NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: Okay, sorry if this is totally stupid, I'm just trying to tell the story of my nation's creation. Let me know if this isn't a good thing to do /OOC

A thump that shook the hull of the giant, outdated transport and woke Lars Osea from his fitful sleep was the first announcement of the sublight drives kicking in. Each time that happened, Lars feared the entire ship would fly to pieces, but somehow the rickety leviathan barely managed to stay in one piece. Lars donned his vest and pinned his captain's insignia to his shoulder, a formality at best on this ship of outcasts, to be seen only on the makeshift bridge carved out of a former minor docking bay.

There would be no time for coffee today. After months of jumping throughout the known galaxy looking for a habitable system on which to land and make their living, the quartet of transports had intercepted a message from the Edge Territories of a fledgeling nation known as The Green Lion, a news broadcast celebrating the nation's hundred-year anniversary. Lars headed the group assigned to contacting The Green Lion and working out possible peace accords and settlement rights, and Lars had soon begun to imagine he just might set his feet upon a non-metallic surface. They had finished the final leg of the jump to The Green Lion's capital world of Sergera, where they planned to enter slow orbit until arrangements for the settlers could be made.

The sublight drives kicked in several minutes before exiting the wormhole so the crew could prep the ancient drives for full operation, but as Lars strode onto the makeshift bridge, he could see the telltale signs that the wormhole's exit lie near: the streams of glowing plasma flowing around the ship were bending and buckling.

"Jackson, give me a run-down on what's broken today." Jackson Antonie and Lars were the only two members of the bridge crew, and had become good friends during their months together. Jackson looked up from his terminal and smiled; "Only two things on the shit list today, boss, Section C life support and Food Preparation in the anterior mess hall. Should have those up and running any minute now... no lives lost since you fell asleep!"

The secondary sublight drives activated with a noticeably smaller thud, and the streamers around the wormhole disappeared. Transport Bulk-105C-Surplus-01 had entered real-space.

Lars swiveled in his chair to face the communications console and opened up a group channel. "This iiiiis, Bulk-105C-Surplus-01 transport captain Lars Osea to 02, what's your status?" B105C-S02 had been the first ship out of the wormhole, being the one with the fewest broken turrets and best tuned sublight drive. At almost six kilometers long, it was impressive to behold, though much of that length was agri-stim farms to support the two point five million people housed on board the transport. Lars knew his own ship looked the same, as did the two following his through the wormhole, just with more scorch marks on the hull, but he loved any ship that he could call his own.

"Lars, its been long enough that I know your voice, that callsign just wastes bandwidth. We're at perfect functionality here, we had a coolant leak in the primary sublight but got it fixed almost before it started. Is that Sergera ahead?"

B105C-S01's sublight drives kicked in and the ship pitched upward to clear the wormhole exit, and the hull groaned with the stress of the maneuver. It was the only thing that frightened Lars as much as the drives turning on. B105C-S03 was only a few minutes behind B105C-S02, and having something hit B105C-S02's flaky hyperdrive motivators could put it totally out of commission. "Chin, that is indeed the capital. You're out first, they'll want to talk to you, open up a line of communication with their escorts while I damage-control our friends behind us."

B105C-S03 careened out of the wormhole, barely in control. One thing that ship did not have was a well-tuned sublight drive, and the crew wasn't very well-tuned either. Might have something to do with the bridge explosion killing the entire original crew, but Lars would make do with what he had. "Lars, this is Sarah! S04 had a sublight drive failure on entering the wormhole, we don't know how severe... Rick's hypercomm never did work very well, and I couldn't make it out. We may have to tow him into orbit, how are your drives?"

"Functional, at least. Me and Chin can take it, you worry about keeping your own ship together. How are your own drives?"

"Finicky as usual. They almost ripped free of their bearings on initiation, they surged to fifty percent power as soon as we activated them. Almost dropped us out of the wormhole a light-year back from here."

"Good thing they didn't. Get ahead of Chin and into orbit, we'll await Rick's re-entry here. Chin, match my position on the other side of the- oh, God. Oh, Christ, no...."

