NationStates Jolt Archive

Introduction
A long time ago, in the Second Age of Nanakaland, an alien menace was uncovered unboard a ghost ship, the Intrepid. Stalkers were highly intelligent, but didn't show it. They didn't like to communicate with their prey. They looked and acted similar to the aliens from the movie Alien. They got the name "Stalker" because when the Nanakan Space Marines first encountered them onboard the foreign vessel, the Intreprid, they stalked their prey and took out the marines one by one.

They infected ships and killed the crew (leaving most of the ship to look like a ghost ship). When their food supply (the crew) went down, they would go into hibernation waiting for any ship from any race to stumble upon it. When any life form from another ship stumbled upon it, the Stalkers would kill any boarding party and then launch "pods" to attach and infiltrate the passing by ships to feed.

Stalkers were a durable race and have been wiped out three times before by the Nanakans, each time they came back more powerful than before. All traces of the Stalkers have been wiped, out though. Well, almost all traces...

By the time the next menace of Stalkers erupted, Nanakaland and Techon had very few heroes left over from the Intrepid incident and the events that followed. Nanakaland's only experts on the Stalkers left were Major Watson and Admiral Nelson Clark. The ship that was once very powerful and state-of-the-art, the United Grand Celestial Glory, is still the flagship of the main Nanakaland space fleet, but is less groundbraking than before. It was upgraded many times in the past, but being able to wipe out a city or large ship was not as powerful in the time Nanakaland was resurrected into the Third Age.

All had gone back to normal, the Reresurected Superpower was back to its old strength and now bordering Far-Future tech. Trade was at an all time high and many new alliances were being forged. Nanakaland remained one of the only two nations with much knowledge on the Stalkers, although the Stalkers didn't seem to be much of a threat.

An Uncharted System
A tradeship was going through a "shortcut" through an uncharted system. However, it started to seem not so much like a shortcut. They needed to refuel so they looked for an inhabited planet. Scanners detected that the second planet in the system they were passing by had some trace of civilization, so they docked there.

When they arrived on the planet, they found the colony entirely diserted and destroyed. Something had killed all of the colonists. So, the tradeship's crew looked for a source of fuel so they could quickly leave.

Fuel was found and quickly loaded on the ship. However, one group of the crew was exploring the area. They found an old temple and decided to look around. One of them was terrified by a giant stone statue of an alien that looked surprisingly like the Stalker Queen (although the tradeship's people didn't know about the Stalkers) blocking the door. Looking for a way to enter the temple, they pressed a button. That was a big mistake. The stone started to melt away. Apparantly the last of the surviving colonists had trapped the nearly invincible Stalker Queen in stone or something like it.

The crew quickly ran back to the ship. However, something was different. Although the Stalker Queen was left on the planet, several lesser Stalkers had snuck on the ship. The captain knew they were doomed and decided to set course near the nearest charted system for help - which happened to be a system under Klonor influence.

[OOC: This is currently very closed. Klonor hasn't even gotten the Stalker threat yet. Building up. This is the last OOC post of the thread. Use this (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=378649) thread for OOC until a separate OOC thread is made. No more tags. Subscribe to thread or bookmark it.]

ASCv Iris, Stellar Orbit, Regulus, Associated Systems of Klonor

The bridge was dimly lit, shadows deep in all corners. Soothing music flowed from the speakers. A single officer was present, his eyes closed as he absorbed the soothing melody flowing around him. The music was old, several millenia at least, and the artist was long lost. But the music lived on. The music which spoke to the very soul of the listener.

I like big butts and I can not lie
You other brothers can't deny
That when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist
And a round thing in your face......

Abruptly the music stopped and the lights flared to their maximum intensity, warning lights flashing across the bridge.

Attention.....Attention.....Attention.....Attention.....unidentified ship detected. Standard flight paths are being violated. Identify and detain. Repeat, identify and detain.

Captain Hil slowly opened his eyes and glared at the computer, irritated at having his nap interrupted.

"It's probably just another damn relic from the DRA occupation. They're floating across the entire system. These damn computers should know that by now. Still, I have to do what it says."

Keying the intercom he alerted the rest of the crew and had the ships main engines powered up. Within half an hour the bridge was fully staffed and the Dreadnought class Corvette was on its way to the ship slowly drifting through the system.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Attention unidentified vessel, this is the ASCv Iris. You have violated territory belonging to the Associated Systems of Klonor and deviated from set flight paths. Please identify yourselves and your origin. Your engines and defences must be powered down. I repeat, identify yourselves and power down your vessel."

The Iris hovered a bare few kilometers distant from the mystery ship and awaited an answer. There were barely any energy readings aboard the entire ship and no life signs, to all outward appearances it was dead.

"Sir, I doubt we're going to get any answers. It's dead."

"Yeah, well, the book says we ask questions so we ask questions. Then we board. Then we blow it up because we're bored and I doubt we'll find anything worth keeping. Any signals yet?"

"No, sir. Still no responce. I wont say I told you so, sir."

"Good. Alert the third Marine squad, have them prep an Elysium and scoot over there. Find out where the ship was from and where it was going. And tell them to hurry up."

"Yes, sir."

A few minutes later a small transport kicked off the side of the Iris, moving towards the floating grave.

Again?

Sage looked at the scanners, and they didn't lie, Nanakaland ships for sure around a barren planet. He pulled up the far range scanners, and saw a few Klonor ships as well.

"Well," Jack said. "Doesn't that just bring back memories, last time we saw a Nanakaland was when we boarded the Intrepid."

"Yeah," Sage said. "The exact same place where Tavin lost his life to those damned stalkers."

"Oh well, I mean, the stalker threat was annihilated right?" Jack asked as he turned and looked at his partner.

"Supposedly," Sage said. "But you can never...aw what am I talking about, this is just a coincidence that we run into them again."

The Anubis soared through space, towards the fleet. They were gonna find out what was up. Footsteps came into the bridge, Saite Decker, Reth Scrass, two of the three new crewmates aboard the Anubis.

Decker was slightly obese, but a genius, he was one of the ship's mechanics. He was the brightest of them all, next to Parlo, but Parlo tended to not show his cleverness. Parlo tended to hide himself in the engine room, or when they landed, in a bar.

Reth was the only female on board the ship, she was extremely attractive, with blonde hair that had an orange tint that went to her shoulders. She was also a very good fighter, her skills are rumored to match that of Sage.

"Whats going on?" Decker asked.

"Nanakaland and Klonor ships dead ahead," Sage said.

----------------------

A brief history of the Anubis's point of view. They had entered the system to meet up with their buddies, and found out that there was a Nanakaland fleet there. They found out about the problem, and boarded the Intrepid to help out. It wasn't even two hours on board the ship before things went wrong for them. Jack went off too find some of the other marines, and Tavin went to take the Anubis off to keep it safe from Stalkers. While on board Tavin realized a stalker was already on board, it killed him, right after the Anubis departed from the Intrepid. Sage's ship was about to be destroyed when the stalker took off from it in an escape pod, which was picked up by Sage's buddy; Bobas. Bobas and his crew managed to kill the stalker, but then retreated from the system. Meanwhile Jack went all over the Intrepid and gathered data on the stalkers. He then boarded onto the Anubis, during the evacuation of the marines on board the Intrepid, the [i]Anubis was used to get them off.

Jack called in a Techon fleet, and they followed the Nanakaland fleet to the stalker fleet, and they aided the fight there.

Soon after, Sage, and Jack took the Anubis not to be seen until this day.

------------------

"Hailing Klonor fleet," Sage said. "Whats the problem?"

Somewhere orbiting Earth's moon, where Nanakaland had a colony, there was a giant space station that served as Nanakaland Space Command (NSC). The location of every Nanakan spaceship - both military and civilian - was always tracked and communication was kept. While spacetravel was not new, the government liked to keep tabs on every ship that had the Nanakan colors.

"Sir," said one of the staff members of the NSC to his supervisor, "we have just lost track of a Nanakan tradeship."

"Where was it last seen?" asked the supervisor.

"On an uncharted planet," explained the staff member. It landed there, then sent a distress signal and went to the nearest charted system, which is under Klonor control."

"Well then," ordered the superviser, "send out a rescue team. Why didn't we get news of this sooner?"

"Signals take time to travel through space, sir," the staff member replied. "Space Command 101. Oh and there's one problem with that planet."

"And what is that?"

"One of the survivors of the Intrepid incident and expert on the Stalkers seems to have come up with a location very near that for the original homeworld of the Stalkers."

"We all know that the Stalkers are gone."

"Or do we?"

"Very well," said the supervisor. "Assign Colonel Watson as leader of the rescue team. We also need a diplomat onboard the rescue team. We are going to have to send a fleet into Klonor space without them seeing us as a threat."

ASCv Iris, Stellar Orbit, Regulus, Associated Systems of Klonor

Captain Hil slowly lost his calm expression. Calm moved to thoughtful, thoughtful moved to concerned, concerned moved to worried, and worried moved to plain old terror.

The Marines that had been sent to the abandoned ship had missed a check-in by over half an hour. That wasn't just neglectful, it was damn near criminal. For a Klonor Marine if you weren't on time, the odds are your companions are dead and it's all your fault. This was drummed into them from the moment they joined the armed forces, they wouldn't miss a check-in unless something was seriously wrong; and considering that there had been no terrified and half-garbled transmissions received then if something seriously wrong had happened it had happened in mere seconds. Hil didn't even want to know what could exterminate an entire Klonor Marine Squad in seconds.

"Lieutenant Vrank, send a message to the KFC appraising them of the situation. I recommend that a Battle Fleet is dispatched to keep this ship quarantined until we can figure out what's going on."

"Message sent, sir."

"Good. Now, have we tracked its course yet?"

"Yes, sir. If it really has been drifting then we've been able to track its course to a relatively unexplored stellar system not to far away. We could get there in a few hours at standard G/TD speeds, Sub-Space is in-accessible. No Jump-Node."

"Damn. How soon until the Battle Fleet arrives?"

"10 minutes, sir. I don't think they think this is to vital."

"Damn it all to hell. Tell them to hurry up. Once they're here I'd like at least a Cruiser sent to that system. I want to know what the hell's going on."

"Yes, sir."

In a tall apartment skyscraper, the now retired Colonel Watson lived a quiet and peaceful life. Every once and a while, he'd publish various works - telling of things past and speculating about the Stalkers. He would have very much loved to remain retired, but a soldier came knocking on the door.

"Hello," said Watson.

"I understand that you are one of the only people in all of Nanakaland to know almost all about the Stalkers," said the soldier.

"Yes."

"Well, welcome back to the Nanakaland military."

"What? But I'm retired!"

"Yes," replied the soldier. "But if you read the rulebook you agreed to carefully, it says that you can be drafted into the military after your retirement if you are the only expert left in a field that is vital to national security. You are clearly the only person in all of Nanakaland who expresses interest in the Stalkers and knows about them first hand."

"But the Stalkers were completely destroyed," Watson said.

"We have reason enough to believe that we located the original Stalker homeworld," the soldier explained. "It is close enough to your estimations made in your work to have us think that the original Stalkers in their ancestrial planet were awakened. We need you to head a team to investigate. You're the expert."

"Fine," Watson said. "If it is a matter national security, I'll do it. Have Techon and Lunatic Retard Robots been notified?"

"No. If they find out, they're in. If not, we don't need their help."

Klaxons resonate through the heavy independent cruiser RGSV Soukoura as it quickly charges its hyperspace drives.

Weapons batteries stand at full alert as the crippled freighter Jean-Jacques Rousseau is tractored into the massive sphere, just before it finally disappears in a flash of light. The Rousseau bears the last survivors from an outpost attacked by what could only be described as monsters from the very gates of the underworld itself.

The AI sets coordinates straight for one of the RGF's most heavily fortified moons, bearing news of the dark discovery.

"Here is your team," a high ranking general told Colonel Watson. "They're the best and the brightest of Nanakaland, both civilian and military. There's also a crew and a secondary team on the ship you'll be taking. You'll be flown out to the ship via shuttle as soon as this briefing is over."

"Okay," replied Watson. "Can you introduce me to my primary team?"

"This is Charlie Thompson," said the general pointing to a man that looked nerdy. "He's the technician. Can hack into almost any ship's system in fifteen minutes flat if he's onboard or if there's a transmitter onboard. He can open almost any locked door without a keycard. Very useful.

"And then there's Jack Edwards. He's the diplomat. What he does is make sure you keep on best relations with Klonor. Can't enter Klonor space without him.

"And now onto the military. There's Captain Rodgers. He controls your ship and doesn't board when the others do. He's under orders to obey your every command and'll keep your capital ship safe. Perhaps he'd leave ship, but he isn't expendible. There's only one other person on the ship who has authority to control it.

"Then there's the twins - Bobby and Eric Richards. Both corporals, both strong, both experts in heavy weapons. No team is complete without the heavy infantry - especially if its involving the Stalkers.

"And there's the medic, Private Carson. Can't quite remember his first name, but that doesn't matter. A medic is needed if someone is wounded.

"And last, and probably least, there's Major William Anderson. Don't quite know what he does. I guess he's second-in-command and has a gun for support fire."

"Hey!" complained Major Anderson. "I'm an important member."

"Yes," replied the general. "We need an extra on the team. Anyways, there's about twenty more soldiers on the other team. They're more minor, but they can always support you in a boarding party. And then there's the ten crew of the ship that never leave the ship."

"Okay," said Watson. "What about the mission?"

"You're going to an uncharted system near Klonor space to investigate what's going on," the general explained. "You'll also try to enter Klonor space to locate the missing tradeship. If it is the Stalkers, there's probably little chance of survivors, but we can't have it spread. Now without further delay, go to your shuttle."

Above Nanakaland Moon Colony, Luna (Earth's Moon)
Colonel Watson's team had taken a brief trip via shuttle to the Nanakaland Space Command, which was orbiting Earth's moon (the Nanakan people still had not left their ancestrial homeworld of Earth). A small capital ship was attached in the exterior docking platform. It was called the NSS New Glory.

"It was the first ship designed specifically to fight the Stalkers," explained Captain Rodgers, who apparantly had already seen it and heard about it. "When the Stalker threat was erradicated, the designs no longer had any use. It wasn't until recently the New Glory was actually built, and then it wasn't really built for the Stalker threat. Admiral Clark had it constructed for... other purposes. The design was changed slightly to be able to run on a smaller crew, run faster, and cloak. We won't be running on full crew at the moment."

"What do you mean that it was specifically designed to fight the Stalkers?" Major Anderson asked.

"Well," replied Rodgers, "in the days of the Stalker threat, ships were being taken over by Stalker pods. Thus, it has some features in it. Certain decks can be ejected, some areas can be sealed off, there's a secondary engine room located closer to the bridge, and the bridge has double thick armor. The bridge has its own ventalation shaft and life support and is nearly inpenitrable by the Stalkers. If the rest of the ship is comprimised, the secondary engine room, bridge, and the nearby rooms can be ejected and used as a way to escape. If a pod is detected, it has extra armor that can be deployed rather fast, but at the cost of speed."

"But we're running on minumum crew!" complained Diplomat Edwards.

"We don't need a full crew," Rodgers said. "Besides we need room if we do pick up any survivors. Minimum crew is most efficient for this mission. We'll go by hyperspace. Klonor uses sub-space to speed their ships, so they probably won't scan for hyperspace signatures. Still, we don't want to show up right into Klonor space."

The shuttle docked with the Nanakaland Space Command. Watson's team walekd through the station and boarded the New Glory via a temporary platform. Once everyone was onboard, they sended a signal to the space station. The Nanakaland Space Command station retracted the supply tubes and boarding platform and the New Glory cleared the station. It hyperspaced to the last known location of the missing tradeship.


Outside the Uncharted System
Colonel Watson sat down, waiting for the mission ahead. Captain Rodgers sat calmly in the captain's chair. The Richards twins armwrestled waiting to arrive at their destination. Diplomat Edwards worried what would happen if Klonor misinterperated this ship in a system bordering Klonor space as a threat. Thompson fiddled with a gaget. Private Carson sat in sick bay talking to a crew member who had been having headaches. Major Anderson sat in his room, telling himself that he was an important member of the team.

The NSS New Glory had to hyperspace outside of the uncharted system because it was uncharted and they didn't want to crashland on a planet. A half hour later, when the New Glory entered the uncharted system, everyone got to work. Charles Thompson was at a computer, programming in various things because he had become the unofficial charter of the expidition. After all, someone needed to chart the uncharted. Jack Edwards drafted a message he could send to Klonor. Captain Rodgers was ordering around crew members on the bridge. The Richard twins chose the most powerful weapons out of the armory before anyone else went there. Private Carson was being told how to shoot a gun by Major Anderson. Colonel Watson was on the bridge by the sensors computer, looking for a trace of the missing tradeship.

Eventually, a trace of the tradeship was found. The team located the planet in which the tradeship had landed in the system. Everyone (except several crew members who remained in the engineering deck) scrambled to the bridge.

"Let's land on that planet," one of Eric Richards said. "Anything down there we'll blow to smithereens."

"No," objected Edwards. "If we go down there, we'll be making the same mistake the tradeship made."

"Yeah," agreed Watson. "Most Stalkers would have entered the tradeship and gone straight into Klonor space, but if this is the Stalker homeworld, then the Queen Stalker would have remained on this planet because she can't fit on that small ship. Going down there would be suicide. There isn't much we can do right now to take out the Queen Stalker short of blowing up the entire planet. Small as it is, that'd take massive amounts of firepower and probably bring us to war with Klonor. I'd hate to say it, but in the spaceship department, Klonor probably is superior."

"Then how are we going to take out the Queen Stalker?" asked Charlie Thompson.

"She'll probably be immune to bullets, lasers, and most missiles because of a strong exoskeleton," explained Watson. "We'd have to locate the missing tradeship first and capture a Stalker specimin alive for testing. We need to develop a special weapon to penetrate the Stalker exoskeleton. It'd be more efficient in taking out the rank-and-file Stalker and would be able to hurt their queen."

"Then prepare to enter Klonor space," Captain Rodgers told the people on the bridge. "We'll need to locate that ship and capture a Stalker before Klonor does anything stupid. It's not like Klonor's people are stupid, but they don't know a single thing about the Stalkers - like not to board their ships (unless you want to capture a Stalker like what we'll have to do). Edwards, we'll need your help."

"We must ready to move into Klonor space first," stated Watson. "I'd give it at least five hours. We need to prepare diplomatic relations, ready a boarding team, and charge our cloaking device just in case something goes wrong. Be careful, though. Klonor is highly advanced, so they may have cloak sensors. We should go in uncloaked with shields and weapons down when we do enter Klonor space. For now, we'll have to wait and hope that nothing happens."

"Agreed," the captain said. "Launch a probe into Klonor space so we can monitor the situation for the moment. Until we are fully ready to enter, Klonor will have to deal with the situation by themselves."

"Fine then," said the diplomat. "You might as well prepare. The quicker we get ready to enter, the quicker we can help Klonor."

"Yep," said Robert Richards. "Let's get ready to kick some Stalker a**."

[OOC: Yes. It is a long post, but it's the last post I'll do until the plot advances a little more...]

Arriving at the moon-station, the Soukoura is immediately put in quarantine outside the station. The AI had detected anomalous life signs almost immediately after entering hyperspace, and as the cruiser's crew is evacuated repair cruisers prepare to deconstruct the ship. The flotilla is taking no chances with this one.

Two figures- one human and one robot- walk down a corridor near the heart of the moon-station, where its giant, pulsating hyperspace module is kept.

"According to the testimony of the survivors, DS-503 was visited by a vessel infected with what were described as hideous monsters. The station, with its structure breeched, stood no chance against the onslaught of these creatures. Only the Rousseau was able to escape, and even then with what might be a few of these creatures aboard," says the human.

