NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: The weather continues very hot ... the inspiration table is currently lower than the water table to which it is linked.

Domina's Offices, Division Five Command Core, Deep Tsarai, Tsaraine

Another day, another problem. This one, however, seemed more critical than most.

Rene Seingult leaned forward in her chair, regarding the man looking unhappily through the viewscreen, from his end far above the Earth.

"Base Commandant."

"Domina," Weich keiTaln replied, gulping, "We have a most severe problem..."


"Speak, then!" Rene snapped. "It won't go away by itself, whatever it is."

Another gulp from the Base Commandant. He'd been the Captain-Commandant aboard the Tsalin I, once; now he was the Base Commandant of High Stone, to which the Tsalin I was still attached, serving as docking facilities for the spaceplanes which brought supplies up and ore down.

"Domina, we've been trading ore from High Stone to just about everone recently - the nations who assisted in the Pearl project, the border states, the Devrasch, the Iraqstanch... and therein lies the problem."

"Which is?" she enquired, not fond of his waffling.

"High Stone is rapidly becoming mined out. We've extracted all of the easily obtainable ores from it, but what remains is both poorer quality and more difficult to obtain.

"We need a new ore source spaceside - compared to asteroid extraction, surface mines don't offer enough raw material per cubic kilometer.

"It would be easy enough to send a freighter to retrieve a second asteroid from the Asteroid Belt; however, having three kilometers of rock hanging above the Earth is not good, in the rapidly changing politics of orbital space.

"Domina, we now possess a relitavely large fleet of freighters. I'd like to propose that we found a permanent colony in the Asteroid Belt; there are many large, unclaimed asteroids there. The things are nearly as thick as the Junk Belt around Earth! We could mine the thing without moving it first, and freight the ore from Belt to High Stone and then down to Earth.

"Not to mention it would expand our sphere of influence out of Earth orbit."

Rene considered. "You have a good argument, keiTaln. Is Commandant ralKeyra in accord with this suggestion?"

Weich nodded nervously. "I've got the entire thing drafted and signed, Domina."

"Everything would seem to be in order, then. I shall sign the orders for a second Stone Corps, and you shall get your second asteroid base. Good day, Commandant."

"Good day, Domina."

KeiTaln closed the link, and Rene sat back, rubbing at her forehead. Sometimes the weight on her shoulders seemed greater than ever, despite SHODAN's rejuvenation.

High Stone, Lagrange Point

The Dominion's orbital asteroid mines were a hive of activity, all the docks along the length of the spacecraft-turned-docking-array filled with Horus class freighters.

One of those freighters, parked parallel instead of perpendicular to the long rod of the docking array, was the H-042, under modification to carry the Treznorian FTL drive. Others were the Horus class freighters H-010 through H-020, under the final stages of preparations for departure.

Finally the crewers loaded the last of the cargo into the cavernous holds of the Horuses, and High Stone Traffic Command gave the ten freighters clearance to depart.

Locks retracted and the freighters drifted free, antimagnetic cores beginning the initial two-gee thrust into the Hohmann transfer orbit to the Belt.

The H-013 left a few minutes behind the others, aimed not for the belt but for Mars, carrying an expensive passenger; one of the Ea, the first of that project to go beyond the Wastes. The odd failure of the Ea Communion once they'd got a short way beyond Tsaraine had delayed the departure of the fleet, to the relief of the cargo crews; but now they were off, heading further than any Tsarainese vessel had yet gone.

Asteroid TK-2938, The Asteroid Belt

"All hands stand by! Free falling!"

The crew of the H-010 felt the counter-thrust end, and the wrenching weightlessness of zero gee reclaim them.

Ahead of the freighter, the dirty, pockmarked potato-shape of the target asteroid spun crazily. Off to the sides, the other eight freighters were visible, little more than sparks of light at this distance.

"Mapping complete," the sensors officer announced, and the three-dimensional model of TK-2938 appeared on the screens. The big asteroid rotated fast enough for the ship's sensors to rapidly assemble the model; a good point to an otherwise irritating fact.

The engineers now calculated the precise point at which the asteroid would have to be struck to stabilise it's spin; after a second that point appeared on the models, a flashing red dot.