The sublight drives of B105C-S04 had exited the wormhole, driving ahead at full power, and exploded immediately after reverting to real-space. Lars winced as shards of molten metal impacted against his hull, then stared in disbelief as the rest of B105C-S04 exited the wormhole. There was a hole straight through the darkened ship where the sublight drive had torn its way free of its housing and drove straight through the ill-fated freighter, coring the ship and taking all the support systems with it. Without the shields, no living thing could survive a trip through the wormhole....

B105C-S02 fired its tow cables and brought the crumbling graveyard alongside its own mass and began towing the dead ship toward Sergera. Eight fighters, forest green in color, took up positions alongside each ship, with the two meant to guard B105C-S04 flying point and rear-guard. "Welcome to The Green Lion, B105C transports. This is Baron Locke speaking on behalf of Sergera and the Borderlands... welcome home."

Captain Joshua Ancroft of the bulk cruiser Cordelia watched in silence as his eight-fighter escort wing finished their docking sequence. He'd been briefed on the mission detail, that he would be rendezvousing with several civilian transports, but he hadn't expected the six-klick behemoths that exited the trade wormhole. Regardless, they wouldn't have been a threat to his polished cruiser even if they had been in good repair, which these birds obviously weren't. He leaned slightly as his three-hundred-meter ship rolled to be level relatively with the transports. He knew his adversaries could attack at any time, by any means, and he had his scanners on the enormous ships like hawks, but he was the epitome of calm, his hands at rest behind his back, knees bent ever-so-slightly, eyes casually scanning his bridge crew instead of locked on the gargantuan cargo containers like any civilian would have done. The BoGL delegate behind him, however, was anything but calm.

"THREE bulk freighters! Look at them! There could be a million people on each of those, those... things! Few of our colonies has the capacity to feed three million more people right off the bat, and those that do don't have the housing, utilities, or governing capacity for such a population boost! Okay, okay... okay. Okay. Think fast. Can't keep 'em, can't send 'em back. Okay. Oh... kay."

Ancroft cast a calculated glance behind him at the nervous passenger, noting the sweat beading on the man's forehead. Obviously the politician had not been briefed even as well as the Captain had, but in any case, Ancroft loved seeing those pol types sweat. He permitted himself a thin-lipped smile as he turned to the viewshield again.

"Hail the lead ship, Ensign," he said lucidly. "Let them know we are willing to meet with their commander-in-chief to discuss colonization rights." He smiled a little larger this time as he heard an under-breath groan from behind him.

Lars was waiting on deck when the sleek, polished-steel shuttle set down on its pad with a slight tremble. Its pilot was better than his, and he looked past the flickering mag-con field, past the closing bay doors, and to the well-lit cruiser floating serenely nine kilometers off. He almost imagined he could see the layers and decks of cannons he knew were trained on his transports. The doors finished closing, and he breathed in relief as the mag-con field powered down. He didn't dare leave that field on too long, it had failed in the past.

He turned his attention to the shuttle's opening hatch and to the two ensigns who hopped down and flanked the doors, rifles in parade position. Next out of the shuttle was a millitary man, clean-cut and standing straight and tall, behind him a well-dressed man who seemed to be a bit fidgety. He took six strides toward the shuttle, closing the distance between him and the gentlemen by half.

"Welcome to B105C-S01, gentlemen. Captain, I presume? My name is Lars Osea, Captain of B105C-S01 and Commodore of this humble fleet." He smiled inwardly at his own introduction.

The well-dressed man started to open his mouth, but the captain beat him to the punch. "I am Captain Ancroft of the cruiser Cordelia, Captain Osea. This is Ambassador Maddox of the Borderlands of the Green Lion, speaking for Sergera and for all of The Green Lion's people. I'll give you credit for this, you have a very large flagship."

Maddox spoke next. "The Green Lion welcomes you to the Edge Territories. Do you have a chamber where we may speak, instead of negotiating in your shuttle-bay?"

"Most certainly, gentlemen. My quarters are humble, but they are private."