"Stalkers...they must be Stalkers. Inform Nanakaland at once!"

No reply thought Sage.

He dropped back into the pilot's seat. He looked out at the moon, and rubbed his jaw.

He looked around at the others, and shrugged.

ASD Wienis, Flagship of the 3'rd Battle Group, En-route to uncharted system

Admiral Ren Lein sat on the bridge of the Orion class Destroyer and watched the distance dwindle. They planned to arrive in the uncharted system within minutes, and the Admiral didn't like it.

The secondary Marine squad sent to the unknown ship had disapeared just as quickly as the first. No transmissions other than standard check-ins, no sensor reading of large scale weaponry being used, nothing. The ship had been quarantined and no further infantry sent, but that didn't help the Admirals thoughts one bit. He didn't know what he was up against, and going into an unexplored system that might contain a lethal enemy was not something he enjoyed doing.

"Sir, we have a contact! I'm reading one ship within the confines of our target system. It seems to be under control, but it has made no move to appraoch us."

"Do we have an ID on it yet?"

"No, sir. No previous contact with whatever race or nation it belongs to."

"Damn. This will not turn out well."

"Probably not, sir."

"Open a communications channel to the rest of the Fleet, I want the ships brought up to Tactical Alert Alpha (I figure it sounds better than the overused 'Red Alert'). Be prepared for anything. Then open a channel to that ship."

"Channel to unidentified ship open, sir."

"Attention unidentified vessel, this is Admiral Ren Lein commanding the Klonor 3'rd Battle Group. We are here investigating a derelict ship which has appeared within Regulus, a member of the Association. Please identify yourself, your origin, and your purpose for being in this system."

"Channel closed, sir."

"Now, we wait."

OOC: Ships of the 3'rd Battle Group

1 Orion class Destroyer (Wienis)
2 Leviathon class Heavy Cruisers (The Constitution and the April)
4 Mercury class Corvettes (The Hermes, Time, Anacreon, and the Sky)

[OOC: Absolute last OOC post here. Just announcing a new OOC thread found here (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=380540).]

CES Pylensir (Palantiri-class EEV); Extra-Stellar Space, nr. Sol heliopause

He sighed as he leant on the table, a single hand rubbing at his forehead anxiously. The engineers were stressed out enough already, but the problems with the gardens had lead everybody down a dark and depressing path: the good ship Pylensir might not be as self-sufficient as hoped.

Indeed, three full crops had already failed in the hyrdroponics gardens; those were being converted, now, as the airponics systems had proved far more useful. The PG fields had also been shut off; the plants seemed to prefer a lack of gravity: they grew far larger. He had an apple sitting on his desk the size of a coconut as testiment - although the process of growing was also much more nutrient-rich than soil-growing anyway.

But the ship needed to Transition today or tomorrow; if it didn't, it would need to 'return' to port - albeit not the port from which it had come, which was in no better shape, for it was abandoned and destroyed. The explorer ship had been built inside the protective shield of the Oort Cloud, at an installation that had been built alongside the ship at need; she had been under construction well over a year, and had been rebuilt several times in several places.

She was also the largest ship ever built by Iluvauromeni hands - and she was by far not the ugliest. In fact, it could have been argued that she was most elegant of all: a perfect sphere, nine kilometres in diameter, with a mass of twenty-two million tons. She was not an interstellar vehicle primarily; she was intended to be intergalactic, but that was many phases down the road; although it was by no means certain that would even come to pass.

There were whispers that the technology already existed, and was being employed in an even more secretive project; a project that this ship had been the forerunner for, in some ways. The captain wondered if that were so, then dismissed the idea. It wasn't possible; he was sure he would know if it were, for he was very much 'in the loop'. But then - just about every single captain liked to think that, he equally suspected.

Currently he sat in the comfortable quarters assigned to him by the computer roster; he had been on board, as had the crew, for two months now; however, the ship had only just ventured beyond the edge of the solar system. It was not the first Iluvauromeni ship to do so; but it was the first Iluvauromeni vessel to do so under its own power. None had previously attempted, but that was neither here nor there.

It was a matter of consideration. The ship was due to make thirty-seven Hops; the entirety of those Hops was referred to as a Transition. The question was - when?

"Daria, what do you think?"

There was a brief moment of silence; then a soft voice spoke from the nearby wall. "I think we ought to press ahead, captain. The gardens aren't really the problem they seem to be; I think the crew is merely downhearted at the prospect of something going wrong and the requirement to head to Vilya Elenosto becoming a possibility. They don't want the mission to fail before it even begins. I have to concur; it would be greatly painful for us all."

Turen sighed quietly. "Indeed," he agreed, "but when? Now?"

The AI did not wait to respond, this time; her response was a simple one: "When else?"

Turen smiled; from that moment to the moment he gave the order to make the Transition was a blur of activity, and he had hardly a moment to think. But as the CommandOps officer barked out the countdown, his mind drifted: and a cold hand grasped his heart...

What if it didn't work?

Charles Thompson was preparing equipment for their journey ahead. Colonel Watson entered the room to see how he was progressing. To Watson, it looked like Thomspon was fiddling around with some sort of odd gadget and that was pretty much close to the truth. The colonel asked, "Thompson, what are you doing? I thought you were going to prepare equipment for the mission ahead."

"I am," replied the technician. "All my equipment is ready except this. It's a tool that can be used to hack into a ship's systems."

"Why would we need that?"

"Well, you think we wouldn't need it, but it could be helpful if Stalkers really took over that tradeship. Using the transmitter beakon that broadcasts to Nanakaland Space Command, I can hack into it and get into the remote system control of any non-military Nanakaland ship. I'd need access codes if it was a military ship."

"And you know this because?"

"You think I always wanted to help the military in their technology?" Charles asked. "No. Once I was a hacker. Part of my sentence was to help the military. Don't worry. No hacker is going to be hacking into any ship systems. He'd have to get very close to the ship to use this tool. It'd work fine on the tradeship because it won't be firing weapons back at us."

"I wouldn't be so sure," replied Watson. "The Stalkers learn fast. If they found a way to operate the weapons system, they'd destroy any ship that got close to it. Let's hope they didn't."

"Yes. And let's hope they didn't disable the transmitter."

"Wait!" the colonel shouted. "They did disable the transmitter. Otherwise we would have found the tradeship immediately."

"Then it'd make things harder," said the technician. "We'd have to actually enter the ship to enable the transmitter so we have complete control."

Within hours of the arrival of the Soukoura and its dismantling, a message finds its way to what are hoped to be the higher level Nanakaland government officials.

It reads:

We have made contact with Stalkers in <insert specific coordinates here>. They had destroyed an outpost, apparently aboard a ship. We request aid in exploring and eliminating the Stalker presence in the above mentioned sector.

Nanakaland Space Command
"They know," said one of the officers to High Admiral Nelson Clark.

"I'm very well they know," replied Clark. "The only thing I'm not sure of is if they know enough."

"Lunatic Retard Robots seemed to know enough in that message," the officer said.

"Yes, and we don't know how many other nations know. Does Klonor know? Does Techon know? Can Lunatic Retard Robots be trusted if we tell them about the New Glory. Tell LRR that we are investigating the case and will send over a full fleet soon. Do not mention anything about the New Glory. Tell the crew of the New Glory to turn on cloaking devices until they are ready to enter Klonor space."

"Yessir," said the officer, who then left the room.

The NSS New Glory
"What do you mean they want our cloaking device on?" asked the angry captain. "Do they realize that cloaking for one hour means thirty minutes off of the cloak when we need it? The cloaking system takes forever to charge and I don't see any upgrades coming while we're out here in an uncharted system."

"Charted system," corrected Major Anderson. "Thompson has been finished mapping it. We're currently submitting the data back to Nanakaland Space Command, which will publish the map for all to see once this incident is over."

"Oh," Captain Rodgers said. "Once they are done, which should be soon, we should disable the transmitter."

"Why?"

"Any signals would blow our cloak to anyone with powerful enough sensors. Nanakaland Space Command will understand."

"Can't anyone with advanced sensors detect a cloak anyways?"

"Only if they're looking for a cloak - and then they have to be very close ranged," explained Rodgers. "I'm pretty sure that no remote sensors could detect a cloak. NSC makes it sound like there's no Nanakan ship out here besides the tradeship. Let's keep it that way. We have three hours on the cloaking systems. It won't hurt to use just one while we finish our preparations."

"Changed your mind?" asked Anderson.

"Yes, I did."

"They say that they are investigating it, admiral," says a sensors operator aboard the RGSV Glass Onion.

"We can't wait very long for this...aim the hyperspace navigator. We must get on-scene as soon as possible. But do not put us close to the remains of the trade station," replies Captain Vikrant.

"Hyperspace drives charging, navigator has been aimed."

The trip to the infested trade station will take several days, given its distance from the nearest RGF ship. Apparently, after a period of instability and civil war, the Klonor hinterlands are not oft-visited by the traders of the LRR commonwealth.

The Glass Onion is a sphere of about .8 kilometers diameter, powered by a bank of Ion and Fusion thrusters which can deliver one of the highest maximum accelerations of any vessel in its size class. Equipped with heavy armor- spaced panels on the outside and thick layers of composite alloys -coupled with a powerful electromagnetic shield and a hutchinson effect point defense system, as well as many third-line turrets, the Glass Onion is a tough nut to crack by any standards, but compared with other ships it is not that impressively armed. However, its spherical design allows many gun turrets to focus in on a target at any point, and also confers a high degree of combat manouverability.

A new vessel, the Glass Onion also has some of the newest anti-infestation technology. All the crew modules can be jettisoned from the hull, and plasma and ionized Xenon can be siphoned from the engineering compartment to flood corridors and major electrical pathways. The ship also has aboard some of the new anti-boarding weaponry, consisting of deployable remote gun stations and things based on Frogstar battle robots.

Nanakaland Space Command
"Do you think they bought it?" asked Admiral Clark.

"No sir," replied the officer.

"Why is that?"

"Stalkers are our one nemisis in Nanakaland's space expiditions and colonies, sir," the officer explained. "They know that we'd jump on any opportunity to eliminate the last traces of the Stalkers. Why can't we make the presence of the New Glory public yet?"

"It's the most advanced ship in the fleet except for the United Grand Celestial Glory, which is really a ship we own with some other close allies." the admiral answered. "It may not have the firepower or impressive size of the United Glory*, but the New Glory makes up for that in agility, functionality, and cloaking devices. Other than the giant United Glory it's definately the only ship in our fleet that could survive Stalkers boarding it. It's our secret weapon. Let's keep it that way - for now."

Another officer entered the room and said to the admiral, "Sir, the NSS New Glory is ready to enter Klonor space. They've finished everything - including sending the space map to NSC so the system is no longer uncharted. They request your permission to lift the cloak and enter Klonor space, sir. They're on a temporary line created by two temporary hyperspace probes. The bending of space to make an instant communication and transmissions is only temporary."

"I know that. But tell them to stay there until I say for them to leave."

"What!?" the second officer said, dumbfounded.

"You heard me."

"Yessir," the officer said, who then said into an odd transmitter, "High Admiral Nelson Clark has ordered you to stay there in cloak for the moment. We'll order you to leave when you should." The connection dropped before Captain Rodgers could object.

*United Glory is the shortened name of the United Grand Celestial Glory.

The NSS New Glory
"They said to stay here with our cloak on until they order us to leave," Captain Rodgers told the crew and military teams, most of whom were gathering in the bridge, waiting for news.

"What!?" objected someone. "We've waited long enough."

"An order is an order," the captain replied. Charles Thompson strolled in the bridge after all of this was said.

"Transmiter disabled," stated the technician. "Now our cloak is near perfect. No one will be able to see us unless they're close enough for us to see them."

"How many fighters do we have docked on this ship?" asked Colonel Watson, who had just come up with an idea.

"Well," Rodgers said, thinking. He paused. "Well... um... I guess we'd have about five. Not too many because this ship is undermanned. Just the basic fighters it came with. Why'd you ask?"

"If we disable the transmitter, Space Command will go suspicious," explained Watson. "If we attach it to a fighter and attach the transmitter on a piece of debris..."

"I get the point," said the captain. "We can enter Klonor space without NSC noticing."

"And because basic fighter pilot training is mandatory for all crew members and escape pod piloting (and the stock fighters act much like escape pods) is manditory for everyone in the Space Corp - even the space marines - anyone on this ship can attach the transmitter beakon to a fighter and pilot it out to debris. Then, simply jettison the beakon and have it hit the debris. It'd work."

"Why not just jettison it into space?" asked Thompson.

"Because it'd drift and Space Command would know."

"Of course."

Nanakaland Space Command, Ten Minutes Later
"I'm growing impatient," said the admiral to an officer. "Launch one of they hyperspace probes so I can check the location of their transmitter. Twenty minutes normal delay means it'd be another ten more minutes until we see if they followed orders and stayed. I want to check the coordinates of the transmitter now."

"Yessir," replied the officer. He pressed a button. Within a few minutes, a map of the recently charted system the New Glory was in was pulled up and a big red dot appeared. The officer then said, "There's the New Glory, probably a few meters off of it's last checked location. The sensors show an object there, so they couldn't have jettisoned it."

"Any live cameras?"

"Too expensive to launch that far. You cut our budget."

"Oh well," Admiral Clark said. "They're still there I guess."

The NSS New Glory
The plan had worked. Admiral Clark was fooled. The transmitter had been transfered over to a piece of space debris and the New Glory's cloak had even fooled official NSC sensors. After the NSC probe returned to the NSC (about 5 minutes), the New Glory lifted its cloak.

"Set new course to Klonor space," commanded Colonel Watson. "We're going to find that missing tradeship and save the universe from the Stalkers again. Don't do hyperspace in this system. We don't know if NSC has any hyperspace sensors. Go the slower way. Hurry, though. NSC won't be fooled forever."

The NSS New Glory set off to Klonor space....

[OOC: Looks long, but most of it is fast-reading dialouge.]

On the edge of Klonor space, the Glass Onion exits hyperspace in a bright flash of light.

The vessel's powerful sensors perform a sweep of the area, and its sub-luminal drives come on line, moving the vessel on a course towards the destroyed outpost.

Of course, the ship does not mean to hide. It is very difficult not to detect a hyperspace signature, and this coupled with the lack of cloaking devices and wealth of active sensors makes a cruiser somewhat easy to detect.

Outside Klonor Space
A small-sized capital ship suddenly uncloaked and set its course toward Klonor space. The ship was, of course, the NSS New Glory, but to an outside who knew no background information on it, it looked like a threat. Although it didn't have the ominous look of some of the larger capital ships, there was something about it that looked threatening. Perhaps it was the futuristic look that looked far ahead of most Nanakan vessels. Perhaps there was something about it that said "special."

The New Glory was at top speed heading toward Klonor space. However, they stopped when they were passing the Stalker homeworld. The people onboard the capital ship took one last look. They knew that that was very likely the place where they would have to go eventually to take out the Stalkers. However, they couldn't go down on that planet yet. They had to go somewhere else first. The New Glory moved on....

Nanakaland Space Command, Later
"What do you mean they're gone!?" shouted the now angry Admiral Clark. "They can't do that on us! They violated an exact order."

"Don't worry, sir," the main officer replied. "I've sent the New Glory's sister ship, the NSS New Triumph. This time, though, the ship is headed by people loyal to us and fully manned."

"Tell them that they have two missions," said Clark. "To destroy the Stalkers and to track down the New Glory. Make sure that no trace of the Stalkers remains. The New Triumph can use force to take out the New Glory if neccissary, but I want Rodgers and Watson alive."

Hundreds of millions of kilometers away from the New Glory, the Glass Onion hails the nearest Klonor border station.

"Attention Klonor border command, this is the RGSV Glass Onion, requesting permission to enter your space, over," calls the AI.

Captain Vikrant watches as the tiny dot of the border outpost (assuming Klonor has them, else consider it something else) grows larger as the cruiser approaches it, finally shutting down its engines and engaging retro-thrusters. His ship's bridge could barely be more comfortable, and everything about it felt snug.

One of the sensors robots pokes its head through the hatch, bringing grapefruit juice for the insectoid captain.

The New Triumph hyperspaced in. The New Glory may have seemed like a threat, but the New Triumph was a threat. Unlike its sister ship, the New Triump was fully manned with several frigates escorting it.

"Sir," said the second-in-command. "We're picking up two signatures. One from hours ago, which is probably the tradeship, and one from just fifteen minutes ago. The New Glory has been here."

"Follow that course," ordered Captain Marc Daniels. "Launch some fighters and corvettes and see if they can find anything."

"Yessir."

After the fighters had been launched, Daniels waited and said, "It shouldn't talk this long. We're on their trail."

Five minutes later, a transmission came in from a fighter, stating that the New Glory had been found. The frigate escort was sent to persue at maximum speed, leaving the New Triumph alone above the Stalker homeworld.

"Launch some boarding teams down to the Stalker homeworld," Daniels ordered. "They'll be picked up as soon as we catch the New Glory."


The New Glory had just picked up the fighters on their tail. "I don't suppose they'll just stop?" asked Edwards. "I mean they're Nanakan. We can't attack them. Running was bad enough."

"Well, if they attack first -" is what Watson started to say. That was before the alarm sounded and the ship shook.

"They're aiming at our engines," said Captain Rodgers. "Trying to disable us. They've already taken out our shield generator before we could put shields up."

"Life support at 90%," stated Charles Thompson, who was sitting at a consol on the bridge that was previously empty. "Shields at 0%. Exterior armor at 55%. Engines at 75%. Hyperspace drive on." There was a loud crashing sound in the distance. "Correction. Hypersace drive down. Armor at 45%. This ship's thick armor's all that's keeping us alive right now. 44% now. Engines at 23% now."

"What's the cloaking device on?" asked Rodgers.

"37% integrity. 75% power and draining."

"Enable it."

"But it won't last too long," objected Thompson.

"Enough to launch the fighters."

"But the stock fighters are-"

"I know the stock fighters are cheap," stated the captain. "I didn't mean put people in it. I said launch it. We'll divert their attention long enough with the fighters and-"

"It won't work," replied Watson. "These are highly trained fighters here."

"Fine, then," the captain said. "Enable weapons. If they're attacking us, we might as well go up with guns blazing."

The New Glory
"Wait a minute!" shouted Thompson. "They're pulling back. Long ranged sensors detect that they're heading toward a capital ship."

"Where?" asked Captain Rodgers.

"By the Stalker homeworld," replied the Charles.

"Should we assist?" asked Colonel Watson. "They are Nanakan after all."

"No," replied Rodgers. "It could be a trap. Head to Klonor space at full speed."

[OOC: Sorry for some errors. The guy is Watson, not Williams.]

CES Pylensir (Palantir-class EEV); POSITION UNKNOWN

The Pylensir did not appear in a flash of dazzling light, white or otherwise. She appeared with a whisper and not a bang, simply popping into existance at her new locale; but she did give off a thirty microsecond burst of X-rays as she completed the final Transition. However-

"Something's wrong," NavOps reported immediately.

"Confirmed," the SensOps officer added, "this star is not a brown dwarf. We appear to be off-course. Verifying position; Navs, co-op."

"Co-opping," the NavOps officer stated needlessly.

Turen could not help but frown; how had they appeared off course? Every prior Transition had worked perfectly; this one, however...

A faint beep - the tone telling him by itself that the SciOps division was reporting in - interrupted his thinking.

