NationStates Jolt Archive

Points of light that were the reflections of stars danced across the surface of a lens.

Zoom in, machinery hummed inside the device its cavities full of its mechanical entrails which were lightly heated to protect it from the near absolute cold of the outer sol. Data was gathered. Starlight which could be a billion years old was converted to nothing more than abstract stores of information. Zoom in still further on a section of the device and a tiny blinking of radiation becomes obvious. Suddenly the atomic timer deep within the device sends out a trigger. By there absence several slivers of starlight set of more triggers. Conditions have been met, checklists filled the devices robust nanite based electromechanical brain. The energy cell at the heart of the device was tapped and energy arced along now open paths. Volatile fuel was pumped from deep within the device to banks of retros were it was freed into space in glittering ignited arcs of plasma. The target was confirmed. The device was preparing.
Zoom out, the device extended two banks of lasers, the first was hooked into a spectrometer the second was now sending pulses back into the solar system. The first lasers focus was on a piece of darkness. A high carbon content “dark” asteroid deep within the comet filled Oorot cloud, its dark rocky mass a 3 kilometre long slab of spinning obsidian rock mixed with veins of ferrous ores. It was perfect.

Sparks of light left the device, sub sections of it they struck the rock and buried in testing, probing, tasting the material around them as they slowly buried themselves.

All conditions were met. The device slowly and delicately lowered its equally black surface onto that of the asteroid. A large antenna unfolded sending out numerous signals. On the other end of the second laser an FTL relay point hummed with the energy it was pouring into the microscopic donut shaped wormhole at its heart as it spun and wove gravity and energy to pulse information down this holes infinitely short length to earth. It was receiving data from hundreds of such probes as the device in question however instantly this devices data was flagged and bounced ahead of the transmissions stacked up to flow down the superluminal link to the heart of the solar system. It reached its target, the monster ZMI data net on Luna. Here it met for the first time the eyes or rather the minds of humans. Decisions were made. Other possible candidates were dismissed. Resources were readied. Messages were sent to allies.

The huge 3 kilometre long hulls of 3 Armed Trader class (1) bulk interstellar hauliers were taken of the ZMI orbital megacity(2) constructions resources. Publicly these ships would still appear on the huge construction projects ship rosters however they now had a different task. These ships then made there way slowly but surely to loading points at L3. Construction materials flowed on board them as did the crews and heavy construction drones to assemble them. Finally a 2,000 strong ZMI Battle Angel detachment filled one of the huge holds of the armed traders with deep space fighting gear and supplies. Finally a single ZMI medium fleet transport rolled into position towing behind it cargo modules filled with defences.

The convoy moved out to a rendezvous point. At it they were to be met by allies and of course there escort.

(1) http://www.deviantart.com/view/12060245/
(2) http://www.deviantart.com/view/12417665/

As the time of the rendezvous approached, a group of ten ships appeared on the ZM group's sensors. Upon a closer look, the men operating the sensor systems could see ten ships. Shortly after coming into visual range, a short text message was sent over in Morse Code via a flashing light near the bridge of the lead ship.

>> Hail, friends. This is the 14th Autonomous Research Fleet of the Principality of Bryn Shander's space fleet. Our fleet contains the Musai Daioh Class cruiser Narusegawa, the two Talos Class destroyers Hyatt and Privateer, the Serpent Class frigates Naga, Cobra, Viper, and Python, as well as the three Chronos Class science vessels Tachyon, Quark, and Nanite.

The 14th Autonomous Research Fleet (http://www.deviantart.com/view/12537394/)

The ZMI escort group slowly filtered through the convoy, special use corvettes, 8 Black Star class frigates, Two Harsh Market Conditions class beam cannon frigates and three Scythe Class missile destroyers. The ZMI ships sent out signals ..power was transferred deep below the surface of Luna to the space in front of the vessels.

Commodore Julian Hamilton was a thickset man, you might call him bulky or stocky, his thin hair seemed to have been burnt away by the will that moved the man. He had been warned on numerous occasions for overly aggressive tactics and it seemed as if the rage and aggression that burnt in his soul had done the same to his slightly dishevelled uniform. He was known in the ZMI SF(N) CnC sections as “the monster” and had on numerous occasions been known to carry out certain monstrous missions for the central council that no ordinary commander at the councils disposal could live with. However he was the nominal commander of the ZMI compliment of the convoy and as such on board the Scythe class missile destroyer Atheistic Vengeance.