"Launch the drone," Captain-Commandant Tarant ralMarain ordered. The drone was little more than simple reaction thrusters and a large fusion warhead. It popped from the spaceplane bay and quickly crossed the kilometers between the H-010 and the asteroid, disappearing behind the spinning rock.

Then the screens blanked out for a second, shielding the bridge crew from the burst of light released as the drone detonated against the asteroid. Shortly afterwards the sensors officer reported success; the asteroid had stabilised.

RalMarain picked up the communit, opening a link to the other ships of his small fleet.

"All vessels, this is ralMarain, reporting Stage One success."

OOC: Inspiration is very very low...

Far Stone, The Asteroid Belt

Compared to the massive 280-km diameter of the Far Stone colony, previously Asteroid TK-2938, the three-kilometer High Stone at Earth's third Lagrangian Point was a pebble.

Already the long docking gantry, carried in sections aboard the ten freighters, had been assembled and secured to the surface of Far Stone. The freighters were docked with it now, the robot tunnellers they also carried carving out the tunnels and chambers that would one day form the heart of Tsaraine's most far-flung colony.

Soon the next flotilla of ten freighters would be arriving to take over from the original vessels, stitching together a fragile corridor of supply from Tsaraine to High Stone, and thence to Far Stone.

High Stone, Lagrange 3, Earth Orbit

Attached parallel to the eight-hundred-meter length of High Stone's own docking gantry, H-042(M) somewhat resembled a Cross of Lorraine; the two-hundred meters of the original Horus design was bisected by a pair of cross-branches, one halfway along the length of the ship, the other, shorter branch further towards the rear.

The design would substantially increase the avaliable cargo and living space aboard the ex-freighter; the ordainary Horus-class design didn't possess enough pressurised space for research laboratories.

Inside the vessel, electronic computers had been replaced with more powerful optronic systems, and allied technology - the "spooky comm" quantum-entanglement system, and most importantly, the FTL system itself, supplied by the Treznori.

Rumors of inertial dampening systems on Treznori ships had remained just that, despite the lust for such things shown by both the Applied Physics Research Core and the Space Command Development Core, so the H-042(M) retained the main problem of Tsarainese vessels when compared to foreign vessels; the ship had no artificial gravity beyond that created by constant acceleration, and thus a maximum acceleration constraint of 1.5 gravities.

It would suffice until they could aquire better.

Space Command Development Core, The Eyrie, Tsaraine

Work upon the H-042(M) had stopped after a junior engineer pointed out a rather glaring error in it's carried vessels. Like the other Horus-class ships, the H-042(M) carried a trio of Mark II Osiris-class spaceplanes. But, the engineer had pointed out, the Osiris-class could not land or take off without an existing landing strip, which undiscovered worlds would be lacking. Mark I Osirises couldn't even launch without an atmospheric booster plane.

Thus, the resources of the SCDC had turned rapidly towards the development of a new lander class, capable of landing and launching on or from uninhabited worlds. It had been christened the Anubis class.

Earth Orbit

Low Earth Orbit was littered with wreckage, as it had been for a long time (one required a Scolopendran temporal physics degree to understand precisely how long, apparently); derelict satellites, stations, and ships large and small, in varying states of disrepair.

The "junk belt" posed a hazard to the satellites and vessels which orbited there, but the three craft now passing through the whirling debris were well piloted, and they passed undamaged through the hazard zone. Admittedly, modern spun-diamond hull sheathing helped with that, too.

Something has got to be done about that thing, Eorigh ralJaigh thought. Skylord alone knows how I managed to get through it undamaged in an Osiris.

RalJaigh was now flying one of the first Anubis-class landers to leave the yards dirtside in Tsaraine, a more robust vessel than the fragile Osiris-class craft Tsaraine had used up till now.

Ahead, the point of light that was High Stone, at Earth's L3 point, glimmered brighter than the stars beyond. On ralJaigh's screens it had a long scroll of orbital statistics appended to it, as did the other recorded vessels and objects in the vicinity.

"A-001, this is High Stone Traffic Command. You are cleared to dock at Point Fifteen Alpha, I repeat, Point Fifteen Alpha. Over."

Well, that was good; one needed clearance to dock, after all.