"Sir!", came the voice of his female chief science officer, the tone sharp and concerned, "I'm detecting an enourmous mass four light minutes out... mass: two Sols; approximately fifty-seven centimetres square. Sensor readings are not particuarly solid, however; I'm getting wild dimension fluctuations. Sometimes the object appears to be much vaster; around two miles across appears to be the upwards limit. However, we've only been observing for-"

Let it not be said that Turnen was one to lose concentration or fail to listen to the words of his officers; but he already knew where this was going. He interrupted his science officer with a grim statement: "A singularity."

"Undoubtedly," SensOps reported, "the singularity pulled us off course. Wait... it appears to be moving. Nineteen thousand klicks per second; the accretion disc also appears to be wild. No stable orbiting bodies. Around thirty-seven million unstable objects are giving us sensor echoes, but there are nine in the one-million-tonnes range; sensor resolution is a tad shady, but I'd guess that beast has been ripped away from a prior location somehow."

Turnen almost groaned aloud; of all the (partly, and unreliably) predictable and predicted outcomes, this was possibly the most bizarre and least expected. The people back home, the science types, had warned that a singularity would provide instability to a Transition; it was part of the reason that the shorter-range Hops had been used rather than the secondary course - much longer Hops culminating in one final Jump to fully test the drive had been ruled out early in the mission planning phase. Unfortunately, one couldn't really see a singularity all that well; this one should have been noticed, but had been missed. There was only one solution, and Turnen, who had some grounding in mathematics and physics, could already see it.

"We dragged the bastard with us," he breathed, disbelievingly.

"I'd hazard the guess that you're correct," came the voice from SciOps again, "especially with the torn-up accretion disc. I'm trying to get an EM scan, but it's mighty tough. X-ray output from that thing is sporadic, but the scale is rising all the time; a helluva lot of impacts are occurring."

Turnen sighed. "Is there any indication that it presents a threat to us?"

"Negative," was the suprisingly swift response, "as it appears to be on an outward course. It will pass the heliopause in thirty-seven thousand years, provided its current trajectory is not altered and its velocity continues to increase in the manner currently seen. The ejection of matter appears to be increasing as the larger objects are absorbed by the singularity; it would need further study for confirmation - although it would take much effort to gather more information than we already have - but I'd say that the black hole will not represent a threat to this system for some time. Beyond gravitational effects, of course. Countless objects in motion have already no doubt had their previous trajectories altered to new ones; the planets will undergo unusual stresses, especially those closest. If there are any. We've not yet recieved sensor echoes from the rest of the system, and visual observation is only just underway, so it'll be some time before we can be sure-"

Turnen cut her off again, feeling the need to press a certain issue: "What if this system is inhabited? Will there be a threat to any planetborn species here?"

SensOps cut in: "Think I've got something..."

Ignoring Sallen's voice from his station at SciOps, Turnen prompted, "Lieutenant?"

Rathel from Sci Ops replied, but with a small delay. "We're of the opinion that tidal shifts will be inevitable, lasting thousands of years. Weather patterns may well be affected, but that's rather more...sketchy...as far as we're concerned. Theoretically, even energy/waves - such as light - are affected by a singularity. The energy input to the planets therefore will no doubt be altered in some subtle way, leading to changes barometric pressure variation. It's impossible to tell whether the effect will tend towards stability or lability, however."

"Visual observation reports weapons fire in-system. Distance unknown as yet; we'll need more time for analysis. Directional co-ords relayed to NavOps, Nest, CommsOps consoles. - Correction: estimated distance is thirty-six light minutes in-system, to the galactic north-north-west-west-west," droned the SensOps officer.

Turnen dearly loved the efficiency of his crew; they reported all details required, when required, and how required. He was indeed pleased with their progress thus far; the dissemination of information to him from his crew had thus far been, in his opinion, excellent. It was what he strived for.

"Acknowledged. CommsOps, devise a goodwill greeting. Hello, pleased to meet you, we're new, sorry if we're invading your space and we'll leave if need be. You know the drill. - SensOps, verify the position. - WeapOps, make sure we're ready - just in case - and have the CAG get his boys and girls on hot standby. Do not give the order to deploy."

A volley of 'Understoods' swept through the room.

And thirty-six minutes later, the sensor 'pings' from the Pylensir would reach the unkown ships fighting deeper inside the system...preceded by a few hunded milliseconds by bursts of X-rays from two different sources.

[OOC: The singularity bit, I thought, was pretty cool and interesting, and was always going to be a part of my Pylensir storyline; but if its not wanted...I suppose I could edit. But I can't really see any reason why they'd be off-course, otherwise...after all, any error in calculation would result in the first Transition being off-course, and then the second, and so on. They'd notice immediately, not at the last point - and I suspect this is all happening too far from Earth for it to be but a single Transition from Earth to here. (Here being where the action is.)]

Unlike their Commonality counterparts, the crews of RGF vessels tend to be somewhat inefficcent. Except when engaging in combat, where the regular chain of command appears to run relatively smoothly, RGF crews, all tucked snugly away in their various compartments spread out across their large ships, generally engage in a debate with their AI, captain, and other crew members before doing anything that requires much of a choice to be made. Of course, being robots and possessing vast stores of factual knowledge, it never takes long to reach a decision, but RGF crews definately like to talk.

Captain Vikrant stares into Klonor space, and back at the numerous display screens, which experience had taught him to take stock of very quickly, a task helped by his twelve segmented eyes, even though as captain all he had to do aboard his ship was sit around and talk to the AI, who really ran the ship, and the ship's robots, who ran various faculties of the ship for the AI. Robots is probably not the best word to describe LRR robots, as they are largely sentient and quite nice company, with their progressive moral opinions and smooth way of getting things done.

But back to the screens, yes the screens...they show Vikrant that Klonor space is emitting back radiation- X-ray, Alpha particles, the whole lot of radiations, from its stars and various bodies contained inside the borders of Klonor.

And it was all normal.

They seemed to be ignoring him.

"They seem to be ignoring us. Attention Klonor space command, this is the RGSV Glass Onion. Requesting permission to enter your borders, over."

The Glass Onion, painted in the regular sky blue of all RGF ships, and bearing the LRR flag (http://www.jpc.de/jpcimages/big/8541664.jpg), as well as the RGF flag, a red, white, and brown tricolor stylized to depict a nicely tilled garden surrounded by a picket fence with a red sky, with a snake clutching a knife with its tail in the center, depicted in a tire.

The appearance of any RGF ship, in an unusually bright color scheme and emblazened with such amazingly cool flags, has often been enough to scare the weak of heart away on sight.

"Eh, start up the hyperspace drives now. We know the destination, yes? We'll just have to explain that no-one answered when we arrived at the border."

The New Triumph
As some teams were sent down to the Stalker homeworld, Stalker pods were shooting up. Several pods hit straight into the landing team's ships and the landing ships exploded. Other pods went straight up to the New Triumph.

Exterior armor was deployed. The pods bounced off of the ship or were flattened on impact. It had worked. The ship was saved. Stalkers stood no chance. The New Triumph was triumphant.

However, the escort of the New Triumph was already on their way back from the attack on the New Glory. The escort was not as lucky as the New Triumph. All of the escort was destroyed by the pods because there were hundreds - maybe thousands - of Stalker pods being launched in the direction. The few frigates that survived were taken over by the Stalkers and the New Triumph had no choice but to destroy those frigates. It appeared as if the next time the New Triumph and New Glory met, it would be one on one.

The New Glory
"We're now entering Klonor space," stated Captain Rodgers. "Edwards, prepare to open communications with Klonor."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Major Anderson said. "You are traitors to Nanakaland and should immediately surrendered. I'll get promoted for this. I am important."

Rodgers turned around and asked, "Where's everyone else on the bridge?"

"There's no one else but you or me - that are alive at least," replied Anderson. "The boarding teams are elsewhere and there are two crew members in engineering. The bridge is locked, so they won't be able to enter bridge. Diplomat Edwards and all of the crew in the bridge are dead. Watson isn't here, though."

"I'm not?" asked Colonel Watson, who had just entered the bridge. "Next time you disable door controls, remember also to change the override codes. Though even if you did, I don't think it would take more than fifteen minutes for Thompson to hack into the door controls." Both of the Richard twins entered the bridge after Watson with very powerful assault rifles. Carson and Thomspon entered after them, also with guns raised. Then, the secondary team entered, all twenty of them.

"I'm not surrendering," said Anderson. "You step any closer and I'll shoot Captain Rodgers."

"I don't want to do this but you give me no choice," Watson said. Anderson put his hand on the trigger and was about to shoot the captain. Before then, dozens of shots hit Anderson and he lay on the floor, dead. Rodgers pulled out his handgun and shot Anderson in the head, just to make sure.

"Sir," said an officer, "the Stalker pods have stopped launching - for now. I recommend leaving until we can summon a full Nanakaland fleet."

"Cloaking device and engines still online?" asked Captain Daniels.

"Yes," replied the officer.

"Then we shall leave," the captain ordered. "Set course for Klonor space. We can catch the trail of the New Glory if we hurry. Don't forget to activate the cloak."

"Yessir."

"Oh and one more thing," he added. "Lanuch a one-way communication probe to Nanakaland Space Command. Give them a status update and tell them that we will be temperarilly unreachable as we go after our secondary target."

"Yessir."

The New Glory
"Casualties?" asked Watson.

"Ten," replied Thompson. "Eight crew members, Edwards, and Anderson. The bad thing is that we haven't even had contact with the Stalkers - or Klonor for that matter. Our ship is damaged. There's no turning back now."

"How many crew members left on this ship?" Rodgers asked.

"Two, other than you," Thompson said.

"This won't work," said the captain. "The minimum crew requirement is eight. At least two in engineering and eight in the bridge."

"And there's twenty in the secondary team?" asked Charles Thompson.

"I see where you're going," stated Colonel Watson. "Station six of them on the bridge. The primary team will help man the bridge while not deployed. Four of the secondary team will guard engineering. Make sure nothing happens there. We need those two crew members. Ten of the secondary team, including the secondary team's commander, will be deploying with us when we attack the Stalkers."

"It works," Captain Rodgers replied. "Although, I'll be coming with you on the boarding party."

"You can't!" objected Watson. "You're the captain. We need you to be with your ship."

"No," Rodgers replied. "This ship is severely damaged. We'll need a new one, anyways. When we attack the Stalkers, I'll go down. It does not matter if I die. I am a traitor already."

The New Triumph
Captain Dainels sat in the bridge, grinning. "I don't suppose we can just destroy the New Glory right here."

"No," replied an officer. "They're in plain sight and we're cloaked. As long as Klonor sees one, they won't look for us and any trace of us they'll think is from the New Glory. Besides perhaps they'll be useful yet. We watch, we wait, and we destroy them later."

"Perfect idea," said Daniels. "I'll see that you get promoted when we return from thsi successful mission."

Near Nanakaland Space Command
The NSS Celestia and it's fleet hyperspaced just outside of Nanakaland Space Command. Comadore Thomas Johnson was the commander. "Open communications now," he ordered.

"What do you want?" Admiral Clark asked.

"I want you to cease what you're doing now," replied Johnson. "I am under orders of the Senate to remove you from power. You sending the New Triumph to take out the New Glory makes it clear that you are too old to be in command. If you do not surrender now, I can use force."

"What you forgot, comadore," Clark told him, "is the United Grand Celestial Glory. It is the most powerful ship in the fleet and it is loyal to me - and the president."

"What do you mean?"

"Obviously the Senate and the president are divided," explained the admiral. "And I fight for the preisent. While you were speaking to me, I managed to slip to the United Glory. Happy fighting. You're doomed."

"I do not want to fight you!" The connection was terminated. The United Glory, instead of fighting, hyperspaced out of the area. Admiral Clark had retreated - and had taken the prize ship of Nanakaland with him.

"You see where we stand, right?" said an officer to Johnson. "We can chase after him or take over NSC and call the New Triumph off. I don't think we can do both."

"We're going to the NSC," Johnson replied. "The Stalker threat needs to be dealt with."

Associated Systems Massometric/Ergometric Sensor Station, Stellar Orbit, Regulus, Associated Systems of Klonor

Josh Cline stared at the various sensor panels with something approaching boredom. After years of monotonous sensor surveys he'd gotten to the point where he could run the station in his sleep, and run it pretty well, too. However, unlike most sensor crewmen who seem to lust for battle and combat, regarding their boring duty on the edge of the Association as punishment, Josh was almost happy here. No enemies in sight and there hadn't been for several decades. The Association was at peace, and Josh wouldn't have it any other way.

Unfortunately, other people seldom have any regard for the wants of an individual they hardly know.

Attention! Attention! Attention! Unregistered vessels approaching Association territory! Repeat, unregistered vessels approaching Association territory! Three vessels counted! Visual cloaking in use upon one of the vessels! Breach of Klonor territory expected! Action required!

"Ah, damnit! What the hell do these guys want? Don't they know to stick to the flight paths? It's all so much simpler if you just follow the blinking lights. Probably a couple of tourist transports who just need directions."

Broad Beam Transmission
Transmission Origin: Josh Cline, Commander, Research Division, Klonor Space Corps

Attention unidentified vessels, you are approaching Klonor territory and are outside of designated flight paths. Immediate correction is required. Please, contact the local traffic directory and determine where you are supposed to be. Failure to comply will result in the authorities being notified. Thank you, and have a nice day.

Transmission Closed

OOC: That's directed at the the LRR ship and the two Nanakaland vessels (The Triumph and the Glory).

"Ah, finally contact with a border station."
"This is the cruiser RGSV Glass Onion," replies the AI. "We have been dispatched to investigate what appears to be an infestation of a trading outpost not far from here. We would like to dock and take on supplies before we proceed further."

The Glass Onion fires its powerful retro-thrusters, which gradually overcome the gigantic sphere's inertia, slowing it to zero speed relative to itself. The ship might be a little bit threatening, covered in armor and point defense weaponry, and although not carrying much in the way of heavier weaponry compared to other ships of its size class, the cruiser is still quite capable of engaging in fleet battles.

The small outpost, without its stabilization thrusters on-line, could have very easily drifted into Klonor space, or into almost anywhere. It is vital for Vikrant and his crew to find and destroy the outpost.

The NSS New Triumph
The New Triumph was cloaked. No one, not even the New Glory detected it. The New Triumph was matching the speed of the New Glory and was of the same design, so it seemed like a "sensor ghost."

Occasionally, sensors used to pick up fast moving ships in multiple locations if the ship detected in the sensors was moving fast for the sensors. This usually happened on smaller ships such as fighters and corvettes, but was not unknown to happen frigates and small captital ships. While sensors were perfected since then, manuals of many nations still had "sensor ghots" as an explanation to rare situations.

The New Glory was moving at top speed. While few sensors also detected the New Triumph (which was cloaked), it was of the same size and going the same speed right behind it that it seemed to be a "sensor ghost." It seemed as if the sensors were either slightly damaged or the New Glory was moving very fast. The New Glory couldn't detect the New Triumph because the skilled sensors man was killed by Anderson.

The New Triumph was hiding in plain sight and captain Daniels couldn't be more happy. It was all going according to plan. That was until something happened - two things in fact.

First, the Klonor border station saw through the cloak. They apparantly didn't fall for the old tricks. Then, they found out that the New Glory had gotten an encrypted transmission from the NSC.

The NSS New Glory
"It's Nanakaland Space Command," said Thompson. "They've opened communications with us."

"Do not respond to them," ordered Rodgers. "It could be a trap."

"Okay," Thompson replied. He pressed a button and then said, "Oops. Instead of hitting 'Terminate,' I hit 'Broadcast.' Sorry."

"Don't just sit there," the captain commanded, "Terminate it. Quickly!" It was too late. Someone started speaking and by then, they wanted to keep the line open.

"This is Admiral Thomas Johnson," stated the voice from the transmission. "Yes, admiral. Admiral Clark has gone AWOL and stole the United Grand Celestial Glory from its dock. He will be dealt with later. As for you, go on with your mission and defeat the Stalkers. I'm also a veteran from the Intrepid Incident*, so I may help out, but I may not. Backup may yet come. Do not count on my help though. It is up to you and whatever allies you can find to eliminate this threat." There was a pause. "Oh. And you may want to know that you're being very closely followed by the New Triumph." The connection ended.

"Could the New Triumph have heard?" asked Watson.

"No," replied Rodgers. "It was on an encrypted line. By the time they decode it, we'll have notified Klonor." Just then, something happened. The Klonor Border station opened contact.

The New Triumph
"How could they have detected us!?" shouted Captain Daniels. "They shouldn't have sent us a message. If they did, they means that they know! How could they have seen us!? We have cloaks on and we used an old trick."

"Percisely, sir," said an officer. "You used an old trick. It's surprising we weren't caught sooner."

"Sir," said another officer, "we've decoded the message. NSC has been taken over by Admiral Johnson and the New Glory knows about us, too."

"Admiral Johnson?" asked the captian. "Wasn't he a comadore?"

"High Admiral Clark has fled, sir," explained the officer. "We're doomed."

"We have no choice but to retreat," said Daniels. "Either Klonor or the New Glory could open fire on us. We'll be back later." And with that, the New Triumph hyperspaced away, leaving the New Glory to have to explain everything.

The New Glory
"Send a reply to the transmission," ordered Captain Rodgers.

"Wait!" objected Watson. "I want to here it one more time."

"Attention unidentified vessels, you are approaching Klonor territory and are outside of designated flight paths. Immediate correction is required. Please, contact the local traffic directory and determine where you are supposed to be. Failure to comply will result in the authorities being notified. Thank you, and have a nice day."

"We're supposed to be here," said Thompson, "but that'd be kind of hard to explain." He changed tones in his voice, obviously meaning that what he said next was a joke. "'Excuse me, Klonor border post. Let us in to eliminate a threat you don't even know exists.' We can't say that. I wouldn't believe us if I were in their position."

"If only our diplomat had lived," Watson stated.

"We can't just sit here and not reply!" shouted the captain. "That'd make them more suspicious. The best thing we can do is tell the truth and see if they can let us in." And so they told the truth to the Klonor border post. They told about the Stalker threat, about the secret mission, about everything that happened to them since they left earth. Whether or not it was to be believed was another story. Just before they finished, they saw the New Triumph uncloak and hyperspace away.

*The Intrepid Incident is what many veterans call the Stalker Wars. This is because the whole thing started when a mysterious ghost ship, called the Intrepid, entered Earth's solar system bringing Stalkers to Nanakaland's space fleets, which were then just finishing up being constructed.

[OOC: I know I've been writing this too long when...
...the post from LRR given a half hour ago wasn't there when I started writing.]

Bridge, CES Pylensir (Palantir-class EEV); POSITION UNKNOWN

"Verify," Turnen commanded softly, disbelievingly. Some time had passed since the initial sensor pulse had swept through this system, identifying various vessels - and a firefight of some sort in the inner system. His SensOps officer had informed him that white-light observation was now 'concurrent' - meaning that it was constant and in line with the frequent sensor pulses which were observing the system in a slow, irregular 'heartbeat'. The heartbeat was irregular to prevent detection for as long as possible; just as footsteps that are flat and equal each in timbre and pitch are more easily heard, the logic followed that a constant steady pulse of various EM radiation pulses with equally varying wavelengths and amplitudes would be more easily detected than an irregular pulse; where the phrase 'heartbeat' had originated - with respect to the sensors - was less easy to identify.

And apparently, there was no reaction from any of the inner ships: they had apparently missed the X-ray bursts (which was quite easy to manage, if you weren't looking at the right moment in the right direction with the right equipment), and judging from the lack of communications attempts (the radio waves would surely have reached the ICEL ship by now?), they hadn't seen the sensor pulse either.