His voice seemed to reverberate the hull of the A.T.V. her captain winced at that, it had been the name of a popular youth TV show from around the time of the destroyers commissioning 20 years ago and it had stuck. Sean Tinny was a fourth generation ZMI deep spacer and it galled him to have his ship trapped back here in sol on of all things convoy duty. Her impressive exploration module had been ripped out, replaced with the command suite for a man he was beginning to loathe. “Captain I believe we are ready to move out send the signal to the 14th fleet.” spoke the monster once more Tinny grated his teeth and replied in an voice as robbed of emotion as he could make it “yes commander”. Julian then opened a hail to the rest of the convoy. This is Julian to the convoy, convoy designation is now 499SD4, formation data and navigation points will be classified, transmitting translocation lock points to your stardrives now, this is a tactical code gamma jump. Lets get this rolling people.” Tinny winced at the last statement which had once more boomed through his small bridge like the roar of a falling building. Tinny then snapped out “helm move to translocation positions, retract all EM and gravitational sensors, primary and secondary drives interlocked on link with the translocation field.

On Lunas surface energy crackled and twisted through conduits in the ZMI facilities, finally it siphoned up to a point in space ..and seemed to vibrate it.

For a second the ZMI ships seemed to vibrate then as one by one there translocation drives locked onto the field, there forms seeming then seeming to simply fade before they just blinked out of sight.



Black Star Class
http://www.deviantart.com/view/10510537/

Harsh Market Conditions Class
http://www.deviantart.com/view/11609846/

Scythe Class
http://www.deviantart.com/view/9051827/

"Ensign, transmit the coordinates to the fleet and order the other ships to jump immedietly."

"Aye aye."

The space in front of each ship began to ripple, barely noticable. As the ripple grew, the ships moved foreward, through the ripples, which formed bubbles around the ships. As a group, they accelerated quickly, reaching such a high speed that they were only a blur to any outside observers.

After only a second or two after the start, ten points of light appeared in front of the fleet. They quickly grew large enough to swollow the ships, and in a brief flash, they did.


On the other side, there was an endless sea of silvery sky, broken only by tubular clouds spiraling into the distance. Whirlpools of color spinned like coins, and a few bits of planar flotsam and jetsam drifted here and there. The fleet traveled through the haphazard void that is the Astral Plane for what seemed like an eternity or two, the monotomy of the journey broken only when the fleet encountered a large group of githyanki raiders, who quickly had their first, and last, encounters with megaparticle cannons.

As the fleet reached their destination, they repeated the proccess that they used to enter the Astral Plane, this time using it to exit. Once back on the Prime Material Plane, the fleet waited for the ZMI fleet, as only six seconds had passed since the beginning of the journey, a byproduct of travel on the timeless Astral Plane.

The tiny three centimetre long rock had been tumbling through space longer than the sun had burned. It was ancient, its surface was scarred with countless pits and charred black by the stars. 4 billion years ago it could have been an alter stone for a world spanning empire or the tip of a mighty commercial palaces spires, but it was nothing than a chip of a long shattered world.

It was also in the way. Space churned, starlight shimmered of course as the surface of space time distended and warped. The rock was perturbed of is course and began to tumble out of the overlaying shock bubbles of the fleets translocation. Space tore and radiation which would have boiled any living thing within a few hundred kilometres sleeted through the rock barraging its already dusty battered surface. Finally in barely an eye blink where before there had been nothing now there was the huge rumbling forms of star ships. The rock still tumbled its fate still unclear. On the surface of the ZMI Armed Trader Elephant sensors took stock of the world around them, plunging data back into the ship mind. Over 1,300 of them picked up the tiny spinning rock and with out thought one of the ships sub minds sent a trickle of power through to a point defence light laser. One end of the rock glowed…out gassed and once more the rock was sent plunging out of the solar system back into the depths from whence it came.

The fleet spotted there allies, and moved on gusts of plasma from there drives alongside keeping a slow long eye on there target.

"So nice of you to join us." , said the captain of the Narusegawa, a young female catgirl. "Have you found the rock yet?"

The small fleet of ships manuvered into position with the ZMI fleet, reducing a few rocks into subatomic particles with their main guns. At the same time, a team of three mobile suits launched from the Narusegawa's bay, assigned to point defense.

"By the way, our science vessels are picking up a two hundred and seventy seven kilometer diameter iron-nickel asteroid five hundred thousand kilometers off our starboard bow. It looks promising, should we investigate?"

Upon the great blackened surface of the asteroid the probes brain crackled as instructions barrelled down to it from the ZMI ships now taking real time control of its systems.

