NationStates Jolt Archive

The decision had been made a while ago. The time of hiding... was over. The time to act... Hadn`t yet begun. This was the time... To watch.

They moved through hyperspace, their sleek bodies cutting through it`s red current... soon... soon, they would be there.

Here... The outer edge of the system their new base will be located in. Only a few more minutes...

Slowly, the time passes, the ships eager to leave hyperspace... and finally, they are there.

Fading out, they vanish, only to reappear in normal space, hard to distinguish from the darkness that is space itself. Only occasionally, they cover a distant star, betraying their presence.

The Indiastani are already waiting, a few of their vessels guiding them.

The messages come in, giving them the necessary data... Where the preparations have been made to host a temporary base until their actual work is finished.

It´s a tiny spot in the north west, a relatively safe place. And slowly, they descend, enter the gravity well, covering the red surface of Mars with... shadows...

No longer is their presence a secret.

The base had been prepared for their arrival. Heavy concrete silo-hangers had been built into the martian soil, allowing the sleek black vessels to berth out of sight. A hefty defensive perimiter defence system had also been erected, to ward off any unwelcome visitors. On the surface, a complex of about a dozen buildings sat roughly in the center of the base, and a single runway and landing pad ran the length of the south side. From above, it almost appeared like a farming dome, though this deception was entirely inteded.

Jamil Tamzir stood with the assembled Council, and several of their Drakh contacts as the first of the ships decended through the atmosphere, finally throwing their black shadows od death on Mars again after a nearly two hundred year abscence. He knew what their coming ment. What he he had acomplished. He knew his masters were pleased, and that this was going to make him. And, knowing that the rest of the team was thinking the same thing, he couldn't help but smile.

What is this mall about anyway.

Justin stood near to Jamil. He was the human liaison, and fairly satisfied with his work. And Jamils work, for that matter.

Waching the black ships descend, he could hear them scream... Scream in his mind...

Well, it wasn´t like the telepaths inside the ships would have stayed sane, anyway.

They landed, one after the next, one, two... five, ten, twenty...

More, more.

In the end, it were thirty six heavy vessels, accompanied by the same amount of light scouts.

The beginning of the future... A great future.

Only the Drakh, three of them, didn´t show any emotion... They had seen this many, many times. And they, and only they, knew, how this would possibly end.

Soon, the work would begin, to finish the (so far fairly provisional) base.