"Unbelievable," he murmoured, as the SensOps officer related the same, albeit doubly-confirmed report. Back in Sol, this wouldn't be a shock; it was nigh on impossible to track every vessel moving around in that soup of civilian transports and warships - but comparitively, this system was quiet. In fact, comparitively, just about any system would probably be quiet; Sol, to Turnen's knowledge, was the longest occupied system in the Universe. Not that his knowledge was all that extensive in that regard: if it was, there wouldn't have been any need for an Explorer ship such as the one he commanded.

Catching the soft muttering of the SensOps officer, he arched an eyebrow and inquired softly as to what the problem was; the reply was not utterly surprising - it was baffling. "An LRR vessel? Are you certain?"

"They gave us a ship once; the engies went over it extensively, you know. Thermal signature, EM field strength, markings - all are rated 90% certain to be LRR-linked or at the least, strongly LRR-similar. Of course, it might not be one of their ships; they do sell vessels on the market, of course. But sir - I'd stake my pension on this: that's an LRR vessel."

The captain shook his head slowly, disbelievingly. They had travelled all this distance, all this way - only to run into the known? It all suddenly seemed marginally pointless; what if everywhere there was to go had already been visited by someone? What if the unknown wasn't really unknown - except to the few observers who simply didn't yet know?

It would have been depressing, if Turnen really cared about the inner system; but he did not. That was irrelevant. Thus, the ship would not voyage inwards further - and nor would it make any effort to communicate; planets and stars were fairly standard fare, after all. And if this system was claimed, that didn't matter either. ICEL was not about to alter its plans simply because some upstart interstellar-capable state had already planted a flag; and besides, he mused softly to himself, if they can't even detect an explorer ship...

* * *

SensOps Department, CES Pylensir (Palantir-class EEV); POSITION UNKNOWN

Rawellen sighed as she sipped at the 'coffee'. In point of fact, it wasn't coffee. Coffee was extra-protocol - illegal, in other words. At least aboard a space vessel; experiments on spiders, termites, ants, sheep, goats, pigs, ferrets, horses, cats, dogs, leapards, mountain lions, eagles, and monkeys had conclusively proven (and with a list like that, one couldn't help but say 'conclusively') that caffeine damaged problem solving capacity. Ants failed to harvest aphids at the correct time, as well as often killing them in the attempt to remove the 'milk'; their fungal 'farms' were left untended; spiders wove webs erratically without form or real substance; monkeys had a tendancy to become nervous and jittery; cats had difficulty hunting; eagles missed their prey four out of thirteen times; and the list went on and on. Of course, it had been a CSF study, so the results hadn't actually been released to the general public or verified by the Imperial Guild of Art and Knowledge -
and she had serious doubts about the correctness of some of the report - but the regulations had been set in stone nonetheless. It was no use complaining: there simply was not any coffee to be had.

Instead, there were various substitutes. She preferred rikh - a sweet drink made from the sap of the ronkha tree. She tried not to notice the slightly musky aftertaste.

But she had more important thoughts than idle ramblings regarding coffee - although she had been quite easily distracted by said...

Yet the problem was a simple one. SensOps had reported the number of ships visible in the inner system, yet she, the head of this 'lower decks' part of SensOps, could not confirm to her superior on the bridge that that was in fact the accurate number.

Several of the ships gave odd sensechoes; she wasn't sure if they were anomalies or not - in fact, she didn't have a clue. She made the assumption, however, that stealth technology was in use; and wished ardently that the ship was heading in-system. It was almost certain that a full spectrum scan would yield interesting results - at least to her mind. Military matters were more important than those of discovery - but she had come through Security, and was only recently transferred (and promoted) to this position.

She sighed heavily, ignoring Third Rate SensOp Attendant Riko's glance. He glanced her way all too often, for her liking. The interest was flattering, but the man had something eminently distasteful about him; something...something that got under her skin and made her itch in places that, if touched, wouldn't feel a thing. It was disgusting. He was disgusting. So disgusting that she was driven to close off her mind utterly whenever in his presence; she did not want to absorb whatever dark sickness afflicted him, fearing that it might pass on through the empathic scans that her mind naturally and even instinctively (if not suppressed, which was tiring in itself) felt with.

It was like being greeted with an unspeakably ugly face, and having to turn away to avoid vomiting.

Still, Riko had good qualities; he was a fine officer, in fact. Just...ugly on the inside. Twisted. Gnarled. She relaxed without thinking-

-Grey/Slimey/Bubbling-

-and instantly wished she hadn't. He was excited about something, but not in a good way; she shivered internally. Something about that Human set her inner alarm bells ringing; she made a mental note to pass on her thoughts to the Security Chief when she next saw her, and - even though it seemed underhanded - to compare notes. Perhaps it was just her own fault; maybe Riko had done nothing wrong at all, and maybe he wondered why she snubbed him so and was hurt by it.

For a moment she felt sorry for him; then she remembered that moment of contact just seconds earlier, and shuddered again, this time externally.

Solicitiously, Riko asked: "Something wrong?"

"No. Just..." - she could not think of anything that would fit the bill except work (which didn't really, either) - "worried about these odd readings is all."

He nodded slowly. "Definitely. They don't make sense. Mass readings are off, shape/size indication is not constant, and the velocity calculation is completely incorrect. The figures don't match from the various sources."

Selip, another SensOps officer, but just one rank removed from Rawellen, heaved a heavy sigh. "I doubt we'll get the oppurtunity to study the dificulty. The mission plan only gives us nineteen hours here."

"But the singularity will keep us here longer," Rawellen noted, "unless the SciOps people can come up with a tweak to the T-drive."

"Nah," Riko disagreed sharply, "not a chance. Six months and we'll be back to Sol again; if SciOps doesn't crack the T-drive problem, the captain'll just order us out past the heliopause. Six months journey through the interstellar medium and we should be clear enough of the singularity to make the Transition home." He shrugged, apparently not overly concerned.

...but his eyes widened and his mouth formed a small 'O' as the deck rolled beneath his feet and he barely kept his seat, the sealing bolts giving off a dreadful whine as vibrations rippled through the ship...

[OOC: The rolling of the deck could be various things. It could be an attack; it could be some critical thing going wrong on the ship; or it could be none of the above and simply be the washing machine going into overdrive. Who knows! Anyhow, that's an oppurtunity for any of you to encounter the ship. If no interaction occurs, she'll stick around for five more posts, then figure out how to get away from the system, and leave.]

"What is this?" asked Captain Daniels.

"There appears to be a ship that we hyperspaced right next to, sir," explained the sensors officer. "Visual cameras show a different design than Nanakaland - probably a Ma-tek ship."

"How close are we to this ship?"

"Very close, sir. In fact, we almost hit into it when we hyperspaced. That vibration must have been an unpleasent surprise to anyone on that ship."

"But one thing remains unanswered," the captain said. "Why is a Ma-tek ship so far from... well..." He hesitated for the right word. "Ma-tek!? There must be something deeper here."

"They may ask the same thing, sir," said the officer. "We're not anywhere near earth or Nanakaland space colonies."

"Yes, but we have a good reason, a good secret reason."

"So do they, probably." Something shook the ship.

"Are they opening fire!?" asked the captain.

"No sir," said the sensors officer. "They aren't, but their moving is vibrating our ship, much like the hyperspace vibrated theirs. Should we pull away from them?"

"No," Daniels ordered. "Stand ground. Let's open communications. I want to know why this ship is in the area."

[OOC: The New Triumph hyperspaced next to this Ma-tek ship. The New Glory is still by that Klonor border post. Two different plots going on at once. Don't be confused.]

OCC: I can't believe I missed the X-ray burst! And all that with the singularity...there would be no way the Glass Onion missed it!
Well, we'll just say that they're in a different part of the system.

IC:

"We're picking up an anomalous source of X-ray radiation from across the system, approximately four light-hours away."
"What...is that a black hole?"
"Looks like it. The X-ray signature looks like a match. It appears to be a relatively small one, though. Charts of this system do not show any such event, but it is entirely possible that an FTL system could have picked it up."

The AI, captain, and sensors operators survey the Black hole, or the Black Hole three hours ago. Infra-red detectors reveal that it is quite an active one, with a hot accretion disk. The optical detectors also make observations of the accretion disk, and LIDAR systems attempt to map it.

Of course, in this excitement even a Ma-tek vessel would likely go unnoticed, but the AI still picks it up, thanks to the massive analytical capabilities of the sensors suites found aboard the RGF's independent cruisers. If it were a destroyer or standard commodity freighter, the sensors would probably be overwhelmed.

"Oh, and here's a ship, and a big one too. Its relatively close to the black hole, but it doesn't appear to be threatened by it. They might have brought it in. The ship looks like Ma-tek in design. Its a big sphere, nine kilometers in diameter. Not many fleets use spherical ships."
"It might be one of those...those EEVs. What is the class name?"
"It could be a Palantir, juding by its size."

The RGF had given up class names long ago, and taken to designing ships for the sake of designing ships. While by all accounts the Neu Wirlde fleet yards and their associate bases had all settled on spheres as the best ship design, there have been concept demostrators flying around shaped like parabolas!

The Glass Onion, in all its spherical glory, watches the Pylensir, admiring its huge bulk. The largest sphere ship ever built by the Neu Wirlde yards was about 4 kilometers in diameter, and was promptly parked at the head of a gaggle of smaller spheres and destroyers, to form the Neu Wirlde Defense Force. Smaller spheres, two or three kilometers in diameter, could be found carrying space station components and massive loads of provisions for colonies.

Bridge, CES Pylensir (Palantir-class EEV); POSITION UNKNOWN


"Energy spike detected," came the rather blatantly late call from SensOps - roughly two seconds after the deck rolled. Nobody had been dramatically hurled around, though; nor had equipment been sent tumbling to the deck. They were in space, precautions were taken; not a single thing on the bridge - including the crew - was not carefully and safely secured in place.

"Indicative of hyperspatial Jump. Backtracking; too late. Original location unknown. Spatial anomalies dissipating too quickly to analyze. Threads gone. - Vessel appears to be from Nanakaland..."

The voice droned on. Mass readings, EM output potentials, blah blah blah. Turnen could easily see why the more militarised vessels were, in fact, less formal than this, instead depending on decentralization of the computers to allow for greater information dissemination; they would die of boredom very swiftly. Here...here it was something to do, to pass the time; nobody wanted the computers to do it all on an explorer ship.

Well, almost nobody. Turnen was often impatient, and so he was eminently glad when the vessel opened comms; but he issued one group of orders before responding: "Helm, withdraw to a distance of twenty-seven thousand kilometers; not far enough out for a good engagement distance, but close to. We don't want to make them anxious; we're bigger than they are, but they carry more guns. No doubt about that. Move us out slow and steady. - CCG, all pilots on hot standby."

"Pilots on hot standby," came the tinny reply from below decks.

"Moving out," the woman at the helm confirmed. A slight rumble filtered through the deckplating to his feet; he scowled. What the hell was that?

"Gravitational influence from the star is interfering with the PG drive system," SciOps confirmed, as if the woman could read his thoughts, "and field strength is down by fifteen percent. We couldn't run hot if we tried, sir."

"Noted," Captain Turnen murmoured softly. He clicked open the relevant contact on the control panel inset to his chair; the chair promptly swivelled on the mount to face the larger viewer, as opposed to facing the SciOps and SensOps positions as it usually did. The viewer (which was not a VisiWall, and thus lacked the sharpness that such a screen would have, to Turnen's continued disappointment) was perhaps thirteen feet wide - the screen had been 'spun' in vacuum/microgravity conditions at the Tyelca Tuo Sol-orbital colony - and about the same in height. He didn't bother to engage the trimensional system; it was pointless to do so, as virtually no other cultures had a form of holovision which was entirely compatible with the TVC method preferred by the Iluvauromeni. He poked another contact closed before speaking; his voice would be suitably 'masked' - on the fly by the shipboard AI - from extreme emotional content, giving it an unearthly calm air.

"Greetings Nanakaland vessel. I am Captain Turnen of the Commonality Space Force exploration vessel Pylensir, on a mission of scientific discovery." He considered lying - claiming to be here to study the singularity - but as there were other vessels in-system, such a lie would not be sustainable for long. Instead, he told the 'truth' - or as close to as he could.

"We are currently engaging in space trials to ensure full operating efficiency."

He hoped that the Nanakaland vessel did not have neurologic scanners, as the Pylensir did; detection of the large crew aboard his vessel would undoubtedly tell the other commander that there was something not quite right about that claim. After all - space trials occur with a skeleton crew, not a full complement.

Turnen sighed.

He had the strangest feeling that this would be a very, very long day.

And probably tiresome. Long days were always tiresome.

The NSS New Triumph had all kinds of advanced sensors, but the sensors were so advanced and new that no one who was gathered quickly for their mission could operate them. Thus, all the ship could use was its basic sensors, which just showed a big blurb on the sensors screen - a ship. They could have also use the cameras on the outside of the ship (that was what they used to identify the ship as Ma-tek), but even cameras turned on thermal mode weren't that good at detecting life signs. So Captain Daniels had to trust the Ma-tek vessel.

"I am Captain Daniels of the NSS New Triumph. We are here with a to eliminate an alien threat," the captain explained to the Pylensir. It was the truth. Well actually, it was the half truth. Daniels made sure not to speak a word of the New Glory because the Ma-tek ship may have had simpathies to the other side. He couldn't risk it. It was important not to reveal the whole mission to an unknown ship. Besides, the Daniels reasoned with himself, they gave a one sentence explaination. My reply is enough. He waited until the communications officer put the connection on "RECEIVE ONLY" so that the captain could start issuing orders.

"Power down weapons," the captain ordered his crew. "Let's show them that we mean no harm - to them at least. Don't lower the shields though. If they open fire, we should be ready."

"Yessir," the weapons officer replied.

"Recharge the hyperspace drive," Daniels said to another officer. "I want to be able to get out of here ASAP. Of course until then, we can entertain ourselves by talking with this Ma-tek ship."

"Yessir," the officer replied.

"Bring back up the two-way communications," Daniels ordered the communication officer. "Let's continue communications until I find out a little more."

"Yessir."

"So, have you heard of the threat, yet?" Captain Daniels asked Captain Turnen when the two-way communications were back up. Daniels wanted to know how much they knew. If the ship didn't know too much about the Stalkers, he'd tell them so they could leave. Of course they might not leave. If that was the case, then the New Triumph would have to stay and escort the Ma-tek ship. When the captain thought about it, he realized that it might be good if they stayed for the moment. Then the New Triumph could say that it was escorting the Pylensir without lying if Klonor ships came. The captain continued talking to the Ma-tek ship anyways. "This area of space is dangerous, especially for a science vessel like yours. Our escort was wiped out by this threat and we only survived because of a special adaptation on our ship." He waited for a response. Would the ship leave? Would it stay? Would it accidently slip any sensitive information?

"We cannot keep waiting at this border post," Colonel Watson told the others. "Time is ticking away."

"It won't help to retreat or move on," replied Captain Rodgers. "To move on would be certain death and to retreat would mean even worse."

"Then what do you propose we do?" asked Carson. The medic had gone up to the bridge from the sick bay because there were no sick or wounded and everyone who wasn't needed elsewhere was called to the bridge to discuss.

"I think we should -" The captain stopped speaking. There was a beeping noise.

"Vessel passing border post," said Thompson, who was sitting at the sensors consol. "It's Nanakan - the missing tradeship. The Stalkers are drifting away from Klonor space."

"Destination?" asked the captain.

"I don't know," Thompson replied. "You can't predict the trajectery of a ship like this. All I know is that it's heading out of Klonor space and..." He paused. "It's heading towards us! I don't think that it is attacking us, but it's sure in our direction!"

"Deploy exterior armor," ordered Watson. "Prepare for possible impact. Let's see how the New Glory handles this..."


"It's launching pods now," stated Charles Thompson. "This cannot be good."

"I can tell," the captain said. The bridge went silent.

"And?" asked Watson, breaking the silence. There were sounds of metal hitting metal.

"And the pods are being flattened," Thomson replied.

"Prepare for some evasive maneuvers," the captain ordered. "Our armor won't last for long."

"Is the hyperspace engine online yet?" asked Watson over the ship's intercom.

"Not yet," replied the chief engineer. "The damage has been repaired, but it's only 87% charged."

"Then we will have to wait," the colonel said to everyone. "In less than fifteen minutes, we'll hyperspace out of here..."


When the hyperspace engine was charged, the chief engineer contacted the bridge again, saying, "We're ready to hyperspace. We just can't do it long ranged. Exterior damage prevents that and we can't go out in the middle of this to repair it."

"Okay," said Rodgers. "Let's get the hell out of here." And it was done. The New Glory hyperspaced into the system just outside of Klonor space - the one with the Stalker homeworld.

[OOC: Check OOC thread (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=380540). Without Klonor, we'll have to board the infected tradeship somewhere in the neighboring system. Thus, the RP may go faster than originally thought.]

[OOC 2: Remember this is the New Glory. Its sister ship, the New Triumph, is still by the Ma-tek ship.]

Bridge, CES Pylensir (Palantir-class EEV); POSITION UNKNOWN

Turnen scowled - with a vengeance. He distinctly disliked where this conversation seemed to be going - worse: he hated where it had already been. A threat? Other than the gravitational singularity that might keep his crew from home for - who knew how long? Days? Weeks? Months? Nobody had attempted a Transition in the interstellar medium; very few had even ventured out there. ICEL ships had dipped a toe in - nothing more. The space between the stars was even more mysterious than the stars themselves - at least to some.

But a threat? An alien threat? Possibilities whirred. What if the aliens weren't the threat? He was not at all surprised at the existence of yet more species in this already seemingly-packed universe, but he was surprised at the attitude. Generally, commerce and peaceful relations came before warfare. Therefore, he reasoned, ICEL ought to have heard of this already; news was news, and the media had already shown proficiency in learning what it had no business knowing.

He drummed his fingers for a moment, aware that the delay in response was lengthening. He was not particuarly concerned, however. Time was not critical yet.

His reasoning continued; if the aliens were indeed the threat - for only a threat would be kept secret (or a conspiracy?) - then there was only one order to give:

"Launch CAP," he ordered softly, keeping the send contact open (as it would only send, oddly enough if one thought overmuch of it, when the contact was closed).

Mind whirring, he realised something more critical: if nobody had heard of this back home, then he had no intel to go on. That in itself was not a normal situation; the CSF prided itself on its execution of the age-old path of any battle - OODA. Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. If he had no intel, he could not orientate himself to the threat. His brow furrowed with concern. - And yet-

He closed the contact. "We have knowledge of a potential threat," he offered in the calmly neutral artificially altered voice that could be heard via the commlink, "but the information is...second-hand. - We carry a fighter compliment and military hardware, of course. We are an Explorer vessel, not a science vessel. We expect danger." The words were probably, under normal circumstances, arrogant-sounding. But with the AI altering the tone of his words on-the-fly, that wasn't a concern; he would merely sound to be stating cold, hard fact.

A pause, then, "Oh, and if I may ask - what do you call this system?" No pause follows that statement, however, and it runs into yet more - apparently the captain can be talkative as well as enjoy the exercise of brevity.

"Nonetheless - I have to warn you. To attempt to make any sort of FTL exit from the system at this point would have dire consequences. The singularity which," he paused for a half-second. Why admit that he knew of the singularity's previous home? Or, rather...that it had a previous home? At least for now, it seemed unwise to do so. "-inhabits this system will complicate calculations horrendously at this distance; it would be wise to withdraw to extreme distance before even considering the attempt. I am sure your people have said much the same thing, though. - Oh, and don't mind the fighters we're launching."

The last is latent, and, with the neutral tone, almost sarcastic - although Turnen has no idea it sounds that way.



Outside, CES Pylensir (Palantir-class EEV); POSITION UNKNOWN


The small metallic objects seemed to be sput from small openings barely wide enough to accomodate their passing - openings which then iris closed again, showing very little in the way of their door-like nature when fully shut.