Hamilton wasn’t stupid ..just annoying Julian thought to himself as his commanding officer barked out orders for the convoys engineering units. Julian stared into the blinking little holographic flat screen being projected near his head and replied “Yes madam captain it is said Asteroid ahead of us, our probe should be giving you full data sweeps from its lidar, sonar, gravimetric and mass spectrometers on a side band to this transmission now.” Julian stared at the other C.O. She was far younger than he had expected, perhaps this mission would not be as boring as he had been preparing himself to endure. Outside his Destroyer moved into position just above the Asteroids north pole as hundreds of drones spilled from it to double check the Asteroids integrity, there thick heavy yellow hulls and heavy crab like bodies marking them as engineering section units.

Julian continued, “As soon as we have identified a coring point we will start launching of mining drones so please do not mind the high energy readings you get from there reactors they are unarmed” Julian chuckled “save for some very heavy mining lasers and drills”. Meanwhile we will deploy our battle angel force I believe there C.O wanted to give them some flight time”. Even as Julian spoke one of the three Armed traders cracked open one of its cargo bays and dozens of streams of tiny drive flames screamed outwards followed by 12 bright flashes of pulsed stealth drives as the battle angels deployed there holographic surfaced suits not perfect but good enough to make them all but invisible to the human eye in exact opposite to the streaming adds that covered the hulls of the rest of the ZMI ships and equipment in never ending dancing patterns of products and services.

"No need to be formal. Call me Catherine. Although if you insist on being formal, Captain Felidae."

The young, high ranking nekojin watched the activity in awe. She had seen the construction of colonies more than thirty kilometers long, and helped with additions to Mathilde, but she had never seen an asteroid this large. If this project went well, she could only gain. Perhaps even get promoted.

"If you'd like, we could launch a few more MS to play with your Battle Angels. Perhaps we could allow crew members to tour each other's ships. I really don't see much excitement happening any time soon."

“That would be excellent Catherine” Julian smiled as he spoke “I will have the battle angels transmit there training laser bandwidths to your MS units” “CAPTAIN” Julian now winced noticing the cat girls ears twitch as the bellow blasted across his ships com system. “The drones have reported success!” Hamilton continued in his bone juddering loud voice “I’m sending you the initial blast co-ordinates and fire release authorisation now! Time for some fireworks!” Julian shrugged apologetically to the screen and said “Catherine I believe were going to start if you would please move your assets away from this vector”, a burst of data flowed “ and ready your point defence to blast errant particles that escape our catch nets”.

Outside on the surface of the asteroid the engineering drones were already scuttling and jetting away from the ragged point where the ZMI geological surveys had found to commence the base.

Aboard the Atheistic Vengeance Julian took out a single bio ident key, its solid metal appearance was however misleading its core filled with complex quantum field and biometric and DNA sensors. He then slotted it neatly into the port in his command chair and quietly said “weapons are now live, prepare to take us in”, outside the where usually on a Scythe class destroyer her rail cannon pod would be mounted a huge array of deflectors, shields and sensors sat, meanwhile where the ships spinal weapons mounts would have sat the huge bloated mouth of a quantum warp based molecule stripper (1) sat now giveing of glowing green arcs of energy and otherworldy sheets of warped space time.

"Standby for main translocation drive power transfer to the stripper, pilot take us in". As he spoke the ships torch drive jeted spurts of live plasma outword and the destoyer pointed her "prow" towards the asteroid and slowly began to loose altitude. He then looked back at the holo screen with Catherines face upon it and said "captain are your units ready?"

(1)The warp molecule stripper a non military short range mass mining tool usually used on ZMI deep space resource platforms it uses controlled flaws in reality to brake of molecular bonds one at a time sifting through the atoms and identifying and storing them via there atomic weight. The process is volatile and only about 30 percent recovery of material via the sifting is possible, with the rest simply being blasted away as gouts of re stabilizing matter or chunks of non stripped matter.

"Sounds like a plan. I'll launch them with training weapons."

In the background, a series of uninteligible orders were shouted. Responses were shouted back, and after a minute, the bridge of the Narusegawa was again quiet.

"I understand. We'll back off immedietly."

Again, the bridge was filled with barked orders, radio chatter, and responses. As a result, the ten ships of the 14th fleet turned* and moved away from the ZMI group, launching more MS in the process.

"Yes, the units are all ready. We have twelve MS armed with training weapons ready to play."

*Thrust vectoring owns the sky! This shit can turn on a dime Macrosszero style! (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/Nightbane/1092264919000.png)

“Very well Catherine, we will commence firing in 23 seconds” Julian said as he monitored the flows of energy to the stripper. “Deploy the catch nets!” as he spoke the engineering drones fluttered up from the asteroids surface catching hold and linking too a vast series of powered nets filling most of the destroyers corvette bay, dragging it out and powering its sections up. The catch net was really nothing more than a vast series of kinetic shields and plain high tensile strength pizo electric (sp?) links, with impacts and the nets movement helping to power the system.

