the Command and the Staff of the Bloodraven watched in silence at the two mated ships, and the Commander made a face. "They're plotting something..." He said, bringing up an enhanced view through the Transphasic array.
"How long until the response fleet arrives?" He asked, and the Lieutenant frowned.
"Three Millicentons."
The Commander nodded. "Defense fleet?" And the AI Nodded in the affirmative. The Aschen Defense fleet was a fleet of sufficient strength to repel potential threats to the Empire. "Either Defense or Sacred Consecration." The Lieutenant replied.
Jovis and Jester remained silent, allowing the much senior superior of theirs to direct the dialogue for a time. It was chance that Grieves remained on Terra, pending dialogue with the TNG for much the same purposes, yet quite appropriate for the subject content. He was a Vice Admiral more by choice than anything else, too useful in active service to relegate his talents to that of a paper pusher and distant strategist. Yet his experience was enough that his word was held of critical importance to many of the upper Admiralty, and his connections to several of the Council of Thirteen rendered him further a choice asset for the negotiations.
Sensor Operations growled in unison as suddenly flares of signatures began to ignite and scatter chaff across the spectrums, splitting their sum total into two simultaneous task forces running in tandem. The team assigned to the apparent tramp freighter quickly adjusted to isolate the ship's generated signatures, marking the effects and keeping a steady pace. The corrections they made were routed to team two, eliminating the static feed over their more focused work to relocate the second ghost signature.
>This little shit. What are they playing at?<
>Darwinism. Get S.O. to kick a flight of vampires out to kindly tell him to fuck off.<
>Sound plan.<
Meanwhile, the second team exchanged neural curses as they started through the spectrums again, playing with the interference data in idle hopes of seeing a skew brought on by the suspected second ship. At a reduced capacity, the team was still sifting through the enormous area with greater speed that single AI controlled sweeps were capable of. Deeming it necessary, a ping was sent to the Agency contingent on board, a simple request for telepathic sweeps. A scant few minutes after that, psionics securely in place of the powered Psycho-Amp spheres threaded into the ship's superstructure stretched their magnified minds, linking to form a conglomeration greater than the sum of its parts. After synchronizing, stabilizing the greater meld they formed, the new linked mind network cast its psychic silhouette into the dark void, an intangible, undetectable net of mental energy hunting for living minds. Reaching out to a decided maximum of 750,000 kilometers distant, the broad sweep of the space around it concurred with the continued electronic hunting of the elusive quarry.
Fire Control continued to maintain a slow, steady pan, slowly revolving bores tracking across. They ranged from the newly outdated Triumphant 500mm H.SHOCK heavy gauss cannons, to the looming, 500m bores of the menacing 3m Abyss MK I. Though considering outmoded, the 20km bulk of the Ouroboros-pattern Supercruiser still packed a massive amount of firepower that exceeded the immediate output of the new production lines, if at significantly slower rates.
Far stern and starboard, a bay cycled open, a small stream of, yet again, older fighters slipped free. Resembling the tip point of a trident, the snubfighters were the 7.5m long Mosquito. Where the newer version, the Dragoon, used a single, newer gravity drive for propulsion, the Mosquito used a pair in either "wing". Bearing ship-to-escort, relatively short ranged HESH missiles, their primary armament, quartet 2mm Hellbores were quite sufficient for bringing down even a corvette 20 times their size through massed volleys. Flickering quickly clear of their mammoth mothership, the 9 man squadron broke into three groups, adopting differing intercept vectors for the Solitude. Despite the larger ship's stealthing measures, the pilots were inexplicable homing on their target, via burst laser transmissions directed back and forth from the tasked sensor crew to the pilots, buckled into their cockpits, operating the fighters through a heuristic neural link to the vessel's more limited snubfighter AIs.
"It is indeed a pleasure. You are correct. We would like to establish worthwhile trade for the economic, social, and technological benefit of both of our nations with a goal towards long lasting peace and prosperity. I am given power to make most decisions in the pursuit of those goals.
Lieutenant Commander Ciara who was currently piloting the Tiománaí did not react to the antics of the Solitude. She was currently having EGO perform a directional scan of the local space with a broad system check running in the background to make sure the ship's systems were running at optimal efficiency. Shining plates and pinnacles of metal shifted silently in the void like disconnected scales repositioning in the darkness to catch glimmers of dim light from the very distant red dwarf.
"This is Agent Karsok, Interstellar mercenary. I mean no harm, just a bit of fun. I'd prefer it if you didn't fire on me." He checked to make sure he was using the secondary comms system, which would be linked under the alias of Karsok, rather than his normal system, which would label him as Tenna.
As he spoke, he made sure that his weapon were primed, so that if things get more messy than he might like, he was prepared. He wasn't exactly comfortable with having to potentially engage such a ship.
The Commander checked the ship designs, and began to compare it to a data-bank of known vessels.
It wasn't long before the words 'Match' played across the screens. "
The Commander made a face, but dismissed the screen and the AI's advisory before going back to the screens monitoring the two larger ships.
"We've recieved another transmission from Fleet Command. Admiral Hanley and the Esteem will be responding to this call, given the sensitive nature of the potential exchange, the Empire wants discretion. Monitor the situation until the Esteem arrives."
The Commander nodded.
"Send our reply to Fleet Command, Priority One code."
The AI's hologram nodded, before she vanished. The Aschen ship remained in darkness, watching, and waiting.
The inbound flight of Mosquitoes painted the appearing vessel with their own targeting systems, but at a brief binary burst via their own whisker laser comms, withheld as the squadron leader rapidly communicated to the controllers aboard the Apophis with a rapid series of laser emissions. But a scant few seconds later, given the speed of communication while both parties were engaged in heuristic links, a broadcast on wide-band was emitted in response.
"Apology accepted. Please disengage your activities and quit this sector, with minimum theatrics, if you will. You're proximity, given your actions, is flagged as non-desirable." Crisp, professional tone was the extent of the squadron leader's communication. The wing arrayed itself in a loose, widely spaced v-formation, holding advancement.
On board the UDW supercruiser, the Sensor crews noted a foreign transmission, capturing the signal and relaying it to an analysis team for cryptography. Working in tandem with yet another of the vessel's mounted AIs, as the various other portions of the well organized staffing operated in the heightened state of alert they had thus far maintained, it was several standard minutes before the comm transmission was decrypted and the scheme logged, pending upload to the database of broken encryption schemes maintained within the Umbral Sector and updated through the update packets passed through routine TD data transfers throughout the entire spread of the UDW Naval Force.