The metallic objects are not visible. At least, not against the eternal night of the depths of space; apparently coated in some sort of low-reflection paint, they're not very visible (except where they occasionally blot out some star or other for a moment in passing) under white light observation - and even less so, generally speaking, to infra-red, which has a greater wavelength. But they do have marginal heat signatures - albeit the hull of each object is only a few Kelvins above ambient.

Radio observation is out of the question; they might as well be debris, for their silhouette is small and tough to filter from any other matter that might be flying around (such as the usual advantage to the small is in space).

But they do possess strong electromagnetic signatures, and, quite obviously, they possess mass. Mass indicators read them at around two tons momentous mass, and the EM signatures are small but strong, considering the size - and both these facts make the craft eminently visible. Radio chatter then bursts into existance - only numbers are spoken, which are meaningless without reference - but for only a moment. Stray microwaves are then the order of business - presumably the pilots are now communicating with tight m-wave beams, to prevent foreign...intrusion.

Nothing regarding weapons systems or propulsive method is instantly noticable. Indeed, propulsion is something of a mystery, as the craft do not appear to be exerting any obvious thrust in order to attain or shed velocity - and do not have unusual mass readings, considering density and spectral analysis.

However, one thing is eminently clear from the tight formational flying and rapid, even highly adept way that the craft spread out and form a five-pronged defence of the Pylensir: the ICEL vessel may well be predominantly for exploration, but that exploration is clearly and obviously a military exploration.

"Oh this is getting noplace," compains Captain Vikrant.
"I agree," says the AI, "We should leave...wait...we're picking up an anomalous contact headed out of Klonor space...it appears to be some sort of trading vessel, but its not transmitting any standard navigation codes and its Infra-red signature does not match its class."

Seeing an oppourtunity to do something, Vikrant calls up the robots down in the engineering compartment.

"Fire the thrusters at full power...we shall pursue a bogey contact approximately thirty light-minutes out."
"Aye, sah!"

The robots had probably picked up their British accents when working around on the Tau-29 spice mining worlds, where a good deal of the workers would speak with something resembling an ancient British dialect of English.

The robots twist dials and throw switches on their control panels, and soon acceleration can be felt. The engineering compartment is a huge jumble of superconducting wires, conduit, and numerous inductors and containment vessels, all maintained by the robots and AI. In general, due to the lack of artificial gravity and the generally jumbled nature of RGF ships, they are notoriously difficult to board. That and the new interior defense systems mean that the crew has a better chance than ever of surviving a Stalker attack.

Captain Vikrant and the bridge robots watch the tactical plots projected onto the bubble canopy and the numerous lit display screens. The contact, designated what else but Bogey 1 is highlighted with a red triangle, and the Glass Onion closes with it rapidly. Although spherical ships are by nature quite massive, thanks to the huge engine banks, which take up a large portion of the sphere's internal volume, the ship can overcome its strong tendancy to stay still or continue on an unwanted path and right itself quickly and easily.

The NSS New Triumph
"This system has only been charted very recently," Captain Daniels told the captain of the Ma-tek ship. "A name has not been chosen because all vesels in this system are... concerned about other things." The hesitation was edited out of the transmission, before it was sent (the message was delayed a few seconds). No one would know that Daniels did hesitate except those on the bridge of the New Triumph. "I understand that you have some fighters you launched. We can launch some fighters to support you upon request, but most of our escort was wiped out." Just then another ship arrived out of hyperspace.

"The New Glory," the captain said to the crew on the bridge. "They're further from us. Perhaps they haven't detected us yet."

The NSS New Glory
"I believe that there is an LRR vessel in the area," stated Captain Rodgers. "Communicate with them first. Perhaps we can get some help in intercepting the tradeship."

"Sir," said Charles Thompson, "there's more than just an LRR ship in the area. This system has two capital ships in it - Ma-tek and Nanakan. Prepare for possible hostilities."

[OOC: Sorry for not posting longer. In a hurry and the plot needs to advance just a little more until the good posts (the boarding of the tradeship, etc.) start.]

"They're not attacking us," said Thompson. "The New Triumph is probably not alligned with that Ma-tek vessel and so attacking us wouldn't be a smart move for them."

"Good," replied Captain Rodgers.

"The tradeship launched Stalker pods at us as it was passing us by," explained Colonel Watson. "Thus, they should be out of their current supply. Once it gets close enough, it's time for the boarding. We need to capture one of these Stalkers alive."

"LRR vessel detected on long-ranged sensors," commented Thompson. "That probably means it's following the tradeship, which is also detected on long-ranged sensors. We didn't hyperspace that far. In fact, it's probably heading in our direction. I'd give it a half-hour, maybe less, before it gets close enough to board."

"We must prepare," ordered Rodgers. "Meanwhile, someone needs to notify the nearby ships. We'll only be able to board that tradeship if we work together. That includes the New Triumph."

"Rodgers and Thompson," commanded Colonel Watson, "Stay on the bridge and work things out with the Ma-tek vessel, the LRR vessel, and the New Triumph. I'll notify you when we're ready to board and I'll reserve some weapons for you. Carson, the Richards twins, and the ten from the secondary team will prepare for the mission with me." He paused and was about to leave, but then he said, "Oh and one more thing. Thompson, don't die. We need you to develop the special weapon." Then Watson left the bridge. The twelve that were told to follow did.

[OOC: If you want to take the slow route, take time to have a conversation with the New Glory and work things out. If you want to take the short route, the boarding will start after both LRR and Ma-tek post once each.]

[OOC 2: Ma-tek, this RP has three parts of it left. If you want a shorter role, you can leave after the tradeship scenes.]

"There's another Nankan ship out there. Looks like a new class, but very smiliar to the other one."
"Its time to get a conversation started. Attention all ships, this is the RGSV Glass Onion. We are pursuing an unidentified contact at approximately four light-minutes distance from ourselves, which might be filled with stalkers. Any aid in handling the vessel would be greatly appreciated."

The Glass Onion, pushed to high acceleration by its powerful ion thrusters, but not too high acceleration, is visibly gaining on the freighter. Although spherical ships are by nature rather massive, this high mass is offset by much more massive powerplant systems, which, when operating at high thrust, can easily push around the cruisers at a fast clip.

"What a coincidence," replied Captain Rodgers to the LRR ship's crew. "This is the NSS New Glory and we were just about to contact you for asistance. Normally, I'd say just destroy that tradeship, but it has a use. We must capture at least one Stalker alive in order to develop a specialized weapon, or series of weapons, that has more affect on the Stalkers. The more manpower - or in your case robotpower - the more chances of catching a Stalker alive to do this. After that, we get everyone off the ship and blow it to peices.

"Once we get the Stalker alive, we do testings on it. An effective weapon will be created and then the Stalker should be killed - if it is effective, then it should be a one-hit kill for normal Stalkers. Then we modify existing weapons or create new ones, distribute them, and land on the Stalker homeworld. There should be so many Stalkers that the one-hit kill will be needed for the slight chance of survival. Then the Stalker queen is killed - it should take tons of hits on her, though. Now that you know our plan, will you help us?"

C-Space?

Until now, the communications line between the ICEL vessel and its Nanakaland counterpart had been blessed with - to a degree - openness. By that, naturally, is meant that the ICEL transmission had allowed a large swathe of the bridge to be displayed in the transmission; there was the occasional, almost undetected but no doubt not unnoticed whispering sound of voices speaking in hushed tones - the usual activity to be expected on the nerve centre of a spacegoing vessel. Or any other vessel, for that matter.

Yet that rapidly alters; the ICEL transmission suddenly begins to lag, by a second or more, and the visual tightens, the outside edges of the image becoming grey and foggy - and absolutely impenetrable. Nor is the centre of the image entirely untouched: Turnen becomes a mere disembodied head with the hint of a neck visible.

The face smiles benevolently - but it's now so obviously an altered image as to border on the offensive. The lag increases rapidly, with no response occuring for thirteen seconds - now thirty, now fifty.

But the face keeps on smiling. Nostrils gently flex as air passes in and out. Eyes glint in that piercing, bright, fiery amber manner that only those who have seen Turnen's species can truly comprehend in imagination; yet the face is undoubtedly not the same as it was previously. It is not an obvious, glaring difference. It's not definable. One couldn't look and pick out the difference at a glance; but subtle, sneaking, gentle - it's there. The facial movements, perhaps, are not so free and rapid; then again, nothing is being said, and so surely there is nothing to react to?

Bridge, CES Pylensir (Palantir-class EEV); PN-002-Y

A glimmering display on Turnen's console showed the name immediately chosen - that is, put in place - by SciOps. PN-002-Y. Unimaginative. He knew what the name meant; Provisional Name 002 Yellow - referring to this being the second star system to be entered by ICEL, and its possession of a yellow star. Simple, but effective.

Something else - more important by far - caught his attention quickly. Naturally, he read the information output on-screen, but his simulated counterpart just smiled dully at the other captain for now. He was not overly disturbed at that; something in the tone of the other man's voice or words had given him more information than anything the man had said thus far. But: EM radiation of those specific required varieties was now constantly reaching the sensor clusters, suggesting that there was rather alot of - consistent - communication in-system.

Memory!

He recalled briefly the training the crew had recieved. They had been chased through the Oort Cloud by ICEL warships, pounded with simulated weapons, shot to pieces again and again and again - and to be fair, they had dealt out delicious damage to their training counterparts. The fighter units were, as a result, crisply efficient. He himself had flown with the CAP group, and knew the Wing Commander personally: she - ninety percent of his pilots were women, which was not entirely unusual (especially as women could track more active targets simultaneously than men) - was an excellent pilot with an outstanding record.

He sighed quietly. The training had been the most enjoyable, the most active period of this assignment. He had both loathed and loved the entire affair; now he found himself leaning towards the latter. It would be useful in the time ahead, he judged.

Thus, he decided, it would be unwise to accept the added defence of the other ship's fighter compliment. The CSF pilots would be insulted - and rightly so: they all knew the potential length of this mission, and all of them knew they had been specially selected. They were all experienced combat fliers. Every single one. To suggest, here, at the onset of potential danger, that they were not capable...

It would be a morale-crippling blow that no commanding officer could sanction.

Yet more data fed onto the little screen rapidly, spiralling alarmingly quickly. The communications were not open. Decoding and/or decryption would be time-consuming and, in the lifetimes allotted mortals - impossible!

"A name has not been chosen because all vesels in this system are concerned about other things."

The words whirred around his head.

Logic!

The cold light of logic applied to any problem ought to reveal - something. Everything, in fact. So it was taught. Words had history, and if one knew the history of words, one knew the history of Sentient Life; everybody, surely, knew that. He recalled the words of a teacher he had once had; the man had been Nenya, ancient, dying almost. He had contracted diseases, he was so old. His unique DNA breaking down slowly, the third strand - the sheathe - unravelling, preventing certain other unique Nenya genetic material from ensuring the constancy of the DNA. For all that growing imperfection, however, the man had been unutterably wise.

Wisdom! A word, surely, that was empty and meaningless? For who was wise? What was wise?

The words of the teacher had been simple and obviously (to the grown man, if not the child), but Turnen had failed in comprehension.

The discussion had been regarding international compassion, and the reasons that were in favour; the cold logic applied to the emotion, which often showed that the so-called conservative (conservatism in the 'outside' world was different, Turnen could not help but note internally, at depth) route was nothing but the only moralistic route. "When a man offers aid, seek not the destination, but the nature of his Path. Does he walk on soft, yielding ground with ease; on hot coals with pain but determination; or on jagged rocks with hope?"

Turnen had misunderstood, then. He had assumed that the old Nenya had spoken the obvious; one ought not aid the one who does not need it, when others did.

But that was not the essence. He now understood clearly: and saw the threat here all too readily.

He tapped a push-button - faintly wondering why the Commonality clung to such archaic control methods aboard these larger ships while their fighter pilots flew using EMIC interfaces ('electromagnetic interference control', he recalled, which was fancy terminology for a touch screen without the actual screen) - which altered the comms, making the bridge less seen and his face alone in focus. Sounds would also cut out, unless it was he that was speaking - and still, that would be edited by the computer.

"Battle readiness alert," Turnen announced softly, below the threshold required for transmission (and carefully so), before adding, "but do not ready offensive weapons. Point defence systems only. Full charge. Divert all available CPU workhours to SensOps."

It didn't matter that it wasn't communicated. The effect was obvious.

But a string of acknowledgement murmoured its way around the bridge; now, and only now, did Turnen return his attention to the communication.

"No, but thank you kindly, captain. I assure you, however, if some threat rears its head, we would be only too glad to lend assistance - and naturally expect likewise in return, so far as this is possible for either side."

He couldn't help but smile - internally. He liked phrasing things so ambiguously.

"However, captain, to be frank, I grow impatient and - hasty. Your references to difficulties in this system are clearly important, as they have been repeated.

"Therefore...why do I not make some suggestions, and tell me where I misunderstand?"

Turnen counted on one hand, although that was not visible. The transmitted voice remains, invariably, at the utmost degree of cool calm; but in this instance, so does Turnen's in actuality. "One; this system is the centre of some sort of activity which may be dangerous to a ship which is not made especially aware of it. - This I know, for you have said as much, but as I do not know you, there must always be an element of mistrust; so I cannot be sure that this is merely a cover for some other matter. You have said you have lost ships, but who is to say whether you have or not? We have not been here long, after all. Forgive my bluntneess, but I tire of games.

"Two; this is either not a new event, but an event which has lasted for some time, or is a near-repetition of a previous event. I would even hazard the guess that it was unexpected, paradoxically.

"Three; you, sir, are nervous. Your voice belies it not - but which of us does not use artificial alteration? - but your words speak louder. That the translation is causing such an effect is not utterly out of the question, but I suspect this is not so. - Wait, wait. I have not finished yet. - Four; you have changed tack considerably. Initially, you gave words of - projected fear, shall we say? You yourself are, I hazard the guess, not afraid - not overly so, not unnaturally so, I am assuming, though. But at first, you attempted to make it so for us, by warning us so bluntly and clearly.

"Yet - this is five, by the way - now you offer us an escort. Protection. Friendship, one might say, in esteemed self-interst.

"Captain, I warn you. If you are playing games with us, we will not be pleased, and any aid you may be seeking," Turnen knew he was gambling here - it was by no means certain that aid of some sort was to be asked for, after all! - "will then likely not be forthcoming. We value honesty. It is not logical to hide the truth from those who might offer help in a time of need, and, I promise you, we are fair people. Nor will we perceive such a request as weakness.

"Come, now. Be truthful and honest. Why are you nervous, captain - and why do you now wish us to remain where before you did seek to lead us away?"

Dimly, it occurred to Turnen that the other captain had in fact been striving to keep the Pylensir here all along, and that he had been using reverse psychology. However, the effectiveness in that tactic was the fact that the other side could always overintellectualize if such a tactic was suspected...

And overintellectualization...

Well, that path lead to madness. - Or...

- Perhaps sanity, if one were already mad.

"Your long message, Captain Turnen, requires a lengthy response," replied Captain Daniels. "However, I will not hesitate here. First, this system is the place of the Stalker threat. I have lost ships to it and the proof is the debris that floats above the Stalker homeworld. I could also show official records of our escort when we left for our mission, but that would be rather time consuming. I was under the impression that we could trust each other. I trusted you when you said what your mission was, but you're getting more and more suspicious - with the fighters launching and everything.

"Second, this may end up to be a repitition of the Intrepid Incident in which Nanakan forces were first exposed to the Stalker threat. However, I assure you that we have come prepared this time.

"Third, I am nervous because I am hiding some details of my mission. However, perhaps you should explain why a full crew is on a test mission? As inacurate as thermal cameras are at detecting lifesigns, there is much more heat produced in your ship than the minimal crew would produce. Explain yourself first and I will explain myself.

"Fourth, I admit that there may be something deeper in our wanting to escort you, but you yourself carry secrets, like I mentioned a few moments ago.

"So, Captain Turnen, I say to you -" Just then the connection was interrupted.

"What is this?" Captain Daniels angrilly asked the communications officer. "I am trying to communicate with someone."

"Sorry, sir," replied the communications officer, "but we have no time to listen to you two battle with words and egos. The New Glory has been detected on our sensors. So has a ship of Lunatic Retard Robots origin and the Stalker-infested tradeship. This ship is low priority."

"You will be court martialed for this!" the mad captain said. "Even if our targets have been drawn into sight..." He stopped. The broadcast light was on.

"Sorry, sir," the communications officer said again. "I just terminated the connection long enough for me to announce the detection of the New Glory. If I were to have known that you were to go on a rant -"

"STOP IT!" shouted Daniels. "TERMINATE THE CONNECTION BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!" It was too late.

The NSS New Glory
"Should I attempt to contact the Ma-tek vessel?" asked Thompson.

"No," replied Captain Rodgers. "It is probably too late for communications with them. The New Triumph has been talking with them for a while. Who knows what they have told the crew of that ship? I'd recommend to start boarding the Stalker-infested tradeship. Get the LRR ship to help. They can get involved later. It may take several attempts to capture a Stalker alive."

"Shouldn't we try at least once?"

"No," ordered the captain. "What I said is final."

"Unless it is overriden by me," said Colonel Watson over the ship's intercom. "I would recommend contacting them. This is going to be very dangerous and we need all the help we can get."

"So next thing I know, you'll be trying to contact the New Triumph for help," Rodgers complained.

"Actually, I hadn't thought of that."

The New Triumph
"And so that's how we'll explain it to the Pylensir," finished Captain Daniels. "Prepare to open up communications again."

"Wait, sir," stated the communications officer. "Incoming messge on line two."

"Who is it from?" asked the captain. "Nanakaland Space Command?"

"No," the officer replied. "The NSS New Glory."

"Well, don't respond to it," said Daniels.

"What if it's a surrender message?"

"Very well. Play the damn message."

"Hello," said the voice. "I am Captain Rodgers of the NSS New Glory. You are probably familiar with this. However, Admiral Clark, who sent you on your mission to take us, out has since left the NSC. Your primary mission, to take out the Stalkers, can be completed if you help us board the tradeship. Yes. I am asking for your help."

"Hmm..." Captain Daniels said. "It could very well be a trap, but I don't think it is. We should help them because we can always backstab them later. I'll send a reply to them ASAP and then finish working things out with Ma-tek. Was the message encrypted?"

"No," replied the communications officer.

"Then that was very stupid of them."

"Or very smart."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," explained the officer, "the Ma-tek vessel now knows about our mission and about their request. It'd be rather hard to backstab the New Glory now."

"I suppose so..."

"What a coincidence," replied Captain Rodgers to the LRR ship's crew. "This is the NSS New Glory and we were just about to contact you for asistance. Normally, I'd say just destroy that tradeship, but it has a use. We must capture at least one Stalker alive in order to develop a specialized weapon, or series of weapons, that has more affect on the Stalkers. The more manpower - or in your case robotpower - the more chances of catching a Stalker alive to do this. After that, we get everyone off the ship and blow it to peices.

"Once we get the Stalker alive, we do testings on it. An effective weapon will be created and then the Stalker should be killed - if it is effective, then it should be a one-hit kill for normal Stalkers. Then we modify existing weapons or create new ones, distribute them, and land on the Stalker homeworld. There should be so many Stalkers that the one-hit kill will be needed for the slight chance of survival. Then the Stalker queen is killed - it should take tons of hits on her, though. Now that you know our plan, will you help us?"

"Of course," replies Vikrant. "We have detected a Ma-tek ship and another Nankan ship close by as well. Perhaps they should be alerted as well. For such a venture, it looks like we'll need all the help we can get. Do you plan to operate independently of a dock or are you in need of dock facilities?"