Even as the net unfolded ridiculous quantities of power flooded into the molecule stripper, Julian stared as the thing sucked up more energy than a battery of heavy plasma cannon, before it finally sent out a wave of dull green glowing into the rock ahead of the ship, the A.T.V. started to vibrate and the kinetic deflector array which was now in place of its main rail gun turret started to spark out energy as thousands of tons of material splattered outwards. The asteroids surface was obscured in roiling clouds of dust which seemed to be sucked into the catch nets, all while slowly the destroyer seemed to be about to crash into the surface holding its position with gentle burst of its thrusters.

“Cathi-juddder- were at full operating speed now we should have completed the main shaft in a little un-judder- a minute!” Julian shouted over the groaning through the hull, the ship had vibration deadeners and main stabilizers he knew they did its just they had never been designed to handle the entire ship vibrating like a tuning fork as it dug into the rocky surface below, gouts of dust and chunks of rock spun of into space sometimes speared by the ships point defence, or left to drift into the abyss while some fell back onto the black surface of the great rock discolouring its black surface.

Meanwhile the Battle Angel C.O. one Fredrick Harrison sat in his command chair and held on to his smart flimsies trying to stop the piles of maintence reports spilling out of the order he had just spent the last two hours putting them in. He had once been a top angel pilot himself serving on the boards own guard before moving into the command structure of the corp. His mane of jet black hair was the one rebellious thing about his appearance, otherwise he wore the ice white uniform of the battle angels, it’s red slashes above where his link implants were. “Captain I request communications with” –JUDDER- Fredrick grimaced as a dozen of the flimsies scattered “the C.O. of the MS unit” his Nordic accent was thick. Julian looked around
At this, “very well Commander external coms are open to you”.

As the rocks began to fly, the forty machinegun turrets on the Narusegawa unleashed a torrent of fire, protecting the fleet with a thick blanket of 120mm HE fragmentation shells. Every once and a while, a large chunk got through, but was quickly vaporised by the ship's main guns.

Meanwhile, in one of the launched MS, a specially modified MS-09R2 Rick Dom II, complete with command antenna...

"Lt. Johnny Griffon here. What can I do for you?"

The Atheistic Vengeance was surrounded with a mass of powdered rock, weird shattered remains of molecules and the odd pebble sized chunk of spoil. It rolled about her hull in a silent typhoon of junk while more and more engineering drones screamed through the dust, there yellow hulls now discoloured. They dragged huge heat sink panels, they carried heavy mining systems or towed huge rolls of cable, as they spiralled out of the armed traders and surrounded the rock in a mechanical frenzy that would end on some point on the Asteroids surface where they would ever so delicately link it to the machinery already spilling out across the surface of the rock, or plunge it deep into smaller shafts they were even now digging. Some were at the manufacturing points inside the A.T.V.s corvette bays filling themselves with foam metal or loading up huge structural spars, while still more erupted in fountains out of the Armed Trader “Stockmarket Crash” constructing a heavy free floating smelter refinery complex that would be sunk down the main shaft. All of this was guided by hundreds of ZMI engineers linked to the swarm of construction activity from the safety of the Armed Traders.

Frederick cleared his throat after picking up the remaining flimsies under his captains gaze and then began to speak before -Judder-, Frederick looked on in a sort of slow wincing horror as the flimsies once more sprayed across his console. “Commander Fredrick Harrison here lieutenant Griffon, I have been informed that our commanding officers wish us to train together, I am transmitting relevant data now for a number of simulated combat training sessions and parameters” As Harrison spoke he fervently linked into his command chair the red patches of his uniform melting away as thick hardened neural links suddenly made him partially a section of the gestalt that was the A.T.V.s group overmind and the networked mind of the ZMI squadron. These background distractions faded as he linked solely to the rest of his suited battle angels. This was one of the battle angels strengths while linked to the ZMI net they acted as one, could in emergencies think as one and most of all fight as one. As this happened his voice took on a dreamy quality “I believe that operations on the surface of the asteroid must be kept to a minimum while construction is underway therefore I suggest that we use the hulls of the heavy transports, the armed traders as the first exercise zone”

Frederick blinked, unlinked he was clumsy, not so fast on his feet and uncoordinated, linked he was one of the top 40 pilots in the battle angels his minds reaction speed massively increased and heavy artificial implanted muscles meant that his G tolerances were to say the least extreme.

“I suggest we talk in person Lieutenant” Frederick continued, I believe that the Open Market Venture our Armed trader host can supply you with ample landing room in its corvette bays.”

"Somehow, I doubt that the asteroid will need to be kept vacant during construction. It is rather large, after all."