"High Stone Traffic Command, this is A-001. Will dock at Point Fifteen Alpha upon arrival. Over."

To High Stone, and thence to the stars, ralJaigh thought. What's that quote from that old fiction show? To boldly go where no man has gone before...

Tactical Command Core, High Stone, Lagrange Point Three, Earth Orbit

The last of the Horus Captain-Commandants came floating through the pressure door, spluttering apologies for his tardiness. Tanyi waved him to silence; he'd just come in on the H-029, inbound from Far Stone.

"Right," she said. "Now that we're all present..."

With a flick of the switch, the big touchscreen on the wall lit up, displaying the complex orbital mechanics of the Jovian subsystem.

"This, as I'm sure you all recognise, is Jupiter. Current status reports are only a minute or so away from realtime, thanks to Nathicanikh aeryaghrana - spooky-comm - technology on our Mark Two Geb-class surveysats.

"As we all know, there is currently conflict ongoing in Jovian orbit on and around Io, between the Triumvirate of Yut and their allies - some of whom are also our allies, though we are freed from obligation in that theatre, Ruki kal ainra! - and the Imperium of Morgoth Kshi'arkh and their allies. We aim to avoid that conflict if at all possible.

"But no matter the victors in the Io war, Jupiter remains the crown of the System, the pie of which everyone feels the need to have a slice. Among the players there are the Noldorin Empire of Menelmacar, the aforementioned Morgoth - those two, of course, being matter and antimatter wherever they meet - our semi-ally Der Angst and the other members of the newly formed Jovian League, and the xenophobic Leda Colony - though our data upon that last item is scanty, and their military and political power appears to be similar.

"Now, I have been instructed by the Domina to secure for Tsaraine a staging point in the Jovian subsystem - we deserve our slice of the Jovian pie too, after all! - and I have put much thought into where, precisely, to do that. The Galilean and other inner moons are all well occupied, and it is likely that any colonisation attempt there would not be welcomed at all well. The outer moons are valueless aside from their position.

"Thus I have hit upon the Jovian leading Trojan asteroids as the suitable place for such a base. According to what legal listings I can find - though those are almost always inaccurate - they are unclaimed, and they appear to be silent in regards to radio emissions, which is always a good indicator of inhabitation.

"They're not perfect, of course, but at our late stage in the game we shall have to take what we can get. Unlike both of our current asteroid bases, which are M-type asteroids, the leading Trojans are C-type; more CHON, less metals. At that distance, that will be a good thing; shipping organics is expensive, and we certainly have enough ore. They are, however, reasonably distant; sixty degrees ahead of Jupiter in it's orbit. It would take several hours or a day for a ship from the Trojans to reach Jupiter itself. We can live with that."

A tap on the touchscreen inflated the tiny mote of the Trojan asteroids to fill the screen, a tumbling grey confusion of rocks.

"After digital cleanup, we're left with these asteroids, as mapped by the Geb-class satellites dispatched there; VZ-1083 has been selected as our base.

"More data shall be given as it becomes organised, and a construction fleet shall be outfitted; aside from those of you on the Far Stone supplies-and-ore circuit, I expect you all to attend. A transcript of this briefing will of course be avaliable at the usual filesite. Dismissed!"

H-042, High Stone, Lagrange Point Three, Earth Orbit

The corridors of the H-042(M) had been stripped of their plating, exposing the bare innards of the ship - ventilation tubes, wiring, and all the other vital bits of plumbing which the modified Horus-class freighter depended upon.

For the workers it was a monotonous task; bolt in the new artificial gravity panels, wire them up to the power supply (several different ways, for redundancy in case something went wrong with the system), and move on while other workers replaced the decking plates.

But the work quota had been lowered, and the bonus pay raised, so there were many people applying for the task; after all, with those bonus tsai'ai one could buy many things - many more than most people had been accustomed to, with the internal Tsarainese markets diversifying and some of them opening to foreign goods - under heavy tarrif, of course.

Recently a fad had begun among the Div9 workers, of jewelery made from salvaged wreckage from the junk belt. A bracelet of salvaged GUDA satellite parts might look odd to the groundsiders, but there was no denying fashion - and certainly not for the plodding citizens at the bottom of the gravity well.