The Glass Onion continues to close with the stalker-infested freighter.

"We have a firing solution on the target," says the AI, and an indicator appears on the tactical plot showing the torpedo lock.

"We can slow it down a bit if you want," says Vikrant.

"Aim for engines only," Captain Roders told the crew of the LRR vessel. "We want this ship to stay where it is, intact. We need to start an inflitration team. Remember, we need to capture one Stalker alive and bring it back to the ship. The boarding team should leave in ten minutes. Disable the ship now and prepare backup." He switched com-lines. "Are you with us?" he asked to the crew of the New Triumph.

"They terminated contact," was the instant report from the CommOps officer. Annoying. Turnen found it annoying. Not the break in contact - ships' needs always outweighed mere communications, of course - but...

He blinked as the contact re-opened; naturally, his comms officer hadn't closed the port by which the connection was established. Why would he? No order had been given. But-

There was no filter. That was instantly apparent. He moved his head the appropriate amount to one side, leaning as if conferring with another officer - leaving part of his shoulder visible at a cant which would make such apparent - and laughed softly.

Here they had both been, making such an effort to be what the other expected: sharply efficient, grand captains of grand ships with spit-and-polish naval class.

How silly.

Even he could see the amusement; the fact was, he had fallen back on instinct. Secrets were kept by military men as a matter of course; so he had not revealed the mission of his great vessel. Nor would he. But there were many reasons - and the primary was not even known to most of his crew. Why should he tell the truth?

He composed a (relatively, considering the mass required) short text message, therefore, rather than wasting further time-

Greetings. An explanation.

First, we are on a mission of exploration. You really don't need know any more than that. Ours is a long-term mission, but this is but the first phase, and we are due to return to Sol for a full check to ensure that the ship has operated effectively. However, our arrival has caused difficulties. The singularity which has appeared in this system recently was brought here by our superluminal drive; a mischance, nothing more. Now we are forced to remain here until we can solve this nuisance problem; if we make the Transition back to Sol, we will either carry the monster with us - or the inverse gravitational effect will throw us many parsecs off-course...as indeed it did in order for us to arrive here.

Dimly, I suspect the singularity may prove of some use to you, in fact, but I have yet to consider the potential fully and will say no more.

Our fighters have been launched to protect us from whatever threatens you. I assure you, any attack on this vessel can and will be repelled - unless these 'Stalkers' are immune to kinetic and thermal assault. But I have heard nothing of this incident you describe; I may well be overconfident. Nevertheless, a ship of this size is eminently vulnerable without a fighter screen.

Further explanations are available at will. - Further, we may be a vessel of exploration, but we have a detachment of highly trained SOF personnel on board. Should force projection be required...we may be able to render aid. In the interest of harmony, you understand. However, we cannot do so without further information. After all - we have only the assumption that you are not the aggressors here. Until we can be certain, we will offer no promises.

Good day, for now, sir.

~ Captain Turnen, CES Pylensir

[OOC: Just as a note: the Pylensir may well be an exploration ship, and thus she needs more...volume...put aside for scientific use, but she does still carry weapons. She is a military vessel, and the nature of the weapons that I use on the CSF ships is such that it doesn't matter what ship carries them - they're equally effective. She has two hundred kinetic launchers, but can in fact only fire one shot every five seconds from each, which is due to a lack of the rather extensive, heavy, and expensive ELS loading racks and mechanisms required for the rapid-fire capacity of ICEL warships. She also has two E-cannons, mounted at the 'poles' on swivel-racks. That said, she has no shields of any variety, and relies entirely on ECM systems and anti-missile defences - she is not an MI vessel, and so she is armoured (fairly heavily), but armour is only so useful. A really good hit after weakening, and she's as dead as any other ship.

Oh, and those two hundred missile tubes? Can only be used when the anti-missile grid isn't in use. So she either defends at full capacity or attacks at full capacity; she can't do both, due to rather obvious energy constraints. So she can operate both at half (approximately!) but neither at full. And at half, efficiency drops for both, which rather follows. And so on.]

The New Glory
"We can wait no longer," said Captain Rodgers. "I must prepare to board. The LRR ship is with us, the Ma-tek ship is neutral, and the New Triumph won't attack us right now. Thus, let's go to the tradeship and get that Stalker."

"Exactly," replied Thompson. "Let's get going before anything else happens." They left the bridge and went to the prep room where the rest of the team was already there.

"Is it time to go?" asked Colonel Watson when he noticed Rodgers entering.

"Yes," Rodgers responded. "We don't have time to waste waiting around for others. After we board the tradeship the others can if they want. I have already told the LRR ship to only aim for the engines because we're going to board it."

"Then we should go to the boarding frigate right now," Major Rachel Davis, the commander of the secondary team, said.

"Ok, target the power systems."

The torpedo bay opens up, and out flies a volley of twenty high-explosive torpedos, which quickly track the freighter and the ion trail produced by its engines.

The torpedos, powered by single-burn liquid fuel rockets, close rapidly with the tradeship, although it would probably be a better choice to use the ion cannons and other electromagnetic wave weaponry, given their light speed.

However, the torpedos are nearing the end of their shelf life and some extra space is always useful.

The two teams were both crowded onto the boarding frigate. Most of them had their hands on their guns even though they didn't even board the ship yet. A slight shake confirmed that LRR torpedos were whizzing by, taking out the tradship's engines. It was as simple as getting in, capturing a Stalker, and getting out. Of course, nothing is ever that easy...

The boarding frigate approached the tradeship. It opened a whole in the ship and laid a (walled and roofed) platform for the boarding team to walk across. Colonel Watson - while older, more experienced, and higher ranking then he was during the Intrepid Incident - still liked to be the first person to board an unknown ship. He raised his gun and walked across. The team had oxygen masks on.

When Charles Thompson walked over (soon after) he held up a strange looking device. He said, "Life support is at 79.43% and slowly dropping. We could get a good three hours in here without having our oxygen masks. If it takes longer, we'll need them, so don't waste them right now." Everyone took off their masks.

"Detect any Stalkers yet?" asked Captain Rodgers.

"No," replied Thompson. "I suggest we split up into the two teams and -"

"NOT A CHANCE!" shouted Watson. "Splitting up was a mistake made before. Any stragglers or small groups are taken out easilly. If we stay in a large group, they won't attack..."

"Which means we'll never catch one!" Thompson objected.

"No," expalined the colonel. "We'll catch them. We just need to find the nesting area."

"You don't suppose we -" Captain Roders started to say.

"I do," Watson said, cutting the captain off. "The larger the numbers the better. Radio to the New Glory. Let's see if we can get any support from the neighboring ships."

"Yessir," replied Charles Thompson.

"There's ten on the secondary team," Rodgers said. "A little too much. I'd say we keep two to on the frigate - with the tunnel temporarilly sealed, of course - so that when it's time to go back to the frigate we can attack whatever Stalkers might come here from both sides."

"Perhaps," responded Watson. "Perhaps not. We don't want to be divided - unless we had reinforcements, of course."

The New Glory had been sent the message. "So are the teams going to split up or not?" asked Major Rachel Davis after she could no longer stand waiting in the hall they boarded in.

"Not," replied Colonel Watson.

"I think we should have a poll, though," Captain Rodgers suggested. "It'd solve our problems and we can move on." Watson nodded in agreement. "So who wants to stay here?" Only Charles rose his hand. After seeing he was the only one, Thompson quickly put his it down. "Who wants to split up?" Rodgers rose his hand. So did about five others. "And who wants to stick together?" The rest rose thier hands. The majority had spoken. They were going to stick together.

"Just like I wanted," Watson commented. "Don't forget to stick together at all times. They like to pick off stragellers. Anyone with any leg injuries, asthma, or anything else that would prevent them from keeping up, leave back to the boarding frigate now." No one left. "Good then. I suppose we'll make good time to the bridge, then?" They all nodded. "Richards, you both take the front." He then pointed at three strong people in the secondary team. "You three take up the rear. We're going to have to move slightly slower to make sure that everyone keeps up and that no one is left behind.

"Those closer to the back, look behind you occassionally. If you see a Stalker, notify us immediately. Everyone, find someone to always keep an eye on. If that person goes missing, notify us immediately. Once we get to the hall near the bridge, all nearby vent shafts will be sealed and the hallway should be guarded. Thompson will hack into the ships computers and open the bridge's doors. There'll be something in there most likely, so be careful. We capture a Stalker, stun it, take it back to the boarding frigate, and then revive it in a sealed location. We then can start the development of the weapon."

"Understood, sir," they all said in unison. Then they started walking. The ship seemed deserted, but the team knew better. It seemed like they were being watched and the team knew to look all over. There was no room for mistakes. There was no room for not being afraid. Courage is overcoming fears, idiocy is having none.

"We can't keep waiting here while they infiltrate the tradeship," said an officer to the captain. "We must act now, sir."

"Why?" asked Captain Daniels.

"We don't want to look like the bad guys to the Ma-tek ship, sir," the officer explained. "While we could probably match them with force, we are outnumbered. Remember, there's also an LRR ship and the New Glory here. If we show any signs of agression, then they'd team up on us. Also, if we send no one to help, that could also be misinterpreted."

"Very well, then," replied the captain. "We will help them take care of the Stalkers. We have a fuller force. Our reinforcements will be appreciated. I'll be on board, too. Contact the Nanakan Space Command. See if we can get a full fleet over here."

The Glass Onion watches the freighter constantly, its primary and secondary batteries ready to blow the ship to smitherines. The Glass Onion, while not the largest of the RGF's spheres, is certainly one of the larger ones, and besides being highly self-sufficcent, is very well armed (even if this being well armed is being somewhat shabbily armed in the eyes of other nations).

The robots, terrified of the Stalkers, absolutely refuse to board the freighter, and the ship's weapons are solidly locked onto the freighter as their target.

"Sir," said Thompson. "We've done our fifth complete scan of the ship. It is completely empty. The Stalkers must have left. No Stalkers are anywhere here."

"I wouldn't have suspected that," replied Colonel Watson.

"Percisely," Captain Rodgers responded. "Perhaps these Stalkers are even smarter than we imagined. We imagined them out of the Alien movie and they did seemed much like dumb, vicious aliens. However, what stops these aliens, the Stalkers, from being highly intelligent, too? They just don't have to show it in the way humans show it.

"They might not even be as smart as us, but they're smart enough. They figured we would go after them in the ship and then use the information we gathered against their queen in the homeworld. Then the Stalkers launched an all-out suicide attack on our ship with those Stalker pods. They knew no Stalker would survive, but they also knew that if they died that way, we couldn't use them against their fellow species."

"Then there is no use being on this ship," Watson added. "There will be nothing useful we can find here. We must prepare for an assault on the Stalker homeworld. There is no other option. Tell the others. Start the orbital bombardments to weaken them."

After a series of yessirs, the soldiers packed their weapons and equipment and went back to the boarding frigate. From there, they returned to the NSS New Glory. Now they had to prepare for the toughest mission yet.

Bridge, CES Pylensir (Palantir-class EEV); PN-002-Y

Captain Turnen scowled faintly. "Are you sure?"

He had asked the question several times already, but he had to know for cerrtain.

"Yessir. We can Transition away any time we want to; the singularity was pulled here by freak circumstances. SciOps says it won't happen again; the probability is so low - it was low already, in fact, but some sort of attractor state..."

The young officer's voice trailed off. He obviously didn't understand what he was supposed to relay; but he was the one who had brought the message. He was a biologist, not a mathematician, but as he had little to do at the moment, it seemed wise to spare him. Except he couldn't make a full report. Turnen sighed.

"I understand enough, for now. But we aren't leaving."

Several members of his usually very disciplined bridge crew half-turned in their seats - for a moment - but turned back again. He raised his voice slightly, deciding an explanation was warranted:

"We're going to help these people any way we can. I have a feeling about this; a bad feeling. If we leave, and we could have helped, and people die uneccessarily..."

His voice trailed off; he shook his head. "No. There's no damned way we're leaving. - CommOps, squirt a transmission to the vessel we were communicating with before. Inform them that they have six additional fighters to support their own, if they need them, and also inform them that we're willing to offer support. But..."

He scratched his jaw. "Tell one of the fighters to punch it hard in-system. I want them to relay a message to that LRR ship we saw; I want verification of this situation from someone we know is on 'our side'. These people from Nanakaland - we don't know them. But those LRR folks have always seemed pretty decent; I doubt they'd lie for no reason. Especially considering their...nature."

He paused again. "Inform Lucy that she'll be going out on a trip," he added.

* * *

A single fighter craft is spat hard from the large bulk of the ship, accelerating hard inwards on a sweeping course towards the ship from LRR. But its time-to-target is long, even with the energy-expensive slingshot launch: at least an hour and a half.

It does not communicate as it flies.

The NSS New Glory
The mostly disappointed boarding team left their boarding frigate (which had earlier detached from the tradeship) and walked into the ground of the docking bay. A vast majority of the boarding team had drastically different thoughts as the walked toward the docking bay's doors. They all thought, though.

Rather disappointing, thought Colonel Watson. This would have been my first encounter with the Stalkers in a long time. And it was similar to the Intrepid incident. I would have been able to have predicted it to some extent. An assault on the Stalker homeworld has never been successfully attempted. This will be hard. Perhaps I should open communications with Admiral Johnson...

And it's back to my ship, Captain Rodgers thought. A bit disheartening that the Stalkers knew, though. How are we going to assault their homeworld without problems? Maybe I should stay on the ship and command the orbital bombardments personally...

Amazing, thought Thompson. The statistical probability of what happened actually happenning is very rare. They greatly decreased the odds of living the assault because I can't develop that weapon. Oh well. At least I lived.

I wanted to blow something up! Eric Richards thought. I wanted to kill those d*mn alien scum.

Those Stalkers should have gone boom! Bob Richards thought. Neither of the twins had much brains, but apparantly Eric had a higher vocabulary.

Good thing nobody died, thought Carson, the medic. People are going to have to die eventually - maybe even me. I'll be with my team until the end, though.

I hope we succeed, Major Rachel Davis thought. And I hope I don't die.

OCC: I'll post first thing tomorrow.

The NSS New Glory
The team had little time to rest. As soon as they left the docking bay they prepared for their next, more hazerdous mission. This time, they were to use something other than the boarding frigate. A specially designed Nanakan Space Shuttle with a cloaking device modifications would be just big enough to fit the whole team. It was designed to secretly land on the surface of planets. It had some advantages over the boarding frigates in land missions.

However, once they landed and left the craft, there would be no cloak to protect them. The only help they would get on the surface of the planet would be their own guns. It was not known exactly how many Stalkers were down there. It would almost certainly be a suicide mission.

"You should know that there is a low chance of making it," Colonel Watson told them. "I am not going to even pretend that we have the means of destroying them all. We did not capture a Stalker alive so we have no special weapon. All we have is the guns we have right now and ourselves. The ships will try to aide via orbital bombardments, but it may not be enough. There is few of us willing to go down and many of them.

"We must fight to the death. This is our last chance of eliminating the Stalker threat. We must annihilate them all or risk facing them in the future. There is a very good chance that we will all die there. Anyone who is not willing to risk their lives for their teammates, their country, and mankind please step forward now." No one did.

NSS Shuttle 0323
The landing team's shuttle left the New Glory and enabled the cloaking device. It started to slowly descend. Everyone waited nervously. It was going to be war and it definately didn't look like they were going to win.

Initial scans showed that the Stalkers numbered several hundred. The humans numbered less than two dozen. The team got more and mer nervous the longer it took to land. Just when the shuttle was about to land, a transmission came in.

"They're here," said the transmission from the New Glory. "They're here! A whole fleet from the NSC has arrived. Hundreds of soldiers are there. They're launching landing craft! backup is on the way! You have a chance of succeeding. Don't remove cloak until reinforcements arrive."

The NSS Celestia
Admiral Johnson had left NSC temporarilly. An old veteran of the Intrepid Incident would not miss a chance to finish off the Stalker threat. The First Nanakaland Fleet started opening fire on the Stalker homeworld. Johnson had the coordinates of where the shuttles were landing, so he was able to aim away from the landing teams.

"The Stalker queen would be immune to most hand weapons," the admiral advized the landing teams. "Use the heavy weapons on it. Try to pinpoint the exact coordinates of the Stalker queen and I'll try to aim some really heavy weapons to reduce it to a crater."

Near the Stalker Homeworld
Suddenly, the United Grand Celestial Glory, in which former Admiral Clark and his rogue followers escaped in, uncloaked. Evil Nelson Clark laughed evilly on a very open transmission that hit all ships and landing craft in the area. He then broadcasted a message.

"The Stalkers are mine," Clark said. "Get out of my way and I'll destroy this whole planet."

"NO!" objected Admiral Johnson. "There are people there. And the radiation and power of destroying the entire planet will spread quickly throughout the entire system - it will even damage Klonor space. You cannot do that."

"You cannot command me!" shouted the defiant Clark. "I am no longer of Nanakaland. I will destroy that planet whether your men are on it or not."

"You give me no other choice but to disable your systems before you do that," Johnson warned.

"Then you shall get war."

[OOC: The plot thickens. The team lands on the Stalker homeworld, cloaked. Reinforcements arrive. Admiral Johnson comes, but the former admiral, Clark, uncloaks his ship and thus...]

It is perhaps possible that not everyone present in this star system had detected the Pylensir until now - possibly even mistaking it for the singularity that it had dragged with it - but now detection becomes utterly inevitable.

Over several hundred milliseconds, a number of things happen. First, the Pylensir's somewhat more-delicate-than-expected EM signature inflates in strength tremendously, to the tune of several million gauss. Then it disappears.

Thirty-seven milliseconds later, a tangible but small EM signature pops into existence near the LRR vessel; it swells outwards for a moment, having a slight propulsive effect on objects inside its sphere of influence - perhaps shunting the LRR vessel a micron or so off-course, but nothing more.

Fifteen milliseconds further on, and the EM field appears to 'snap' - the overall configuration of the field lines alters radically, the area of space inside its effect shrinking proportionate to the inverse square law as normal physics resumes, and a 'normal' EM field forms out of the older, seemingly impossible one.

One hundred milliseconds in, the Pylensir simply appears out of the vacuum, almost as if it had always been there. Apparently its commander has changed his mind-

Bridge, CES Pylensir (Palantir-class EEV); PN-002-Y

"...successful, sir. We are not close enough to an electromagnetic source to recharge to full capacity, but we retain enough reserves to get where we need to be. - Verifying position... targeted area verified. Accuracy level verified at 99.474%. Drift rate...fourteen microns per second, system average relative."

The drone of his navigation officer was a little monotone, and, truth be told, grating. But efficient was efficient. Turnen turned his chair in the Nest towards one of the other, numberous console banks laid out around his bridge; "Comms?"

"Numerous encrypted, encoded activity. I'm not sure if any of it is of any use to us, sir," the reply came, quietly.

Turnen nodded; he expected nothing less. He knew what he was going to do - he just had to do what had to be done first in order to do it. It was slow business, running a starship, he realised; there was so much one had to do to make something else possible, in turn making something else still possible. The list of things to do just never ended.

"Our launched fighters?"

"Too soon to tell," SensOps informed him, "but they ought to arrive around thirty minutes after us. Unfortunately, they'll arrive before the gamma-ray bursts from their Transitions will reach us. We won't see them coming, but nor will anyone else."

"Good," the Captain murmoured softly under his breath, lifting his hand in an uncharacteristic movement - an almost thoughtful stroking of his chin. "Hail the Lunatic Retard Robots vessel - use our private channel, 1kb encryption. Lets find out what they know."