The black and yellow Dom moved towards the Open Market Venture, circling around towards the corvette bay. Moving dangerously close to the hull, the stocky, 18.6m suit would have likely scared anyone looking out a porthole as it passed. After a short time, Johnny located the bay and entered. Landing with a dull thud, the Dom walked to a wall, it's steps aided by powerful magnets built into the feet. As soon as he located a sutable spot to park the suit, Lt. Griffon did so and opened the cockpit's hatch. Quickly unstrapping himself from the seat, he moved to the open hatch, surveying the bay.

The Open Market Ventures corvette bay was an icy tone of light blue synth alloy with engineering signs displaying across its “smart” surface. The bays ceiling was filled with the five bulky black cradles for the corvettes it usually housed and serviced while its floor was covered with access panels, emergency recovery gear, while the walls were mounted with the hulking modules of fire suppression and emergency repair systems. Standard ZMI ship borne status screens inset into the walls spewed out general data about the vessel, one tuned into the ZMTV 8 news live data stream, which was watched idly by the engineering crews who were taking a brake. Their bulky orange hazard suits lay locked into there deployment “coffins” near the far right corner. In left corner a dismounted corvette sized Orbitron matter compression drive unit lay in a set of large robotic clamps covered in thermal shielding while a yellow engineering drone supervised by six maintenance crew members delicately was probing and servicing the volatile device. The bay was wide open to space, the air seemingly held in by nothing more than a tiny shimmering blur, actually an intense field of suspended linked charged molecules, even then the bays air pressure was quite low. In consequence the engineers had oxygen modules linked to their blood streams so they could keep there activity levels high.

Aboard the A.T.V. Frederick donned his angel combat suit, grimacing slightly as it filled with impact gel and then feeling the slight disturbing feeling of someone watching over his shoulder as the suits battle hardened thick neural links and kinetic buffers clamped to his body or plunged into his implants.

The suit was a little over 4 metres tall, its white smart surface shimmering for a moment as its “wings” began to glow slightly when the matter compression reactor kicked in. The suit was now “live”, the little reactor on its back putting out nearly 30 megawatts of power, the wings venting of the spare energy in a low level distortion drive field. He clumped over to his command gunship, this used twin corvette drives to power a brutal looking wedge with a thick egg shaped gun turret mounted on its front and twin heavy gun turrets mounted on the sides. Its bottom had mounts for breacher torpedoes, while the top was dappled with hard points. The gun ships were designed for vacuum operation only, non aerodynamic, unpressurised and lacking life support systems they were mobile transports and fire support platforms for the Battle Angel corp. while operating in space, carrying reloads ferrying back wounded and if called for hammering the enemy with long range heavy missiles, even capable of carrying if the armoured plates were retracted single heavy angel battle suit.

This one however was covered in Electronic warfare modules, stealth systems, command antennae and a startling array of repair and recon drones. On it the twin black stars of the Frederick’s “Binary Bastards” or as they were more formally known the “Black Twins” ,the ZMI mil dept. logo and the twin wings of the Battle Angels. He smoothly locked his suit into the command chair, though calling it a “chair” would be a stretch of the imagination it was more of a series of link points for his suit. Four other Angels linked to the gunship systems then Frederick’s asked for take off clearance and a momentary halt to the mining operations. Outside a torrent of rock and dust was battering the A.T.V’s closed armoured corvette bay doors and though the gunship’s simple shields were strong they would be smashed to bits by this deadly torrent. In the space outside the ship the engineering drones did a complex ballet gathering the shards of deadly rock or blasting them away from his flight path before the corvette bay doors slid open and the gunship roared out its twin drive flames already running white hot. It slowly threaded its way through the controlled mayhem of the engineering drones and there payloads and finally went on a ballistic course to the Open Market Venture.

Four minutes after Lieutenant Griffon had parked his mecha in the Open Market Ventures corvette bay (known as the “old opera” to her crew) the gunship slid silently into the open bay before gently sliding to a halt as its landing skids, as they linked to the hidden deceleration magnetic rails beneath the floor of the bay.

Frederick’s mind reached out and the gunship’s heavy armoured panels recessed back with a very sudden snapping concertina motion. He then safed the gunship’s drives and unlinked his suit before crossing the bay over to Griffon emptying his helmet of impact gel while he walked before he unlinked it from the rest of the suit, its mass of smart material now unpowered it seemed to loose some of its shine. “Lieutenant Griffon I pursume?” Frederick’s said his strong Nordic accent cutting through the clattering noise in the bay.