Kel Meralkharant (Asteroid VZ-1083), Jovian Leading Trojan Cluster, Jovian Orbit

Over four Astronomical Units away - over half an hour's radio lag, although zero with Nathicanikh aeryaghrana systems - great machines were digging their way into the tarry rock of Tsaraine's newest and furtherest colony.

Though things were cooling down, sixty degrees back around Jupiter itself, the new base was sure to be useful; a projection point into the valuable outer system territories was not to be sneezed at - even if all Tsaraine's space navy was currently under refitting and upgrade at the NDA Shipyards back in Earth orbit.

For now, the fledgeling colony relied upon peace, quiet, and allies to preserve the peace; the Horus-class freighters on the run from Earth carried a few fusion mining drones, but they weren't warships by any stretch of the imagination.

It was rather an irony, really; the Kash'ha of Rukine mythology associated with Jupiter, after whom the base was named, was Meralkhar - Deathbringer in Sekhel. One day, though, the City of the Deathbringer would serve as the base of the Outer System Fleets, and become worthy of the name.

High Stone, Lagrange Point Three, Earth Orbit

Sevyan felt distinctly uncomfortable, walking along the narrow corridor towards the docking gantry. One should not be able to walk so easily through an orbiting rock, as if there were the solid rock of a world and not the emptiness of space beneath one's feet!

I shall have to get used to it. After all, the H-042(M) is decked with this Burninatonian stuff, too.

Tanyi ralKeyra was waiting at the airlock, and Sevyan came to attention, bringing his fist up across his chest to salute the Division Commandant.

She smiled, which made the Kash'ha tattoos on her cheeks writhe. "At ease, Captain. You don't need to stand any straighter to be taller than me."

"Eja, Commandant." Sevyan settled back. Sweet merciful Fate, what's the DivCom doing down here?

"Now," ralKeyra said, "In the days when the First Dominion held Rakenno, it was customary for an admiral to give these to a departing explorer." she held out a silk-wrapped bundle, suprisingly heavy; through the heavy embroidery on the red-and-blue dzakhe hanging Sevyan could feel the sharp shapes of twin klrsukali.

"Thankyou, Commandant," Sevyan stammered, "This gift-"

RalKeyra waved away his thanks. "I believe that the Clan tsaShan blades are in the keeping of some Researcher; a Captain needs his own, no? Especially a Captain as famous as that ship is going to make you. Nei'kaudh dvokh Ruki Aestrakhor aseiravda, Sevyan."

"Nei'kaudh zva, Commandant," Sevyan replied uncomfortably; he wasn't religious, himself, and wouldn't follow the Rukine faith if he was.

"Well, take care of those, yes? I'll get out of your way now - wouldn't want to delay the launch."

The Division Commandant stepped aside, and Sevyan saluted awkwardly with his free hand. RalKeyra saluted back, and then, to his suprise, bowed. Not knowing what else to do, Sevyan saluted again, and finally stepped through the airlock and onto the H-042(M).

The bridge crew all saluted as he entered, and if they were suprised by the dzakhe-wrapped bundle, they didn't show it. Perhaps they'd already known about it.

"Check prepatory for launch," Sevyan ordered, and was well pleased when the reply came back crisp and confident; "Check complete, Captain. All systems green."

"Very good." Sevyan reached out to tuck the klrsukali more firmly under his seat. "Comms, raise High Stone Flight Command."

That was done with equal skill - none but the best, for this crew - and the face of the Flight Commandant appeared on the commscreen.

"Commandant, this is Captain tsaShan of the..." he realised that he didn't know what he would call it, this ship. It was a captain's right to name his ship as he saw fit, and he'd been planning to name it the Kail I (as Tsaraine's first exploratory vessel, abortively sent to Quaoar, had been named the Tsalin I), but that name didn't seem to fit. The twin klrsukali, ralKeyra's gift from Admiral to Captain, bumped into his heels under the seat, and the name came to him.

"Captain tsaShan of the Kash'haiko Sukal."

OOC: Kel Meralkharant has moved here (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=141069). The further adventures of Sevyan tsaShan and the Kash'haiko Sukal can be found here (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3163508). This post is something I've needed to do for a looong time.