"What's this...we are being hailed by the Palantir class vessel."
"Hello Palantir-class EEV, this is the RGSV Glass Onion," says captain Vikrant. "We are currently in this system pursuing a ship that we believe to be inhabited by a dangerous species known as the stalkers."
"It appears that a battle has started!," interjects the AI. "Over the supposed stalker homeworld, it seems."
"Make for the planet!"

Vikrant forgets that he is still transmitting to the Pylensir, and concentrates on his numerous display screens as the Glass Onion heads towards the Stalker Homeworld at high speed, the engineer robots masterfully handling the ship's propulsion systems as the AI navigates and weaponry is powered up.

The NSS Celestia
"Battlestations!" Admiral Johnson ordered his fleet. "The New Glory and New Triumph have been asked to join this conflict. Let's see where their loyalties lay. Prepare to attack the United Grand Celestial Glory. This is going to be a battle.

"Fighters, corvettes and frigates, go for the engines and weapons of the United Glory. Take out the other capital ships that are escorting it. Take out any other ship or fighter of the enemy's. You can tell them apart only by the painting. Apparantly the rebel fleet has had a paint job so they can tell us apart. That should help the other way around, too.

"Capital ships, focus on the enemy capital ships. Let the smaller ships take care of the smaller ships. If you are taking too much damage move toward the back of the fleet and give lesser damaged ships a chance to fight.

"Boarding teams, get ready. You have to focus on taking the United Glory from the inside. They have forces onboard so prepare for a fight. Get control of the bridge and it will be a great morale boost and strategical victory.

"ATTACK! Once this battle is done take care of the Stalkers." With that, the fighters and corvettes launched, and the frigates and capital ships opened fire. The United Grand Celestial Glory (aka United Glory) responded and the space battle began.


Stalker Homeworld
Meanwhile, Colonel Watson's team lifted the cloak of thier landing craft. He said, "Everyone, prepare to fight. Get your weapons in hand. As soon as I open this door, attack. Other teams have already landed to help us out, so focus on the Stalker queen. Try as direct a path as possible. More have come to help. Perhaps, then, we might have a chance. Understood?"

"Yessir," they all replied.

"For Nanakaland!" Watson shouted.

"For Nanakaland!" replied the team in unison. The door opened. The desert planet was red in the sunset, but the sands would soon be red with something else. Blood. Hundreds of humans charged against hundreds of Stalkers. The ground battle began.

OCC: My apologies for not staying informed here, but where in relation to where me and Ma-tek are is the stalker homeworld.

[OOC: About 15 minutes on top speed. Not too far. In the same star system, remember. The battle could probably be seen on long-ranged sensors.]

Above the Stalker Homeworld
It was Admiral Johnson against former Admiral Clark. It was not a skirmish between two power-hungry commanders - it was a significant battle between the head of the NSC and a rogue admiral who wanted to destroy a planet with several hundered Nanakans on the surface. It was authority versus the rebels who not long ago had that very same authority.

Corvettes and fighters of Thomas Johnson's fleet led the assault on the rebels. Nelson Clark's fleet countered by launching their own fighters and corvettes. They also launched some anti-fighter frigates. However, Johnson's frigates suddenly moved up and attacked Clark's weaker frigates. Clark had bombers that tried to take out the frigates, but they were overwhelmed by Johnson's corvettes.

Boarding frigates approached the United Glory. About three-quarters made it and penatrated the hull. The battle began on the inside of Clark's ship, too. However, there was still a fight going on outside in space. Johnson's frigates and fighters took out some guns of Clark's flagship, but then the anti-fighter guns started shooting.

Clark launched reinforcements and three Clark-loyal capital ships uncloaked. Johnson's flagship, the NSS Celestia, was targeted. When all seemed lost, however, the New Glory came and helped out. Clark's offensive forces were forced to draw nearer to the United Glory and form a defensive position.

"Check," Admiral Johnson said in a transmission to Clark. "You're move." In a way, it was very much like a chess game. Of course in this fight there was no draw.


Stalker Homeworld
Colonel Watson, Charles Thompson, Captain Rodgers, Rob and Eric Richards, Private Carson, Major Rachel Davis, and the rest of the team left the landing craft. At least several dozen other humans had already left their pods and did their charge against the Stalkers. The team opened fire.

Two Stalkers got killed, but five of the team already died. Colonel Watson was knocked down to the ground. A Stalker lunged over to finish him of. All of a sudden, the Stalker exploded.

"Grenade launcher, sir," Thompson explained. "I did a few modifications to my weapon."

"Thank you," replied Watson. There wasn't much time to say anything else. More humans were coming, but some landing craft were hit by Stalker pods before the crafts landed, doing so in a kamikaze fassion. A path was cleared in a sea of Stalkers. Bob Richards had a flamethrower and was torching dozens of Stalkers. Many Stalkers died, but then Bob was decapitated from behind by a Stalker.

"NO!" cried Eric Richards, who grew up with his brother, entered the military with his brother, and went on missions with his brother. He wanted to die with his brother. Eric ran into the crowd of Stalkers. They swarmed over him. Then he pulled all of his grenades at once. A giant crater of Stalkers were destroyed. Eric Richards was gone, but now a path to the Stalker queen was visable.

[OOC: The **** forums. They didn't ****ing load when I tried to post this ******************** post yesterday. Anger gone now...]

The United Grand Celestial Glory
While the battle in space raged on, the fight in the United Glory was just starting. Over a hundred people from various boarding frigates entered the ship. Two frigates lined up perfectly with crew quarters, one lined up with a hall, and three made room in the engineering deck. Those two teams busted down the door of each room they were in and walked into the hall. It was a clear path to the elevator which could take them to the bridge deck.

They walked to the main hall in the center of the United Glory and turned toward the elevators. However, before they could get to the elevators at the end of the hall, the four elevators lowered. It was probably a defense team as no other group travelling the ship would take all four elevators. The boarding team got in battle position with those at the front crouching and those at the back standing, pointing their guns at the doors. A sound indicated that the elevators had arrived and were about to open.


The team that entered the hall (on a lower level) had a different purpose. They were to take control of the docking bays, which would prevent the United Glory from launching reinforcements in the space fight and would allow a safer entry for many of Johnson's ships to reinforce the boarding effort. They walked down their hall until some guards patrolling caught them.

"Halt!" said a guard. The boarding team opened fire. The gaurds shot back. The boarding team had the advantage in that they had the first shot, but the guards called in reinforcements to that level. The element of surprise being gone, the boarding team threw some smoke grenades and went to an alternative route to the docking bays. The guards followed, but soon the they lost the trail of the boarding team.


The three boarding teams in the engineering deck's goal was to try to gain control of the ship from there. As soon as they entered, the engineers put their hands up. It seemed easy, but the chief engineer pushed an alarm, summoning guards. Some of the engineers that had their hands up reached for guns and opened fire. It was a trap.

The Stalker Homeworld
Carson the medic, Charles Thomson, and three others got separated from the rest of the landing team during the chaos of the fight. Hundreds of humans were dead, but hundreds of Stalkers were also dead. Most of the surviving humans pressed forward and the Stalkers fell back to the temple.

"It could be a trap," cautioned Captain Rodgers. "It shouldn't be this easy. The Stalker queen is probably inside the temple and that'd make it even harder."

"We have no choice," replied Colonel Watson. "We have to follow them to complete our mission." He turned to the others. "Be prepared to attack! Be cautious of any trap."

There was a series of "yessirs." The humans that followed Watson numbered about one hundred because most of the surviving humans joined Watson's group. About two dozen people, mainly medics, left behind to watch and help the wounded.

The team approached the temple doors. They were swung wide open. Everyone pointed their guns at the door. There were no Stalkers visable. Watson signaled to move in. About half a dozen brave soldiers entered the temple. Once they were seen to be unharmed, Watson led the others inside the temple.

"Umm... What's wrong with this picture?" asked Major Rachel Davis, pointing to several bronze Stalkers about three inches high on a wooden table by the entrance.

"The colonists," stated Watson, "must have worshiped the Stalkers. This was a temple to them. They must have believed that an annual sacrifice would save them from their wrath."

"Then they were terribly mistaken," Captain Rodgers replied. They walked down the hall to a courtyard. Watson signaled the team to stop. It was swarming with Stalkers. In the center of the courtyard there was a stone table which was designed to hold down people.

"Human sacrifice," Colonel Watson explained. "The colonists must have tied a human down there and left him or her to the Stalkers. Eventually, the Stalker number increased and the Stalkers turned on the colonists. They were wiped out. Instinct lead the Stalkers back to the sacrifice room. And the Stalker queen is laying eggs here. We must take here out quickly!"

"So how do you suppose we do that?" asked Rachel Davis.

"We need to come up with a plan fast."


Meanwhile, Carson, Thomspon, and the three others who got separated from the rest managed to find their way to a canyon in the desert planet that was the Stalker homeworld. They climbed down to a cave they spotted. They looked around the canyon area.

"This must have been the original Stalker area," stated Thompson. "Look! There's footprints at this cave. Let's follow them."

"Sure," replied Carson. "Let's go into a dark cave that could have thousands of Stalkers with only five people."

"If we see them before they see us, we can always run," Thompson replied.

"Fine," Carson said, defeated. "However, if we die, I blame you." They walked down the cave and found that it lead toward the area of where the colony was. There was a second opening of the cave. The five of them peaked out and found the courtyard where the Stalkers were swarming. It was a backdoor to the temple.

Above the Stalker Homeworld
The United Grand Celestial Glory opened fire at the upcoming ships. The boarding frigates were wiped out so that the boarding teams had no way to retreat. Swarms of Clark's fighters and corvettes engaged the enemy forces. However, Johnson's forces were larger and started to overpower the United Glory.

"Ready our weapons," Clark told his fleet. "Prepare to open fire on the Celestia. If we take out the Celestia, then the rest of them might surrender easilly." They did so. The superweapon wasn't fully charged, but it still managed to rip through the Celestia's shields. Next, the secondary weapons and the rest of Clark's ships opened fire.

However, this exposed a weakness that the crew of NSS New Glory realized. They moved in along with most of Johnson's fleet to take out the exposed ships of Clark. Within a few minutes, all fighters, corvettes, frigates, and capital ships on Clark's side were damaged, destroyed, captured, or retreating back to the United Glory. However, damage was inflicted on the Celestia.

The NSS Celestia
"Hull breach!" shouted Admiral Johnson. There was another sound - the sound of crashing. The ship shook and the lights flashed. Thomas Johnson was knocked to the ground and his seat flew across the bridge. The lights went out on the Celestia. Dimmer emergency lights came on.

"Weapons?" asked Johnson.

"Down, sir," replied an officer.

"Shields?"

"Down, sir."

"Life support?"

"50% and dropping, sir."

"Casualties?"

"Two dozen at least, sir."

"Then this ship must be evacuated," Admiral Johnson replied. "We cannot afford any more losses and it appears as if this ship's condition is going downhilll fast. Get everyone else to the escape pods. I'll stay here another minute. I'm to be the last to leave this ship."

"Yessir."

The United Grand Celestial Glory
The elevator doors opened and the boarding team opened fire. Several dozen guards were there. It was a massicre. All of the guards in the elevators were killed while only six of the boarding team were killed. The boarding team moved forward to the elevators and went up to the bridge level.

The elevator went up several floors and the boarding team prepared for the doors to open. This time, however, the guards would have the advantage. The doors opened and the guards on the bridge opened fire. However, someone in the boarding team was smart enough to throw a grenade, which wiped most out the guards. The boarding team moved forward.

They went down the hall and busted the door open to the main command center. They raised their guns and one of them shouted, "Nelson Clark, it is over for you! Surrender your ship!"

The Stalker Homeworld
Thompson, paniced, started to run out of the cave away from the temple and the others followed. Stalkers jumped and took out all of them except Thompson. Thompson jumped off the edge of the cliff at the mouth of the cave and the Stalkers jumped off, following. However, Thompson was safely holding onto the face of the cliff as the Stalkers lept to their doom.

He moved sideways and climbed above the cave and reached the surface of the desert planet again. The side of the temple was visable, right above where the cave was. Thompson said to himself, "How could I have been so stupid? The cave obviously leads to this temple. The villagers must have built the temple to block off the Stalkers who were moving from the canyon and attacking."


Meanwhile, the rest of the team noticed the Stalkers running out the tunnel to their death. "Now!" shouted Colonel Watson and the team ran into the courtyard, guns blazing. Soon, all Stalkers except the Stalker queen were taken out with minimal loses on the human side. However, the Stalker queen seemed to be invincible. No bullets could penetrate her thick skin. They knew that if the queen was not killed, more Stalkers could spawn.

Dozens of humans were taken out by the Stalker queen, so Colonel Watson shouted, "Fall back!" However, the team was so close to their goal. Only Captain Rodgers, Major Rachel Davis, Colonel Watson, and five others actually fell back and ran outside of the temple. The rest were massicred by the Stalker queen.

Outside the temple, they ran into Thompson. Captain Rodgers asked him, "How long do we have before the eggs hatch? How long do we have to destroy the Stalker queen before a new army of Stalkers arrive?"

"Two to three hours," replied Thompson, "at most. Based on the time the Stalker queen was awakened..." Thompson paused to think for a moment. "I'd give the eggs fifteen minutes at least."

"How are we going to destroy them?" questioned Colonel Watson. "Our weapons don't seem to have an effect."

"What about heavy weapons?"

"We don't have any weapons powerful enough."

"You assume that we don't."

"I know that we don't."

"Yes we do."

"I am your commanding officer," Colonel Watson stated. "I think I'd know."

"You think you'd know," explained Charles Thompson. "However, you never took into account that fleet of ships that hyperspaced in. We simply give them the coordinates of the temple and we reduce everything there into particles."

"But there is a battle going on out there," objected Captain Rodgers.

"Then all we can do is fortify our position outside of the temple and wait for the battle to finish - and pray that they finish before the Stalker hatchlings attack."

The United Grand Celestial Glory
In the engineering deck, the boarding teams managed to eventually win the firefight, but at a heavy death toll. The team moved to the controls and started changing some settings - disabling the weapons and engines. However, they needed override codes to gain complete control of the ship from there.

Half a dozen men were stationed at each door for security and the rest were at the consols trying to gain control. It was all up to a few team members at the main consol in the engineering deck to try to guess the override codes. It would take some time. Hopefully they could get it before any more damage was inflicted on the Nanakan fleet.


In the docking bay, the team there managed to capture most of the control. Clark was unable to send in reinforcements to the space battle and occupying forces from Admiral Johnson were able to enter the docking bays and reinforce the capture of the United Glory. The battle was nearly won.


However, the bridge was even more important than the other locations and there Clark refused to surrender. The guards raised their guns and the boarding team raised theirs. It was a stalemate. Everyone had guns pointed at the enemy. The one benefit of this stalemate was that the boarding team wanted to stall the bridge so the teams in the engineering deck could gain control. It was only a matter of time....

The NSS Celestia
The crew was almost fully evacuated. The survivors managed to make it to the escape pods. Reluctantly, Admiral Johnson left the ship he had spent so much time on. Dozens of escape pods, including the one Johnson was on, cleared the area of the Celestia just in time. The damaged ship exploded. Johnson had just made it.

The NSS New Glory picked up most of the survivors, but Johnson was steering his escape pod toward the docking bay of the United Glory. He entered his enemy's command ship and reinforcements arrived. They needed to get to the bridge before more of Clark's guards arrived at the bridge and took out the boarding team. Clark needed to be arrested....

The United Grand Celestial Glory
"You think I will surrender?" Clark asked the boarding team in the bridge. He laughed. "Me? Surrender? Of course not. You may be here right now, but several dozen units of guards are on their way up already. It is over for you. Drop your weapons now and flee and nothing will happen to you. Stay here with your weapons out and you will be captured. Shoot anyone here and you all will surely die when the guards come."

"I think you're bluffing about the guards!" objected the leader of the boarding team.

"No, I'm not bluffing," replied Nelson Clark. "Hear that sound in the hall? They're coming for you. I called them when you opened the doors."

"I still don't believe you."

"Look." Clark pointed. The three doors to the main bridge opened. "Yes. I unlocked the secondary doors for them. This bridge will be swarming with guards soon and they will block off your escape route."

"I don't think so," said Admiral Johnson. "Your guards have been intercepted. My team is the team you saw entering." Thomas Johnson walked over to Clark with his gun pointed at him. "You are under arrest by order of the Nanakan Senate. Surrender your ship now." Nelson Clark had no choice but to surrender.

The Stalker Homeworld
The eggs started to hatch. Dozens of hatchlings, looking for food, started to swarm around the temple. Colonel Watson gave the signal to open fire as five hatchlings advanced. The hatchlings were massicred. More Stalkers came, but those too were gunned down. Angry at the killing of the hatchlings, the Stalker queen left the temple and looked for the soldiers.

The Stalker queen was always large, about ten feet tall, but the Stalker queen doubled in size. The giant monster looked around the battlefield for the humans. The Stalker found one injured human that was left behind when the medics left the homeworld. The Stalker queen grabbed the human in her hands and ate the human alive. Angered, Watson prepared to attack.

"For Nanakaland!" shouted the colonel.

"For Nanakaland!" shouted the survivors in response.

The Stalker queen looked down to where the humans were. She grabbed one of the soldiers. The soldier screamed, "Do something! I don't want to be eaten!" However, the others were unable to help. The captured soldier pulled a grenade and blew up himself and wounded the Stalker queen's right hand. The Stalker screamed in pain, growing in size with each bit of rage.

Watson and the others opened fire at the Stalker queen, but she seemed to be impervious to bullets. Even Thompson's grenade launcher had little effect to the gargantuan beast. The Stalker queen reached down to grab another human, but just then the captured United Grand Celestial Glory opened fire. The Stalker queen was so large that it was visable from space.

The Stalker queen exploded. Guts and green blood spread throughout the whole area. "Your timing could not have been better if you tried," Captain Rodgers told Admiral Johnson over a com-link.

"We did it!" exclaimed Colonel Watson.

"Is it gone?" asked Charles Thompson, who had covered his face with his hands.

"Yes," replied Major Rachel Davis. "It's all over." The eight survivors walked to their landing ship and left the Stalker Homeworld. The ship flew back to the NSS Celestia, where most of them changed clothes and took showers (the Stalker guts had splattered on them, after all). The Stalkers were dead. Admiral Johnson had arrested Nelson Clark and reclaimed the United Glory for Nanakaland. However it was not all over....

Death Canyon, Stalker Homeworld
Dozens of Stalkers had lept off the cliff when Charles Thompson tricked them. However, three of the Stalkers on the ground of the canyon survived. They formed Stalker pods and launched into space. Everyone was too busy celebrating and the space above the Stalker homeworld was littered with space debris from the space battle that had taken place, so the Stalkers went undetected.

One Stalker went far away. However, two Stalker pods found their way to an LRR mining colony. The Stalker queen may have been dead, but there was still at least one more battle to be fought....

"What the hell is going on?"

It was a demand, really. Turnen knew it. He didn't give a flying sheep's backside. He wanted an answer, and he wanted it several hours ago.

Many other cliches leapt to his mind; they had a habit of surfacing at inoppurtune moments, circling like puns on a comic news broadcast.

The message was broadcast in blanket-fashion. To anyone who would listen.

But Turnen had already decided to act; sensors had been scouring the planet following the Transition away from the apparently pre-occupied LRR vessel, and had brought the ship closer still to the planet where most of the activity appeared to occur. Lag time diminished considerably, until approaching almost real-time.

Still, everyone seemed rather busy. Turnen's crew's reports streamed in, over and over and over...

Endless data. Endless postulation. Endless theory. It was hell on Earth...

Well, a starship.

Fighters were launched, however. These were the fighters optimized for orbital or atmospheric flight, inside the influence of a planetary body; they were, specifically, fighter-bombers - although they had far more scientific uses in mind for them in the future. They had a partly modular design, which meant that weapon mounts could be replaced with all manner of observational equipment.