Meanwhile the A.T.V.s coring of the asteroid continued, as it cut through meters of the dense mix of rock, metal and the occasional gas or ice pocket. These pockets were causing the “juddering” effect the A.T.V. was experiencing as the warp molecule stripper compensated for the change in needed power rates by dragging power from the ships systems including its kinetic buffers. The defences on the medium fleet transport spilled out into space from tennis ball sized Hunter killer kinetic drones who would use there own mass as there weapon to the huge anti shipping “gun storm”(1) arrays who’s fire power was nearly equal to that of the destroyers and who’s spinal heavy ion cannons could blow a 30 metre wide hole in the side of a cruiser. These spun out in delicate arcs far outside the engineering zone, while already heavy fixed weapons were being shipped down to the surface from the armed traders, the engineering drones affixing them to the insides of prefabricated turrets or recessing them deep within passages cut into the rock itself.

(1)http://www.deviantart.com/view/8608958/ Gun Storm counter shipping platform Tech sheet.

http://www.deviantart.com/view/9053400/ artistic shot of gunstorm battrey.

Lt. Griffon hopped down from the suit's cockpit, the microgravity of the ship taking him gently to the ground. With a hiss, he broke the double seal on his neck, and removed his helmet, his short blonde hair glistening in the light. "Of course."

sporkination! ..post comeing in a sec.

A spot of light exercise.

The battle angel spun as the huge paint ball round struck his pristine armour and splashed its active cammo a bright red sticky paint. The rest of his squad turned from where they had been planting a fake breaching charge on a bunker, only to face a hail of the red paint filled spheres. With the rest of the automatic spray the attacking mecha managed from its position concealed within a cooling fin array to pick of the rest of the unsuspecting troops. The heavy paint balls sometimes bowling one of the battle angels over. Then its pilot slowly crawled out and looked space wards. It was controlled chaos, in the distance a Battle Angel gunship squadron ripped over the landscape dumping out troopers and laying down holographic fake fields of fire and dummy rockets. Further out the defence ships were on manoeuvres in formations designed to penetrate with minimal losses the asteroid bases defence platforms and kill satellites, their huge drive flames visible in the sky as the vessels pulled evasive manoeuvres. Occasionally the sky filled with low level laser fire and huge glowing tracks of the much closer drive flames of the defensive and attacking fighter craft, mecha, and battle angels, all braving the open space and hails of fake fire from the defenders and the Battle Angels Landing zones. Taking careful aim on the horizon he zoomed in on another bobbing egg shaped Battle Angel helmet, its active camo unable to mask it as for a moment a huge starship drive flame silhouetted it. Taking careful aim the mecha pilot squeezed of another paintball. It was going to be a long day.

The Battle Angel company dodged between rocks, their tiny drive flames well shielded as they came up behind the space wards facing heavy mecha. Their drop had gone unnoticed, a flare of fake sensor distortion as would be created by ship to ship heavy fire blanking out both sides sensors for just long enough for the gunship’s to make a hard drop. Now they approached their target. Huge Battle Angel crew served tripod mounted energy lances were carefully deployed along a dusty ridge even as they watched the heavy mechas guns traverse the sky, and simulated weapons fire leave their weapons in huge flashes. The strike squads made ready then in a flash streams of simulated fire left the tripods, washing over the huge mecha, as three squad’s of Battle Angels screamed forward their drive flames now cascades of white flame, quantum blades replaced by blue paint throwers. In a minute the rumbling big mecha were all covered in blue slashes of paint or marked as dead by the fire control computers on the tripods. The battle angels moved forward and began setting up in the mecha’s position as the big heavy mecha began to make their way to the nearest referee point escorted by a science officer who was watching the entire affair while humming the Blue Danube his marked referees one man ship for the event painted bright white.

Losses at 84% in the first wave. Frederick’s grinned whatever else his new allies were their mecha pilots were good. Frederick’s went back to trying to direct the insane swarm of activity of his forces as they streamed towards the asteroid. In some points he was actively ignoring the LZ’s he had already captured, the enemy must he assumed know them and be covering their approaches, Battle Angels individual passive stealth was good but the slashing search sensors of the defenders would burn through that fast in high concentrations, such as over the already captured LZ points. Frederick’s however had other idea’s and was counting on the now highly active sensors of the enemy. His LZ’s were tiny blue irregular circles on the surface of the asteroid as were the huge areas of brown “unclaimed” no mans land and “red” actively defended territory with bright red dots for confirmed heavy enemy positions and light red circles for possible’s. Near the top of the rock a huge yellow zone lay where the heavy construction was still going on. His first wave had been planned to look like it had failed when in actual fact taking up positions to claim one huge captured zone using the heavily defended landing zones as bastions of fire. That had been the plan anyway, Frederick’s had not expected such heavy levels of casualties, now a much smaller zone was conceived for the second wave to secure. The command gunship and its squadron slowly drifted back into the edges of the fray.