The meeting was short and to-the-point as Maddox was quickly overwhelmed my Captain Lars' requests for colonization and reports of requested supplies. He was prepped for a meeting with a captain of a single light freighter, not a spacefaring country in desparate need. Captain Lars took a ride in the ambassador's posh shuttle down to the planet itself, where he was escorted through well-lit halls into a vast chamber, with hundreds of seats, one for each of the Advisors of The Green Lion. Only one seat was occupied, though, the seat just left of the center seat, which more resembled a throne. The occupant did not stand, but merely opened his eyes and gazed upon the approaching delegation. "Mr. Osea, I am Chancellor of the Western Region of the Borderlands of the Green Lion. You may call me Chancellor Winegard. I understand you want rights to partial ownership of a colony of The Green Lion. You want supplies, shelter, berthing for your... ships... and the defense of our military. What, then, do you have in return?"

"We would pay taxes just as every other citizen of your nation-"

"Taxes that we would have to pour into funding for your own protection. You also have little assets of your own, so what would you be paying your taxes with? We hardly have four million jobs available as well. However, not all is lost for you, as it does not take nearly as much money to start a colony as it does to pour into an existing one. It would cost less for us to give you one of the outlying worlds, set you up with basic supplies and shelters, and let you form your own colony as opposed to reforming one of our existing colonies to suit you.
"Nagel III, on the far East of our territories relative to the Sol/galactic axis, is uninhabited, but has a breathable atmosphere and nutrient-rich soil. You can even form your own colony and local government, as you are not yet part of this nation nor a member of any other nation... should you do this, however, The Green Lion reserves total rights of law and trade agreements. Shall we discuss this further?"

Four shuttles and two forest-green fighters roared down into the charged atmosphere of Nagel III. These were not the posh shuttles of the ambassador, but rugged, heavily armed and armored assault shuttles, the only four pieces of equipment still in full operation on Lars Osea's freighters. Scanners and instrumentation panels flickered with each lightning blast fired between the clouds, and shields sparked and shuttles rocked with each blast of thunder. It took nearly six minutes to penetrate the cloud layers at a standard rate of descent, and the crews held on the entire way through. Eventually the clouds parted and the shuttles swooped down low to the ground, away from the turbulence of the upper atmosphere.

The terraformer unit stood nearly eight hundred meters above the bleak landscape, towering into the yellow-orange atmosphere, and even from a distance of many kilometers it was an obelisk of hope for Lars and his people. Smoke billowed out of the sides of the tower as soil and air were split into their raw elements, to be reformed in manufacturing centers across the newfound colony. It was The Green Lion's gift to Lars and his people, their hope. The flat, terra-formed lands extended a kilometer around the tower... the machine had long since finished with the surface and was now working on terraforming a kilometer-radius cylinder as far down as its probes could burrow.

All four shuttles landed in the only pad available on the colony, which consisted of a minor power generator, two barracks, and a shuttlebay. "This," said Lars, "is our new home. Signal the transports."

The Green Lion mechanics had tuned up the bulk freighters' shielding systems to ensure they would survive the trip to the planet. For a moment, hte sun was obscured from the sky, then again, and again. Dark shadows appeared in the clouds, shadows lightning would not illuminate. Then, with a high-pitched whine of freshly-tuned engines, B105C-S01 cleared the last wisps of cloud and slowly drifted down the final three kilometers to the planet's surface. The massive ship dwarfed even the terraformer, and the air displaced by the ship roared past the crews exiting the shuttles, and when the ship finally landed three klicks from the terraformer with a jolt that jarred the ground. Several hull plates detached themselves from the ship and fell to the planet with thuds, but as soon as the engines powered down, three large transport trucks plowed their way into the undergrowth surrounding the terraformed zone, returning with technical crew for the newfound colony. A heavy aerial transport carried steel beams and fabric to create temporary structures to alleviate the load on the bulk freighter, which was already sagging slightly under its own weight. The other two transports settled into their own respective zones around the terraformer, and the colony officially began, with a thump rom B105C-S03's sublight drives that lifted a cloud of dust all over the colony. Omega. Final destiny. The final journey for the transports, the last jump needed for this crew of outcasts. The fighters' engines screamed as their pilots goosed the throttles, and the two one-man craft leaped up into the clouds to rendezvous with the Cordelia. They waggled their wings just before they entered the cloud layer, and Lars saluted them, though he knew they could not see him. He brought one foot down hard on the soil, and it gave slightly, solid but moldable into his dreams. His home.

OOC: Sorry. My diplomacy department leaves something to be desired. Hey, at least you have a home instead of wandering all over the stars....