This was not an observational misson, however. Turnen's vessel, unlike the others from Nanakaland, had not cared two hoots about the fanciness of the moment. They had been watching, observing, listening. Now they were orienting. Next came decision, then action. The OODA cycle always continued, no matter the situation; it was what guaranteed life over death, triumph over defeat, the completion of a mission rather than failure.

It was drummed into each and every crew member. They were, in fact, Turnen had decided, superior to the more militarized crews aboard the Nanakaland vessels - who apparently had not noticed the odd artifacts amidst the carnage in orbit. The ship was perfectly safe; bits of metal flew around it rather than hitting it, thanks to some quick redeploying of the superconductive electromagnetic plates beneath the outer hull. These were each a few microns across, providing an almost completely reshapable electromagnetic surface - and thus an easily reconfigured EM field around the vessel. It could even be reconfigured to form a kind of lens and refract or reflect laser light - a useful communications asset.

But at this time, it was 'tasting' the surrounding space, as well. The field, both propulsive and defensive - defensive, that is, against small, rapid, easily influenced objects such as debris or gas (such as an atmosphere). The field also served as a type of sensor array; every object which moved nearby influenced the EM field in subtle ways, and those subtle alterations were then analyzed, providing basic information.

Such as where to point the other observation tools.

The fighters broke away from the great explorer ship, following the odd artifacts to wherever they might go-

OCC: Here's another go. Forget about what I said earlier, Nanak.

IC:

The Glass Onion arrives over the Stalker Homeworld, and immediately calls go out to all the Nankan ships as to what the situation is. While the Glass Onion does not carry any marines, its compliment of auxilliary drones and its plasma cannons might be useful in bombarding the planet.

However, noticing a lull, or all out end to the action, Captain Vikrant has the weapons systems powered down for safety.

"Well, that was strange," says the AI.

Meanwhile, on a small, freezing-cold mining colony far away, a sensors outpost detects an object entering the atmosphere, before being blinded by a blizzard. The sensors operator swears and kicks the computers under the bank of monitors before heading back into the nucleus of the miners' living complex.

Outside, infra-red cameras pick up faint signals in the distance.

"It must be an anomaly. Nothing's out there that can make that kind of signature. These cameras are old to boot."

The shift captain dismisses the cameras and settles into his chair for the night...

The NSS New Glory
"Sir," said Thompson, "Incoming transmission from the United Glory."

"Very well," replied Colonel Watson. "Accept the transmission."

"Hello," said Admiral Johnson. "Our mission is done here and the fleet will be pulling out. A support fleet led by the NSS Hope will be hyperspacing in the area soon to clear up the rubble and check for and treat survivors. You are free to go wherever you want for a moment and when you return to the NSC, you will all be promoted."

"Why do you have to go so soon?" Captain Rodgers asked.

"I am the High Admiral of the Nanakan celestial and naval forces now," Johnson replied. "I must return to the NSC to command all of the fleets. My fleet must leave now. You can take your time, though." And with that, the connection was terminated.

Thompson typed something into a computer consol and the static where Johnson's face was shown in the blank wall in the front of the bridge was replaced with a picture of the First Nanakaland Space Fleet and the Nanakaland Admiral Fleet (merged after this battle) with the United Grand Celestial Glory in the center. Then the ships shown on the screen hyperspaced away. All that was left on the screen was rubble and several ships at various distances in the background - the NSS New Triumph, the CES Pylensir and escort, and the Glass Onion.

"Um," Thompson said, "I think we have a problem."

"What is it?" asked Major Rachel Davis.

"While I was looking through the logs," Charles Thompson explained, "which is probably when you were looking at the fleet hyperspacing away, I noticed three small unidentified objects in the log. They were moving too rapidly to be debris and their route could be traced to the Stalker homeworld."

"So let's investigate," responded Colonel Aaron Watson.

"That's a bigger problem," Thompson said. "The mysterious objects slipped out shortly after we arrived at the NSS Celestia. We weren't looking carefuly so they went by without a problem. The idiots manning the sensors must have assumed they were debris. Now we have a big problem."

"And we follow them?" Captain Rodgers.

"That's the biggest problem. They left our sensors. We could follow them, but they are probably long gone."

"Projected path?"

"One split the others just before leaving our sensors," explained Thompson. "That one head toward deep space, outside this galaxy probably. Odds of tracking it would be impossible and it would take a long time because our hyperspace can't go that far. The other two headed toward..." He paused.

"Headed toward?"

"The objects will probably cut past an LRR mining colony."

"Well then," replied Colonel Watson. "If it's a threat, we'll recieve..."

"A distress call!" shouted Thompson. "You could probably guess where that is coming from."

Several hours previously, alarms had sounded indicating a breech in the wall of the complex, and now the last twelve miners hide in the control room, dangerously low on ammunition for their SMGs and pistols.

The creatures are like nothing they've ever seen before, and they frantically call for help over the sub-etha net.

The NSS New Glory
"Set coordinates to that LRR mining colony ASAP," ordered Captain Rodgers.

"Are you sure we have to help?" asked Thompson. "It's just two little Stalkers. The rest of them have been wiped out."

"That is an order," Rodgers replied. "In theory, because the queen is dead, one of them might become a new Stalker queen (if female). Thus, it might be more than just two on our hands if we are not fast enough."

"Understood," Thomspon reluctantly said. "Entering coordanates now. Prepare for hyperspace."

"The NSS New Triumph has been notified and will follow close behind," Colonel Watson told the others. "The LRR ship will most likely follow us because it is their colony to defend. I'm not sure about the Ma-tek ship, though."

"Hyperspace in 30 seconds," stated Thompson. "20... 10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1..." And with that, the NSS New Glory basically disappeared from where it was and arrived in a new location. The New Triumph was close behind.

"Running a scan of the area," Thompson said. "Reconnizing fresh trail of Stalker pods."

"Follow it," commanded Rodgers.

"Yessir."

"Sir," said Thompson, "I am detecting the Stalkers. Several dozen at least. Should I engage our cloaking device?"

"Negative," replied Captain Rodgers. "The Stalkers have a higher wavelength visability than us humans. Any invisiblility would not fool them. And they don't need sensors, so the stealth aspect is also gone."

"Then what shall we do?" Thompson asked. "They clearly have the advantage."

"Deploy external armor," commanded Colonel Watson. "It'll slow us down, but make Stalker pods extremely ineffective."

"Yessir." Charles Thompson started typing into a consol and then a sound was heard. The armor deployed and covered the ship, thickening the hull. Then Thompson said, "We can't hold the armor at full power for long."

"Reduce power from shielding," Rodgers suggested. "Our enemy right now is the Stalkers. Their only threat to us would be launching pods, which shielding is very useless against."

"Right," said Thompson. "What about the New Triumph?"

"Notify them to do the same," Watson ordered.

"Opening com-link now," Charles stated.

"I am glad you opened communications," said Captain Daniels.

"Lower shielding and deploy exterior armor," Watson told him.

"It is too late for that."

"What do you mean?"

"The Stalkers have already entered my ship. Stay clear from us. I'll do everything I can to stop them."

The NSS New Triumph
The Stalkers had broken into the New Triumph shortly after it had arrived from hyperspace. Stalker pods had penetrated the hull before armor could have been deployed. Captian Daniels had to think fast because the Stalkers were heading toward the bridge. He ordered, "Everyone, go to the back of the bridge. Auto separation shall commence. I'll separate the front half of the ship from the back and you'll all be saved."

"But we'll need someone on the main bridge to separate the ship," objected an officer. "Who would do that?"

"I will!"

"What?"

"A captain goes down with his ship. Go. That's an order."

"Yessir," the reluctant officer replied. And so the crew quickly made it to the back of the ship. However, the Stalkers were smarter than most would think. They sensed that most of their prey was moving and they moved to the back half. By the time the ship was separated, there were no Stalkers on Daniels' half of the ship.

As Captain Daniels heard his crew's helpless screams over a transmission, he realized his error too late. He was able to do nothing. His crew was massicred due to his mistake. Most of the crew were in the halls and thus were easy targets. He moved over to the sensors consol. No human lifesigns. Angered, he opened fire on the Stalker-infested half of the ship that was separated and it was destroyed.

Several dozen Stalker pods headed toward the remaining New Triumph. "No," Daniels said. "You killed my crew and made me destroy half my ship and you're not going for me." Quickly, he deployed external armor (which deployed faster on the now smaller ship) and the Stalkers were flattened before they could enter. Badly damaged and undermanned, Daniels needed to do something fast or he would lose the rest of the New Triumph and his life.

The NSS New Glory
"So what do we do?" asked Colonel Watson.

"All we can do is wait," replied Captain Rodgers. "I hope that within time the mining colony will open communications and then we can move in."

"What about the New Triumph?"

"I don't know what we can do for it. What has happened appears to have already happened."

"Prepare the assault team, then," Watson ordered. "If we have to wait we should at least ready for rescuing the LRR mining colony."

[OOC: Entirely waiting on LRR for progression of plot now.]

Unfortunately for those on the mining colony, or rather those still living in the mining colony, the primary radio set is located in a compartment outside the survivors' barricade, a zone centered around the mess hall.

However, good IR scanners should be able to pick up signs of life due to the contrast with the intense cold outside of the colony itself. With luck, the miners could make their state of being known and attract aid. If not, well...ammunition is in no short supply, but food is another matter entirely.

The NSS New Glory, One Hour Later
"Sirs, they're not going to send out a distress signal," complained Thompson. "Waiting any longer would mean death to all of the survivors there and the multiplication of the Stalkers. The end is near, but not if we continue our inaction. We cannot wait any longer for an invitation to move in. We must strike now."

"I agree," Captain Rodgers replied.

"Then let's move in," Watson commanded. The NSS New Glory launched a boarding frigate with the team in it. It landed in a docking bay in which frigates probably transported supplies to and from the colony. The docking bay had bodies scattered over the place and at least half a dozen Stalkers were there. Watson looked nervously out the window.

"Let's do things differently this time," said Thompson. He walked up to the controls of the boarding frigate and aimed the ship's guns. In three shots, the Stalkers in the area were dead. Charles then said, "You can thank me later."

The team had been reinforced in between the battles. Therefore, it was at the time of the entering of the mining colony the team was two dozen. Watson ordered four of them to remain in the boarding frigate to guard the area. It was likely that survivors would have to be evacuated through the frigate. Rodgers, Watson, Thompson, Daniels, and sixteen others left the frigate with their guns raised. Scanning the area, they found that the docking bay was clear. They moved to enter the hall and prepared for combat.

The sound of gunfire is audible, although its source is probably not exactly clear considering the sound-reflective properties of the walls.

The Nankan marines would probably be able to identify the weapons as a mixture of various types, both foreign and Robotstani.

Watson moved down the hall to where the sound was coming from. Ventilation shafts in the hall were clanging with the sound of something - probably Stalkers. He continued down the path and saw several dozen Stalkers, so he ordered his men to open fire. Lunging at the team, the Stalkers struck back. Thompson used a grenade launcher to knock out half a dozen aliens. Soon, all of the Stalkers blocking the hall were taken out.

"Headcount," ordered Colonel Watson.

"Captain Nathan Rodgers."

"Major Rachel Davis."

"Specialist Charles Thompson."

Watson waited for the others to speak, but they did not. They were too busy shooting. While Watson was checking for survivors, most of the Stalkers in the mining colony had been heading toward the area where the most prey was found - in the hall. They had unknowingly lured out the Stalkers and now had to fight them off.

"Fall back!" Watson commanded. It was too late. The Stalkers were starting to overcome the front lines of the team. Only eight managed to leave the hall to the docking bay and they sealed the door. There was a sound of crashing against the door as the Stalkers tried to break through.

"This will hold them," said Captain Rodgers.

"For the moment, sir," Thompson added. "There are other ways in. I recommend going back to the ship to plan."

"I concur," replied Davis.

"Fine," Watson reluctently said. "Only until we find an alternative route in that is not infested with Stalkers. There may still be survivors in here. If we can get the survivors out of here, we can destroy this colony from the New Glory and take out the Stalkers with minimal lossess."

"We can't stay here forever," Thompson said. "We're so close to finishing them off." With that he ran out of the ship.

"No!" shouted the others, but it was too late. Thompson opened the door where most of the Stalkers were. He threw in a grenade and wiped them out. However, he himself was mortally wounded. Colonel Watson and the others ran over.

"What have you done?" asked Watson.

"I... I've saved you all and lessened their numbers," explained Thompson. "Now go... finish the mission. Do not let my death be... in... vain..." With that Charles Thompson took his last breath, dying a hero he always wanted to be.

"We're now short a man," Captain Rodgers stated. "Now what are we going to do?"

"Do not worry!" shouted Captain Daniels who had entered via the docking bay next to the one they were in, which was linked by a door. "I shall take out the Stalkers. They killed my crew and my ship so now I must kill them."

The eight of them walked in the hall that Thompson had cleared while four still remained at the ship guarding the only known escape route. When the eight walked through the door they saw that it was all green, splattered with Stalker guts. Stalker body parts were all over the hall. Still, they moved on. Every once and a while they came upon a Stalker that was still living, but they managed to kill them.

Soon, the team stumbled upon a manmade barricade that was obviously put up with some haste. "Please don't panic," Watson shouted. "We're a rescue team sent by Nanakaland to rescue the survivors and get out of here so we can get rid of the Stalker threat permenantly. If you are still alive shout a response so we can find you and take you back to our ship."

The miners, what few are left, emerge from their cover and hug the Nankan marines.

"Praise be to god, we are saved!"

"Come on," Watson said to the miners. "We do not have much time." The team led the surviving miners down the hall until they got to the docking bay. However, once there they noticed several Stalkers. The team opened fire on the Stalkers and took them out. However, one Stalker was in the halls behind then and took out a team member that was in the back of the team.

"Move it!" shouted Rodgers. With that the team ran to the frigate, leading the miners. They all got in, but a problem soon arose.

"Automatic hanger door opening is down and without Specialist Thompson we can't hack the override codes," Colonel Watson stated. "That means that someone needs to go to the control booth next to this hanger and manually open the door. But whoever does that won't be able to make it out of here in time. And the risk is great."

"I'll do it!" Captain Dainels said bravely. "The Stalkers wiped out my ship and my crew so if I return I shall be a failure. However, if I save you, I shall be a hero."

"Very well," replied Watson reluctantly, handing Daniels a gun. Daniels left the frigate, shooting a Stalker on his way out. Then he walked across to the control booth. He opened the door and then closed himself in the sealed room. Pressing a button, he signaled the frigate that the hanger door would be opened soon. Watson did a scan and found that all of the survivors were in the frigate (except Daniels). After that, Watson signaled back and the hanger door was opened.

Suddenly, dozens of Stalkers flooded through. The Stalkers were able to breathe in space so despite the open hanger door the Stalkers were advancing. "Could it be possible to save you before going?" Watson asked over a radio.

"No," Daniels replied. "Not anymore. You must get out of here before Stalkers latch onto the ship."

"Understood." Captain Daniels watched as the frigate with the survivors left the mining colony to the NSS New Glory and as the Stalkers approached the booth. The vacuum of space was sucking out the Stalkers, but Daniels knew he had to stop them. Thinking fast, he pressed the button closing the hanger door before the Stalkers escaped.

The Stalkers turned their attention toward Daniels. They climbed to the booth area, but weren't able to break through the door. Daniels pulled out a grenade. "You're not going to get me," he shouted. The Stalkers busted open the door and Daniels grenaded himself, taking out the Stalkers. Everyone else was safely in the frigate heading toward the New Glory.

The NSS New Glory
The boarding frigate docked in the New Glory and the team's survivors, along with the rescued people of the mining colony, left the docking bay. Colonel Watson and Captain Rodgers dashed to the bridge where they checked the mining colony. No humanoid or robot signs left. Only Stalkers remained.

"Here is the last of the Stalker threat," Rodgers stated.

"No survivors left on there," said Colonel Watson. "The property there is already damaged and would be too risky to have another mission in there just to check."

Major Rachel Davis walked into the bridge saying, "If we wait any longer, then the Stalkers might have a come back. We must destroy the mining colony now and we destroy the Stalker threat with it."

"Agreed," replied Colonel Watson. "Thus ends my last encounter with the Stalkers."

"Weapons charged," Captain Rodgers said. "Aiming for the colony." And with that the Stalker threat was destroyed.

The actions of the Nankan marines will be celebrated for ages. After all, they single-handedly saved the galaxy from a very dire threat.

In order to show gratitude, the RGF offers Nanakland a gigantic freighter named the Colonel Watson.

Seconds after the destruction of the stalkers, the Glass Onion finally shows up, done with making repairs to damage done while over the stalker homeworld.

"Help is on the way! Prepare to designate targets! Ready the shuttle!"

After the LRR survivors left for the Glass Onion and the Nanakan team said goodbye, the NSS New Glory and the Colonel Watson hyperspaced out of the area and returned to the solar system. The ships went to the NSC, which was orbiting above the moon, and docked with the giant station. Colonel Aaron Watson, Captain Nathan Rodgers, and Major Rachel Davis took a walkway that linked the New Glory to the station and went to Admiral Johnson's office.

Johnson told them, "Sit down," and they did. After that, Johnson said, "So you three are the surviving commanding officers responsible for the destruction of the Stalker threat."

"Yessir," reresponded Colonel Watson.

"You disobeyed NSC orders and combated Nanakan ships, though."

"Didn't you?" Captain Rodgers asked in reply.

"I very well know that," Johnson explained. "In your disobediance you ended up leading the Nanakan assault on the Stalker homeworld and are the reason we did not lose dispite heavy losses. You also finished off the Stalker threat and rescued the survivors of a mining colony incident. Therefore, it is my decision to promote Captain Rodgers to the position of commodore, in charge of the Second Nanakaland Space Fleet."

"Thank you sir," replied Rodgers.

Johnson turned to Watson and said, "Colonel Watson, you shall be promoted to brigadier general and lead the Nanakaland Space Force. You are under my command still, but you are in charge of the military aspect of the NSC, which you have experience in.

"Thank you sir," Watson stated.

"And you, Major Davis, are chosen to be one of the four main officers in the international expidition that shall lead you to the outer reaches of the universe - if you accept."

"Yessir."

Epilogue
And so the Stalker threat was ended. The NSS New Glory became the flagship of the Second Nanakaland Space Fleet and Admiral Rodgers became a great commander of the fleet. He used his experience from the Second Stalker Incident to solve many problems to come.

The former high admiral, Nelson Clark, had lost his power and been defeated in combat and arrested. He spent twenty years in a maximum security prison for treason. The old hero ended up as a traitor.

Colonel Watson was promoted to brigadier general and got the commanding position as promised. He became one of the most famous and powerful Nanakans ever to be in the military. A veteran of both the Intrepid Incident and the Second Stalker Incident, his experience was valuable to the NSC.

High Admiral Johnson was the greatest leader of the NSC and was in charge for a long time. In his time as the high admiral, he expanded the NSC greatly and it became a city in the stars and the capital city of Nanakaland Moon Colony. He also planned an epic expedition to the outer reaches of the universe.

Major Davis became a leader on the expedition as it prepared to set out to the unknown. If she would be able to survive that epic, she would become famous. However, like the other survivors of the Second Stalker Incident, she would already be remembered for generations to come.

As for the Stalkers themselves, they were eliminated for a third time. However, it would not be the last. Three Stalkers had survived the onslaught on the Stalker homeworld and two made their way to the LRR mining colony and multiplied. Those were defeated. However, one still was dormant in a pod that was drifting away from the Milky Way and would remain there until an unlucky ship stumbled upon it....