This flight of gunship’s weren’t carrying more Battle Angels at all, instead they were carrying a stack of simulated A-RAD munitions. If their was atmosphere they would have been screaming through the valley in the asteroid’s surface, dodging surface fire and the watchful ever predatory eyes of fighter and mecha pilots. Their mission was simple, to knock out the defenders heavy sensors so the Battle Angels could land individually unharmed and undetected by long range fire. Of course the weapons positions and mecha themselves had sensors, but the fixed emplacements were still far more powerful, capable of lighting up whole sectors of the sky as it were with invisible search lights of radiation that would burn through battle angel passive stealth. However as the gunship’s made one final turn towards the first of the sensor arrays a squad of mecha concealing themselves from space based sensors sweeping downwards from the ships that had been classed attackers, and the other high flying gunship’s and fighters sensor pick ups stood up in waves of dust from the floor of the valley, clouds of the silicate dust spreading out from them. Mounted on their hardpoint’s to the Gunships pilots horror were huge bulky AA weapons which neatly lined up and send the majority of the squadron racing over them the kill signal. Two raced disparately sky wards shuddering as they pulled hi g turns, but deep within defending lines as they were only one made it out. As red flashing simulated sensor traces of the mechas simulated fire flashed upwards out of the valley and Frederick was cut out from the majority of that gunship squadrons command loop Frederick’s let out a snapped curse before going back to directing his forces simulated attack.

Construction

The Atheistic Vengeance now slowly emerged from the tunnel it had carved. Around it for hundreds of metres drones were racing about carrying construction materials into the core of the asteroid, while huge clanking yellow crab like construction drones started laying the reinforced plascrete and vast battle ceramic panels that would make up the basses walls. As the Atheistic Vengeance finished backing away several tugs slowly carefully began lowering huge project sections into the vast cavernous tunnel. The first thing in was the huge smelter, crackling and operating to churn out structural members even as it was lowered into its final resting place. Tens of thousands of construction drones were now swarming over the asteroids surface, some laying down layers of armour, others emplaceing sensors, bunkers, and endless seas of turrets and missile tubes. The huge metal construction beams were now being carefully assembled at several dozen points of the surface into ship cradles and repair units.

While this was going on one of the unopened bays on an armed trader finally revealed its cargo. A set of 8 ship sized blast doors slowly made their drone assisted way out of the armed trader and down the tunnel, the last pair were left above the asteroids surface as a huge conurbation of towers, plascrete walls, and cooling fins made its way around the gaping maw of the main passage. As you could watch corridors and equipment filled rooms were built, roofed over, and then buried under layers of fortifications. Huge spinal battle shipped class energy weapons were slowly lowered into pits near the thick cooling fin arrays, then the massive final set of blast doors was put in place as yet more drones swarmed up from the depths of the smelter and now operation manufactories carrying kinetic weapons to be employed all over the surface. From huge double barrelled 250mm anti shipping coil guns in bubble turrets to 80mm coil quad cannon they were placed, wired into the asteroids growing utility grid and fortified. All of this was being done at the inhuman pace of the drones.

Back and forth, the tide of the mock battle shifted. From a distance, the fierce fighting was beautiful, a chaotic dance of multi-colored lights eminating from the thrusters on the angels and suits. On the surface of the rock, a small team of Zaku waited in ambush, guarding the next objective. Two were armed with 120mm machineguns, the third armed with a 280mm bazooka. Each weapon was loaded with paint rounds, but the tactic was the same. When the battle angels entered the crater, the two Zaku with machineguns would open up with suppression fire, in an attempt to pin the angels into a small cave. Then, the third Zaku would pick them off one by one with it's bazooka. When the angels went after the objective, the plan went flawlessly. Flawlessly, that is, until another group of angels snuck up on the Zaku, "killing" them withought a fight.

All over the rock, similar scenes played out at the same time. Some times the mobile suits would win, some times they wouldn't. The sheer equality of the kill stats was a testament to the training on both sides. All the while, Lt. Griffon couldn't help but pray that the two nations would never have to fire upon each other with live weapons. If they did, the cost in sentient lives would be staggering.

2 Months Later
The rock was different now, its mass radically altered as huge quantities of it were moved extracted fused together or processed. Now it was a honeycomb of vast chambers and tunnels. Now its surface was metallic grey with a thick coating of ablatives and armour created from its own mass. Dozens of protuberances of capital ship docking spires, force wall projector towers and the massive muzzles, flare brakes and heat sinks of fixed ultra heavy energy cannon towered where canyons and craters had once been while vast belts of 120mm, 150 and huge quad 300mm ball turreted auto cannon stretched out as far as the eye could see. The wave guides for massive capital missile launch tubes would in their silent ranks almost look like forests on this surface now teeming with mechanical activity. In the distance the arcs of defensive satellites and platforms had thickened to cause their to be only a few safe navigable windows for capital and super capital vessels to transit without risking collision.