Far Stone, Asteroid Belt, Sol System

Far Stone was not so different from High Stone; both were mined asteroids, their corridors former mining shafts. Of course, Far Stone was far larger, and still shipping ore back to Earth - which was, in part, why it had been selected as the site for Tsaraine's latest project. Having refined metals in situ would reduce transport costs to a pittance.

"You want open-frame shipyards, Arkhreifane?" Melach Sche'daya, Senekhal Far Stone, frowned, confused. "Surely yards in the Stone itself would be safer?"

Tanyi ralKeyra, Arkhreifane of the Starforce, nodded. "External, open-frame shipyards are what the designers suggest," she replied. "Yes, internal yards would be safer from attack or random debris - but they would impose an upper size limit upon our spacecraft, and thus for anything bigger we would be back to hiring yards from allies - and that is what we are trying to do away with here!

"External yards would impose such a limit too, but it is far easier to extend a frame than it is to carve out more rock. They've also devised some form of tenting - related to the stuff they use at Kel Arikhant, they tell me - so that the yards can be pressurised.

"There will be fifteen docks, each three hundred meters long and one-fifty across - you can find the schematics at the usual transfer site."

The Senekhal nodded, downloading via DNI. "Does this mean we'll be building our own hulls soon?"

Tanyi grinned. "That would be telling, Senekhal. No, not for a while yet - the infrastructure must be set up, after all."

A-038, Pole-to-Pole Orbit, Earth

When she wasn't piloting Anubis-class spaceplanes around Earth orbit, Xarian arKuegan was something of a gun nut, which was difficult in a nation with tight gun laws like Tsaraine's, but there was nothing to stop a purely academic interest in heavy weaponry, right?

So naturally she'd talked to Marshall Islanders (who were well known for the grand scale of their cannons), and her closet of a room back at High Stone was decorated with posters of Mammoth tanks, Eurusean Levellers, Eye of God artillery, and other big guns from around the world and off it.

All this knowledge meant that she'd recognised the equipment in her cargo hold for what it was almost the moment she'd seen the schematics; a gauss cannon, similar to that on the Lucifer artillery (the only modern ground vehicle in the Arkhreifiate of the Army, and thus a ruby among paste gems). The thing had it's own power supply and control systems, as well as armouring against the micrometeorites so common in Earth orbit.

The schematics she'd found called it a "Shrike-class experimental orbital artillery system", which explained it. The Commonwealth had had the ability to put missiles into orbit over two hundred years ago, and had (there were Space-To-Ground missile design posters on the walls of her cubicle, too), but those were non-reusable systems. A fixed orbital emplacement would mean the ability to fire multiple times (unless whoever the target was had something in orbit to shoot it down, of course).

A "shrike", she'd found, was a carnivorous bird which impaled it's prey upon thorns. Very friendly. It was also some kind of robot killing machine in several old science-fiction novels (you certainly couldn't write such a thing now, after the Silicon Revolution*!).

Right now the Researchers aboard were out in EVA suits, erecting the thing; Xarian hoped that none of them would be hit by space debris. That would not look good on her record, but it was a definite possibility. Someone needed to do something about the junk belt around Earth.

The target of this test-fire was the ruins of the town of Sargali, on the edge of the hard-kill zone of the Obsidian Event, and thus close enough to the border with Ekatori to give Qosin Ra a nice shock in Rakenno.

As ordered, Xarian flipped the A-038 over so that the globe of Earth was "above" them, with the Shrike gun pointing towards the distant ground.

The target seemed to inch closer frustratingly slowly, but it did eventually arrive, and the Shrike fired, slamming backwards on it's hydraulics (she fancied she could feel the shudder of the gun, but that was unlikely). The shell itself was several tons of depleted uranium, fired at Mach 20 and accelerating as it fell into the gravity well. Some or most of it would ablate due to friction with the atmosphere, of course, but enough would impact to cause rather a blast.

Yes, here came the video from the observers dirtside; a flaming streak of light lancing down, a giant cloud of flame and smoke and dirt rising up. Impressive.

OOC: *Silicon Revolution: This is not actually any specific revolution as such. It's the Tsarainese term for the emancipation of the AIs in various places (Zero-One being a notable example).