The entire rock hummed as machinery cranked endlessly under its surface as tens of thousands of staff hurried from the city sized habitation section to its vast device filled bays.

In the heart of all this activity a device sat, bulky massive and linked to banks of reactors. The high energy experimentation unit was an application of star drive technology, much larger than even a super capital ships drive unit. More than 2 kilometres from it past blast doors fit to stop a thermonuclear detonation, through a maze of corridors large enough to fit a starship and indeed designed to do just that, past dozens of cavernous bays filled with thousands of technicians and sub experiments lay the skeleton of a ship. It unlike most lay without habitation or cargo or even support sections, all it had was merely a drive mounted on a skeletal hull and a thick heavily armoured control module. Past this and another network of corridors lay town sized habitation sections, huge ship storage bays and finally the main external access designed to accommodate the largest conventional capital ship.


The lab lay of concourse B8 of main axis 2, over 15 kilometres from the main high energy experimentation unit. Upon its massive grey armoured airlock door the legend “CT-LAB 23 Prof. Janet Wheeler” was stencilled in white text beside a barcode. It was not pokey as space was no issue aboard the rock, but it was sparsely furnished. A few tables and pieces of unidentifiable lab equipment lay strewn about its rectangular white spartan synth crete form. Sirens and visual alarms were filling the lab with a noise which covered the hiss from the ..object in its heart.

Two figures lay unconscious behind a single armoured plate in its far corner, while in the centre of the room an object floated… it was not matter nor was it what would be conventionally thought of as energy. It was neither a wave nor a particle nor anything else that should be, it looked somehow wrong as if it should never be extruded into this world. As emergency crews in heavy bright orange survival suits and their drones finally overdid the door release they would see this ..thing suspended. In its heart still linked by a thick black power cable lay a device of crystal and wire furiously spinning.

Something had been ..found, something had been extruded.

Something had worked.

Meanwhile, the two frigates Naga and Cobra patrolled the outskirts of the base's sphere of influence. On the other side of the sphere, the Viper and Python did the same. Today, their sensors showed exactly what they were supposed to. Absolutely nothing.

Back in the rock, the three Chronos Class science vessels sat idle, docked in one of the most internal bays, hundreds of cables connecting the three ships to the asteroid. Inside, researchers monitored the activity in the main chamber from a safe distance. If anything were to happen, the ships would immedietly depart at emergency speed, escaping to Pezun with the data intact.

In a lab not too far from the Chronos docking bay, a group of researchers worked on adapting an I-Field for use in the shields being worked on. The I-Field would be the framework for the shields, as it could be shaped nearly any desired way. The work wasn't too difficult, as the same principal had been used on the pseudo FTL drives equipped on all of Bryn Shander's military starships, but the problem was that the main part of the shielding wasn't finished yet. For now, the challenge was getting the most powerful I-Field they could get.

---A few months later---

Work was proceding smoothly. A small prototype was already begining to show signs of impending success. The men and women abord the station were alive with excitement as the climax of the research neared. The crews of the 14th Autonomous Research Fleet,however, were decidedly less excided. The time had come for their rotation with the 15th, and so they would miss out on the testing of their months of hard work.

The researchers stationed with the fleet spent the day backing up all of the data aquired up until that point, transfering it to the mainframes onboard the 14th Fleet's Chronos Class ships. They also moved equipment back and forth between the labs and the ships, as well as their personal items and assorted cargo. They had to work fast, as they were schedueled to be gone before the 15th arrived, as their work was done and the docking and lab space was required to be ready by the time the 15th arrived.

Only one piece of equipment was left behind. A prototype reactor and I-Field generator. It would be used by the 15th to begin their portion of the work; the development and integration of the capacitors and power distrobution networks. That is, if the 15th was in fact coming. Unknown to all but a very select few, relations between ZMI and Bryn Shander had recently broken down, and the 15th Autonomous Research Fleet would not be coming. Instead, the generator would be rigged to a massive bomb, that unless something went horribly wrong, would destroy the entire station and all the data on it. The 14th would be long gone by then, and it would look like a catastrophic accident.

So far, all was going according to plan. The bomb was in place, the data was backed up, and Bryn Shander's personell was evacuated. All that was left was to 'accidently' leave the reactor on, and depart. As soon as the last men were onboard their ships, Captain Felidae radioed a farewell message to the base, and the 14th fleet departed as schedueled.